BioShock Review (PC)

BioShock is a superb game on all levels. The game play and features are fresh and exciting, while the game's environments and graphics are a delight to the eyes. However it's the compelling storyline that will captivate, pull you in, and leave you wishing for more when it's all over.

Pros

• Exciting and compelling video game storytelling.
• Graphics, graphics, graphics.
• Game play options have great variety of weapons, special powers, and abilities.

Cons

• Some nasty bugs surface on various PC configurations.
• No Multiplayer mode.

Storyline

Set in 1960, you are the lone survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Lost and alone you're able to make your way to an island where, interestingly enough, a submarine is waiting to take you to into the great depths below where the mysterious underwater city of Rapture awaits.

Rapture is a city unlike any place you've ever encountered. Founded by a wealthy business man named Andrew Ryan, his vision for a Utopian society. Unfortunately something terrible has gone wrong. The once civilized city is in chaos. Strange creatures, genetic mutations called Splicers, are everywhere, but what are they exactly and if human how have they become so altered, so demented? In order to survive you'll have fight through these Splicers and other oddities keeping your eyes and ears open for clues into what has gone wrong, how you may be able to help or how you can escape.

One aspect that makes the storyline for BioShock work so well is the way it is told. Rather than having typical animated cut scenes drive the story, BioShock uses a real time method of telling the story through random radio reports, overheard conversations, and audio recordings that don't always come at the most opportune time. This works very well in minimizing the game's slower points and making the combat/action parts that much more intense.

On the surface the game play for BioShock looks typical of most first person shooters with the standard mouse and keyboard controls. As with other Games for Windows titles (and console games for that matter) the game pad is not nearly as accurate as the mouse and keyboard for precision shots. Weapons are pretty standard although they are circa 1950/60. You'll find a pipe wrench, shotgun, crossbow, machine gun, grenades and other standard firearms. In addition to these, most objects you encounter throughout the game can be turned into makeshift weapons, although with less effectiveness.

Relying solely on conventional weaponry won't get you far in BioShock however. In order to defeat some of the nastier enemies you need to upgrade and enhance weapons, as well as develop special powers and abilities through biological and genetic modifications. These modifications are made possible by a substance called Adam which can be used to collect Plasmids and Tonics.

Plasmids and Tonics

Simply put Plasmids give your character the ability to alter genes or modify weapons to equip you with new powers. These powers include electro bolt, telekinesis, incinerate, winter blast and security bulls eye. Tonics on the other hand more or less enhancements to natural or Plasmid abilities. They are broken into three subtypes physical tonics which mane you stronger, engineering tonics which help with machine interaction and combat tonics which help may your character more damage resistant.

Both Plasmids and Tonics can be purchased using Adam and then can be allocated to your characters. You'll have a finite number of Plasmid and Tonic slots so you won't be able to get all special powers and abilities all at once. You can however swap Plasmids and Tonics out for different ones at vending machines located throughout the game world.

BioShock does a nice job of balancing out the powers of Plasmids and Tonics by making Adam, the building block's of Rapture's genetic modification, at times rather difficult to obtain. This also assures you won't become too powerful.

Combat & Enemies

There are six main types of enemies, five of these are know as Splicers and are different variations of basically the same thing; humans with genetic alterations gone wrong. There are the wrench wielding Thuggish Splicers, pistol and machine gun carrying Leadhead Splicers, Nitro Splicers who are great at lobbing grenades, the wall and ceiling climbing Spider Slicers and the Houdini Splicers who use Plasmids as their base attacks.

The ability to defeat a Splicer doesn't always depend on the same weapon or Plasmid, instead you'll have to find the right combination of attack for each Splicer, a shotgun and electro bolt may work against a Thuggish Splicer but you'll need a different mix when battling Houdini Splicers. This element of game play makes the decision on what to spend your Adam on and how you obtain it vrey important.