BioShock is a good first person shooter that is made into something truly great by its incredibly unique atmosphere and story. The gameplay system would be a bit dull if it wasn’t for a mechanic called “plasmids.” These are a variety of customizable abilities that range from firing elements such as lighting and flame, to placing target dummies or hypnotizing your enemies. Plasmids are always mapped to your left triggers, while your gun controls are mapped to your right triggers. It makes an otherwise fairly standard shooter feel a lot more unique and personalized to each player. The one big gameplay issue this game has is its atrocious map. Even after beating the game I still don't really understand how I'm supposed to interpret it. For some reason different levels and floors are shown on the map beside each other rather than on top and underneath each other. Often they are placed with little rhyme or reason. This game also sometimes has a bit of a lighting problem. Many environments contain a lot of grey colors and are very darkly lit, making it often hard to tell where to go and what is going on. Even still, I still think the gameplay is decently good overall; not amazing, but not at all bad either.

Where BioShock really shines is in its story and atmosphere, though I did have some issues with it so I'll get those out of the way first. Despite liking the story a lot, I noticed it often felt a little disconnected from the levels you actually play in the game. Nearly all communication with other characters takes place through a radio, and you almost never see their faces unless they're already dead. While rapture is a very cool location and does have its fair share of environmental storytelling, this games equivalent to cutscenes often consists of a character talking to you on the radio, a bunch of enemies getting dumped in the level your on, you defeating the enemies, and then a character calling you on the radio again to either curse you or congratulate you. There are very few moments where you actually get to see another character face to face or have an event happen before your eyes, though I suppose this does make the moments such as this actually contained within the game even more impactful. I won’t spoil the story but I also found the ending and final boss to be fairly disappointing.

Moving on to the good, Rapture is an absolutely incredible setting and one of the coolest and most thought out places I’ve had the privilege of exploring in a game. It's filled with this dark, moody, and creepy atmosphere combined with this sort of 1940’s - 50’s styled music and looks. It makes for something truly different than anything else I’ve ever seen, and it's really incredible. The history of Rapture as well as the character diaries that can be found within it are very well made to showcase the failures of unregulated capitalism and how disastrous it is to depend on it. The city has a complete lack of regulations under the guise of freedom (sound familiar?). This leads to record breaking progress, but decisions are made without morals or conscience. Everything in the city, dangerous or not, comes to exist for the sole purpose of driving profit, which leads rapture to its eventual downfall. I did just complain about how you are almost never face to face with any characters, but even with just their voices the game does an amazing job teaching you each and every one of their politics and ideals, and why it either brought them success or (In most cases) failed them. Among these characters is the game's main villain Andrew Ryan. Even alongside the many interesting characters this game already contains he stands out and is extremely compelling to root against. I particularly enjoyed how despite him being such a terrible person, you can tell how principled he is, and how he truly believes what he says to be the truth. It makes him feel much more threatening and is a large part of what compelled me to continue playing the game and push past some of its more creepy moments. I suppose I should mention that the game does have a sort of morality system to it, with you being able to harvest or save genetically modified children known as “little sisters.” As far as I can tell however it doesn't affect much of the game aside from the ending which is one of its weaker aspects anyways.

I think BioShock really does earn its status as such an iconic and influential game, and is something I won’t be soon forgetting. I usually don't even like first person shooters that much but I think against all odds this game has somehow broken into my top 20 list. Definitely check this game out if you’ve ever got the chance.