It is the masterful sense of constant evolution throughout the game that will, this reviewer predicts, see scoop many of the coveted Game of the Year at the close of 2007. Although the above-mentioned titles (and many others besides) are likely to impress in spades and deliver fabulous thrills and adventure upon their arrival, it is truly difficult to envisage that a groundbreaking rarity such as BioShock could be not only matched but surpassed during a single calendar year. Of course, these claims exist to be proven false, and the game will be all the richer should another game do just that between now and the dawn of 2008.

Beyond the masses of gameplay variety open to the player as Plasmid powers, Tonics, and weaponry galore gradually builds, it is the core story of BioShock that perhaps stands out as the game's single most defining feature. Beyond the briefest of explanatory opening scenes (and a slick closing rendered sequence) BioShock's mysteries are told entirely through the discovery of scattered tape recorders that hold the emotive experiences of some of Rapture's doomed residents. These superbly acted explanations, combined with the helpful directions and advice of Atlus, mean that gameplay immersion is virtually absolute and not one in-game cut scene ever invades upon the near seamless flow.

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It's also worth noting that BioShock is almost entirely devoid of loading screens, with each of Rapture's impressive environments completely open to the player after the initial loading segue - no annoying pauses through doors or corridors, just uninterrupted action, exploration, and enlightenment.

What truly lifts BioShock past its existing competitors and prior genre greats such as Half-Life, is that it draws the player deeper into the devastation of Rapture by coupling them to the Little Sisters on a progressively more tangible emotional level. has accomplished this by rendering the Little Sisters invulnerable until their Big Daddy escort has been dispatched, which is no mean feat during the first few hours of the game when Plasmid effects are in their infancy. Once free to finally gather the Adam so desperately needed to widen Plasmid selection, the player then faces a tough moral decision: harvest the full amount of Adam from the now terrified Little Sister, an she will not survive; or save her from the monstrous possession holding her captive, which grants a sense of heroic self worth at the cost of only a fraction of the Adam.

BioShock offers up two separate endings, and two separate gameplay standpoints based upon how players act when faced with the gut-wrenching decision between the repeated murder of helpless little girls in return for quick and devastating power, or a more carefully structured but nobly attained set of Plasmid abilities. Either way, the player emerges as the only winner seeing as the polar opposite approaches mean that BioShock offers up a tantalising second play through that delivers enough diversity as to render the experience almost completely refreshed in terms of core balance and intensity.