Welcome to Rapture

Everytime I read/hear that, it sounds like some religious dogma (Dogma, btw, is another great movie....it's directed by Kevin Smith, so good) that you would hear in the Bible or something. But no, that is not what I'm talking about today. BioShock, a game for the Xbox 360 and PS3, is perhaps one of the best games that I have ever played. It's not a new game, having come out several years ago, but man, does it excel at what it does. It's classified, I believe, as a horror/thriller (despite the actual genre being an FPS), and the game has one of the more intense openings that I can remember. You're on a plane, traveling over the ocean (which one, I do not remember), and all of a sudden the plane is going down, it crashlands, blows up, and you are the only survivor, swimming to the surface only to find that in the middle of the ocean, there is a tower nearby. You go to the tower, take a mysterious elevator/submersible thing, and all of a sudden, you're on the ocean floor, where the city of Rapture awaits you. The only thing is...Rapture is not a nice place. There's blood all over the floor, dead bodies, and crazed maniacs who wield claws and knives and other...implements. What happened? Well, it's up to you to find out, and believe me, do you find out.

The name of the game, 'BioShock' comes from the various things you learn/receive in the game. As the main character, you are introduced to a strange world where genetics have been tinkered with, where you can inject yourself with a strange substance known as ADAM, and gain superhuman powers (they range from being able to throw lightning bolts from your hands, to telekinesis, to summoning swarms of killer bees) to aid you in your quest. As you skulk about the mysterious and damaged city of Rapture, you meet some interesting people, and you're never sure who is a good guy and who is not.

I'm trying my hardest to refrain from spoiling anything, because this game has a fantastic twist, one that I definitely did not see coming. I mean, twists can sometimes be foreseen, but not all the time, and this one was right out of left field. Suffice to say, your arrival in Rapture wasn't as random as you would like to think...

I guess a reason I decided to review BioShock was because this is probably one of two games that I can say I actually had 100% completion rate for. This (and the Godfather for PC) was such a good game that I found myself going out of my way, backtracking to levels previously completed, just to find that one little scrap of info that I needed to be 100% complete. Because it was for the Xbox 360, with their achievement system, there was one achievement that was given only if you, the player, managed to collect all 51 audio diaries left throughout the city, which is gigantic. Not only that, but the diaries were left in the most obscure places; underneath fallen equipment, buried in gardens, inside killer plants, in lockers that were underwater, etc etc etc. You had to use some truly ingenious ways to find them, and even the easy ones were misleading; you'd see one just lying there, go to pick it up, and then five guys would drop out of the ceiling, wielding guns, all of them pointed at your head.

The most fantastic thing about the game was its atmosphere. 2K Games really managed to show off the way they made the city as creepy as possible; there was writing on the walls from people, written in their own blood, the corpse still curled up underneath. There would be moving shadows that would freeze at your approaching footsteps, only for you to hear whatever casts that shadow giggle and run away...to have, moments later, a gigantic iron-clad monster with a drill for a hand come charging at you out of the darkness. There would be tremendously large rooms, with nothing in them, and then the moment you took a step inside, the room would go dark and laughter would echo out of the walls...creepy as hell. The atmosphere was wonderfully done, and BioShock 2, while I've only played a little, doesn't quite measure up to the first one.

My favourite story from BioShock, though, was near the end, when I was backtracking to find a certain potion that I needed to upgrade my powers. I went into a dentist's office, inside Rapture somewhere, and there it was, just sitting on the desk. As I walked in, though, the stuff that dentists use to freeze your gums when they operate, the tank was broken, so it was occaisonally misting up the entire room, and freezing your character for a few seconds at a time. I just beared it as I walked to the desk, but as soon as I picked up the potion, the room misted up once again. Seconds later, it cleared, so I turned around.....and the dentist himself was standing right up next to me. His face was so close, it took up the entire screen, and I could clearly see his disfigured, demented smile as he reached for me. Luckily for me, I was so overleveled at this point that my character was super strong, and I was already holding the shotgun....so I just pulled the trigger, unloaded a blast of lead into the guy's face, and blew his head off. Still, though....terrifying.

Moments like that are why I love video games, and BioShock was full of them. It was definitely scary, and I loved every moment of being scared. The ending was great too, as it had one of those 'multiple endings' depending on how you played the game, so I definitely went back through and played it again...and again. If you haven't played this game, and you're fond of shooters like I am, then I definitely recommend this game, as Rapture is a strange (but fun!) place to visit.