How Bioshock Restored My Faith in Video Game Storytelling

I remember when Bioshock first came out in 2007. While I didn't play it when it first debuted, I remember the amount of buzz surrounding it, and the talk of it changing the face of video games for better.

Despite all that buzz, I didn't play it until a while after it's release: partly because I'm not as up to date on gaming as others, partly because I didn't have the system to play it. 

That all changed when I was finally had a 360 to play it on, and when I saw it at Target for only about $20 (which is a steal, considering how obnoxiously priced video games are now...). I picked it up more than anything because of it's price, and because I had heard good things about.

Now in terms of my gaming background, there's not much. I'm one of those people who play video games for the sheer enjoyment of playing video games, and am very rarely engrossed by story, character development, etc. Call me shallow, but I just wanna solve puzzles, drive fast cars, and blow s**t up sometimes. The way I look at it, so many video game stories seem the same: a shooter that involves rescuing someone or some corporate espionage; an adventure game that's all about saving a kingdom or civilization. I don't entirely blame game makers, but I've become so jaded when it comes to video game "stories" that it takes something especially great to pull me in and make me care about more than finishing the checkpoint, the level, the game. As a film student who's spent a good amount of time studying story, plot, character arc, etc., I haven't been impressed by a video game in a looooong time. Call me pretentious if you must, but it's true. I was ready to be wowed.

Well...enter Bioshock. Even before I get to story, there's a few things I love about Bioshock. One is the design, with beautiful art deco and attention to detail in everything from record players (the story takes place in the 1960s) to the art on advertisements for plasmids within the game.

A neon sign within rapture

Another is the atmosphere-I can't remember the last game where I actually wanted to stop and just look around at everything. There's fallen neon signs that still flicker, creepy masquerade masks littered on the floor, even blood smeared psychotic messages on the wall.

Still, lots of games have these kind of things, right? Well, that brings me right back to the whole point of my discussion-the story. Bioshock doesn't waste any time setting up it's mysterious plot, as the opening scene involves your plane crashing in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Yet as you swim around looking for something to save yourself, you find you're really not in the middle of nowhere at all-just ahead is looming, ominous tower that's almost a light house without a light. The only higher ground around with the plane sinking and an oil fire on the surface, you head towards it and walk up it's stairs, through a cracked door, into darkness.

In traditional horror fashion, the door slams behind you, leaving you in absolute darkness. But then you hear the flicker of neon, and the lights come on to reveal a staircase that heads down. Down? Into the ocean? What kind of place is this? As you begin to head down (as it's the only way to go), you're greeted by this statued figure and a banner with an odd sort of welcome:

What does it all mean? Well, as you soon find out, you're in Rapture, a giant underwater city built by a man named Andrew Ryan who asks in a orientation film "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" and continues, revealing that he build Rapture for anyone who wanted to start a new life, free of their old life. Rapture is a place where they can come to rebuild, a society where they, live, work, and maintain it all together. 

As one soon sees though, this did not turn out well. Still, the initial site of Rapture is breath taking-a gigantic underwater metropolis with tall buildings, tunnels, and a submarine system that connects it all. The first sign of life in Rapture is not a pleasant one-a man is chased by some strange person with what look like iron hooks, begging for his life. But they don't spare it. He's gutted while the assailant screams, then eerily asks "Is it someone new?" before leaping away into the darkness.

So just like that, you're thrust into a strange new world, seeing that it's gone to hell having but no idea how. It's just you. No one else seems to have survived the crash. So there you stand, in the darkness, as demented psychopaths crawl around and scream at you. 

Your only contact is via short wave radio, with a man who calls himself Atlas. He's an Irishman looking for his family, and he begs you to help him. He tells you that you can trust him, and that if you help him he'll owe you a huge favor. At first, it seems he's the only one you can trust. But then a woman named Tenenbaum cuts in, who begs you to rescue the "little sisters", mere children who have been possessed and used to search for bodies to remove ADAM, a life force. 

Is she worth saving?

Atlas tells you differently, however. "That's not a little girl..." he advises, and reminds you that need plenty of ADAM to survive down in Rapture. So what do you do? Saving the girl will rid her of her possession and allow her to run free, though you'll receive less life force. This is what Tenenbaum begs you to do, though Atlas suggests that you need to "harvest" the little sisters, essentially killing them but giving you more precious life force.

Here's where the brilliance of the story comes in-it is completely up to you, as the player, as to which you want to do. Maybe you trust Atlas more and want to help him get his family back....or maybe you think Tenenbaum is telling you the truth. These two people are your only frame of reference in this hell of an underwater city, the only people for now that you can trust. But who do you trust?

In using this technique, the creators of Bioshock create a story that is much more interactive and gripping. In most games, the way to the objective is paved directly for you: take this enemy base, defeat this boss, find this artifact. Repeat. Bioshock obviously has it's objectives, but the path to them is so much more in the player's hands that it creates an incredibly engaging story.

As you play through Rapture, the mystery unravels for you at the same rate it does for the character you control. Through both Tenenbaum and Atlas, as well as several audio diaries strewn throughout the city, the secrets of Rapture and the dark reasons for it's downfall are revealed. Enemies are terrifying at first, as they move slickly through the dark and have hideous faces hidden by masks, but once the player gains a feel for how to spot them and defeat them, that fear is reduced. 

To sum it all up, Bioshock is a game that finally treats its story as a more important aspect of the whole thing. It's fresh, it's mysterious, and most of all, it's engaging. It makes you become interested by giving YOU the choices of what to do.

If only more games were like this. Oh well...the incredible looking Bioshock: Infinite is out in 2012. It looks well worth the wait.