"I've never been one to question providence."

Having played Bioshock perhaps a squintillion or more times previously, getting to play this game with someone unfamiliar with it's twists is simply wonderful, all the joy of the reveal while getting to see the magician set up it's tricks all throughout.

Bioshock enraptures (hehe) you from the get go, presenting you with a madman's giant gold statue who apparently doesn't see the irony in headlining this monument of ego with "No Gods or Kings". It eloquently demonstrates what's in store for you, which is a cavalcade of insane people who just so happen to be infinitely charismatic. Andrew Ryan and his underwater insane asylum are so richly engrossing and untapping the history of Rapture and it's downfall is always engaging, helped along by listening to old audio logs of some of Rapture's worst, and somehow, every now and then going, "Well, yeah, I suppose that's a reasonable thing to say given the circumstances"

That's how this game really gets it's spliced claws in you, everything and everyone is believable, you might think a man who built capitalist Atlantis was a megalomaniac, and you'd be correct, but by the end of it you at least understand WHY Andrew Ryan did what he did and where he went wrong, some of the audio logs are just so excellently written they had me grinning from ear to ear.

It's gameplay has aged quite well, I believe it could do better with some of it's weapon-swapping and balancing to really utilise every weapon (something Bioshock 2 improves on) but fights are always satisfying, mostly thanks to a surprisingly versatile set of AI who always seem to be dynamically responding to you, or at least are giving off the sufficient illusion that they are.

Of course, it's hacking system is a bit of a dud (again, addressed and resolved in the sequel but more on that when I finish it), sure it's fun to play pipe mania once or twice but it wears thin pretty much immediately after that, and I think the game almost acknowledges this by throwing auto-hacks galore at you in the final act.

This games worst attribute however is it's morality system and endings, something that's been spoken about multiple times since it's release. Choosing whether or not to murder a child isn't really an interesting choice to make, and it's not helped by the fact that Rescuing them gives you plenty of ADAM anyway, I was never starving for it and got pretty much every upgrade I wanted with no hassle. If it wanted to make it more of an interesting choice it should really give you about a quarter of the ADAM and make it that much more valuable, maybe then I'd be tempted to harvest one or two, because the "Bad Ending" certainly isn't worth it.