This game astounded me. The moment I stepped inside Rapture, I was completely drawn in, just as the residents in-game. (!)

The gameplay felt very fresh. Though I hadn't played it until this year, nothing else is really the same. The combination of using guns and your plasmids, the special genetic powers you can acquire over the course of the game, quickly becomes second nature. You get dumped right into the action and before you know it, you're giving enemies the one-two punch left and right.

Audio and graphics are great too. The game is quite atmospheric, even spooky in some parts and various ambient sound effects and mumbling druggies convincingly set up the environment of a slowly degenerating and crumbling city. On the visuals side, the game looks gorgeous. It isn't hyper photorealistic as the trend seems to be this generation of games, but it does have a unique art style. I always prefer for a game to have its own look over looking like real life.

Definitely the most atmospheric game I've ever played. The gameplay is very innovative, and I hope more FPS games will take inspiration from it. High learning curve makes getting it figured out feel very rewarding.

With the STALKER Complete mod some of the things that turn people off to the game are fixed (especially the extreme head bobbing), and I highly recommend installing it. It doesn't seem to decrease performance at all even though it greatly improves lighting effects and other graphical features. And at night it gets DARK. I love it.

Excellent game, can't wait to get to the next two.