3. Options galore
When Irrational Games said you can play the game as you see fit, they really meant it. The amount of options available to the player is almost overwhelming—in the best way possible. After being exposed to Adam and Plasmids, which give our main character superhuman abilities, combat moves away from simply bashing things with a wrench or shooting them with guns to a free-form exercise in creatively making the most of your surroundings. When we met up with that Dr. Steinman fellow, our encounter included setting him alight with our pyrokinetic powers, then zapping a pool of water to electrocute him when he tried to extinguish the flames. We hacked a health station to poison him and then finished him off with a shotgun. We could have done any number of other things, too, including using our telekinetic abilities to hurl exploding barrels at him or setting pools of oil (and him) on fire. When you encounter roving security droids, you can destroy them with your firearms or hack into them and have them do your dirty work for you.
While it lacks the traditional inventory structure that most RPGs share, BioShock definitely has a lot of other RPG elements. Character customization is deceptively deep, with players gaining new abilities and passive powers. If you’re not good at the hacking sections, which center around a Pipe Dream-like minigame—you can upgrade your skills and make it easier. Weapons can be upgraded, reducing reload times or increasing ammo capacity. There’s even an invention system, allowing players to develop their own ammunition. Most importantly, these character variations are all valid choices; there aren’t any gimmicky, one-time-use powers.
