The first of Microsoft’s touted great holiday gaming line-up has surfaced in the form of Irrational’s (now 2K Boston/Australia), BioShock. Kudos must deservedly go to the developers for delivering what really is a great, immersive, enthralling and entertaining single-player experience. BioShock is not your typical run of the mill first person shooter as the game offers so much more than shooting and bashing foes over the head with a wrench. You have various abilities which are obtained during your stay at the exotic underwater belly that is Rapture (a created underwater paradise where normal rules of society do not apply). It’s just a shame it’s falling apart and there are loads of creepy enemies (a.k.a. Splicers) lurking about. Splicers were basically normal human residents, for a time anyway; where most of them seem to have become a bit too addicted to ADAM, which is the source of gaining special abilities in the form of plasmids and other bizarre abilities to add to your normal self, and were created by the mastermind behind Rapture, Andrew Ryan. You’ll be speaking frequently with Andrew and probably understanding his vision more than you perhaps need to, but this is just one of the things that draws you in so much and that’s the voice-acting which is all dished out with compelling wit during the gameplay.

I’ve personally always been a bit sceptical about BioShock and wasn’t overly convinced on how well the game would play. However, now I have recently had a fair amount of time to submerge myself deep into Rapture, I have found that there is such a great level of visceral delight in the attention to detail. Bioshock features a distinctive 1950’s theme which is complimented by what surely must be the greatest sound to be featured in a video game to date. The audio really does in this case make the underwater city live and breathe. You have the various Splicers battling it out against one another or just wandering the leaking halls whilst mumbling to themselves or communicating to others. Simply put, the game doesn’t feel like it revolves around your character who is thrust into the underwater world unwittingly after a plane crash. You can walk into an area and see and hear that the Splicers, Big Daddies, Little Sisters are all only interested in one thing, and that is themselves.

BioShock certainly does deliver a great gaming experience, I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like it before where a game delivers such an intriguing story and yet somehow manages to do this so well without any cut scenes. The game’s story is revealed as you progress via radio transmissions – which actually works very well as you can continue to play as the story unfolds rather than sitting and watching a scene passively.

Gameplay:

It’s very rare to find a game that checks all the right boxes and I’m happy to play, see and hear that BioShock ticks all three. The game is not without some ‘occasional’ issues including the odd texture loading problem, teleporting a few feet forward or some over dramatic physics in regard to walking into certain items which seem to go flying when they really should not. Theirs is also the slightly creepy ragdoll deaths where corpses continue to wave or twitch even though they are supposedly dead. BioShock delivers and I’m sure every game has certain issues – still I came across these few enough to warrant their mention.

There are just so many varying ways to play the game, to get the most out of a difficult situation you really need to have your environment working in your favour. There could be various ways this can be accomplished with the use of plasmids, hacking (this gets tedious quickly as it’s a mini game of sorts) and of course typical shooting. For example a Big Daddy (a hulking dangerous protector) may be patrolling an area with a Little Sister and so to progress you really could do with either rescuing or harvesting the Little Sister which in turn gives you varying rewards. First you need to take out that damn Big Daddy, well back to the environment and on my play-through I managed to hack the camera system in a small area and upon attacking the Big Daddy the cameras then picked up that the Big Daddy was a major threat to me. The hacked security system then send in the useful aero-gunning cavalry (Security Bots) to assist. This makes the task of defeating him so much easier as his attention will vary between his other foes rather than just focusing on my character. Another good example although it kind of happened by accident as I was shooting a Splicer and got a bit carried away and accidentally shot the Big Daddy lurking in the background. I had little or no health so proceeded to “get my butt out of there” whilst he was pursuing behind. Luckily low and behold I stumbled across another Big Daddy and so quickly switched to the ‘Hypnotize Big Daddy’ plasmid which enabled me to brainwash him thus making him protect me as if I was a Little Sister. So it ended up with Big Daddy vs. Big Daddy (think T-Rex vs. Kong) and it was awesome. I found a few shotgun shells as well to even it out by adding my contribution to the fight and made sure I took a photo with the camera for some added experience, which if you collect enough will occasionally dish out some new abilities as a reward.

The general enemies you’ll commonly come across in Rapture will be the varying Splicers which resemble zombies in a sense. There are several differences between each Splicer as they have different weapons and some special abilities of their own, including teleporting and crawling on ceilings. What makes Rapture tick of course is the city surrounding you and the people or things within it but it is also the way these foes react to your actions that make it so different and such a delight to play; again this is all usually down to how well you use your plasmid attacks. There are many plasmids to gain throughout the course of your stay at Rapture and some of the more notable ones are Telekinesis, which you can use to stop grenades being thrown at you and throw them back with the power of your mind (or controller as it were). You can even throw them at certain areas to clear the way ahead. Electro Bolt is probably one of the more general but very useful Plasmids as this can be used to open doors with broken access panels, a nice little shock usually gets the door open. Firing the Electro Bolt at the ground which in a lot of instances is covered in water, will result in electrocuting anyone who decides to take a dip. The Hypnotize Big Daddy plasmid is my current favourite (for reason stated above) as I regularly had one following me around for some added backup. The Incinerate! Plasmid is a good example of how to exploit the Splicers A.I. as when they’re set on fire they’ll either run around in a rage setting other enemies on fire, still try and attack you or if there is water near by they will usually jump in the nearest puddle to put the fire out. It’s things like this that amused me the most as well as when another Big Daddy (or Mr. Bubbles as the Little Sisters like to call them) started patrolling the area where I had defeated the previous one and subsequently vanquished the local Little Sister too. What’s amusing about this is the Big Daddy still wanders to the Little Sister’s area banging on the wall and standing there for a split second as if confused as to why she does not appear, and so continues his slow, heavy and noisy yet intent patrol elsewhere.

The controls work very well in the game, though the only distraction from the action can be when changing weapons or plasmids as this temporarily pauses the game (similar to Metal Gear Solid) although the quickest way is to just tap the button and quickly cycle through the weapons/Plasmids; though I suspect most gamers will avoid this if they’re in an encounter with a Big Daddy. I suppose it gives a chance to catch a breather if need be although I’d rather keep the pace flowing. Some of the areas you visit in Rapture are fairly large and loading screens are not necessarily an issue as each section of Rapture is so big that you rarely get to see a loading screen until moving onto the next area. It can be a fair while by the time you complete your various tasks in the area as well as possibly getting into some mischief with the Big Daddies before reaching a loading screen.

Graphics:

BioShock is a visceral treat to behold as the underwater city of Rapture oozes life as you can sense, hear and see that everything does not just revolve around you. This gives a sense of believability to your presence and involvement in Rapture.
Never has a game caused me to just stand still and take it all in as much as this game has. BioShock for me is the kind of game where I can just stand in one place at the bottom of some steps with wrench in hand and watch the nice animation of the tapping of the wrench in the palm of my hand while admiring the water dripping down from the leaking ceiling and pouring its way down the steps creating a puddle at the bottom. This might sound a bit odd but you’ll know what I mean if you play the game. The water effects in this game are something to behold, you may want to cut down on the drinks whilst playing this game too or else you’ll probably find yourself pausing regularly for a quick bathroom break. No? Ok, maybe that’s just me then…

Sound:

There are no cut scenes in BioShock instead the story is driven by excellent voice-acting through the various characters throughout the game. You’ll be hearing regularly the voice of Atlas and of course the mastermind behind Rapture, Andrew Ryan. There are also lots of tapes to find which you can easily listen to whilst playing the game. These give extra insight to the story from other characters in the game, some of them which you will most likely meet at some point too.
Splicer’s can often be caught wandering around speaking to themselves as well other Splicers. Comments range from Jibber Jabber to comments which make more sense and come out with some rather insightful sentences of their own. This brings a kind of perspective from that of the Splicers point of view regarding their role in Rapture. During my lengthy time at the bottom of the sea, I must admit I’m quite surprised that I didn’t hear anything repeated from the many Splicers I encountered. This adds to the effect of a believable and convincing underwater city where enemies can often be heard as well as the many other sound effects in the background. Ambient sounds include some skirmishes between the Splicers or the rather echoing and impressive methodical footsteps from the Big Daddies who are likely lurking nearby with his Little Sister as she looks for dead corpses to extract the ADAM from.

Longevity:

BioShock is obviously a single-player only game, though it’s likely to be one of the more immersive single-player only games you will experience for quite some time. The game has a pretty good run through span which seems lengthier than that of the typical shooter. It does have significant replay value as with the plasmids, weapons as well as other upgradeable abilities and various enemies to encounter with some pretty unique A.I. reactions; there’s sure to be multiple ways to approach things and these usually end up with a big grin across your face if executed correctly and with the right timing. Some of your choices in Rapture may also lead to different endings, which in turn makes another play-through more interesting as well as trying to gain those all important achievements.

Overall:

BioShock is easily the most bizarre videogame to appear in some time with plenty of diverse ideas and purely surreal art in the game, Rapture looks like one creepy yet entertaining place to visit. If you can’t wait until the games release later this week and if you haven’t done so already then go download the demo from the marketplace and give yourself a taste of the salty underwater life that is Rapture. Games don’t get much better than this and if you are into shooting adventuring and general gaming then Bioshock is well worthy of a purchase.