This is a game you’ll fall in love with. You’re dragged into a story that will consume you bit by bit, in an environment that was realised in a way that knows no equal. Beautiful decors, endless amounts of detail, creativity and fantasy and a consistency that shows vision and a will to create a world that rises above anything we’re used from games. The voice work is to lick your thumbs and fingers, the music to silently enjoy or have hairs stand up on your arms, and some scenes will purely through their emotional power make sure that you stand still or go very slowly, just to be able to experience everything better.

The world of Rapture is not only determining for the story that next to its intelligence also hides a couple of filosophical layers, is food for many forum discussions and references to things even a very attentive gamer could just walk past. This fact gets even stronger when knowing that this utopian society nicely fits together with your playing experience. Thanks to the research possibilities without boundaries in this city you’ll enjoy or have problems with tons of gene-changing powers and plasmids (throwing fire, freezing things, enchant enemes, get stronger arm muscles, etc), classic weapons and less classic upgrades, security cams and robots as well as accompanying vending machines for all of this.

And that’s where the first cracks appear in the amazing outer shell of Bioshock. The shooting is not of the level you see in more specialised games. We easily forgive that, however, in exchange for more variation in the approach of how you take on your enemies. Plasmids and upgrades of both your weapons and powers, research and making ammo make for a decent sniff of role-playing and a vast series of strategies and tactics. We would have liked some more puzzles of fights that demand some more intelligent use of this all and also the restriction that the choosing between plasmids on certain fixed stations is something we regretted.

More regrets when we notice that opponents aren’t too varied and you’ll get tired after a while of the standard enemies like the Splicers. Even the infamous Big Daddies and accompanying Little Sisters suffer a bit from this. Although the guarantee a feeling and emotional impact you rarely get while gaming, they keep having the same models throughout the game. The Daddies are also easier to kill than you would expect, but they do impersonate the only good that remains; big, sweet, caring giants with only one goal, the protection of the little girls who with their huge syringes suck Adam, the substance you need to improve yourself.

The choice with each Sister is hart-tearing at first sight. You can harvest and in the process kill them, or save them but get less Adam as result. Very unfortunate that later in the game it becomes clear that that choice isn’t as daring as you would think, eventhough you can understand that in the light of the gameplay.

This is where the ambition of the game shoots Bioshock in the foot: by putting the slat so high, we expect almost undoable personalisations, a realistic AI and variation from beginning till end. Rapture is so life-like and immersive that you want every character, every Little Sister and every hallway to tell its own unique story and that your choices are fixed and are all-determining for the rest of the experience. After the first few hours you’ll want increasingly more and every other FPS will seem artificial, thin and uninspired. That’s why it’s so hard to criticize Bioshock. Other games don’t even try the things you’re splitting hairs about here.

Each and every one of you will have to decide for yourselves whether this progress is a curse or blessing, but the game does shove a glove in the face of every developer to think very good about their next project. A simple evolution of the previous game or bringing what was realised in Bioshock to the next level. We cannot give enough praise about the vision and unique experience Bioshock offers, but at the same time there’s the realisation that there’s still plenty of room for progress and to make the basic gameplay leap forward as much as the presentation and story telling have.