Years ago, Miles described to me a game that he wanted to make where your character avoided combat in favor of setting elaborate traps for your enemies.Bioshock is that game. Yes, it’s a shooter, and you can grab your guns and slug it out with the bad guys — but the really interesting bits come from sidestepping the gunfights by luring your enemies into a room full of explosives, or electrocuting them in a pool of water, or hacking the security systems to fight them for you. Combine that gameplay with a genuinely fascinating story and a truly creepy atmosphere, and you’ve got a game that blows anything else out of the water. Oh, and did I mention that it’s beautiful? Not likeGears of War, where people say it’s beautiful, but what they really mean is ugly in a really detailed next-gen kind of way. This game is just stunning. I constantly find myself wandering around a level looking at things instead of doing whatever I’m supposed to be doing. Really, the only thing I’m disappointed with is that they really hyped up the level of choice you would have, but the only option I’ve found so far is whether to kill the “little sisters” or not. Still, this game succeeds in refining the shooter genre in the same way that it’s spiritual predecessor,System Shock II did, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
