Writing a spoiler-free review of BioShock isn’t easy, so just know this: BioShock is a wonderful game, and earns itself a space on the shelf of games that you simply need to play. Of course, this was also said about System Shock 2 back in 1999 and that failed to resonate at the cash register; this is the public’s chance at redemption.

Feeling alone...

What makes the game special is that it blends nearly every perceived category of what makes a game great into one, big pot luck dinner of brilliance. The graphics, art direction, controls, sound, atmosphere, weapons, abilities, enemy AI, storyline—it’s all here. BioShock’s funny, insane, disturbing, political, timely (despite its 1960s setting), redemptive, and fun. Oh, boy, is it fun.

But it’s hard to talk about it without saying too much. In many ways (a lot of ways, in fact) it’s like the System Shock series—both in the way the story is delivered and in how the story twists and turns as you discover more about the world. Like System Shock, you decipher the story through diary tapes from local inhabitants. Another similarity to the System Shock games is that BioShock does an amazing job of making you feel many things—but one of the driving feelings is isolation. You feel hopelessly alone at times. It’s so unnerving that you feel relieved when you pick up a diary tape and hear another voice. When hacking into a security bot (another System Shock staple) so that it flies around, defending you from harm, it’s like a mechanical pet. It’s companionship.

Instead of living in Cyberspace, in BioShock you’re on the ocean floor in the hidden underwater city of Rapture in the year 1960. But telling you exactly why you’re there and what happens while you’re there isn’t possible without ruining it. Basically you’re the survivor of a plane that crashes over the ocean and you swim to a strange piece of land that leads you into the depths below where all kinds of crazy stuff happens to you and you need a lot of guns and special powers to survive.

Yeah, it's kinda gruesome...

Some of the weapons in the game are typical shooter fare, like shotguns, pistols, a machine gun, and of course a trusty wrench. BioShock takes it a bit further though by allowing multiple ammo types for most guns, such as anti-personnel bullets to deal with ‘human’ foes and armor piercing ammo for taking out tougher enemies. You can use regular shot for the shotgun or maybe you need the extra power of exploding shells? Of course that’s not all of the guns in the game, and in fact, while the weapons on the whole work extremely well, they are by no means the star of the show. It’s great to use a crossbow to shoot electrical trip wires all over in order to booby trap an area, but it’s not as fulfilling as using your other weapon: Plasmids.

Plasmids are bioengineered using a substance called Eve, which is injected into your veins, giving you great powers to do all sorts of magical things like shoot lightning bolts from your hands, catch grenades with your mind and fling them back at an enemy, or even enrage a group of enemies so that they’ll fight themselves instead of you. The sheer number of Plasmids makes the game surprisingly replayable. BioShock doesn’t carry with it any tacked on multiplayer component so the story is the meat—and even after completion, this is the type of game that you are going to want to play again. You‘re going to miss things the first time through and you are also going to want to try various Plasmid and Gene Tonic combinations that you weren’t able to use the first time since you can only equip so many at a time.

The Hacking system...plumb away!

Gene Tonics grant you various passive abilities such as extra armor, or enhanced hacking ability. There are physical, engineering, and combat tonics and when you combine those with the Plasmids you have a nearly endless way to customize your character’s arsenal of abilities.