There are times when you look forward to a game so much, that by the time you actually get your hands on it you’re far too afraid to play it for the fear of being disappointed. BioShock was one of those games for me.
After playing Irrational Games’ System Shock 2 way back in 1999, I was completely blown away and had been looking forward to a sequel ever since. The sequel never came, but years later it was announced that Irrational had been working on BioShock, a spiritual successor to the System Shock series. Rather than seeing at it as a great thing, I looked at it with skepticism since it sounded too good to be true. Could Irrational really pull it off again?
System Shock 2 (SS2) was one of my favorite games back then, since it was right up there with Thief: The Dark Project when it came to atmospherically charged experiences. The game was so immersive that every little experience it had to offer was magnified tenfold because of the way it would draw you in.
The world around you was so well-designed that it actually felt like it told a story on its own – this, coupled with the way the scattered PDAs displayed personal messages that pieced together the events that transpired, formed a brilliant and innovative way of passive storytelling, that didn’t steal the spotlight away from the gameplay.
BioShock borrows heavily from System Shock 2 in that sense – its ruined underwater dystopia, Rapture, has voice recordings scattered all over that have an insightful way of getting the game’s plot across with the personal touch of its inhabitants. The world too is reminiscent of System Shock 2’s space ship, since they both seemed like they once brimmed with life, but were now only empty shadows of their former selves. This setting put me at ease, since it seemed vaguely familiar to that in SS2 and altogether different at the same time.
Before we go any further, let me inform you that Nash has done an in-depth review of the game’s Xbox 360 version, and you can find it here. The gameplay is more or less the same, so I won’t go too deep into what’s already been covered.
Good Review of a Great Game. I think you should Post the System Specifaction on Which you was Playing It Thanks. 
