UK Release Date: 08-10-2007
Platforms: Xbox 360, PC
Publisher: 2K Games/Irrational
Price: £44.99/£34.99

As a sur­vival horror shoot­er dev­el­oped by the creat­ors of System Shock 2, Bio­shock uses and im­proves upon many of the narr­at­ive and game­play tech­niques of that fondly remem­bered title. Pers­onal audio logs found through­out the game allow unin­trus­ive char­ac­ter and plot devel­op­ment; the abil­ity to hack sec­ur­ity syst­ems, de­velop psych­ic abil­ities and even see ghosts. All will be fam­il­iar from SS2. But, while Bio­shock may be that game’s spir­it­ual succ­essor, it has re­tained mech­an­ics to engage the player and left the stat­istic-heavy RPG ele­ments behind.

The year is 1960. While flying at night over the mid-Atlant­ic, your plane myst­eri­ously crashes into the sea. Break­ing free of the wreck­age under­water, you sur­face on a clear, tran­quil night. As float­ing debris burns around you, the moon re­veals an omin­ous, hulk­ing, black light­house in the dist­ance. Swimm­ing to this curi­ous iso­lated struct­ure, you pull your­self ashore and step warily through its open doors. Within, you find a small sub­mar­ine that des­cends deep into the ocean. Far be­neath the waves, the sunken city of Rapt­ure, a city of wonder and beauty, lies in chaos.

Built by flawed vision­ary Andrew Ryan in 1946, Rapt­ure is a brill­iant dys­top­ian world brought to its knees through events that you’ll un­cover as you battle through the twists and turns of the game’s plot. Ryan had assembl­ed a city pop­u­lated by the finest minds in sci­ence, indust­ry and the arts and in Rapt­ure their pur­suits were to be under no con­straints from gov­ern­ment or rel­ig­ion. Unfort­un­ately, the dis­cov­ery of a gene-alter­ing sub­stance called ADAM all­owed the pop­u­lat­ion to dev­elop dang­er­ous super­human powers known as Plas­mids, which let you create fire at the snap of your fing­ers or even inject larvæ into your arms and send swarms of horn­ets towards your enem­ies. These become part of the play­ers’ arsen­al too, as you try to escape the city and either save or de­stroy its people in the pro­cess.

Speak­ing of which, the enemy AI is excell­ent and watch­ing their react­ion to the many diff­er­ent Plas­mid eff­ects will have you con­coct­ing devi­ous ways of taking them out; for inst­ance, sett­ing an enemy on fire will cause him to run scream­ing to a pool of water and jump in… but then you zap the water with an elec­tric­ity Plas­mid and it’s like throw­ing a toast­er in the tub.

Runn­ing on a mod­if­ied vers­ion of Unreal Engine 3, Bio­shock’s graph­ical style and level design is a sumpt­uous mix of art deco, freak­ish horr­ors and the best water eff­ects to grace a game yet. Every envir­on­ment is unique and exquis­itely de­tailed, built with pur­pose and hist­ory. Water pours through cracks in the walls and flows down stair­cases remind­ing you con­stantly that Rapt­ure is in as frag­ile a state as the minds of its inhab­itants.

Envir­on­mental audio surr­ounds the player with muted ocean drones and creak­ing, rusted supp­orts. The use of 1930s and 40s tunes is superb, and songs like The Ink Spots’ “If I Didn’t Care” take on a creepy, dis­turb­ing tone when heard in the lonely halls of Rapt­ure. Voice acting, too, is excell­ent and most play­ers will listen in­tently to the audio logs that help propel the narr­at­ive.

Bioshock is def­in­itely one of the best games of the year, and it’s been a good year for gaming. Some may have wished for multi­player Plas­mid death matches and the like, but it’s clear that the devel­op­ers were foc­used on creat­ing a stunn­ing single player exp­eri­ence that doesn’t skimp on narr­at­ive or game­play. You can go in guns blaz­ing if you wish, ignor­ing the story and loc­at­ions, but the game re­wards explor­at­ion. The more you search the sunken city, the more items, weap­ons and powers you’ll find.

Combat is un­ique and imag­in­at­ive, and fights against the bosses are in­tense; you won’t forget your first en­count­er! There are moral choices to be made, and two diff­er­ent end­ings depend on these. Bio­shock is action-packed, gripp­ing and down­right scary at times. Those of you look­ing for a great action thrill­er… pre­pare to be imm­ersed in Rapt­ure.