Bioshock combines fast-paced action and thought-provoking detail

Genre-defying games come about once in a blue moon in the gaming world, but when they do, they’re either hailed as brilliant innovations or jeered as colossal failures.

“Bioshock” is a genre-defying game that successfully combines elements of an adventure game, a hardcore first-person shooter, horror, and philosophy into a sleek, sophisticated package that rarely regresses to mainstream videogame tropes. It is the “thinking man’s shooter,” an intelligent mix of the best of “Myst,” “Doom,” “Metroid: Prime,” “Bejeweled,” and “Half-Life 2.”

You are a nameless hero mysteriously marooned in the middle of the ocean by a catastrophic plane crash. You seek refuge in a lighthouse, which actually serves as the sea-level gateway to an underwater city (Rapture) built by self-enlightened industrialist Andrew Ryan. But, despite the city’s obvious grandeur, it becomes quickly apparent that something has warped the dream into a nightmare. It becomes your task to solve the city’s mysteries without dying in the process.

The conflict in Rapture centers around a mysterious substance called ADAM, a source of incredible genetic power. It serves as the genetic currency of Rapture, allowing the citizens to evolve their bodies (splicing) beyond what is natural (or human). But ADAM cannot be manufactured. To produce more, the sea slugs which secrete the substance must be implanted in the stomachs of little girls, called “Little Sisters,” who harvest ADAM from the prolific corpses lying around Rapture and are protected by armor-wearing giants called “Big Daddies,” who are as terrifying as they are tragic.

But “Bioshock” is more than a simple horror-survival game with a cookie-cutter bad guy. “Bioshock” is an adventure, a world where the user can choose how much (or how little) of the story of Rapture to uncover. Scattered throughout Rapture are audio journals that give first-hand accounts of the events leading up to the current civil war. These are chilling and evocative, providing enough detail to be gut-wrenching while also stimulating the imagination (the same formula that makes Hitchcock movies so terrifying).

The world of Rapture sets a new bar for immersion and detail, one-upping “Half-Life 2” and “Metroid: Prime.” As the game’s hero, you can interact with everything, search every cabinet, cubby, drawer, or corpse and gather all sorts of goodies. You can even hack machines so that they work for you-a vending machine will drop its prices, a turret will shoot splicers instead of you. Hacking is done via a neat minigame, which becomes progressively harder and never tedious.

Based on the (heavily modified) Unreal engine, “Bioshock” on Xbox 360 has some of the best graphics of any game on any console to date. Models are detailed, textures are vivid, and the frame rate is rock solid. As to the environment, the “Bioshock” team could have very easily made Rapture pristine, a sealed off cocoon at the bottom of the ocean. But instead, the team put water everywhere-a leak in the ceiling, a waterfall down a flight of stairs, a puddle on the floor-an exponentially harder thing to do, and a significant achievement. The water effects are simply stunning (jaw-dropping at worst).

Unfortunately, like many Xbox 360 releases, the graphics in “Bioshock” do have a few (and far-between) sometimes unintentionally funny bugs. Drop a splicer with a couple of shots to the head and his arm might flail around for a while on the ground before lying still. Kill a Big Daddy and his body might float about an inch off the ground, or his helmet might intersect a wall. During extended periods of play, I’ve noticed that sometimes textures do not load right away, resulting in this weird phong-shaded thing hanging in space.

With today’s emphasis on graphics, sound is sometimes the “middle child” in gaming development-oftentimes overlooked. Fortunately, this is not the case in “Bioshock”. The voice acting is top-notch stuff. Explosions and gunfire have enough bass to make even a small firefight exciting. And the music-a combination of 1950s pop and jazz as well as sinister ambient texturing-sets the mood perfectly every step of the way. The sound is so detailed, you can actually use it during combat; it is an asset rather than a distraction. My one complaint is that the Little Sisters only have about a dozen phrases that they can say-that gets really old really fast.

As a shooter, “Bioshock” is mediocre-maybe as good as “Halo.” But the beauty of “Bioshock”’s combat system is the AI and the myriad of weapons available at your disposal. As you progress through the game, you gain a number of superpowers in addition to your personal stockpile of firearms. Being creative in defending yourself from splicers makes the game infinitely more interesting (I personally like lighting people on fire, watching them run to a pool of water, then electrocuting them).

So what makes “Bioshock” a masterpiece? After all, nothing I’ve said is truly revolutionary, and the game borrows its most technologically advanced pieces (the Unreal Engine and the Havoc Physics Engine) from other games.

I said earlier that “Bioshock” is the “thinking man’s shooter.” Unlike “Halo,” which is little more than an unfettered shoot-‘em-up, “Bioshock” has a rich story that is derived not from science fiction or pop culture, but from literature. Ayn Rand and her best work, “Atlas Shrugged,” heavily influenced the game and homage to her work is paid in spades, sometimes obviously (in Andrew Ryan’s propaganda strewn about Rapture), sometimes subtly (the game’s dramatic art deco architecture). “Bioshock” also contains numerous allegorical references to the Bible, sometimes shrouding religious characters in Objectivism’s black-and-white life outlook, leading to contradictions within characters that can never be resolved and thus resulting in their descent into madness. Never before have I played a game where I could discuss the motives of the characters-it’s usually plainly obvious. If you don’t have a background in Rand’s work or a working religious knowledge, “Bioshock” is still a great game, but you’ll be missing an enormous piece of the puzzle.

If you’re looking for a great game to tide you over during the wait for “Halo 3,” “Bioshock” is the title for you. It is the Xbox 360’s killer app at the moment, with great sound, amazing graphics, and a story with more layers than a good book-it’s a game that will stick to your ribs when you’re done playing. Other than a few minor quirks, it is a flawless masterpiece, destined to be game of the year. It belongs on your shelf.