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Bioshock is a futuristic First Person Shooter (FPS) set in the 1960s. Sounds contradictory? Bioshock is set in the 1960s, in a city called Rapture. This is not, however, any ordinary city. Rapture is an elitist society built secretly and entirely underwater. Founded by a man named Andrew Ryan, he built Rapture, a sprawling underwater metropolis to accommodate the world’s elite scientists, artists, doctors and so on, aiming to free these ’superior’ individuals from the entrapments of the world that inhibits their technological and social advancement.

Noble his ideals may be, but Rapture eventually was consumed by civil war. Advanced technology in Rapture bred flagrant abuse of genetic modifications through the creation of plasmids. Plasmids gave the people of Rapture power to genetically enhance themselves, even producing special superhuman powers. Excessive use lead to genetic mutation of both the body and mind, turning much of the population into mindless walking corpses, scavenging the streets of Rapture for more EVE and ADAM - the fuel for more genetic splicing.

You play the role of Jack, the survivor of a plane crash who stumbles upon the underwater world of Rapture. You have to fight through the swarms of the mutated Rapture citizens called splicers with weapons that you find, as well as making use of plasmids that grant special abilities. Abilities include telekinesis, giving the user the ability to pick up and throw objects with the sheer power of will; pyrokinesis, the ability to control fire and set foes alight; lightning bolt, the ability to electrocute enemies with electricity coursing through your fingertips.

Theses abilities are fundamentally dependent on ADAM, a substance that is the fuel for genetic changes. The primary source of ADAM is through harvesting of ‘Little Sisters’ who can be found wandering around the levels. Little Sisters are young girls who have been utilized to process and produce ADAM, by attaching a parasite in their bodies. They are protected by formidable foes called ‘Big Daddies’ who are large beings clad in iron armor. The morality issue then comes into play - the player has to decide between killing the young girls and coldheartedly harvesting the ADAM, or to cure the girls with a plasmid, in which case, gaining a significantly lower amount of ADAM. This unique aspect of the game will determine the outcome of the storyline ultimately, and is a very interesting change from the standard FPS that I have encountered.

Bioshock has a very interactive gameplay environment. I liked how the combination of using plasmids, weapons and tactics works to effective combat enemies. Choosing the right kinds of plasmids in the correct situations and you will find fights much easier. For example, when fighting a huge group of splicers, it is best to lure them all into a pool of water then hitting them with an electrobolt. This would eliminate all of them in one go, instead of wasting ammunition shooting them down one at a time. If you try to incinerate them with the plasmid, the artificial intelligence (AI) is smart enough to jump into a pool of water, extinguishing the flames. Furthermore, there are a variety of ammunitions to pick for the appropriate circumstances. Anti-armor counters Big Daddies effectively, while anti-personnel rounds have an excellent effect on taking down ordinary splicers.

The graphical engine for Bioshock is rather impressive. Passing by under a stream of water will cause your vision to blur as if water got into your eyes, taking a melee hit from a splicer will cause your vision to blur and shake, your hand becomes scarred and burnt after equipping the Incinerate plasmid. The whole city of Rapture is portrayed in much detail and is quite the visual feast.

Expectedly, the demands on a computer are very high. 2GB of RAM, at least a 8600GTS graphics card, and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The game runs best, however, on a Windows Vista operating system to fully utilize the DirectX 10 graphical display. These specifications, though not as demanding as Crysis, are still formidable and something the casual gamer would not be able to provide. Bioshock does not offer graphics as realistic as Crysis, but it is still a milestone in modern games.

The political references in Bioshock to stem cell research as well as morality issues set a very interesting stage for this highly-acclaimed FPS. It has much more of a realistic feel as players now decide on the outcome of the story, and it provides Bioshock with a extra dimension and depth that is missing in other FPSs. The plasmid and weapon system is one of the best I have ever played on and in my opinion it is a very creative concept. I would strongly urge avid FPS-gamers to give Bioshock a try, if you have not already.

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I would classify myself as an avid First-Person Shooter (FPS) gamer, having played games like Half-Life, Doom, Hitman and F.E.A.R. Sure enough, these games are great and much fun to play, but nothing I have ever played comes close to comparing with Crysis. Needless to say, this game is 5 out of 5 for me. Allow me to elaborate.

Crysis is a futuristic FPS game set in the year 2020. The world is plunged into conflict following a sudden and seemingly uncalled-for attack by North Korea’s military on an American research facility in the Lingshan Islands. It then dawns that the North Koreans has secured and conquered the tropical island as the American researches have stumbled upon a discovery that could ‘change the future of the planet’. All communications were lost after a distress signal was sent out by the research team spearheaded by Dr Rosenthal. The USA government then decided to send a team of covert operatives equipped with the state-of-the-art nanosuit technology and advance weaponry to infiltrate the island and evacuate the civilians. You take control of one of the Special Forces operative, codenamed ‘Nomad’ and your mission is to work with your Raptor team to rescue the civilians on the island.

The first thing that strikes the player when you begin playing is the stunning graphics of the game. Developed by German firm Crytek, making use of the famed CRYEngine2 system, Crysis is a revelation of graphics, physics and AI technology. The graphics and physics quality is unparalleled - you can see the individual leaves swaying in the wind, tree trunks exploding from bullet impact, ripples in the water surface when debris drops in and visibility slowly diminishing with the coming of the night. Facial movement is superbly designed and is extremely realistic, lip movement is mostly synced to dialogue and there is even some very realistic gesticulation.

Apart from the graphics, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also been tweaked so meticulously that it is scary to see the AI respond so ‘humanly’ to your interaction with them. Take a few potshots at them and they will radio for backup and try to flank you. Move clumsily in the vegetation and they will hear the noises and make an effort to investigate in pairs. The AI characters can be seen performing very human actions even when idle. Enemy North Koreans will chitchat in Korean, smoke a cigarette and even take a leak in the bushes. In Delta difficulty mode (the hardest), the enemies no longer speak English, but converse in Korean while trying to hunt you down.

Gameplay is never boring in Crysis. The open-ended nature of gameplay opens up many options for the player to advance the course of the story. Be it minimal combat through stealth, or sadistic hunting of enemies, it is still possible to advance the game and finish objectives. With the other-worldly functions of the nanosuit, killing enemies will never be boring (pardon the sadism). There are countless possibilities of taking down enemies, given the Cloak, Strength, Speed and Armour functions of your suit. Deploy the right function in the right circumstance and no enemies will be your match.

With all my ravings aside, Crysis does have a few actual drawbacks. The most outstanding one is the cause of complaints of many netizens - the system requirements required to run the game. In order to fully enjoy the Crysis experience, one must meet not only the minimum requirements, but the recommended one as well; and the requirements will not be as pleasing to the eye as the in-game graphics. 2.2GHz of processor speed, 2.0GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTS or equivalent graphics processing unit. These specifications are not what the average gaming computer would possess. Needless to say, many computers would not even be able to run Crysis, much less enjoy it. In order to satisfy more gamers, the Crysis graphical engine is highly-customizable and scalable, which means that lower-end computers can run Crysis but at lower settings, so that they still can enjoy the gameplay.

Also, I feel that there is much room for improvement in the storyline as well as the gameplay. I felt that the twist in the storyline was rather predictable and that this has the potential to degenerate into a mindless shooter for gamers with shorter attention spans. Introduction of team cooperation would be welcome, instead of a Rambo-one-man-army-like assault by a single operative and would make gameplay much more appealing. In this aspect, Crysis has much to learn from games like Call Of Duty 4.

Crysis is supposedly the first in a trilogy, and I hope to see more of the graphical brilliance so flamboyantly displayed in the first installment. What I also fervently wish for is the improvement of gameplay and plot, to make Crysis 2 an all-round 5 out of 5 game.

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