It looks like this blog might end up being predominantly about gaming but I do have some hope that it wont. Right now I'm going through a phase of relaxation more or less and that means quite a bit of gaming and so that's what I feel like writing about.
Bioshock is a slightly older game that came out around 2007, with very solid FPS (First Person Shooter) game mechanics. I'm not a huge fan of FPSes- simply because the concept of shooting everything at sight is not something i like greatly. This doesn't mean that I hate them though and there can be very clever FPSes as well. Duke Nukem 3D which came out in the mid 90s had some smart puzzles in spite of being a hardcore FPS and I loved it- at least compared to the other games of the time and Doom was the most obvious comparison- which had some very solid gameplay but didnt really require as much brains as practice, and the story wasn't very engrossing, aaand it wasn't funny either.
FPSes have come a long way since then and now have RPG (Role Playing Game) like elements almost universally. Bioshock is probably one of the first games to be an FPS that blended RPG elements effectively. These aren't hardcore RPG elements though- there is no leveling up and skills are gained by looting or with currency rather than with experience. Fallout 3, a more traditional RPG which came out around the same time was a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing and remains one of the favourites of all time while I stopped playing Bioshock pretty early in the game not realising what I missed out on. The casual gamer would not look beyond the FPS elements of Bioshock and I definitely did not, when the game came out. One can easily be fooled by the brilliant FPS mechanics and think that the story is not worth exploring. One would be making a huge mistake then.
Bioshock as I said, has very strong FPS mechanics. The shooting feels realistic and moving around while shooting makes it harder for enemies to target you. Enemies are not particualrly smart but can be challenging enough. Player's health is not obscenely high as it is in some games and it's easy to die in 1 hit in several parts of the game, from full health. The atmosphere is fantastic and the back-story is explained through a set of audio diaries scattered throughout the world. RPG elements include multiple ways to defeat enemies. There are magic-like abilities gained through injections called plasmids which can be combined with each other or with guns for amazing effects. Igniting an enemy for instance makes him run to a nearby pool of water if it's there and then you can shock him for almost instant death. You can use telekinesis to throw an item covered with land mines at an enemy, or freeze and shatter an enemy. There are around 10 superpowers that are active and some 20-30 that are passive. There's a way to do practically anything you can imagine in the world, and this includes hacking security systems, cameras, fooling powerful "Big Daddies" to fight for you and so on.
Mass effect, Fallout and Elder Scrolls series are famous for giving the player moral choices and they do so very well and often with very distinct in-game consequences. The moral choices are designed in such a way that there is no clear benefit to being good, and being bad just gives a different set of evil friends that you can interact with & a diferent set of actions and conversations become unlocked depending on your choices. Fallout 3 even rewards the player with perks, for being ethically neutral- in order to compensate for the loss of the extra friends and actions gained by extreme moral actions. Morally good behaviour is not strongly encouraged in the games which give the player a choice to be bad, and most players can casually choose to be either very good or very bad, and even try out 1 after the other- simply to get a different experience playing the game. In Bioshock, there is a huge compulsion to do what your heart wants. I for instance, cannot imagine taking the 'bad route' and I'm sure that a few people wouldn't be able of imagining the 'good route'. But the more important distinction is that the game makes you think of morality and government laws and their inter-relationships in real life, and not just in the game. It lets you go out into a world ( an underwater city called Rapture, which is very advanced technologically even in the 1950s-60s) where people are not bound by morality or by rules and regulations and are free to live life as they want to. Survival of the fittest. It also makes you wonder what is it that makes humans really human. For in this world of immorality, people seem to have lost things such as love and sharing-which are actually among the most important the things that define humanity; and resort to insane amounts of cheating, killing and even things like modifying kids' DNA to speed up their growing process and make them more efficient. These are the mildest atrocities that you come across in Rapture.
(Spoilers ahead)
The creator of the city Andrew Ryan is an obvious reference to Ayn Rand and the guy who guides you through most parts of the game called Atlas- a possible reference to her work Atlas Shrugged. I'm sure that there are plenty of other references to her works as well as other similar ones.It's fascinating how the whole world is unforgiving and treats you just like any other guy. You are no hero, no one special until the end when you realise that nothing had been a coincidence. You had been actually sent to the city by Frank Fontaine, a ruthless businessman who bought your embryo or something from Andrew Ryan (your real father) and accelerated the growth process to generate an adult within 4 years, genetically altered to make you more powerful, and programmed you to respond to the phrase "Would you kindly" without questioning it. All of it is not even explained directly in the game and the story is partly told through audio diaries scattered across the city. An epic sequence towards the end of the game has you facing Andrew Ryan who let's you know that nothing had been a co-incidence and let's you know about your programmed response. He dies in agony with the pain of knowing that all his hardwork was undone by the people he called "weak". Although Rapture was a ruthless city created by a ruthless mind, you do feel a bit sorry for Andrew Ryan because he had an amazing vision to help humanity, although it was a bit flawed. In any case, you start to wonder why Atlas had been giving you directions with "Would you kindly" added to everything, when he tells you that he is actually Frank Fontaine. This is just an icing on the cake- the game tells dozens of stories, from the doctor who got obsessed with plastic surgeries and started killing, and experimenting with harmful chemicals which led to permanently disfigured people who were again subjected to experiments, to Tenembaum who discovered "ADAM" which alters the human DNA and allows humans to have magic-like abilities called plasmids. Tenembaum also discovered that little girls, if implanted with ADAM could produce 20-30 times the original ADAM and so sets up a fake orphanage to get girls for this purpose. These girls, called Little Sisters (same as the orphanage's name) roam throughout the city and are protected by a Big Daddy each- a huge powerful robot thingy which can 1-hit you to death at the beginning of the game when you're relatively weak. Tenembaum discovers a cure for these girls and lets the player know about it, but using the cure would result in the player getting less ADAM and thus makes it difficult to survive at times since it implies lesser of these active or passive supoerpowers. The player has the choice of killing or rescuing these girls, if he chooses to fight the Big Daddies that he sees around and manages to defeat them.
And this is what I probably wanted to talk about that hasn't been talked about by the hundreds of reviewers of the game. The fact that it is these little girls who actually let you know something about humanity- they're extremely adorable and in fact help you throughout the game with plenty of gifts to show gratitude, and this is upto the final boss fight with Frank Fontaine who became inhumanly powerful with doses of ADAM. Tenembaum is a big contrast to Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine, and protects these girls by storing them in a basement, and takes huge risks by trying to save and protect them. The human side of the game is almost completely feminine and this is no co-incidence. The motherly love that Tenembaum has (although she was a bit ruthless initially and only later regrets her actions) and the innocence of the kids touch you more than anything else in the game and the trailers of the game also advertise the Little Sisters more than anything. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are brilliant people. Ryan is frequently quoted by several audio logs of scientists as the best electrical engineer in the world, and Frank Fontaine is easily the best businessman in terms of making profits. But human beings are not complete just by being highly efficient. We have robots for that. It's the love for kids and family that really makes a human being and Tenembaun and the Little Sisters send the message really well. This message like several other messages, is implied and not explicitly thrust into the player and that is probably what makes the game so unique. The story is there and the environment is there, and it is upto the player to explore, find the audio logs and connect the dots. The atmosphere, the soundtrack and the random dialogues of the enemies that the player encounters in the game, all add up to an experience that is beyond words. A true Gesamtkuntzberg.
This video, along with the next parts explain Bioshock's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrlgwU2PY-s
Bioshock's gameplay videos are available throughout youtube. But here's something more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ke4WBDTUA
Bioshock is a slightly older game that came out around 2007, with very solid FPS (First Person Shooter) game mechanics. I'm not a huge fan of FPSes- simply because the concept of shooting everything at sight is not something i like greatly. This doesn't mean that I hate them though and there can be very clever FPSes as well. Duke Nukem 3D which came out in the mid 90s had some smart puzzles in spite of being a hardcore FPS and I loved it- at least compared to the other games of the time and Doom was the most obvious comparison- which had some very solid gameplay but didnt really require as much brains as practice, and the story wasn't very engrossing, aaand it wasn't funny either.
FPSes have come a long way since then and now have RPG (Role Playing Game) like elements almost universally. Bioshock is probably one of the first games to be an FPS that blended RPG elements effectively. These aren't hardcore RPG elements though- there is no leveling up and skills are gained by looting or with currency rather than with experience. Fallout 3, a more traditional RPG which came out around the same time was a game I thoroughly enjoyed playing and remains one of the favourites of all time while I stopped playing Bioshock pretty early in the game not realising what I missed out on. The casual gamer would not look beyond the FPS elements of Bioshock and I definitely did not, when the game came out. One can easily be fooled by the brilliant FPS mechanics and think that the story is not worth exploring. One would be making a huge mistake then.
Bioshock as I said, has very strong FPS mechanics. The shooting feels realistic and moving around while shooting makes it harder for enemies to target you. Enemies are not particualrly smart but can be challenging enough. Player's health is not obscenely high as it is in some games and it's easy to die in 1 hit in several parts of the game, from full health. The atmosphere is fantastic and the back-story is explained through a set of audio diaries scattered throughout the world. RPG elements include multiple ways to defeat enemies. There are magic-like abilities gained through injections called plasmids which can be combined with each other or with guns for amazing effects. Igniting an enemy for instance makes him run to a nearby pool of water if it's there and then you can shock him for almost instant death. You can use telekinesis to throw an item covered with land mines at an enemy, or freeze and shatter an enemy. There are around 10 superpowers that are active and some 20-30 that are passive. There's a way to do practically anything you can imagine in the world, and this includes hacking security systems, cameras, fooling powerful "Big Daddies" to fight for you and so on.
Mass effect, Fallout and Elder Scrolls series are famous for giving the player moral choices and they do so very well and often with very distinct in-game consequences. The moral choices are designed in such a way that there is no clear benefit to being good, and being bad just gives a different set of evil friends that you can interact with & a diferent set of actions and conversations become unlocked depending on your choices. Fallout 3 even rewards the player with perks, for being ethically neutral- in order to compensate for the loss of the extra friends and actions gained by extreme moral actions. Morally good behaviour is not strongly encouraged in the games which give the player a choice to be bad, and most players can casually choose to be either very good or very bad, and even try out 1 after the other- simply to get a different experience playing the game. In Bioshock, there is a huge compulsion to do what your heart wants. I for instance, cannot imagine taking the 'bad route' and I'm sure that a few people wouldn't be able of imagining the 'good route'. But the more important distinction is that the game makes you think of morality and government laws and their inter-relationships in real life, and not just in the game. It lets you go out into a world ( an underwater city called Rapture, which is very advanced technologically even in the 1950s-60s) where people are not bound by morality or by rules and regulations and are free to live life as they want to. Survival of the fittest. It also makes you wonder what is it that makes humans really human. For in this world of immorality, people seem to have lost things such as love and sharing-which are actually among the most important the things that define humanity; and resort to insane amounts of cheating, killing and even things like modifying kids' DNA to speed up their growing process and make them more efficient. These are the mildest atrocities that you come across in Rapture.
(Spoilers ahead)
The creator of the city Andrew Ryan is an obvious reference to Ayn Rand and the guy who guides you through most parts of the game called Atlas- a possible reference to her work Atlas Shrugged. I'm sure that there are plenty of other references to her works as well as other similar ones.It's fascinating how the whole world is unforgiving and treats you just like any other guy. You are no hero, no one special until the end when you realise that nothing had been a coincidence. You had been actually sent to the city by Frank Fontaine, a ruthless businessman who bought your embryo or something from Andrew Ryan (your real father) and accelerated the growth process to generate an adult within 4 years, genetically altered to make you more powerful, and programmed you to respond to the phrase "Would you kindly" without questioning it. All of it is not even explained directly in the game and the story is partly told through audio diaries scattered across the city. An epic sequence towards the end of the game has you facing Andrew Ryan who let's you know that nothing had been a co-incidence and let's you know about your programmed response. He dies in agony with the pain of knowing that all his hardwork was undone by the people he called "weak". Although Rapture was a ruthless city created by a ruthless mind, you do feel a bit sorry for Andrew Ryan because he had an amazing vision to help humanity, although it was a bit flawed. In any case, you start to wonder why Atlas had been giving you directions with "Would you kindly" added to everything, when he tells you that he is actually Frank Fontaine. This is just an icing on the cake- the game tells dozens of stories, from the doctor who got obsessed with plastic surgeries and started killing, and experimenting with harmful chemicals which led to permanently disfigured people who were again subjected to experiments, to Tenembaum who discovered "ADAM" which alters the human DNA and allows humans to have magic-like abilities called plasmids. Tenembaum also discovered that little girls, if implanted with ADAM could produce 20-30 times the original ADAM and so sets up a fake orphanage to get girls for this purpose. These girls, called Little Sisters (same as the orphanage's name) roam throughout the city and are protected by a Big Daddy each- a huge powerful robot thingy which can 1-hit you to death at the beginning of the game when you're relatively weak. Tenembaum discovers a cure for these girls and lets the player know about it, but using the cure would result in the player getting less ADAM and thus makes it difficult to survive at times since it implies lesser of these active or passive supoerpowers. The player has the choice of killing or rescuing these girls, if he chooses to fight the Big Daddies that he sees around and manages to defeat them.
And this is what I probably wanted to talk about that hasn't been talked about by the hundreds of reviewers of the game. The fact that it is these little girls who actually let you know something about humanity- they're extremely adorable and in fact help you throughout the game with plenty of gifts to show gratitude, and this is upto the final boss fight with Frank Fontaine who became inhumanly powerful with doses of ADAM. Tenembaum is a big contrast to Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine, and protects these girls by storing them in a basement, and takes huge risks by trying to save and protect them. The human side of the game is almost completely feminine and this is no co-incidence. The motherly love that Tenembaum has (although she was a bit ruthless initially and only later regrets her actions) and the innocence of the kids touch you more than anything else in the game and the trailers of the game also advertise the Little Sisters more than anything. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are brilliant people. Ryan is frequently quoted by several audio logs of scientists as the best electrical engineer in the world, and Frank Fontaine is easily the best businessman in terms of making profits. But human beings are not complete just by being highly efficient. We have robots for that. It's the love for kids and family that really makes a human being and Tenembaun and the Little Sisters send the message really well. This message like several other messages, is implied and not explicitly thrust into the player and that is probably what makes the game so unique. The story is there and the environment is there, and it is upto the player to explore, find the audio logs and connect the dots. The atmosphere, the soundtrack and the random dialogues of the enemies that the player encounters in the game, all add up to an experience that is beyond words. A true Gesamtkuntzberg.
This video, along with the next parts explain Bioshock's story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrlgwU2PY-s
Bioshock's gameplay videos are available throughout youtube. But here's something more interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ke4WBDTUA
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