Going beyond "run and gun corridors," "monster-closet AIs" and static worlds, Bioshock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. After your plane crashes into icy uncharted waters, you discover a rusted bathysphere and descend into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Constructed as an idealistic society for a hand picked group of scientists, artists and industrialists, the idealism is no more.
Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and genetically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn. Take control of your world by hacking mechanical devices, commandeering security turrets and crafting unique items critical to your very survival. Upgrade your weapons with ionic gels, explosives and toxins to customize them to the enemy and environment.
Genetically modify your body through dozens of Plasmid Stations scattered throughout the city, empowering you with fantastic and often grotesque abilities. Explore a living world powered by Ecological A. I.
, where the inhabitants have interesting and consequential relationships with one another that impact your gameplay experience. Experience truly next generation graphics that vividly illustrate the forlorn art deco city, highlighted by the most detailed and realistic water effects ever developed in a video game. Make meaningful choices and mature decisions, ultimately culminating in the grand question: do you exploit the innocent survivors of Raptureā¦or save them?.
The hours spent playing this masterpiece were the perfect encapsulation of why videogaming is such a favourite waste of time for so many of us. Thrilling, terrifying, moving, confusing, amusing, compelling, and very very dark. BioShock isn't simply the sign of gaming realising its true cinematic potential, but one where a game straddles so many entertainment art forms so expertly that it's the best demonstration yet how flexible this medium can be. It's no longer just another shooter wrapped up in a pretty game engine, but a story that exists and unfolds inside the most convincing and elaborate and artistic game world ever conceived.
BioShock is on the same par as those great classic films that have won awards for years and this one will for the video game industry. The combination of a great story and fantastic gameplay with wonderful scenery has been so well created into an all around well crafted game that it would be a shame to miss out on playing it.
Everyone will play it differently, and have a different experience. Some like myself will find it drenched in tension and atmosphere, having run into many a situation where the poop was scared out of me. Others, like a friend of mine, will claim that its intuitiveness, combative freedom, and creativity puts it above the spiritual predecessor "System Shock 2," and wonder at how convincing the whole affair can be.
The first-person shooter is, simply, one of the best games ever made. [Oct 2007, p.86]
A dark and astonishing masterpiece...I spend my career, and my gaming life, waiting for a moment when a game just astonishes me, when I can't believe what I'm seeing, what I'm doing. BioShock has five. [Sept 2007, p.66]
It meshes impressive graphics with an inventive gameplay system, and uses them to push an amazing story in a refreshingly unique setting. Unless you faint at the sight of blood or you absolutely despise FPS games, you should consider this game a must buy.
So BioShock is not a revolutionary game, or even a particularly innovative one; by the time I reached the end, I felt as though I had played a rather standard and predictable first-person shooter.
April 16, 2018
2K Games is developing a new Bioshock, according to Kotaku. Read more
April 3, 2018
City of Brass, developed by former Bioshock devs, sets its release date: May 4. Watch video
October 26, 2017
Guillermo del Toro: āI would love to direct a Bioshock movieā. Read more
August 3, 2017
Bioshock Remastered will have a Mac version before the end of the year.
July 7, 2017
Uppercut, managed by former BioShock creatives, presents its game City of Brass. Watch video
May 24, 2017
2K (BioShock, Borderlands) is working on a new title of āone of its biggest franchisesā for 2018.
