Hi friends,

BioShock is retro, weird, horrifying, and awesome.

"I'm Andrew Ryan and I'm here to ask you a question:

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.

No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.

No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something

different. I chose the impossible. I chose...

RAPTURE.

This strong punch line and then a peek at a massive underwater city RAPTURE. This game gives one hell of an impression when it starts and maintains it until the very end.

The story is simple and catchy. The most impressive part is the way it is told. BioShock would have qualified as best screenplay entry at the Oscars if this game had been a movie. Rapture is an underground futuristic city made by Andrew Ryan, which is free from all sorts of limitations. No Government. No Religion. No nothing, but something went wrong and the city is now full of ugly mutants called splicers who are fighting everyone in sight for a substance called "ADAM". Adams are the currency which are used to buy powers and other useful things. You are trapped in the RAPTURE after suffering a plane crash and then you get guided by a mysterious voice. Your goal is now to survive and kill Andrew Ryan.

The combat of BioShock consists of guns and plasmids. Plasmids give you god-like powers like telekinesis, ability to throw fireballs, freeze objects and produce cyclones, etc, etc. Plasmids can be found in the game or can be bought through ADAMS. For plasmids to work, you would need to have EVE, which is in fact ammo for plasmids. Combination of plasmids and guns make the combat in BioShock unique.

You get a variety of weapons and variety of enemies. Most unique of them is the big daddy (you can see them in the game cover). Defeat that big guy and you gain access to little sister who can be harvested or rescued for ADAMS. Harvesting her would result in more ADAM but it would kill her. Rescuing her gives you half of the ADAM but it ensures some rewards afterwards. It is your decision to harvest them or rescue them. Different actions will result in different outcomes. Each enemy can be photographed for research. After each successful research, you get some vital informations or powers. Apart from that you can also collect junks to invent things, search dead enemies for items. You can also hack machines to make them friendly or less consuming. You also get some tonics to increase your abilities.

The visuals are stunning and would need a high end card to run in ultra high. Water effects put Far Cry Game to shame and the lighting effects put Chaos Theory 2 Game to shame. If you have a high-end rig, you would understand what life-like graphics mean.

Now comes the ratings part which I will list on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 being excellent and 0 being worse.

1. Story: 10.
2. Game play: 10.
3. Graphics and sounds: 10.

Final Rating: 10

Recommendation from my side: Highly recommended for serious gamers

Worth buying: Yes