BioShock review for the PC

BioShock has been one of the most talked-about new releases for the PC of this year. Hopes and expectations have been sky high for this first person shooter, set in a futuristic yet crumbling underwater world infested with mutant life-forms - can it possibly live up to them? Now out on the shelves, it's time to see for yourself what BioShock has to offer. Before you do, check out our huge review in this issue of PCGZine to find out how we rate BioShock now!
Click here to read the full BioShock review for the PC now!

BioShock review for the PC
BioShock is an FPS. BioShock is a satire of an FPS. BioShock is the bright future of the FPS. BioShock is the forgotten past of the FPS. BioShock is incredible. BioShock is, also, disappointing. BioShock is many things, but most of all, BioShock is very, very important, more so than your lover, your mother, or even your dog.

Were this a crass and stupid publication, perhaps we'd say something like "it's the Martin Luther King of mainstream videogames" (and we've only written it there to see just how crass and stupid it does look in print). It's more like early Elvis, only without the offending-middle-aged- TV-presenters element. What it does it get the kids dancing in ways they didn't even realise existed, ways that free them from the stiff and closed-minded shuffle they'd been told was the only way it could be done.

Leaving aside all talk of the intriguing plot setup (and if any of this review seems to lacks detail, it's purely to prevent spoiling any of the experience), what makes BioShock such a revelation is a design-is-all ethos and a lack of rigidity to its combat. Its setting, the crumbling, underwater city of Rapture, is a triumph of Art Deco ideas. It melds the gleaming futuretropolis imagined by early sci-fi, the jolly naivety of the same era of cinema and advertising but sinisterly twisted, and, thanks to the ever-flanking oceanic depths, something entirely its own.