The Un-Halo, or a decided counterpoint to Microsoft's yeehaw Halo extravaganza, BioShock is a mostly original game in what's sure to become a franchise -- as opposed to a third-time charmer for Halo. The game's genuinely jaw-dropping* (if your rig is properly pimped, that is; if not, expect wig-outs, stutters, driver issues... you're pretty much screwed until the patch comes out) audio/visuals that positively ooze "atmosphere" underscores the fact that BioShock is also a terribly deep take on action gaming in general. It doesn't just look great and sound great, it tastes like greatness... not that it tastes great, necessarily, more like tastes foul and unsettles the stomach and makes the mind reel. In fact, one might say that BioShock is at the vanguard of gaming as metaphysically-inclined interactive drama, so tastefully done is it.

It's a first-person shooter, sure, but that's only the core gameplay mechanic, not the entire premise. BioShock is also a role-playing game (RPG) of critical, many-ways-to-skin-a-cat choices, pick your battles wisely, pick your weapon promptly (really promptly, or arrrrg!). It's also an adventure on a grand and horrific scale where you're dropped into an undersea Bio-Dome of sorts, called Rapture, full of denizens once bent on the utopian lifestyle and now just plain-old bent.

It's a convoluted tale -- but graciously, not overwhelming -- of unsurpassed storytelling. Moreover, interacting with said tale makes BioShock as much a game of "test your moral compass in minutes a day" as it is "kill bad guys and stay alive," for throughout you are pretty much forced to inject yourself with gene juice like a BioJunkie. Hence, you're reluctantly but voluntarily plague by the same weird, overwhelming plasmatic crack that has turned the current residents south, only they've been exposed much longer than you, and may have tried the wrong flavors or BioCrack... you don't know if they're truly doomed (you capping them in the head is one sure way to know) nor if you are, too -- should you explore the wherefore of this socio-genetic-engineering experiment gone awry, or just weapon-up and get the hell outta there? It doesn't help that most of them are trying to kill you... yet you pity the lot, still.

There's your traditional glut of stock, one-man-army weapons, plus a whole slew of upgradeable genetic-enhancement tools that give you mutant superpowers and/or telekentic BioMojo via get your-crack-on gene-juice injections. And there's an unrelenting need to grab more powers, or upgrade the ones you have, because good old bullets are few and far between, so you horde them, let the plasmid have their way with you, because it's hard to miss when zapping up some twisted dude with a bolt of BioLightning, and the bullets you might otherwise send his way might stray... It's all part and parcel of BioShock's saturated sense of looming doom: you'll feel crazed, picking and choosing what weapon to use, or which BioPower to upgrade, and figuring out if you can afford it, financially and constitutionally.... you are defeating that which you are becoming.

Somewhere along the way you must even decide if you're going to rescue demonized young girls (called Little Sisters) which will net you a small cash reward of BioCurrency called Adams which you can use to buy some goofballs or gene-meth or whatever, or you can slaughter them and "harvest" much more than the mere reward, thus creating an inner conflict of altruism vs. self preservation. That single act of taboo got a lot of ignorant press, but, to be clear, it's a recurring event that can turn the whole story; it's pivotal and entirely the point of the aforementioned metaphysically-inclined interactive drama.

Besides, the violence of it all mostly implied rather than graphically displayed, for the real gruesomeness is found in the fact that you had to choose what to do. It's genuinely heart-breaking, gut wrenching... So to that end -- and all the way along, for that matter -- BioShock is a game that transcends gaming and art and harsh literary elegance, it's all that and them more than the sum of those parts because of it. BioShock is more than a great looking, great sounding, tastefully foul, literarily harsh game that you immerse yourself in; it immerses itself in you, the player.

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TIP: In the PC version of BioShock, you can modify the "defuser.ini" file (found in the BioShock folder) to write binds for cheats. For example, add "F10=god" then (re)save the file. When you next play the game, hitting F10 with activate God Mode, aka, invincibility.

*NOTE: BioShock (PC) was tested on a Toshiba Satellite X200 Uber laptop, which meets or exceeds the game's minimum system requirements with ease.