GRADE: A+ In 1994, Irrational Games created "System Shock" in order to provide gamers with an open-ended experience to navigate a game using different approaches. Have a room full of enemies? The game allowed you to combat them either with blazing guns or in more tactful ways like hacking turrets or using telepathic powers to drop heavy objects on them.
Enter "Bioshock," Irrational Games' newest and most brilliant achievement. Instead of taking humanity forward in time, the game takes players back 47 years, 1960. The game takes on a 1950s appearance - a decade that seems destined to be recreated in movies and lame house parties. One thing most people don't expect it to show up in is video games. But "Bioshock" takes the good and the bad of the golden decade, mixes it with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, submachine guns, genetic powers and psychotic monsters to create the perfect dystopian world.
Yes, a dystopian world. The game's plot is a wonderfully constructed view of a society gone wrong. The game begins in an airliner, which crashes into the ocean, leaving you stranded at sea next to a lighthouse in the mid-Atlantic. As the stone edifice seems to be the only structure for miles, you enter it just in time to see someone get horribly slaughtered by a crazed maniac.
"Bioshock" isn't a game that lays the plot out for you in cut scenes or in any ordered fashion. In fact, it's possible to complete the game knowing only the plot's basics. However, by picking up audio recordings, talking to people and watching an intra-elevator movie, you figure out that you are in a place called Rapture, built by an industrialist who has taken the world's greatest minds and deposited them into an entire undersea city. Devoid of human ethics and morals, they could experiment.
Basically, these people created a genetic enhancer called ADAM, which can give people powers like the ability to electrocute foes or use telekinesis. Think "the Force" through biology. Unfortunately, everyone had a little too much to abuse, and on New Year's Eve of 1959, everyone went crazy. Rapture turned from scientific community to slaughter-fest. That's where you come in.
While the plot of "Bioshock" is brilliant and laid out well, the action is even better. The game is truly immersive. The graphics are superb, and the environment, ranging from blood-scrawled messages on the floor to submarine bays, is the best thing in video games yet. But it's the freedom to do whatever you want that truly makes the game.
Like the tenants of Rapture, you can gain ADAM powers and use them however you want. The player also learns how to hack into systems and, oddly enough, is born with an innate knowledge of shooting things (you'll discover why later). Any situation can be handled differently.
That's not to say that the game requires creativity - it just helps. More often than not, instead of hacking turrets and security cameras or igniting pools of oil to block the paths of enemies (all of which you can do), I would just rely on my trusty shotgun or grenade launcher. Most often, I used a combination of all three styles. If you play your cards right, you can probably avoid most firefights. But that wouldn't be fun, would it?
"Bioshock" is probably the most immersive game on the market. Its difficulty settings cater to all audiences, and the versatillity of handling different scenarios provides limitless fun. Likewise, the setting couldn't be better. Irrational Games scored big by being forced to create a new world, so perhaps everything does happen for a reason. Just don't tell that to the denizens of Rapture.
