4.5/5 ★ – methylbenzene's review of BioShock.

Now this is a GAME Is it though? I think BioShock is revolutionary at least in shaping my view of video games. I have long recognized them as a fantastic art form but I never thought video games could be used as such an effective medium to convey philosophical ideas. But BioShock does exactly that. At its core, this game is a work of philosophical fiction. Objectivism was a philosophical idea put forward by Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand, which she explored fully in her novel Atlas Shrugged. Where Atlas Shrugged ends, BioShock starts, with the player being dropped in this fully objectivist, free-market city called Rapture. I LOVE the gameplay, the atmosphere, and the art style in general. Especially as a fan of multiplayer fps games who hasn't played many single player fps, playing through BioShock was a delight. So many cool mechanics in the form of plasmids that bring variety to the game. Nothing I can say about the atmosphere that hasn't already been said. But the audio design especially plays such a key role in bringing to life the dystopian world of Rapture. The story is a bit hard to follow because it is mostly presented in the form of audio logs and radio messages, but put in the effort to keep up and it will pay off so hard. I saw many people saying this game is 10 hours long but I completed it in 16 hours LOL. Maybe I did too much exploring or maybe I'm just bad idk. Regardless, brilliant, brilliant game. Looking forward to seeing whatever BioShock 2 has in store for me.