Bioshock review

This game is amazing. There's just so much to explain. I don't know where to start. I guess I'll start with the story.

Welcome to Rapture. Biggest hellhole in existence. Andrew Ryan built it to escape the looming nuclear war around the time of World War 2. He invited the greatest artist, scientists, and pretty much the cream of the crop. Anyway, he didn't want to deal with the "Parasites" so he built the city underwater. So everything went fine and dandy until they discovered Adam. Adam allowed someone to modify their genetic code, it transformed one's genetic code into something that could be shaped to the shapers vision. So you want to get stronger? Just use some Adam and rewrite your code. At first people used it for major things, like cancer and other serious illnesses.
Then vanity kicked in. They used it like makeup. It's use got more and more trivial.

Until they used it as a weapon. You could freeze someone with naught more then a couple hand gestures. People shot electricity out of their hands, Emperor Palpatine style. And then, the shit hit the fan. As it turned out, if you use Adam, you need even more Adam to keep it from exploding in your face. The people that used Adam as makeup had their faces butchered. 9 out 10 people in Rapture had their minds and body's destroyed. Everyone looked like this:
Rotting bodys? Check. Sycopathic minds? Check. Genetically modified dna? Check. Yeah, well they look like zombies. Some of them are exactly like zombies, at least tactics wise. But the others do triple backflips and dodge bullets. Great. Splicers, as they are called, are very varied. They nail you with bullets, hack security drones( and no, that's not scripted. They will hack security bot's and get them on their side. It's pretty amazing) and climb on ceilings. They work with each other, at least until you get the enrage plasmid.

Speaking of plasmids, if Adam is blank paper, plasmids are the paint. Plasmid is just a codename for super gene modifying weapon. So, basically, you stick yourself with a needle and shoot fireballs out of your hands. So think about what happens if you have a crazed junkie that needs a fix and can fry you like your in an electric chair with his mind? Now you know what went wrong with rapture.

So you get in a plane crash. You swim to a lighthouse. You get to Rapture. You use some Adam. You become a goddamn Splicer.

One of the things that Bioshock do's good is screw with your mind. You don't actually have to get Adam, but you find yourself-not your character, but you! YOU get addicted to Adam(I'm not joking)- and you to choose how far you will go to get Adam.

How do you get Adam? You get it from Little Sisters. There these ghoulish little girls that walk around, jabbing dead people with huge needles and eat the fluid that comes out. It's even grosser then it sounds. They have the Adam. Everyone want's it. You need it. And there only defense is a...

TWO TON METAL HULK. A jules verne era guy in a diving suit armed with a huge drill or a rivet gun. Half your healths gone if your hit. It's insane. This adds another element of unpredictability to the game. Imagine a roaming boss battle that go's berserk if a stray bullet hit's a little sister. The last thing your experience is a huge roar before your pounded into a wall and get your face drilled to a bloody pulp. So he walks around, protecting the ghoulish little sisters as the continue their unyeilding search for adam.

So, I haven't really saidmuch about the basic gameplay yet. Well that's also amazing.

So Bioshock plays like a normal fps. You have to save your ammo, maybe think abit about tactics, and just keep in mind what enemy is vulnerable to what. But, in most fps's, your only option to take down enemys is to bury lead into them. Not so in Bioshock. You can turn them against each other, or set traps with proximity mines and cyclone traps. You can electrocute the water their standing in, or you can set fire to them and watch as the room turns into an inferno.

Or you can set the security forces of Rapture against them.

In order to be succsesful in Bioshock, you can't play it like a shooter. You really have to think. You really have to think outside the box, while most shooters force you inside the box. And I can't really explain the feeling of absolute freedom that I get when I play this game.

But, Bioshock is not perfect. I think, close to the end, the combat get's a little repetitive. If you really did no homework(didn't read some tips, just ignored the game until it came out) then you will be lost in a sea of innovation. So if you really don't know how to play and use the games awsome tutorial( there isn't one. The game teaches you while you go along and do's it really well) and take the advice to heart, you might feel like your being force-fed the game.

The game's atmosphere is amazing, but this is one of the creepiest games I have ever played. The game do's a good job of making your enemys feel human, and this just get's creepy. By the end of the game, you will feel like you could be a splicer if you were in the same city as them when it hit the fan. And Bioshock is the first game to do this.

Overall 9.9 out of 10