“L-L-Look at you hacker. A p-p-pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and sweating as you run through my corridors.” – Shodan – System Shock 2
Bioshock is hands-down the second best sci-fi horror FPS I have ever played. The first, of course, is my all-time favorite: System Shock 2. Both are pure addiction, both were created by the same team; originally Irrational Games, now 2K Boston. I’ve played through it twice, and i’m playing it on hard now.
The sound effects are amazing; a character’s voice acting, the sound that iron makes as it buckles from underwater pressure, the moan of a Big Daddy, and the long, distant echo that a giant, hollow underwater facility would produce. One minute you hear a man sobbing away his lost loved ones in the distance, and then he turns insane as he curses and attacks you. It makes you really believe that the overuse and abuse of splicing Adam has turned their minds insane. This game has atmosphere.
Some differences of the two games:
First of all, Bioshock’s introduction story is hard to believe. A huge, underwater city that nobody on the outside knows about. That, in itself, is nearly impossible. To build such a big city underwater would be very, very expensive, and the money trail would be big enough for any accountant to be able to follow. Keeping such a thing secret just isn’t feasible.
Now juxtapose that with System Shock 2’s story. Its the future, you wake up, you have anmesia, and your in space, on a spaceship. Thats not too hard to believe. It could happen 
Splicing DNA is another cool, but hard-to-believe feature. You are able to extend your DNA, but you only have a maximum of 5 available slots in your gene bank. If you want to use a different gene, then you can “unload” a gene and replace it with a different one. In biology, you can’t just “unload” DNA from yourself.
In System Shock 2, you upgrade yourself using bionics; so its like adding machinery to your body, and you can’t undo it. Thats a little more realistic.
But my favorite thing about System Shock 2 is the villian Shodan, an intelligent and evil AI. Your not battling some organic creature, or something else within a physical realm, but an artificial intelligence that has control of nearly everything on a derelict spaceship. The movie Aliens got it right with adding a derelict spaceship, but the Alien is just too easy to kill; Ripply was able to survive! What fun is that? Now, what if it was the entire spaceship that Ripply had to fight? Including the Alien!? Now that would be entertainment.
Its funny, because System Shock 2 was nearly a garage game; a couple of nerds sitting in a cramped room and programming, and its still the best. And this was back in 1994! Ah, 1994, one of the best years in computing and gaming. And don’t have to tell you about that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_in_video_gaming) ^_^ . Of everything i’ve read and done, if I were born just 10 years earlier, i wonder what i could accomplish….
Reminder: do chores first, study, then play Bioshock.
