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Impressive start, claustrophobic environment. Bioshock takes place in an underwater colony called Rapture so as you might expect the environment is rather limited indoors, with the occasional glimpse through a porthole. As the player descends into Rapture, he/s able to have a look at the vast underwater setting surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, most of the game takes place indoors, not allowing for any underwater exploration. Thus, you can expect the typical dark, damp setting which although atmospheric, it gets tiresome after a while. Using ‘light games’ similar to the Quake series i.e. absence of any sort of lighting except limited ‘hotspots’, Bioshock attempt to transfer an intimidating atmosphere. One of the game’s interesting features is that the interface layout, as well as various mini-game screens and inventory seem to have ‘borrowed’ elements from Fallout. Even though these games seem to be too far apart from each other, one can’t help but notice the interface similarity. Worn out buttons, weathered metallic surfaces and a hint of rust are present on every interface screen. In addition, such features are present throughout the game. Nice touch, but it has been done before in a more proper way. The developers claim that Bioshock is set in the mid-60’s, although the game’s graphics tell otherwise. A mid-20’s era is transparent through each and every piece of equipment, room and decoration. In fact, even the game’s ‘conventional’ weapons such as ‘Tommy guns’, revolvers and shotguns appear to belong to the prohibition era instead of the ‘swinging sixties’. Thrown into the fray are humanoid enemies and ‘bosses’, which although are nicely done, they are not something spectacular, rather ‘expected quality’ from an action/horror FPS game. Too bad most of the screen is pitch black, hence not allowing a full appreciation of the game’s graphics. Bioshock’s visual effects are worth mentioning at this point, since they manage to actually transcribe explosions, bullet tracers and lighting very well. In fact as we’ve mentioned before ‘light games’ are the main point of Bioshock’s graphical experience. Perhaps it’s the only way of keeping system requirements low while focusing on impressive visual effects. Nevertheless, some might consider such approach ‘atmospheric’; we tend to find it lackluster. Let’s face it, when playing a game and you can’t see a thing, you might as well turn the TV/monitor off and play blind. In addition, enemies seem rather ‘dated’ with respect to detail, not to mention the totally un-realistic and comic-wise depiction of blood, especially when the player gets hit. Bioshock tries to ‘mask’ these issues by frenetic action and erratic enemy movement. Still, the ‘trained eye’ doesn’t get carried away by an enemy jumping around the screen while you’re getting shot by 2 of his buddies and security cameras are about to sound the alarm. The truth of the matter is that the whole graphical ‘experience’ of Bioshock is dated enemies and claustrophobic environments.
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Bioshock 
