Welcome to Gaia! ::

Summary:

Set just after WWII, Bioshock is a story of a man whose plane crashes into the middle of the ocean. Instead of finding shelter he finds himself sucked into the undersea city of Rapture. Originally a place for the greatest scientific minds on the planet, now it is a place full of nothing but death and despair. With a man named Atlas as your guide, will you be able to rescue his family and yourself, or will you just another corpse littering the streets?

The intriguing part of this game is that you can use the power of plasmids (genetic alterations) to give yourself the power to electricute, incinerate, freeze, or control your enemies. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. They have a power that let's you shoot freakin' bee's out of your arm. BEES. But I'm getting ahead of myself, and I don't want to spoil to much, so here's my broken down review.

One the five scale system of gin's perfection scale:

1) Originality

7

Video games have pretty much just covered everything. Bioshock is a collection of unoriginal ideas lumped together in an original way. Even though the plot twists are familier, they still catch you off guard as the game sucks you even deeper into it's world.

2) Gameplay

10

I don't have any problems with it. You have a somewhat decent selection of weapons, the best being the wrench and shotgun, and a vast variety of powers. I really mean vast. I know the game says that no two people will play through the game the same way, and they actually manage to deliver. They also added in a hack system that at times is frusterating and a cute addition to the game. Shops and upgrade stations are broken up into vending machines scattered around a city. Upgrading itself can be a challenge depending on your morality levels. Instead of exp, they have Adam. A substance you can only get from Little Sisters. Little girls traveling with large armored Big Daddies, who extract Adam from the corpses to be recycled. You can either kill the children or rescue them, and either choice has great benefits and affects the end of the story. But overall, there are a lot of little details put into the game that give it a lot of depth and can change your tactics completely.

3) Storyline

10

The game draws you in by peeking your curiousity. It's brilliantly unfolded though gameplay as well as audio diaries that are scattered around the world. These diaries can include tips on what you're doing at the moment, give further depth to the characters around you, or show you the darkness of man's soul. And that's really what the game is about. The darkness that lurks in one's heart, and how people are willing to exploit and thrive in the evil that lies within themselves.

4) Graphics/Audio

8

Rapture is a beautiful city. It is a city of death. It looks as if everyone got up and left at once, leaving nothing but corpses behind. The place is decaying due to the neglect of it's maintence. Also the powers you get are pretty to. Sure, you can only see your hand whilst you cast powers, but it makes you wonder what the rest of you looks like when there's ice jutting from your bleeding hand, or the veins within are pulsing bright blue with electricity.

The audio is well done to. It captures where you are, and there's no music that makes the game feel gamey. Ocassionaly you'll here a PSA about plasmids or other nuances of the city, but most of the sounds come from the environment that you're in. Also the first person view is emphasized by lack of game crap on the screen. Like a small health bar, but that's about it. It does a good job of making you feel like you're in the game. You can also move around during cutscenes. Which is also cool.

Where the game loses points is that there aren't many bad guys. Each type has about two different appearences, and they all appear to use the same voice actors. The voice acting itself is often so thick with an accent it's hard to understand what's being said due to lack of subtitles.

Overall

Bioshock get's a 9. It's a shame it isn't longer, but you do get a full sense of accomplishment when you beat it unlike other games. I would definatly suggest picking it up if you get a chance.

There are only two types of people in Rapture. Dead people, and soon to be dead people.

You can tell this game is awesome from the moment she mentions the ability to shoot BEES from your hands! Now if only you could mutate ourself into a horrible tentacled freak.

Only you dunt, wait I'm sure half the male Japaneses population would like that ability!