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BioShock. The title alone is enough to send gamers into a frenzy. The spiritual successor to the System Shock series has garnered praise from nearly every corner of the gaming world. Me, being the critical bastard that I am, had to see for myself just how well it lives up to the praise its been getting.

BioShock takes place in the under city of Rapture, a sort of Individualist's paradise, where businesses are allowed to flourish without government meddling and the progress of science isn't hindered by morals. At the head of Rapture is Andrew Ryan, a mid-1900's industrialist who proposed the question "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?" The game begins with you, our main character on a plane crashing in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Struggling to survive, you stumble upon the entrance to Rapture: A lighthouse that houses a bathysphere which sends you to the underwater city. However, once you arrive inside Rapture, it is far from a paradise: The city is plagued with infrastructure problems, Andrew Ryan has gone seemingly insane, and most of the living population is composed of madmen who don't seem quite human. You find yourself with only one ally, the mysterious "Atlas," who will guide you through the city to rescue his family and take out the crazed Ryan.

While BioShock is a first-person shooter, it takes in elements from the RPG genre to make itself a totally original experience, much like Metroid Prime did with fusing together FPS and adventure. However, don't fear that it slows down the game; all of the RPG elements lie in character customization. You still run around and shoot things like in other shooters... there's just a little bit more finesse to it in this game. Alongside your standard assortment of guns, you can also equip yourself with "plasmids;" genetic enhancements that let you execute all sorts of tasks such as shooting fire and lightning out of your fingertips. Some plasmids go beyond your standard elemental attacks, however, and as you progress further into the game you'll find yourself sending swarms of bees onto your enemies, using powers of telekinesis to throw objects around, enraging your enemies so they'll turn against each other, and much, much more. And you can only equip a very limited amount of plasmids at a time, so you'll have to choose carefully based on your surroundings and current situation. Tactics doesn't completely dictate what plasmids you'll use, though; it's downright fun to experiment with all the plasmids and take out your enemies in different ways. Back on the conventional weapons side of things, there's even more variety to be found. Each gun can hold different types of ammo, ranging from standard to armor piercing to anti-personnel rounds and even explosives. On top of that you'll find places later in the game where you can upgrade your weapons to get larger magazines, faster reload times and more damage.

On top of plasmids and guns, there are over 50 "tonics" that are available to pimp your character out with, which passively enhances your character. Again, like the plasmids, you have a limited amount of slots for tonics, which all comes down to personal preference and how you like to fight. Do we want the tonic that reduces damage from physical attacks today, or the one that makes attacks with your wrench more powerful? Or you can get down with some of the funkier ones, like static field, which lets loose a burst of electricity on anybody who comes up and hits you. It's all about the customization, and BioShock has that in spades.

All of this is driven by two substances: ADAM and EVE. EVE is like ammo for your plasmids, and when you run out, you can no longer use them. ADAM, on the other hand, is the substance that makes the genetic tinkering possible. However, it is a somewhat rare substance, and thus Rapture uses "Little Sisters," creepy little girls with giant needles, to harvest ADAM from corpses. The Little Sisters are guarded by the monstrous "Big Daddies," which are the baddest enemies in the entire game. Later into the game, you'll have the opportunity to kill the Big Daddies guarding them so you may harvest the ADAM from the Little Sister. However, you'll be given a moral dilemma: You can harvest the ADAM from the Little Sister, which kills her but yields large amounts of ADAM. Or you may rescue her from her current life and return her to a normal little girl, which only brings forth a little bit of ADAM but also a promise of something good as a reward. Since there are only a limited amount of Little Sisters in the game, there is no way you'll be able to get enough ammo for all the plasmids and tonics. I will also mention there are some story consequences as well, and the promise of a mysterious reward should you save the Little Sisters. It's like the game is trying to get you to play through more than once to try different paths, and given the deep levels of customization, I can safely say that's not a bad idea.

While the tightly scripted story is divided into levels, BioShock gives you a bit more leeway than most other shooters in terms of where you can go. Each level oftentimes has multiple intersecting paths, giving you a bit of room for exploration to find discarded items, money and ammo. While you are given an onscreen arrow that directs you to your next objective so you don't get lost, (remember Crazy Taxi?) having this bit of leeway really makes the city of Rapture more believable. As we all know, any real city isn't just one long path you walk down, and the developers of BioShock knew that, too.

It's a shame to say that, despite the games excellent gameplay points, there are some drawbacks that make the game feel more tedious at times than all-out exiting. For one, there isn't much variety in terms of what enemies you face. Your basic enemies, the Splicers, are just people who messed around with ADAM so much they pretty much went crazy. There are 5 types of Splicers, each of which uses a different form of attack (guns, explosives, melee, etc.) or evasion techniques. (teleportation, crawling around like a spider.) As the game progresses, you'll note that you'll still be facing off against these same old enemies. Once you start to accumulate some of the better plasmids and tonics, the game doesn't really get more difficult as you progress, either. (Though BioShock's optional hard mode is quite hard!) There's also security robots, cameras and turrets you'll find yourself facing, but you can hack into them with a "fun-at-first-but-gets-boring-fast" minigame to have them attack enemy splicers instead. The Big Daddies break up some of the tedium as you move from objective to objective, giving you a real challenge and getting your heart rate going, each and every time. Some of the objectives are downright boring, too; the item collection quests will wear thin on your nerves before you know it.

Presentation-wise, BioShock is nothing but pure gold. The story isn't a grand sweeping epic, but rather something a bit more personal and has some fun references to works by Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Some of it is presented through meetings with the last residents of Rapture that haven't turned into Splicers yet, but a lot of backstory is told through audio diaries that detail the events leading up to what caused Rapture to turn into the dystopia it is now, and almost reminds me of the Terminals from the Marathon series. Graphically, BioShock is downright beautiful. The art style alone brings the 50's-era city to life, and all your standard next-gen lighting effects and physics are all there. BioShock is a treat for the eyes on both the PC and Xbox 360 versions... the PC version looking even nicer if you have a powerful enough machine. On the sound front, everything is as you could want it to be: Stellar voice acting, powerful sound effects and great mood-setting music.

However, BioShock isn't free of its technical problems: Both the 360 and PC versions are prone to a variety of graphical and audio glitches and problems, some of which have been patched since I played it. None of them are really to major, unless you just happen to be unlucky enough to have a computer configuration that BioShock just doesn't seem to like. Since the devs are pretty active right now in patching these bugs, I'm not going to really mark down the game much for them. Chances are, you will either not notice or just not be hit with them. On one of our test machines, we had BioShock running full blast without any hitches.

It all comes down to what version is best for you. If you're considering the PC route, keep in mind that the hardware requirements are pretty steep; your video card has to support Pixel Shader 3. We had it running on a Pentium D with a GeForce 7300 with medium-low quality and still had a decent framerate, so if you don't own a 360 there's still some hope for you. If you want Achievements, the 360 version is your only option. If you have a Core 2 and a DX10 video card like the GeForce 8800, you can be sure the PC version will look better in your case. There's also the matter of if you want to be tied to a gamepad on the 360, or be able to use the plethora of control options on the PC. It's all personal preferences, really.

In the end, BioShock is a pretty solid game. The deep character customization features and impressive presentation will be more than enough to keep you around through the tedious stretches of the game, and maybe even warrant a replay.