Bioshock

Shortly after it was announced that Bioshock would be released for the PS3, I got an opportunity to finally experience Rapture; an experience others had been privy to for what seemed like decades.

You have to ask yourself, are video games art?  The Smithsonian seems to think so, and among the subjects of its upcoming feature of the Art of Videogames, Bioshock is sure to make an entry.  From the demo-drop to the PSN, through receiving the game for Christmas (from my awesome husband), and the six or seven completions since then, I am constantly enRAPTUREd by this gem.


The box art gives an idea of the amazing world within.

Bioshock has often been described as the spiritual predecessor of Ken Levine's System Shock 2, but whatever brought the idea to fruition is okay with me.  The story, set in 1960, is about the unnamed protagonist (who is dutifully known as "Jack"), who - as the only survivor of an airline crash - finds a mysterious lighthouse with a bathysphere that transports him to the underwater city of Rapture.
Rapture was created by Andrew Ryan, who believed the city was the only place safe from the persecution of the government, communists, and religion.  During the bathysphere ride down, we learn that he created the city for an artist to not fear the censor, for scientists to not be bound by petty morality, and the great to not be inundated by the needs of the weaker members of society. 

However, as it is 1960, you find yourself in Rapture in media res - literally late for the party.  The city has devolved from ongoing civil war and the discovery of deep sea slugs who produce ADAM, a genetic substance capable of granting superhuman powers.  As Rapture's denizens fought, and further spliced (shorthand for using ADAM, splicing ones' DNA) themselves, the toll of constant war and ADAM's effects begin to turn them from being the foremost artists and scientists into killing machines, hell bent on collecting more ADAM to feed their ongoing addiction.



A splicer, who was surely once handsome, now deformed.

 To further produce and maintain a supply of ADAM, leaders of Rapture develop the Little Sisters program.  Young girls are implanted with a sea slug, which allows them to gather ADAM from the corpses of the fallen; however the girls are to fragile to go alone, and giant diver suits are grafted onto "volunteers" to become Big Daddies to protect the Little Sisters.

So, your Bathysphere unable to return to the surface, you are guided through the arrival terminal by a friendly (and more importantly, sane) Rapture hold-out named Atlas.  You pick up a wrench and blindly inject yourself with the first Plasmid (superhuman power) you can find.  Weapons (which diversify from the melee wrench) are switched and fired with the right shoulder buttons, while Plasmids are selected and activated with the left shoulder buttons.  This is highly intuitive, as your first-person view shows you holding the weapon in your right hand, and your left hand has a representation of the Plasmid equipped (covered in ice, or bursting with hives of bees, for example).

The game is fairly linear (one fetch quest after another), but there are plenty of off-the-beaten path areas to explore, kill splicers in, and collect resources (first aid kits heal, while EVE hypos repower your Plasmid use).  The great challenge of the game is that of the Big Daddies.  In order to procure ADAM, you must either rescue the Little Sisters or harvest the sea slug inside of them, thereby killing the girl.  But before you can get close enough to the girl to perform your act of kindness or malice, you must defeat the otherwise placid Big Daddies.

During my playthrough on "Survivor" difficulty, I really got an opportunity to get creative with Big Daddy battles, to the point of what some might consider cowardice.  It can easily take all of the ammo and first aid kits to best a big lug, as well as carefully considering the environment you engage them in.  Setting up traps tended to be a better solution for me, since I am a terrible aim and typically relied on melee attacks to best most splicers.  To date, Big Daddy fights remain some of my favorite experiences in a game: challenging, but not overly frustrating.

Once you've substantially dealt with her guardian, there's the Little Sister herself.  You may choose to rescue the girl, using a Plasmid you get from Dr. Tennenbaum, or you can reach right into the girl and grab the slug implanted in her.  Harvesting nets twice the amount of ADAM instantly, but Dr. Tennenbaum ambiguously promises to reward you if you save the girls instead.  Almost constantly in games like these, I prefer to play a righteous character, but in my "Survivor" playthrough I needed every drop I could get.  Sorry girls.

This small mechanism is highly praised as introducing a morality to the game, and I'm going to harp on that: while the decision doesn't have long-standing changes to how you play the game (some dialogue changes, and a different ending, befitting how horrible you are), but forcing a player like myself to work outside his comfort zone for a relatively low payout to get a marginal leg up on survival did create a question:  If this was real, would I be so noble, or would it be every man for himself?  Of course, this is the question of Rapture itself.  The individual, or the community?

Holy shit!  A video game made me think!  MAKE IT STOP!

Additionally, the graphics tell the story of the underwater city beautifully, complemented by an excellent soundtrack and phenomenal voice acting.  You interact directly with very few characters (and even then, they are behind barriers), but you learn about Rapture through a variety of Audio Logs recorded by its residents.  From these tapes, which are scattered precariously everywhere, you learn about the revolution against Ryan, its motivations, and how things got so fucked up.  And despite the fact that you probably shouldn't be sitting around listening to dead people's diaries, especially while you're being hunted by those you haven't slaughtered yet, it's a genius method in delivering story content.

The game levels out with difficulty, as eventually the Plasmids on weapons available to you can massacre almost any enemy you come across, but it's okay because you should feel that powerful.  The replay value exists, but the predictability of the games' AI makes additional playthroughs past the fourth get a little tedious.  All the same, if you haven't yet, Bioshock is a must play.