Bioshock: No gods or kings. Only man.
Bioshock lords over any other game which claims to stand alongside it in the retro-futuristic game category. On the 21st of August, 2007, Ken Levine, creative lead at Irrational and ‘Storyteller of the Decade’, blew the minds of an ever-growing gamer community. Lights flicker weirdly as you race past vita-chambers, plunge deep into the mire of Randian propaganda, kill young girls, watch a crazed cosmetic surgeon create ‘art’ out of human flesh and turn rational folk into slaves upon the mere mention of “Would you kindly…?”
“How can a game be art? Literature? Philosphy?” they ask. One word. Bioshock.
The game explores Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism which, put crudely, says love yourself, be rational and be free (Rand facepalms in her grave). Set in an underwater city named Rapture, Bioshock speaks of Andrew Ryan (‘We r Ayn Rand’, get it? get it?), Russian entrepreneur who constructed said city on the ideals of free market, self-interest, absence of moral or religious restrictions on progress and the lack of altruism.
Progressing through the levels, you observe how messed up such a system can get. Lack of moral obligation in science leads to the creation of ‘ADAM’, a genetic material which can be used to grant superhuman powers. This initiates the city’s turbulent decline. You play as Jack, the sole survivor of a plane crash. Amidst the plane wreckage, Jack spots and swims to a lighthouse and boards a Bathysphere that takes him deep within the ocean and into Rapture. The rest is gaming history.
The game continues to argue with great finesse against Objectivism until the very end. For example, the choice-based ending rewards you for not putting yourself before others, as opposed to the self-serving principle Randian philosophy upholds. Bioshock also popularized meta-concepts in gaming, i.e. a plot twist which makes a point about the player itself, rather than the character! Critics often point it out as one of the most well executed plot twists in all of gaming. Neither the twist nor the ending is worth spoiling… take a look at them yourself!
Wait, so what is retro-futurism and how is Bioshock connected to it? Decades ago, starry-eyed and cynical writers painted radiant and sadistic pictures of the future. Fabulous neon clothing, steam powered mega-civilizations, pod shaped vehicles and murderous robots… you’ve probably heard it all by now. Instead, we folks from the future lounge around sipping coffee and peering into five inch screens. So much for grandeur. Retro-futuristic is simply looking at the past’s obsession with the future.
What makes Bioshock retro-futuristic? Set in the 60s, Rapture shows off its ‘technological advancements’ in the form of steam powered machines, audio recordings spewing backstory all over the game and other mechanical contraptions (as opposed to extensions of silicon and software). The metallic/neon ambience creates an alternate view on technology, one in which we never wandered down the path of transistors and computers. Big Daddy, commonly found monsters in the game, perhaps best represent this alternative technological universe. A mix between a brainwashed human and an antiquated, armoured diving suit, it rides on the classic 70s image of a man-machine fusion. It is considered to be iconic and integral to Bioshock… indeed, any Bioshock artwork (the poster itself, for example) features the hunk of robotic muscle.
Thus, gaming finally crafted its very own ‘Pulp Fiction’ or ‘Citizen Kane’. The Boston Globe described it as “a beautiful, brutal, and disquieting computer game … one of the best in years”. Rapture feels like a plausible, tangible place from some half-forgotten memory; its architecture, lighting and decoration evoke the 1940s so convincingly that it’s easy to forget just how fantastical its concept actually is.
That’s enough reason to play the game often described as the “coming of age for our medium”.