Bioshock

Just finished playing Bioshock. I know, Bioshock 2 is out, and I finally get to the first one. Whatever. I won't get to Bioshock 2 until Bioshock 3 is out probably...

Anyhow. The game was fun, well worth the 20 dollars I spent on it. The game wasn't too hard, but I did play it on Easy Mode, because I remember the demo being fairly hard. And my friend kept telling me that ammo is hard to find in the game.

Setting/Story
The setting of the game is what interested me the most. The city of Rapture is basically a whole self-governed city underwater in the 1960's. It has the feel of an old Sci-fi movie. I believe that is why I like the game so much. All the technology is similar to what you would expect in the 50s/60s. Every so often you'll here a radio or Jukebox playing music of the era.

Andrew Ryan is the creator of Rapture, and basically what he says is the law. Apparently everything was all peaceful until a new technology was discovered: ADAM. ADAM is a mutagen extracted from a special type of sea slug. Using ADAM, Plasmids were created. Plasmids rewrite a persons genetic code, giving them special powers. For instance, the first Plasmid you encounter in the game is the Lightning Plasmid, allowing you to shoot lightning from your hand. The side of effect of ADAM is that a person must be take regular injections of ADAM or go insane. But ADAM was in short supply. Thus the fall of Rapture. Soon everyone was killing for more ADAM.

Gameplay
One thing I have to nitpick is the walking speed in the game. At times it just seemed so slow. Fortunately there's a Plasmid that increases walking Speed. Once I got that, it was smooth sailing.

The Plasmids are an interesting feature. Basically adding a feel of Magic in a genre thats all about headshots and blowing stuff up. Sometimes you'll need to use Plasmids to solve puzzles, other times, just to kill enemies. The game totes you off with the Lightning Plasmid and a wrench. When you bast an enemy with the lightning, it stuns them, then you can run it and smash their heads in. While they are fun to play with, I found myself mostly relying on the weapons instead.

The game can be slow paced, more time looking for something than actually fighting things, but honestly, thats in my opinion a strong point. I love sneaking around the environments, not knowing when an enemy is gonna come pop out around the corner. But when action comes in, the game really picks up its pace. Especially if theres a big room with Splicers and a Big Daddy and you accidentally shoot the Big Daddy.

Weapons:
The weapons is Bioshock, are pretty much standard issue: Pistol, Machnegun, Shotgun, RPG, Flame Thrower, and a less standard, Crossbow.

Each weapon however has 3 different ammunitions to use with. For instance, instead of using Napalm for the Flame Thrower, you can get Liquid Nitrogen to freeze enemies with, or even use an "electric gel" that will shoot electricity at the enemy, stunning them.

The shotgun, my personal favorite weapon, can use special buckshot rounds charged with electricty, or an explosive round that will detonate on impact, causing an enemy to burst into flames.

The Crossbow can be equipped with electric trip wire arrows, to create traps for your opponent. These mght be useful, but frankly I didn't use them because I figured it'd backfire, and I'd accidentally run into the wire.

While there is a vast arsenal of different types of ammo for almost any occasion, I found myself using the same weapons throughout the game.

Difficulty:
I can't really rate the difficulty, as I already stated above I played on Easy Mode, which is pretty damned easy. Though the game really did ramp up the difficulty around the halfway mark, when the game started shelling out "Elite" Splicers. Even the Big Daddies weren't very hard if you used the right ammunition.

Conclusion
Overall, the game is definitely worth picking up if you haven't already. And with Bioshock 2 already out, and a third game planned, now is as good a time as ever.