Bioshock is a very unique, very fun first person shooter with an engaging, dystopian storyline and an environment that oozes with feeling. Set in an underwater city called Rapture, you use a combination of weapons and genetically enhanced abilities known as Plasmids to accomplish tasks that slowly reveal the mysteries of Rapture and its apparent destruction from within.
Bioshock has been endlessly praised for its environment, and this praise is justified. Rapture is an isolated, haunting place that throws the player into roller coaster of feelings with its odd mix of the familiar and the bizarre. The game looks incredible with beautifully rendered environments and amazing effects (dig the water!) and the performance on the PS3 was practically flawless and glitch-free. While after a while the look of the areas could sometimes borderline on monotonous, everything is kept fresh with the incredible sense of time and place. Bioshock takes place in 1960, and Rapture, as a city built by those who chose to flee American society and create a type of Ayn Rand-esque Utopia for themselves, retains that old time feel of mid 20th Century America in a way that, despite its startling contrast with its steampunk backgrounds, still feels very natural and genuine.
Another area where Bioshock really excels is in its sound design. This game begs to be played with surround sound. The excellent sound effects and ambient noises come from every angle and really help create a very high level of suspense and intensity. Hearing enemies from a distance but not being able to actually see them was very creepy, and the way my subwoofer rumbled when a Big Daddy was in the vicinity got my heart racing every time. Again, the developers have done a splendid job of creating a fantastic environment that stays in your head after you put the controller down, and the sound is a huge part of this.
The biggest flaw of Bioshock for me was the ability to re-spawn after getting killed and have the enemies be in the state you left them before you died. This made pretty much every enemy, with the exception of the final boss, beatable just by simply re-engaging them over and over again, as they wouldn't recover their health. A system of checkpoints, where you'd return to a save point and have to start the fight all over again, would have made the game much more challenging. From my understanding, the PS3 version has a patch that allows you turn off the vita-chambers (aka re-spawn points) so that you can do just that, but I was unaware of this until after I beat the game.
Also, the game description on the box touts the fact that you must make philosophical choices to determine the fate of the civilians of Rapture, and I've heard other's discuss this element of the game as well. In reality, this is a very light aspect of the game and not very deep or involved at all. Especially right after playing a game like Dragon Age: Origins where you have to make so many very difficult choices that have immediate and long term effects on your overall experience with the game, the "choices" of Bioshock seem like philosophy for middle schoolers in comparison. So while the decision making is an element of the game, I don't feel it's a strong point and feel there are lot of other great things about Bioshock that FAR outshine this aspect.
Overall, I really enjoyed Bioshock a lot and would highly recommend it. It has a great combination of strong gameplay, intriguing story, fantastic environments, intense action and hardcore suspense to keep you coming back for more. Turn the sound up and enjoy!
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