"Would You Kindly" Play This Game?

I came late into the Xbox 360 scene. I bought my console towards the end of 2008, and I only picked this up at the weekend just gone. I had heard good things about it, and then I'd heard its just another shooter trying to top the major series in the world at the moment. (Half Life, Halo and the such.) And to put it straight out there, it is up there with the greats. Set in stone.

Lets start with the graphics; like all reviews. The graphics rose the bar for most shooters on the 360. Or so I think so, but then again- this is my opinion. The game is mostly underwater, so the team making this went to a lot of trouble to get that right effect. They didn't fail. Seriously, this water sprays, and does other watery stuff like it would in real life, and looks the part too. It is the Megan Fox of water effects in video games.
The enemies- Big Daddies and Splicers- are superbly rendered from their sketch book like nature. They look amazing in action, and when being attacked, (so thats being set on fire or frozen in place- which may I say looks spectacular.) The Big Daddies look tremendous clunking about Rapture in search of a little companion. They are litterally walking steel, and as with the water, the team have gone out the way to make them look like super villians from a comic book. The lighting and shadow effects, set the atmosphere up for a meanacing adventure. The only issue I had were the occasional pop in graphics or a sort of none textured effect on a fast moving object, (Big Daddies lights) but it didn't detract from the expirence.

The combat has a strategy like feeling to it. Your health doesn't last long in a fire fight, leaving you constantly vulnerable and the areas you fight in are huge, but even with all the cover available, and you might be full of health packs, but the enemies tend to gang up on you and those ammunition stores will end up disappearing, this game is solid. That doesn't mean that the enemies will end up destroying you over and over; oh no.
Lets speak weapons. Best pistol in any game? A magnum? Check. Close range awesome-orific shotguns? Check. Grenades with a ridiculous range? Check. Standard machine guns? Check. But what makes this games combat so great you ask? It sounds so generic I hear you say? Well aside from the solid set of weapons, you have plasmids. These are like mini super powers, which act as the games gimmick. You can choose from Winter Storm to Insect swarm or even hypnotising a Big Daddy for your own accord. That is one thing I'd like to bring up as well. Big Daddies are just epic to fight. Seriously, they go up there with Scarabs, Striders, or even the last boss on Duke 3D! From freezing them to get a few cheap hits in or even towards the end of the game, when you become more and more powerful, taking them on with just some electricity and a wrench. It is clever and witty in an odd way, but sometimes can become repetitive. Plus to add that death in game is never a worry, (unless you have the DLC,) as you spawn in a "Vita Chamber" just down the corridor and everything you have accomplished stays accomplished. Which, if the chamber happens to be further along down the area you need to trek through, the only enemies or hazards left are those that just ended your life. It isn't game breaking but takes away some of the fun in the game.
To add to all the things you have to worry over, such as health and ammo, those plasmids come with their own ammo too! ADAM is the source of all the powers, how you buy more, get upgrades and such, but EVE is what you will pick up to top you up for more burning sprees. I found that through my playthrough of this game, I never ran out EVE hypos, (needles you stick in your arm,) which I guess is good, but became a bit of a piss take after awhile.
Upgrades are all the rage in this game. Although you won't upgrade all the guns in the game, or all your plasmids, its fun to see what you can get on your next run through. I do reccomend upgrading your machine gun kick back, shotgun power, and electricity powers to the max. As well as these upgradables for use in combat, you also get tonics to aid you as well. These are taken for granted after awhile, you might have a tonic which sends off an electric blast when taking physical damage or make your trusty wrench turn people into ice. These too can be expanded upon.

The characterisation of the game and the misleading story line follows Jack, a supposedly normal guy ending up in Rapture after a plane crash. As you enter Rapture its clear that things aren't going right as you notice failing lights, a Lone Big Daddy being electrified and the radio picking up Atlus's orders and peoples cries for help. Upon entering the actual area of play, the game bombards you with two fleshed out characters, Andrew Ryan and Atlus. Ryan has built Rapture, but has become it's demise as well, wanting all the power to himself, and Atlus being the bog standard guy in your ear telling you what to do.
As you progress you meet Tennenbaum and the Little Sisters and how they came to be from her sick twisted expirements. You always know that help is always 2 steps away from you, as Ryan is always 3 steps infront of it.
The story also has a story within it. As well as Jack's adventure going on around you, diaries are picked up from around the city which describe what happened say at a ruined New Years party or in a medical ward. These became the star of the show for me, as the main story was strong, but weakened towards the end. It was as if it were just a big mashup of what they wanted to do, but couldn't to prevent the game from trailing on from it's 15 hours plus time span. It was like someone offering you delicious Pepsi, and then suddenly swapping it from your hand to nasty Coke Zero.

What I found was that, in this game, real people aren't face to face with you for long. The longest probably being Andrew Ryan with his speech. I think there was a fine and dandy reason for this. As well as the obvious it keeps Rapture a mysterious and rather lonely place, the lip syncing was absolutly diabolical. And this is what happens in the Unreal Engine made game, the voice acting can be sublime, but the lips won't match up, and it ruins it. Ryan looked like a poorly dubbed Kung-Fu flick. It made me cringe. I'm glad they realised this and kept people as far aways as possible.

To nitpick a bit more on it, after singing it's grace, the subtitles didn't work well, with speechs still on screen 15 minutes after finishing. The ending became weaker, with the final boss possibly being the easiest things I have ever done while playing a game. Seriously.

The game was fun, it had that nice bulky feel to it and in the end, felt like a good meal on a Sunday afternoon. I praise it for everything it did. Story telling on par with most best selling books, and graphics and combat like you've seen before, but done in such a way. The enemies were different and held a challange, unlike most shooters; run and gun wasn't and option. It was clever and made you think, and puzzles and level gimmicks didn't over stay their welcome. Characters were introduced nicely and slowly with them being fleshed out in diaries with some excellent voice work. I highly reccomend this game. And with the added bonus of the sequal coming out next year, your going to need this to catch up with the story. Let's hope BioShock 2 lives up to it's older brother.