June 8, 2007 - The flaming wreckage of our downed plane sinks nearby as we swim up to a dark spire protruding from an otherwise empty expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It's the entrance to Rapture, the setting for Irrational's newest first-person shooter infused with RPG elements. In 1946 the city was built by Andrew Ryan, a man committed to the ideal of a society where anyone could achieve anything. He separated it from the rest of the world to sever the city from God, politics, and other bothersome surface influences. Probably not the best call in the world in retrospect, but those who seek to create utopias probably aren't leaning towards mental stability to begin with. As we soon find out, Ryan's artificial paradise didn't work. Its residents are corrupted and mutated, though the reason is a mystery when first entering the waterlogged city. It's easy to see that it has something to do with genetic experiments, but discovering the precise nature of Rapture's collapse is BioShock's main goal. Considering we crashed in the ocean right next to it, there wasn't much of choice but to investigate.

The strange spire acts as a sort of flytrap, it seems, drawing in those unaware. Swimming amongst the fiery wreckage eventually reveals a staircase, bringing us to an entrance door. It opens to a dark room that erupts into bright light after a few steps inside. Like the rest of Rapture we saw, the space was decorated with a distinct art deco motif, with ceiling designs resembling the top of the Chrysler Building in New York. Heading down another staircase and into an elevator opened the way to a sprawling underwater vista which unfolded as the elevator moved through Rapture's cityscape. Along the way we passed towering underwater skyscrapers (surfacescrapers?) and leisurely sea creatues, until we finally came to rest at a pressure hatch.

A splicer, a genetically altered humanoid, immediately hacked at the glass door. From the ceiling dropped a radio with a voice on the other end. A man named Atlas speaks of help. Later the same man will ask for the favor to be returned and require help with finding his family, but that resolution lay beyond our meager play experience.As the splicer was destroyed by means unknown, and with the hatch area clear, the elevator pod opened and we emerged into Rapture for the first time. Checking around the environment showed much of it was capable of manipulation. We knocked over suitcases on the ground and dismantled a brass railing, which clanked to the floor and threw up splashes of water as it rolled. Like most of Rapture's rooms, this one had numerous leaks. Water dripped from the high ceiling, flowed down walls, and pooled amidst the debris scattered across the floor.

Something called a Vita Chamber lay nearby, which serves as the game's auto-save system. These things automatically activate and serve as the point of your respawn should you die. A detailed explanation of a new item or structure was available upon discovery. Beside the Vita Chamber were towering glass windows again giving us a view of the aqueous metropolis along with more sea life. Crossing to the other side of the room we picked up a wrench which we then bashed into a aggressive humanoid's skull. Enemies can be looted after they're killed, netting you money, ammunition, and power-ups. From this particular soggy sack we pulled a pop bar, which along with other food items like merlot and chips, restore health and EVE (mana). It should be noted that unlike in System Shock 2, you can't store food items in an inventory; they're consumed when picked up. In fact, there really isn't an inventory at all. Health and EVE hypodermic needles are stored up and can be quick-used, but there's no slot-based inventory where you stick weapons, items, plasmid power ups, and the like. Instead, the game provides a bunch of separate radial menus for selecting weapons and abilities. This is part of the reason why playing BioShock feels more like an FPS than an RPG, so we stand finally corrected from our earlier impressions.

Soon after bludgeoning our first enemy we came across the first plasmid in the game: electro bolt. When you pick up plasmids, which are represented onscreen as glowing vials, you have to slot them in a plasmid menu. Only a few slots are open to begin with, and as you progress through the game you'll need to spend money to open up more slots and allow for more plasmids to be selectable while in battle. The electro bolt attack can be used in various ways, all of which were great fun to discover. If you've set the skill to ready, your character's hand will show up onscreen flickering bright blue with sub-dermal jags of lighting. Unleashing the spell consumes a chunk of EVE and blasts forward a bolt. It stuns enemies that it hits, and actually seemed to reduce the amount of damage they're able to take before transitioning to the afterlife. For instance, we could permanently take down a splicer with only one wrench hit if we slammed them in the head while electrified. Without using the plasmid, it took three or four smacks. Then there's the electo bolt's ability to spectacularly electrify a pool of water, immobilizing and destroying any lesser enemies that happen to be ankle-deep at the time.

While moving through Rapture we were given constant objective updates, like searching for mad scientists or investigating certain areas. There was a map available that noted our position and indicated the location of our quest goal. Back on the gameplay screen we were given an arrow at the top of the screen that always pointed toward the currently selected quest's destination, making it hard to get lost. During our play session we were free to travel back and forth between previously visited areas as we pleased. This doesn't seem to be a stage-based game, more of an open world, which let us return to vending machines and health items we'd passed earlier on. Like in System Shock 2, much of the plot is told through audio diaries picked off the ground, which can all be accessed afterward through a menu log. This, in combination with the game never leaving the first-person perspective, contributes to augmenting the immersion factor established by the excellent visuals.