Many years ago, I listed Bioshock as my top game for 2007. It's excellent gameplay, brilliant atmosphere and interesting characters earned it's placing. Now with the impending sequel to the game being released sometime in the next few weeks, I got hooked on Bioshock and have recently finished my second play through and since I didn't give it a proper review last time, I thought I would give it a go this time around. Of course this may not be the best time to do it since I have been gaming all night with friends and am currently sitting on 20hrs straight since I woke up, but let's run with it and see how much sense I make.

Atmospherically, Bioshock is what every game should be trying to develop; one that makes you want to keep playing. From the start until about mid-way through the game, you jump up in your seat every time a splicer decides to jump at you or whenever the lights go out, particularly at the start when you are armed with nothing but your FPS necessary melee weapon which you will all of two times throughout the entire game if you know what you are doing. Unfortunately this doesn't last with the inevitable realisation that what used to hurt you can easily be killed in one shot with the shotty or crossbow provided you have done your research. Big daddies which, at the start are depicted as "don't mess with" shit houses that should never ever be poked with a stick, turn into teddies bears that you go up and give a hug in order to get their attention and lead into a series of trip wires that you set up earlier. 4 pieces of wire later and they are lying on the floor and you have a smug look on your face. In the end, once you realise that you have a full inventory of med-kits, eve refills and ammo, any baddie you come up fails to scare anymore.

Following on from this point, the final boss is pretty pathetic with all challenge gone out the window will a completely full inventory and anti-personnel rounds. A machine gun full off these and I was able to take him out in one shot.

Back on the topic of research, why the fuck was this put in? Don't get me wrong I appreciate the extra damage and unique power-ups but how much research do you need to do on something that is humanoid. Everyone in Rapture was human at some point and presumably plasmids don't move the brain from the head to any other location so if you wish to increase your damage on a mob, aim for the head seems like a straight forward solution. Research just seems like a needless chore in the hopes of getting something good. Also there is no end in sight when you do research something. There is only so much you can learn from taking a picture of something and changing the angle slightly isn't going to reveal anything new. But I will end my bitch about that here.

The storyline the game gives to you to string you along is somewhat interesting and even playing it second time through; you get a greater appreciation for all the audio diaries that have been left about. The moral choice mechanic rears its ugly head again but in a manner only allowing for only two real options, goody two-shoes or malevolent bastard, revolving entirely on how you deal with the little sisters. I can see why it might be done as you can't really rescue one little sister and not rescue them all but there were times that I wanted to harvest the little girl after she caught me trying to give a big daddy a cuddle, took offense to the whole scene and decided my insides would look better with a big daddy drill bit through it.

The variety of weapons you get are standard enough, but the variety of ammo and upgrades you can get makes keeps it somewhat interesting although usually you won't be basing a gun on a situation rather, use this gun until you run out of ammo, move on to the next, rinse and repeat. Plasmids are quite fun but the only one you really need is electrobolt as you get enough ammo for your guns that one shock to paralyse and a shotgun to the face is usually all an enemy will need but some of the others like enrage and hypnotise big daddy have their place and do keep it interesting. Tonics are good but will inevitably lose in the "Will I purchase a plasmid or tonic debate."

In near conclusion, I can't let the hacking go by without mentioning the fact that it's more like plumbing with turning steam based robots and turrets but connecting liquid output A into liquid input B. The one thing that really shit me off was the fact that sometimes the plumbing problems that were given to you had no bloody solution. A difficult puzzle is one thing but one that you can't solve is unforgivable. Maybe this was the game developer's way of encouraging us to have tonics equipped that made it easier but the fact of the remains is that when you present the user with a puzzle, you make it possible to solve. My annoyance turned into "hulk smash" rage usually around the time when failure to complete the puzzle resulted in air drones deciding to hunt me down 60 seconds and insisting that I needed to be a corpse on the ground.

Overall any issue I have with the game is over-ruled by the excellent atmosphere, engaging story and overall solid mechanics. I glad I took another tour of Rapture. Hopefully now when Bioshock 2 comes out, I won't be so concerned about the Big Sister's with daddy issues.