It’s hard to compete in today’s game market for a spot in your wallet, especially in the last four months of the year. During those four months you are hit with every company’s blockbusters, and in the year 2007 there were plenty of AAA titles to find a spot on your shelf. So this is where you ask the question, what does Bioshock offer me? Bioshock was the only game of its kind to come out last year; a story driven first person shooter, with many role playing elements, in a very original setting. I heard about this game about a month before its release and knew I had to have it. The concept intrigued me so much: solve the mystery of a ravaged underwater city in a slightly horror 1960’s environment. How could you go wrong with that? This was one game that might not have caught your attention right away, but soon after its release the buzz got around fast. This game has its flaws but they are minor compared to what you will experience in Rapture.

Mystery is what drove me to delve into Bioshock’s story. The game kicks off with a bang as your plane crashes down into the middle of the ocean. Having to swim your way up you discover a small island with a looming lighthouse. Once inside the lighthouse you find a small submarine that will take you down into the world of Rapture. This was an awesome and unexpected way to setup the games story and introduce you to its world. It’s not a long sequence of events that lead to your first encounter with the people in Rapture, but the game manages to throw a lot at you without giving it all away. From the first moment you enter Rapture after being presented with Andrew Ryan’s ideals of a perfect society you realize that not all went well down under. I would highly recommend listening to all of the audio diaries that you can pick up in this game because I feel they add a lot to the atmosphere, and they help drive interest in what is going on in Rapture.

The presentation in of the story in Bioshock is very similar to that of Half Life 2. In both these games they do not use cut scenes to advance the story, they use a first person view to keep the character engaged during downtime. This is a very effective way of storytelling in video games, and one that I wish more games would use. It allows the game to give you key story sequences, and it leaves the games story to more player interpretation. You’re not being taken out of the game to view cut scenes , and you’re not being stopped to view parts of the story that are happening in other areas of the game world. Everything you see is essentially through your eyes, you aren’t being shown Solid Snakes story, you are experiencing your story. This is an element that players like in Dungeons and Dragons where you are being told a story, and you’re the character in that world. Using this style multiple players will interpret this tale differently because they may see things differently or guess differently at which twists and turns the plot will take. I enjoy all ways of story presentation in games as long as they are done well, but this method is one way that will allow games to create their own storytelling medium. No other forms of storytelling can compare to the way games like Bioshock and Half Life 2 do it.

Most game worlds are imagined to create the best experience for the player, and the best way to present the games story. Bioshock’s world was created to blow your mind. It’s not alternate history, but it’s an original world in our history’s past. The year, I believe, when you start playing the game is early 1960’s, and it shows a lot of the class from that era. This is a world that you want to explore, and the game will reward you for doing so. You will get more information on the city, its people, and a lot of nice upgrades for your time running around. I have to say more shooters need that. How cool is it to play a shooter and be able to customize your weapons and abilities to specifically match your play style? To be able to do this in a unique world just adds to that sense of immersion, and like all good game designers should know, if you can get the player immersed in your games world you know you have made a great game.

Sure concepts are great and story is fantastic but how does the game play? Well, Bioshock plays like a first person shooter with a lot of neat little tricks thrown in. The pace is slower but you can do a lot more than your average run-and-gun game. You will find a good variety of guns, but you will find an even better variety of plasmids. The guns are all fairly weak , but once upgraded using those handy Power to the People stations, they will be wrecking Daddy’s in no time. The plasmids however are the meat of the combat if you want to get inventive. You get a large variety of them that allow you to freeze, burn, shock, swarm, confuse and constrain your enemies. You’ll be at your most lethal if you can find some creative ways to combine the plasmid attacks with your gun attacks and the environment. The game will never force you to be creative to proceed, but it rewards thinkers with the satisfaction of taking down that boss at minimal expense. Another weapon you can use is your hacking ability. Don’t like your enemies healing? Hack that health station so it busts them up. You can also hack the cameras, turrets, and bots to help you fight the power.

Something else that will help you fight the power is the ADAM. You can only get ADAM by hunting down those little sisters, killing their intimidating guardians, and harvesting their ADAM. You can also choose to rescue these little girls, an act that may reward you down the road. This choice was suppose to be the big moral dilemma that you had to go up against, but to me it felt like an easy choice to harvest these little girls because there is nothing cute and innocent about them. I mean the first time you see one she’s jabbing her rather big needle into a dead body. Cute. You won’t just be picking up ADAM in this game, you’re going to be spending a lot of time exploring and searching through everything for ammo, money, and health and EVE recovery items. When I say search through everything, I mean it. Almost every container, safe and trash bin will have something useful lying in it so make sure to search every nook for your favorite type of ammo.

I do have a few problems with this game. Most of my problems are minor, but one of my biggest gripes from this game is the way the vita-chambers work. Any challenge to the game that could have been there is eliminated by infinite lives, and not only do you have infinite lives, but the enemy’s health stays the same as it was before you died. I played through this game again on hard, but I found that every time the difficulty ramped up all that you needed to do was persist.

I found the sound great in the game in most areas, but I found the sounds of the guns and the plasmids do be lacking. I just never got that sense of real impact when I fired off that grenade. Nothing ever kicks or feels truly deadly it just does damage to the enemies winding down their health bars until you can finally deliver that fatal blow. I do feel a little warm inside, however, when I shoot that juke box, and I’m rewarded with a nice little rendition of Beyond the Sea.

Bioshock is a fine game. It’s very deserving of the many game of the year awards that it received last year, and I’m looking forward to trying the updated version the PS3 later this year. Will there be a sequel? Rumors say that were in for a prequel, but I read an interview with game mastermind Ken Levigne where he stated he will not be helming the next project. While that does disappoint me to a certain degree, I’m still very interested in entering Rapture for another adventure, and getting the chance to find out what drove that city to madness. All seriousness aside though, this was a great game, and I want more.

By Evan Doran