“I chose Rapture.” – Andrew Ryan

It’s the year 1960.  You’re in a plane, with a cigarette in your left hand, and a present in your right hand. You’re on top of the world.  But things get a turn for the worse.  The plane you are in crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  It seems like you’re the only survivor floating around the ocean while the fire around you is growing and growing. 

You start to swim away from the fire and notice a lighthouse in the distance.  As you enter the lighthouse, the door closes, leaving you in the darkness.  Suddenly, the lights turn on.  Faint instrumental music can be heard in the background of what sounds like “Beyond the Sea.” 

You head to the bottom floor to find a bathysphere, a bubble-like submarine vehicle.  It takes you down into an unknown world of Rapture, a metropolis-like city built under the sea during the 50s.  As you marvel at the underwater city with connecting tubes, you end up in the docking station.  You peer out through the glass window, and see a silhouette of a scared man trying to escape, but he gets killed by a spider-like human creature.  The creature jumps on top of the bathysphere as you’re stuck inside while the wires and electricity are spewing out all over you.

I love the game’s introduction.  Before the game came out, I saw previews for this, but it never really caught my eye.  But after playing it, I can say for sure that this game is a masterpiece and I’m glad to have played it.  It’s a refreshing take on the FPS genre.  This game really immerses you in the world of Rapture, an underwater utopia created by megalomaniac, Andrew Ryan.  He’s a man that wants to make a world where people can be people without the politics; where artists can be artists. 

As you play the game, you can get the feeling that this city used to be lively and happy.  You can see it in the ballroom filled with empty alcohol bottles and new year signs.  You can hear it in the 50’s music playing in the background.  And now, Rapture is nothing more than a place infested with crazy drug induced people, water gushing and leaking all over the place, deserted, dark, and just creepiness in the environment.  All this helps create the eerie atmosphere in Bioshock.

You’re not fighting against demons, aliens, or zombies.  You’re fighting people who have lost their way in life.  These people have succumbed to the fall of Rapture.  These people have gone mad through a bio-enhancement drug called Adam.  It slowly breaks you down until you’re nothing but a pathetic excuse for a human being.

How did Rapture get this way, to find out, you gotta play the game.  And the game is fun to explore.  It’s like Half-Life meets Star Wars.  You get your traditional weapons like any First Person Shooters.  A handgun, machine gun, shot gun, grenade launchers, etc.  But then the plasmid powers is what makes this game really interesting.  The power to shoot bugs out of your hands, freezing enemies and breaking them into little pieces with a wrench, snapping your fingers and sending flames onto some poor sap, and even the power to lift objects like guns and chucking it back at the enemies is ingenious.  There’s so much fun to be had when you play around with your plasmid powers.

The visuals in this game is a beauty.  The art direction and the interactive environments makes you fully immersed in the game.  Water leaks throughout the levels.  Flames come flying by you.  Looking out the city from inside the buildings look grand.  The fish that flops around in the tunnel because of the destruction caused by the water pressure. 

The sound in this game is great in 5.1 surround sound.  The ambient score sets a moody setting.  The 50’s music playing in the background just creeps me out in this dark setting.  The enemy, called the splicers, converses so you can hear them in the distance, or right behind you.  The bigger enemies called The Big Daddies can be heard from afar with their footsteps stomping back and forth.  And those little sisters, you can hear their voices always being accompanied with Big Daddy.

This is what an FPS should be.  Cool immersive story to keep you playing, great sound, awesome visuals, wonderful looking environments, no repetitive corridors.  It looks as if a lot of care went into the making of this game.  And when I’m not playing Bioshock, I’m listening to classic 50’s music to help ease the pain. XD

Grade: A

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