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Since I've been greatly neglecting this again...

Bioshock is a pretty amazing game in my opinion, and although it's received enough critical praise to last it until no one cares anymore, I'm gonna throw in my opinion. Some of it is pretty standard for what people usually say about Bioshock, some of it is stuff that's a bit more personal to me. For reference I haven't played the System Shock games.

Bioshock basically takes everything I loved about the Metroid Prime games, traditional first person shooters, survival horror games, and an almost nonexistant dash of RPG "influence" and brings it all together seamlessly, wrapped up in a gripping plot. To elaborate: like the recent Metroids, it does to the shooter genre something I wish a lot more games would do, in that it makes a single player game that isn't just a multiplayer game without other players where you have to complete objectives to get out of a level. However it takes a big step over Metroid with the idea of character customization and combat options--do I want to ram a shotgun into the enemies chest, or do I want to light him on fire and then electrocute him when he jumps in the pool of water to put out the fire? The survival horror aspect of the game is pretty apparent, although I did find that the fear I initially felt playing the game kind of went up and down in mid to late portions of the game. The first Big Daddy I fought terrified me, but after a few of them they really didn't scare me at all. Certain events would make me afraid of stuff for a while at certain parts, but after the first few hours the game isn't all that scary.

The plot delivery has been praised before, but I'll do it again. Bioshock is almost entirely free of cutscenes, but the majority of the backstory (which is almost entirely optional) is told through audio diaries, which also serve as a great way to set the mood for whatever area you find them in. When you finally do see traditional cutscenes, the impact is...striking, to say that least. The affect that the game achieves is to never break the momentum of playing the game, but to deliver a compelling and thoughtful plot nonetheless.

Moral judgments in games is something I think I'll save for it's own post, but I suppose it is worth remarking that the game does force the player to make moral judgments concerning the lives of the "little sisters."

Plasmids are great, there are enough of them and they are interesting enough that, while some plasmids are basically a necessity, everyone will find one or two interesting plasmids that they personally like to play with. Guns on the other hand are pretty standard. The chemical thrower is perhaps the most interesting, but it basically just mimics the affects of different plasmids. The one exception to this is the crossbow, which I found was a delightfully fun weapon, I found myself really trying to find good ways to use my crossbow.

I also love the graphics, and whoever decided that the city of Rapture should be underwater deserves a trophy. The game does suffer a bit from monotonous environments--everything is that blue-green color, it seems--but the graphical style is appealing. The game may have benefited from coloring some areas differently, as although Rapture is almost in ruin, areas like Cohen's theaters and art studios could have used a more colorful approach, as could have some more residential areas.