Bioshock: Or How Your Daddy will Beat You for Killing your Sister

I'm going into this knowing that there aren't a lot of things that I can say are wrong about Bioshock. Its been out for quite a bit of time and has been reviewed by everyone and their mothers and yet it seems that the game is quite close to perfect. Perfect, you say? Perhaps not quite perfect, but the game is without a doubt very, very good.

I'd like to give you a rundown of the story but I think if I did that I would take away from the game itself. So I'll just that in this first person shooter sci-fi/horror/period game you play as Jack, the lone survivor of a plane crash who seeks refuge in an underwater city called Rapture only to discover that Rapture has been transformed into the darkest corner of hell filled with mutant beings and mechanical machines. You're also in contact with a man named Atlas who's guiding you through this dystopian city ... and that's all I'll say because I don't want to spoil it for the few living under a rock who haven't played.

I'll just add that its set in the 1960's and filled with haunting decorum and music from the 1930's so its pretty on the eyes and ears. I may take back that pretty on the eyes because this game goes on overload with the blood so perhaps if your a little sadistic you'll still call this game pretty.

If you haven't noticed already I'm saying little about the plot while hyping it up at the same time. That's because, without a doubt, the plot makes this game. There are very few fps's that can claim to have plot as part of the reason why you keep going. Halo? No, you keep going because you can kill everything because unless you follow that series religiously the plot is a little less than like walking through muddy quicksand. The plot of Bioshock is disturbingly intriguing, as you're thrown into a world where you know absolutely nothing and slowly, through encounters with demented villains, audio recordings, and contact with the city's creator Andrew Ryan, you begin to unravel the mystery of what happened to this city, what tore it apart, and what deep seeded connection you actually share with Rapture. That's all I'm going to say about the story. It's one of the first games where the player actually wants to listen to the four minute long audio recording. And then will listen to fifty more of a similar length because they want to know what happened here.

Sure there's the shooter part of the game, but that's pretty standard. You have your various weapons which you use in your right hand, leaving your left hand open for plasmids (cough, magic powers) where you can unleash fire, ice, insects, telekinesis, and a menagerie of other weapons. The rpg elements of the game, where you can a weapon more powerful and choose between saving "Little Sisters" (path of good) or harvesting them (path of evil) are interesting but are what they are, which are rpg elements.

I won't go so far as to say that this noodle sticks to the wall for forever, but it sticks for a pretty damn long time. The game, while not scary, is still very jumpy, and while I haven't even brought it up, the gameplay is still quite fun (though it is still what a shooter is, which is going from room to room and killing obstacles that get in your way). All around its a very impressive game, but what makes it so strong, and game makers should take note here, is its story. Its inventive, original, clever, and intriguing.

There's about a million different elements that I failed to mention. For instance, the Big Daddy's, which are mechanized beings which protect the Little Sisters, who carry the Adam....but by now you've probably played the game and know all of that. If you haven't, what rock have you been living under?