"It wasn't impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea, it was impossible to build it anywhere else." — Andrew Ryan

I usually dread playing games that have been the subject of excessive media attention for many months prior to their release. However, I really enjoy a good first-person shooter, especially one that has a solid story to tell. Bioshock, the massively hyped new title from 2K Games, manages to fit that bill nicely.

Bioshock is set in 1960 in a secret, undersea metropolis called Rapture. The city is the magnum opus of entrepreneurial genius Andrew Ryan, a man who rejected the socialist tendencies of both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the judgmental morality of the church. Ryan sought to construct a new civilization, hidden from the "parasites" of those societies.

In Rapture, science and commerce were allowed to expand and explore unrestricted by government or morality. Ultimately, it was this liberty that led to the city's downfall. When Dr. Tenenbaum, a scientist with a history of questionable morals, discovered a sea slug that could be used to grow stem cells, human evolution in Rapture became as clay to the hands of scientists and a valuable opportunity for profiteers.

The stem cells came to be called "ADAM." When it was combined with other genetic research projects called "plasmids" and a serum called "EVE," it became possible to alter the human body and mind to unlock new potential. Soon, genetically modifying (or "splicing") oneself became as chic as combing grease through one's hair or smoking long cigarettes.

The method of creating ADAM is a bit gruesome. The sea slug that excretes the substance does so most efficiently when living in a symbiotic relationship with a host. Rapture's ethically bankrupt scientists discovered that the best host for the organism was young human girls.

The slugs were surgically implanted into the stomachs of children, who were brainwashed into seeing human corpses as "angels." They were taught to extract used ADAM from the corpses with huge hypodermic syringes. They would then ingest the material, and the slugs in their stomachs would reprocess it into new ADAM. Harvesting the ADAM meant extracting the slug, a procedure in which the host would not survive. These doomed children are known as Little Sisters.

As I said, it's pretty gruesome.

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Soon, everyone was "splicing." Not surprisingly, a lot of people went overboard. A side-effect of excessive splicing is madness, resulting in behavior similar to addiction to some of today's illegal drugs. Splicers seeking to feed their addiction would see the Little Sisters as easy targets, so the scientists sought to provide protection for them.

Protection came in the form of Big Daddies. These are adult humans who were modified and conditioned to single-mindedly protect Little Sisters from any harm. They wear protective suits re-engineered from deep-sea diving gear.

Big Daddies are hulking brutes whose size and slow, lumbering pace give lie to the threat they pose. They may look slow and dumb, but the first time you piss one off, you'll learn how fast and deadly these massive guardians can be.

The splicing situation continued to grow out of control until it reached a critical point on New Year's Eve in 1959. The crazed "splicers" attacked and killed most of the city's still-sane population. Now the city is in ruin and crawling with splicers, searching corpses for ADAM and babbling crazily. A few sane refugees hide in the ruins and struggle to survive. The Little Sisters and their overprotective Big Daddies roam the city, harvesting the now quite numerous corpses strewn about the streets and corridors.

It is into this aquatic nightmare that our hero, Jack, is dropped (literally) when the plane on which he is a passenger crashes into the Atlantic near a mysterious lighthouse. Jack is the lone survivor and has no choice but to swim toward the lighthouse, the only dry land for miles. Jack finds the lighthouse deserted, but inside is a bathysphere, a small spherical deep-sea vessel that takes him to the city beneath the waves ... and to his destiny.

(Jack ... survivor ... plane crash ... why does this sound familiar?)

Gameplay. What can be said? It's a first-person shooter. That means you experience the world from the point of view of Jack, and you shoot things by aiming with your mouse and moving around with the keyboard.

Jack gradually builds an impressive arsenal, ranging from a simple pistol to a more powerful shotgun to a devastating grenade launcher — just to name a few examples. Each weapon uses different ammo — three kinds, in fact. For instance, the pistol can fire general-purpose bullets or switch to anti-personnel rounds (for taking down splicers fast) or armor-piercing rounds (ideal for mechanical devices and those heavily armored Big Daddies). Selecting the right ammo for the enemy you're facing adds a bit more strategy to the mix.

The weapons themselves can be upgraded throughout the game at kiosks, known as "Power to the People" stations. Each one is able to apply one upgrade to one weapon, adding even more personalization to the game.

Of course, with all the talk above about genetic modification and supernatural abilities, it isn't hard to guess that combat doesn't stop at pistols and shotguns. In fact, pretty soon after arriving in Rapture, Jack picks up his first plasmid, the fist-full of lightning known as Electro Bolt. All plasmids are powered by the blue serum called "Eve," which is conveniently found in syringes littered around the city.

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As with weapons and ammo, different plasmids are better suited to different situations. Electro Bolt can temporarily stun an enemy, giving Jack a chance to get close and brain them with a pipe wrench. It also can fry multiple enemies simultaneously if they're foolishly standing in water. Incinerate sets the enemy ablaze, often causing them to run around screaming, spreading the flames to other nearby enemies or puddles of petroleum on the floor. Probably my favorite (if least used) plasmid is Insect Swarm, which is pretty self-explanatory. Watching enemies frantically swat at the deadly swarm of bugs stinging them is endlessly entertaining.

Upgrading plasmids and tonics (which are similar to plasmids but act as passive enhancements instead of offensive powers) requires the acquisition of ADAM. It can be spent at "Gatherer's Garden" kiosks to purchase a variety of goodies, such as plasmid and tonic upgrades and the ability to use more plasmids and tonics at once. The "Gene Bank" kiosks can be accessed to change which plasmids and tonics are active at any given time.

The Little Sisters present the game's moral dilemma. Upon locating a Little Sister for the first time, Jack's guide Atlas implores him to slay the Little Sisters, insisting they aren't children anymore. They're monsters. Atlas cautions Jack that he needs all the ADAM he can get.

But Dr. Tenenbaum appears and pleads with Jack to spare the girls. Seems Dr. Tenenbaum, the same scientist who created the Little Sisters, has had a change of heart about them. She has created a special plasmid that will allow Jack to cure the girls, but doing so will only yield half as much ADAM.

Jack has to examine his conscience and weigh the fate of the Little Sisters against his own desire for power. I played the game twice. The first time, I harvested all of the Little Sisters (2K did a good job of making me feel bad about it), and the second time, I rescued them just to see the different ending. Of course, in order to harvest or rescue the Little Sisters, Jack first has to deal with the Big Daddies protecting them.

Fights with the Big Daddies are easily the most challenging and most fun battles in the game. Big Daddies aren't aggressive toward Jack unless he attacks them or gets too close to the Little Sisters they're protecting; but once the light burning within their helmet changes from a passive amber to a menacing red ... look out.

There are two classes of Big Daddies: Bouncers and Rosies. (I presume Bouncers were originally adult males and Rosies adult females — i.e. Rosie the Riveter — but I never saw any real confirmation of this.) When angered, the Bouncers gets up close and personal, charging Jack at high speed and trying to impale him with the massive drill it has for a right arm. The Rosies, on the other hand, prefer to attack from a distance with their lethal rivet guns and by launching proximity mines.

Both types are extremely dangerous and must be approached only when the player is prepared for an intense, protracted firefight with a very hard-to-kill enemy. Later in the game, Elite versions of each type appear just to keep it interesting. A smart player will save the heavy-duty ammo for these fights and perhaps postpone the fight altogether if ammo is in short supply.

The city of Rapture is absolutely amazing to behold. Anyone who isn't awed by the spectacular view to which Jack is treated on his ride down on the bathysphere should check his or her pulse. Just imagine an art deco metropolis like mid-20th century New York, with majestic spires stretching into the sky and enormous neon signs glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. (Those with limited imaginations can opt to peruse our screenshot library instead.) I can honestly say that, if not for all the maniacal mutants running around killing people, Rapture would be a city in which I would love to reside.

2K does a wonderful job keeping the player aware they are in a city under the sea, as quite often the environments Jack is exploring feature enormous glass walls or ceilings and, many times, giant glass tunnels running between structures. Much work was put into bringing the sea floor itself to life, as well. Schools of fish dart about; seaweed sways in the current; and often, the melancholy song of whales echoes through parts of the city. At one point, there was even a Big Daddy strolling along on the sea floor (I was worried he would be coming through the glass at me, but thankfully, no.) Of course, there is also the occasional waterlogged corpse drifting about.

As beautiful as it is, the city is also in pretty bad shape. It has fallen to ruin since its denizens went mad. As one might expect, many parts of it are leaking. Water is practically everywhere. It could be said the city is dying a death of a thousand cuts as it slowly floods with sea water.

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Other games have done the "room slowly filling with water" bit, but I can't think of any that do it as well as one room that Jack passes through early in the game. It's a glass-encased elevator lobby. Water breaks through the wall high above and crashes through the lobby's glass ceiling in a torrent. I was amazed as the water flowed across the floor, put out a small fire, reached a wall and began to rise. It was the most realistic water effect I have ever seen in a video game. That effect alone had to take some serious design effort.

In parts of the city, recognizable music and songs from the time period play over public broadcast, intermixed with various public service announcements, such as one warning against excessive splicing. These announcements and advertisements for Rapture's commercial enterprises sound authentic to the time period. Many billboards and signs in the game adopt the hand-drawn cartoon style that was common at the time.

The sights and sounds of Rapture combine to create an immersive experience that's a cut above most games.

Bioshock won me over, I confess. The story and setting are compelling enough to keep me interested in seeing more. The Big Daddy battles are intense and exciting enough to keep the journey interesting. That's not to say everything was perfect.

Thankfully, none of the complaints I have about the game are all that severe. In fact, some are pretty minor, even fairly standard complaints about the genre. For instance, it's never satisfactorily explained why the city is littered with weapons and ammo and health kits and EVE syringes, just waiting for Jack to use on his adventure. The splicers are crazy, but they still know the value of weapons and healing items. Many of the splicers will flee toward the nearest health station when gravely injured, but they never bothered to pick up the health kits strewn on the ground? I'm dubious.

Then there are the splicers themselves. There just isn't much variety of them. Five, to be exact. Thuggish Splicers tote heavy clubbing implements like pipes. Leadhead Splicers wield guns. Nitro Splicers lob explosives. Spider Splicers crawl on the ceiling and are armed with dangerous hooks on their hands and feet. Houdini Splicers teleport around the room, shooting fireballs. Once you learn how to kill them, they're all pretty easy. They vary only slightly as the game progresses, wearing different clothing and speaking in different voices, but they are all the same five enemy types, and they're all pretty much filler between Big Daddy fights, which really pose the only challenge.

The aspect of the game that comes closest to tedium is the "hacking" of various vending machines, safes and defense systems. It's essentially a mini-game requiring the player to rearrange pipe pieces to complete a circuit before the fluid flowing through the pipes reaches the end. I first played the game on the hardest difficulty level, but it seems that setting doesn't affect the hacking mini-game as it seemed extremely easy until very late in the game. There are even tonics to enhance Jack's ability to hack devices, but these seem mostly unnecessary. By the time I started encountering high difficulty hacks even on the hard mode, I had quite a big supply of Auto-Hack tools, which are pretty much self-explanatory. Most annoying to me was the notion that hacking a vending machine is exactly like hacking a gun turret, which is exactly like hacking a safe. A bit more variety in the design of the hacking mini-games would have gone a long way. I came away with the impression that much more was planned for the hacking mini-game but was scrapped somewhere in the game's development.

Another aspect that seems tacked on is stealth. For most of the game, stealth really isn't an option. Later, various plasmids and tonics appear that add some stealth aspects, but it seems like an afterthought. Perhaps it's just that moving while crouched causes the camera to bounce and sway radically, making me nauseous. Anyway, stealth never really seems necessary.

The game isn't terribly difficult, even on the hard mode. I'm not a newbie to the first-person shooter genre, but I'm not an expert either. After playing through on the hard mode, I played through again on easy. "Easy" doesn't describe it. Through most of the easy game, I used nothing but the pipe wrench and rarely had any trouble. It took only five or six hours to complete the game on this mode, but of course, I knew the lay of it the second time around. Nonetheless, easy mode is absolutely zero difficulty. It's probably great for those who prefer games that pose absolutely no challenge, but not really for anyone else.

Adding to the "too easy" complaint is the existence of the so-called "Vita Chambers" throughout the game. These are essentially checkpoints at which Jack will be resurrected with no penalty if he dies. If an enemy is half dead when it kills Jack, it will still be half-dead when Jack catches up to it again. This could make even the Big Daddy fights almost trivial. I can understand the need for such gimmicks in the easy mode, but they really shouldn't have been active on the hard setting ... or at the very least it should have been up to the player to find them and activate them using hard-to-find tokens or something.

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It should be noted also that Bioshock's support for 16:9 widescreen format has been the subject of some controversy. The common belief was the 16:9 view uses the same field of view (FOV) as the 4:3 but with part of the top and bottom of the image cut off. Screen shots are available on the Web that illustrate the issue. For its part, 2K says the 16:9 view came first, and to create the 4:3, they extended the screen vertically. A difference of semantics, some might argue. This generated enough furor that 2K has promised a patch to allow players of the PC version of the game to change the FOV. At first, I shared in the outrage, but then I played the game on a 110" DLP-projection screen in 16:9 and realized I really didn't care. Your mileage may vary.

All these complaints aside, the game is quite good overall. If you're a fan of a good story, you'll enjoy Bioshock, even if you don't like FPS games so much. If you're a fan of FPS games, you'll enjoy Bioshock, unless you're adamant that the game be supremely challenging. I am a fan of both, and I truly enjoyed Bioshock for the visuals, the story, the moral dilemma of the Little Sisters and the challenging battles with Big Daddies. Now, would you kindly take the hype with a grain of salt and go ahead and give the game a whirl? I think you'll be glad you did.