BioShock
The first-person shooter BioShock opens in 1960 with a plane crash in the Atlantic. The survivor, Jack, ends up in Rapture, an underwater city that tycoon Andrew Ryan built in the 1940s for the elite, out of the government's reach. Powers like fire and electricity come from plasmids.
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The game did not start out under the sea. In a 2002 demo it was set on a space station, and by 2004 it had moved to an abandoned Nazi laboratory from World War II. Then Ken Levine decided cyberpunk had been done to death, and the team headed for the ocean floor.
Levine built the philosophy of Rapture and of Ryan himself on Ayn Rand's Objectivism, which he found ludicrous and "perfect for an antagonist."
The big choice involves the Little Sisters, guarded by the Big Daddies. Once you beat the guardian, you can harvest a girl for the most ADAM, and she will not survive, or save her and get less, plus a reward. That choice decides the ending.
Critics met BioShock with near-universal acclaim, though some reviewers found the moral choice too black and white. Players leave 93% positive out of 25,278 reviews, critics give it 96 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #25 of 4,736 games.
Liked it? Next, try BioShock 2, where you return to Rapture as a prototype Big Daddy, and BioShock Infinite, set in Columbia, a city floating in the sky in 1912.
System requirements
Minimum 1 GB RAMiSteam Deck PlayableMin & recommended
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista | — |
| Processor | Intel single-core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz | Intel Core 2 Duo processor |
| Memory | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Graphics | Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM and Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550) | DX 9 - Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB RAM and Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT or better), DX 10 - NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or better |
From the game’s Steam store page.
