BioShock Preview

1Up has cranked out an informative hands-on preview of BioShock, based on a demonstration given to them by Irrational Games’ Ken Levine.

“Bottom of the ocean, boy-o,” says the voice over the handheld-radio static, the accent halfway between Australian professor and American cowboy — your hidden guide through Rapture, tucked away in some undiscovered corner, dispensing plot mechanics and gameplay advice. “All of the oxygen comes from the trees — no trees, no oxygen.” In a level dubbed Arcadia, Rapture’s megalomaniacal creator has killed the city’s only forest — a garden paradise for vacationing citizens. Your job: Use BioShock’s invention system (with which you can craft new ammo like electric buckshot and other useful objects out of crap lying around in the rubble) to assemble the pieces of some resurrecting whatzit called the Lazarus Vector to bring the greenery back to life — or suffocate trying. “We’re actually nerdy enough to care about how the city works,” says Levine. “So you’ll find how the oxygen gets there, how the city’s power works — it’s powered by these big volcanic vents, and water is boiled and turned into steam — and it all comes into the gameplay.”

I’m really trying to figure out if this game belongs on GameBanshee. Every preview I read seems to emphasize the “shooter” elements rather than any “role-playing” ones.