BioShock PC Review San Jose CA

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If you were to ask 100 avid FPS gamers to list their favorite shooters from the past decade or so, there is one series of FPS that probably won't feature as much as it should - System Shock. Despite being an excellent RPG/FPS hybrid, unfortunately System Shock just never truly found its potential marketing wise, coming up short against the heavy weights such as Doom, Quake and Half Life across the life span of its two releases. After being acquired byTake-Two Interactive in early 2006, Irrational Games, developers of the excellent System Shock 2, set about taking the FPS/RPG genre by storm once and for all with a title known as BioShock, which is claimed as the "spiritual successor" to the System Shock series. Despite this hefty benchmark and the hype that surrounded this title pre-release, it is safe to say Irrational Games, or 2K Boston/Australia are they are now known, have finally found their place in the sun withBioShock.

First and foremost, unlike most FPS/shooting games these days, it must be made clear that BioShock is a single player only experience. This is a questionable decision by 2K as it obviously puts immense pressure on the single player story mode not to mention throws out a freebie way to enhance the game's replay value, but it won't take long into the game's spectacular single player experience for you to forgot all about this omission, as you find yourself completely engrossed into the world that is 'TheRapture'.

The Rapture at first is not a very clear entity to understand. Is it a place? is it a belief? is it an economic and social system? In many ways, it is all of these. The Rapture itself is an underground city created by self proclaimed genius Andrew Ryan to escape the Capitalist, Communist and Religious ways of the above ground world, creating a way of life and social structure that truly frees man to live life and excel. Well, that was the theory anyway, because as you'd expect in such an ambitiousproject, The Rapture is not all that it's cracked up to be, and things start to make a turn for the worst.

Set in the late 1950's after a plane crash in the open sea, your character survives the impact but finds himself gasping for air and dodging the flaming remains of the downed flight. As you make your way through the rubble in the water, you spot a mysterious tall and skinny building like structure in the distance planted on a minutely sized island barely wider than the tower itself. With nothing but destruction and open deadly sea behind, you move forward and enter the structure, curiouslypoking around as you descend into the earth and find what seems to be a pod. You enter, pull down on the only lever you see, and begin your journey deep under water into the world of The Rapure, only your arrival couldn't have come at a worse time.