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Screams don’t scare me, or should they? Moving on to Bioshock’s sound chute, it’s another typical horror game approach with silence followed by screaming, gun sounds, explosions and radio-ed transcripts. The minimalist approach seen in the graphics department is present to the sound effects, with the exception of a few environment scripts. Musically, Bioshock seems to belong in the wrong era than that proposed by the developers, since themes from the 20’s are ever-present. Although music is limited to a bare minimum, it is still belonging to a wrong time-frame.In additiob, when the player interacts with vending machines –more on those later- a rather aggravating theme is present. I’ve seen that Shock before, but it was a System one! Perhaps a few of you don’t remember System Shock, an action/adventure game dated in the 90’s. Still, Bioshock plays very similarly with that game. Fast-paced action sequences followed by narrated briefings that not only add new objectives, but also add elements to the game’s background story. Nevertheless, it’s a typical FPS affair, with most –if not all- of the screen is taken over by the action window. Fire and lightning from his fingertips! What sets Bioshock apart from its competitors is the intuitive ‘plasmid’ weapons. Apparently, scientists in Rapture have managed to interfere with human DNA, thus allowing an individual to gain certain bizarre abilities by injecting him/herself with EVE. Thus, the player can send lightning shocks through his fingers, set a room ablaze or even catch grenades and return them to sender before they explode. Intriguing to say the least. However, there is a limited amount of ‘plasmid slots’, so the player must choose carefully. Each plasmid is suitable for a given task, incinerate is required to melt ice in order to gain access to a new area, or electric shocks are handy when dealing with bosses due to their stunning effect. Granted, there are certain points where the player can change his plasmid configuration, still they are too little, too few. Moreover, typical guns are rendered useless after a while thus forcing the player to use plasmids and juggle around which ones to take. As you may expect, picking the right configuration can make your life in Rapture that much easier. Overall is a nice concept but its limitations leave a rather bad aftertaste. Let’s face it, limiting a player’s weapon arsenal is not going to earn you ‘points’ in FPS games, even horror ones.
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Bioshock 
