I'm one of the few people who didn't but Bioshock back in 2007 and 2008 when it was still Bioshock (Before we had to differentiate from the sequel). I just now purchased the game on Steam because of a $5 sale (I also bought the sequel and Borderlands, but that's for another day).
My main attraction to the game, the reason I bought a four year old game, was the scenery, atmosphere and story (What I'd heard of, that is). The idea of a city built underwater intrigued me. Now, after having played the game, I believe that the atmosphere/scenery/setting is the best part of the game. The under water city is beautiful. Rapture, the city, has been, for the most part, torn apart by the Splicers. Rapture is filled with malevolent characters (From Splicers to Big Daddys to security sentries) who want nothing but to kill you .
As you can see from these screenshots, Rapture is a beautiful thing to look at, even though it has been destroyed through years of fighting.
Now for the rest of the game, the part I enjoy less. At the start of the game you are escaping a crashed plane, you go straight down into rapture and from there on, you spend most of the game fighting your way through rooms to other rooms to finish missions that you started in other rooms. For the duration of the first 3-4 levels, you spend the majority of the time completing tasks for characters you've never spoken to (One of them speaks into your ear, giving you instructions).
The actual combat portion of the game, which is what you'll be doing 90% of the time, is broken up into two sections. The first section is the weapons. You have your typical pistol, machine gun, melee weapon and a few others (nothing very interesting). The second section is the plasmids. You've probably seen a trailer of the player shooting lightning from his hand, striking a pool of water and frying up bad guys (splicers). This is a plasmid. Plasmids have their own ammo-like bar that must be recharged (taking all the fun out of it). You are only given a certain number of slots that can hold plasmids at a time (At the start of the game you can only hold three). This is a serious limitation. It slows down the game to change and replace your super-powers.
After you learn how to strike your opponent with lightning, then switch to your shotgun/machine gun and finish them off, fighting goes from an interactive experience to a robotic, lifeless task you must do for every room. Every room. Even the areas you have already cleared will be refilled with splicers on your return, guaranteeing you that you'll have to fight more and more and more. The only way to get a pause is to, literally, pause the game (either that or just stand around the recently conquered areas, gazing at the beauty of the ocean through the virtual windows).
Graphics: 7/10
The magnificent world of Bioshock is the only thing that kept me going. I've played plenty of good games, games that I actually wanted to play the next level, games that I wanted to see what would happen next, what new door or power I would unlock. This wasn't one. The well crafted and curious city of Rapture was the only reason I didn't email Gabe Newell demanding a refund (We all know that wouldn't have worked).
Now, beyond the artwork and the creativity of the world, a lot of the world seems more than a little bit to be made out of boxes. Look at the pictures of the guns and close-up objects below. Everything is clunky. The guns look like the kind of thing you'd make in Adobe and post to your Twitter account before deleting (Maybe that was an exaggeration).
Gameplay: 1.5/10
I've seen worse, but this is just about the most generic game (That lumps it in with the tons of others that have no creativity at all; the game studios that have dozens of employees but not one thinking mind among them), in terms of combat and interaction, that I've ever played. The movement is clunky and awkward. I guess the idea was to appear to be realistic (but when you're shooting lightning from your finger tip, that doesn't make sense).
Story: 4/10
After the initial arrival in Rapture, you spend most of the game trying to figure out what happened. If you fail to pick up a journal, or listen to it, then you've just missed a vital piece of the story. Throughout most of the game it is just "go find X". If this was a homework assignment we'd call it "Busy work". The story never really picks up.
Other:
None: This game offers no real bonus features.
Overall:
5/10
What originally seemed like a prospect for a very enjoyable play through turned out to be a "Force yourself to play, you already payed for it" kind of experience. This game did
nothing for me. The only redeeming quality was the ever-interesting city of Rapture. I couldn't even bring myself to finish playing the game.
