If you want the short and simple review here it is. This could quite possibly be the best game released this year and you should go out and buy it. Oh you already heard that, you would like some more details, OK. In fact the only people who I do not recommend buying this game is anyone about to go on a long flight over the ocean. The small percentage of readers that fit into that category should buy the game when you get back from your flight.

BioShock is a futuristic game that takes place in the 1960s. Yeah I know that is a contradiction in terms, but as I explain the plot of the game in more detail, you will understand why I describe the game in that manner. BioShock starts you out as a lone man in the 1960’s who unfortunately has a smoking habit, and is setting out on a flight across the ocean. Somewhere during the flight there are problems and the plane crashes conveniently close to this man made structure that is jetting up from the ocean. You find your way to this dark and ominous looking structure that resembles a light house, hop into a diving bell and from there the game shifts you into high gear and it is fast and furious from then on. The diving bell takes you down the bottom of the ocean where you are treated to your first view of the underwater city called Rapture. Rapture is a place of destroyed beauty (Hmm, where have I seen that before?) under water. In what I can only describe as a city that looks like Las Vegas only 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Rapture is a beautiful sight on the outside, but torn apart on the inside. The city is a vast place of bright lights and large buildings with walk way tubes connecting them to each other.

I really suggest you take a few seconds every so often when the action settles down to look around the environment. Look at the litter on the floor or read the signs on the walls. Very early in the game you realize that this was once a remarkable and beautiful city. Now torn apart by civil strife between factions of crazy people and large people encased in diving suits, the city is in shambles. You are now stranded at the bottom of ocean in very dark and scary place, with hordes of the insane running around trying to hack and shoot you to little bits.

But you are not alone you have one single friend with you at the bottom of the sea, a voice that guides you over a scratchy radio. Atlas is your one friend a guy helping you out so that you can help him get that which he holds dear. Like Obei Wan guiding Luke Skywalker on at the end of Star Wars, Atlas’s voice will guide you through most of the game. As the game progresses you are introduced to the Big Daddy and Little Sister characters in the game. The Big Daddy is the character that looks like the guy in the old diving suit. These characters are surprisingly fast and agile, very strong, and worst of all very tough. The amount of fire power that is required to take down one of these things is phenomenal. I found myself usually dying at least once during a fight with one these bad boys. The little sisters are these little girls that look to be about seven to nine years old. Nasty little creatures, they go around shoving syringes into dead body’s pulling out a substance called “Adam” and then drinking it. Let me tell you watching that could bring make the toughest guys go “Ewwwww”.

One of the main objectives of the game is to get this substance called “Adam”. Once you have collected enough of it you will be able to cash it in at vending machines, located through out the game, and purchase certain special abilities. From becoming a better safe cracker to hurling fire balls out of your hands, this Adam will be the key to leveling up your character throughout the game. Leveling up your character will be vitally important when it comes to handing out the hurt to the never ending mob of psychotics that are hell bent on killing you. Another rare commodity in the city of Rapture is the different Plasmids and Tonics scattered through out the city, and in different vending machines. Plasmids and Tonics allow you more special powers. If you do not find them lying around the city you can always buy them with the Adam you collect.

Through out the game you come across different machines in the game, most of them can be hacked to give you better deals on in game items or turned to assist you in wiping out the crazies coming after you. How you hack is one of the best features in the game. You are presented with a screen full of gray squares with an entrance tub starting at one side and an exit tube ending on the other side of the screen. It is your job to connect the two with different combination of connecting pieces to make sure that the fluid flows straight through. Now here is where it can get tough. You have about a two to three second head start before the fluid starts to flow. In time you have to keep ahead of the fluid, if the fluid ever reaches the end before you are fully connected to the exit you get shocked and have to start over. Fortunately there are automatic hacking tools spread through out the game or you can build one of your own if you collect all the right pieces. This makes for a pleasant break in the game so that you are not constantly from bludgeoning crazy masked people trying to kill you. Another interesting aspect of the game is the U-Vent feature. This allows you to collect items off of bodies or items just lying around on the floor, take them to this machine and you can build useful in game items.

For a change let’s talk about the negative aspects of the game first. There is no multiplayer. It is kind of a shame that you will probably only get to enjoy the beautiful graphics a few times. I can see playing this game through and being a nice guy then the ultimate bad guy then playing through on the different difficulty levels but really I can not see many gamers wanting to keep playing through the game more then three or four times so soak up that beauty right away. The last thing is toward the end I was getting ready for the game to end. Maybe it was just me dying a bunch, or just basic concept of going and gathering components to build this certain item then getting ingredients for a chemical compound so that you can progress in the game but toward the end I was ready for the game to end. Some critics have stated that the game frequently froze up on them, I did not have this problem in fact the game never froze on me once.

OK no sense in dwelling on the negative with a great game like BioShock, games like Pimp My Ride and WarTech obviously were made for dwelling on the negative! This is a game that is hard to fit into one category. Is BioShock a First Person Shooter, or an Action RPG? I am not sure but it is a beautiful blend of both. The leveling up system is not so complex that you have to worry about doing tons of online research about each upgrade available to you. The combat system in the game is very immersive and one can easily get lost in the blur of combat. If you are not careful you can get focused on one opponent and end up catching the wrong end of a metal pipe to the back of the head by opponents flanking around you. Most of the weapons start out looking like your standard World War II weapons but after a few weapon upgrades it will be hard to distinguish them from some futuristic weapon.

The graphics are beautiful; honestly the graphics are the best of any 360 game I have seen so far. The initial cut scene at the beginning of the game is terrifying, like I said earlier if you are going to be doing any air travel soon you may want to wait until afterwards to play this game.

The dialog has got that cool retro 1950’s style, with one of the chief bad guys always calling you “kid”, or referring to one of the main female characters as a “Dame”. The evil minors called Splicers seem to have a very small vocabulary each different type seems to repeat the same three to four phrases over and over again. One small note about the dialog is there are quite a few naughty words used. Not that it is terrible but by the end of the game hearing the phrase “Nurse, help me find my patient” for the two hundredth time starts to wear on your nerves. In this age of Next Generation Consoles I kind of expect some more immersive features of game play. Having sound clips that are perhaps related to the circumstances, area, and events that are happening would really add that extra WOW factor. Any one who does not want little ones to pick up some bad language, may want to keep a close eye on the volume knob.

While the story does get a little over the top, with rewriting DNA and genes and living under the sea, it is done really well. The story is so addictive and compelling that you can easily find yourself loosing track of time inside this game trying to get to the next story line to see what happens next.

The achievements are also set up perfectly. As you complete each level the game gives you an Achievement. With most levels, normal game play you will unlock an Achievement for some activity you have completed. You may have to make a concentrated effort to get a couple of Achievements but none of them are really difficult to obtain. If this is something that you hold dear, then I say to all the GamerScore whores like myself, find a list of the achievements somewhere on the internet so that you can be prepare to adapt your gameplay to meet the requirements.

This is one of those games that I am very comfortable recommending that people buy. This is one of those few times that I would say you probably do not have to rent this game before you buy it. Although if there is even the slightest doubt in your mind try the Demo that is on Xbox LIVE, chances are you will be hooked and going out and buying this game to help feed your new addiction, an addiction called BioShock. I just hope that 2K finds a way to continue the story and give us some extra content. I would be really pleased if they found a way to continue the story in the same way they did with Oblivion.

Check out what Charlie’s review of BioShock