It has finally arrived, the long anticipated Bioshock for the XBOX 360. Is the game all it has been hyped up to be? With amazing graphics, awesome game play, and an extremely incredible story, you bet your sweet arse it is! Journey to the underwater city of Rapture in this astonishing next gen FPS.

Right when you pop Bioshock into your 360, you know you are going to be in for a great gaming experience. When the game starts you get a small taste of things to come, such as the amazing true next gen graphics, and great voice acting.

You would think that, since Bioshock is an FPS, that it would have mediocre story line. Well, if that is your line of thinking, you are dead wrong! Bioshocks story is one of the most immersive and well told stories I have ever played in a game. It rivals that of a RPGs story line, yet a lot easier to understand in most cases. It is 1960, and you play as the lone survivor of a mysterious plane crash that takes place over the Atlantic Ocean. As you swim away from the wreckage, you discover a building on what seems to be a light house isle. Once you enter the building, you find a small sub like device, and immediately set forth to the City of Rapture. Rapture is a under water city built by Andrew Ryan. It was built so that “Man would be entitled to the sweat from there brow, where the great would not be held back by the small”. Once you finally enter Rapture, you will see that a lot has taken place, Rapture is no longer an amazing city, but ruined remains of the great city it once was. Soon you will be thrown into a spiral of plot twists that alter the story greatly, and even moral conflicts that the player decides what to do!

Graphics or Game play? That is usually a question that many gamers find themselves asking. Well, in the case of Bioshock, no need to choice! You get amazing graphics, and extremely fun game play, all in one big package!

Once you take control of your character, you will immediately see how amazing the graphics are. After your plane crash, you see the incredible looking water, and the realistic fire right in front of you. Once you get further into the game, and discover the city of Rapture, you will be in for real eye candy. The first thing you see in Rapture is one of your many enemies known as a “Splicer”. When you get further into the game, you will see the awesome enemy designs of other things, such as the little sisters, and the already famous Big Daddies. The character design on this once human creature is amazingly detailed. Once you get to walk around, you will notice many things. Such as the indoor trees and water that look great, and more of the realistic fire. You can even look through windows to see outside the underwater city to see things you would expect. You can see fish swim by, and even a whale at times! The weapons you get also look amazing, from the classic revolver, old school Thompson machine gun, to the “chemical thrower”. All the designs are top notch.

As if graphics weren’t enough, you also get incredible sound! The soundtrack of the game is very mellow and unique, playing off the atmosphere of the area you are in. The sound effects are very well done from voice acting of all the characters, to the sounds your powers make, all the way to the sound of you kicking around a garbage can! The plasmids of the game are especially nice, from the sound of electricity flowing through your characters veins, all the way to the sound of fire floating at your finger tips.

The games combat system follows any normal FPS’ formula, but with a few twists. You have your basic weapons used to take down your foes, but with these weapons, you also have multiple ammo types. Each gun has three different ammo types, all of which can be effective against certain enemies. On top of all the weapons you get, you will also have Plasmids. Plasmids are the “powers” you get in the game due to using genetic altering materials known as ADAM. There are over ten different Plasmids you can use in the game, all of which can be upgraded to perform more devastating effects. There are also things called “Tonics” which will up your other skills, such as your strength (so you can do more damage with melee weapons), or even tonics that boost your ability to hack items. Hack items? That’s right! Hacking is a big part of the Bioshock world. When you hack something, you are thrown into a small mini game. This game consists of you making the correct pipe design to make a liquid flow from one area, to the designated exit area. If you’re a old school PC gamer, this may remind you of a old game known as “Pipe frenzy”. You can hack vending machines to get cheaper items, or even hack security robots to have them fight for you, rather than against you.

Game play is very much innovated. Everything reacts as it should, in a sometimes creepy realistic manor. Fire spreads on certain things, water amplifies electricity, and even enemies react like you would expect! An enemy that is on fire will run and jump into water (which can be fun if you know what to do after they are in the water) to put the fire out.

This is a game that no gamer should ever miss out on! Though the game only has a single player campaign, it is well worth getting. There are multiple endings, and multiple ways to deal with many situations. If you’re an achievement hound, there are 50 achievements that will require you to explore every area in Rapture to find certain things, and play through a second time to perform certain acts different from your first play through. My suggestion, go out and buy the game right now! Don’t shut down your computer, just go buy it now and prepare for an epic gaming experience. Prepared to be shocked by Bioshock.