My friend bought me Fallout 3. I bought Bioshock. Fallout 3 failed to work correctly. So I played Bioshock.

While "technically" Bioshock isn't the type of game I really enjoy (I'm not into survival horror all that much. Don't even watch scary movies) I must say that the Bioshock Experience was quite good.

So, I give it an AWESOME... with caviats.

You play as the hero, Jack, a survivor from a plane crash who discovers the undgersea world of Rapture. Rapture is an Undersea city, set to the style of the Swingin' 20s, designed as the Libritarian Paradise; no rules, no laws, no morals to hinder progress. And with the resurrection machines all over the place, it wasn't like there were any consequences for bad behavior! Until Adam.

Adam is the secret ingredient needed to make "Plasmids," superpowers like TeleKenesis, TeleLightning, TeleFire, and other kinds of neat powers (my favorite is "Hyptnotize Bid Daddy 2" for reasons that will be clear when you buy the game). Unfortnatly, there is a side effect to Adam and Plasmid Splicing: you go homicidally insane.

There was a civil war, and the Splicers started taking over... and you, Jack, have just stepped into the aftermath of the struggle.

The story is highly engaging, told by various "audio diaries" spread around the city, giving you dibbles and dabbles of the main arc. (Minor Complaint: Should have been audio wire. The Germans invented audiotape, and it didn't become widely known world wide until after WWII, but I digress).

The game's tension is held high and the puzzels are engaging. And fighting Big Daddies are fun.

Also, theres a bit of humor disharmony going on in the game. PA announcements go off occasionally, all in the style of 1920-30s style radio ads, but with strange content. Like the one about Capital Punishment, or the one about Plasmids ("Just calm down on the splicing, honey, and you'll be right as rain!" just after you killed 20 splicers) They fill in the story and add a bit of humor.

Selections of 20-30s music occasionally play from jukeboxes during stressful and/or gory scenes. Upbeat music + Horror = disharmony that's hard to pull off, but oh so excellent when you do!

Finally, it's a beautiful game! Most recent games I play are of the Valve Source type, so I've been sheltered as to the graphical possibilites of game engines. Beautiful graphics! Really captures the feel and splendor of 20's archetecture.

But the caviats:

1) This game is a gore fest. Part of the horror of the environment is how the splicers will do ANYTHING for their ADAM, and how the main characters, unshackled from the chains of morality, did gory human testing to create these powers, up to and including massacring children.

2) There are some genuinely scary bits. You think horror movies are bad? How about when you're the guy you usually scream "Don't go in there?!" at?

3) The only major moral choice in the game is to kill or not kill the little girls who carry the ADAM. The game is easy enough to beat without playing Mini Hitler, so I beat it by saving all the girls. But there are many story points where I was gripping the mouse, wishing the game would let me keep making choices (the boss fight with Andrew, for example) instead of locking me into a cut scene (although in the specific part of the fight with Andrew, it makes for a very strong story point!) This would have just been cool instead of a caviat if all the sales material didn't go all out on how you could make your own moral choices.

4) No inventory screen. Which means you'll be constantly spending precious shell casings to craft explosive shotgun shells that you can't carry, as you don't get a warning until you try to pick it up (if you remember all the weapon capacities, you'd be OK... but it would be nice to have an inventory)

5) Language. As the game progresses, you will be assailed by a lot of strong language (F- level). Some people don't mind. Some do. If you do, be aware.

6) Anticlimactic Boss Battle. I've had battles with Rosie Big Daddies that were more difficult than the boss battle. Heck, the escort mission just before the boss battle was more difficult than the boss battle. Understand, I'm not big on boss battles. I think having a boss battle that expotentially jumps the difficulty curve (see Half-Life) is stupid, but if you're going to put in a special boss battle, it shouldn't be a first-try yawn fest. It makes the ending deflate. Either nix the boss battle (which, for example, Half-Life: Blue Shift does excellently) or make it worth the while. It's a massive letdown after all the trials and tribulations you've suffered through.

7) BUGGY. At least my copy was. If I alt-tabbed out of the game (which I have to do at depressingly frequent intervals), I had a 50/50 chance of the game either crashing or going to Windowed mode (without the game knowing it was windowed). If the game crashed, it completely wiped out my key settings (which is important, as the first thing I do is constomize all my settings to a state that most FPS players would consider sacrilidge). Plenty of graphics glitches. Not horrible, but first time you lose 20 minutes of effort you'll be pissed. And many times you be able to see textures flipping between super-low-res and super-high-res modes. It's to the point where it can be very distracting.

Basically, if you ate your popcorn through Schindler's List, you won't have any problem with the visuals. And the story is really, really excellent. The game started as a MEH, went up to WIN about 5 hours in, and shot up to AWESOME WITH CAVIATS after the Andrew battle.

So... would you kindly buy and play Bioshock?