BioShock

May 10, 2006

To fully appreciate the storyline of BioShock, you may want to read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I'm not saying this to scare you off of Irrational's upcoming first-person shooter, but to try to give you an idea for how deep the story elements and themes for BioShock are. This really shouldn't be a surprise for those of you who are familiar with Irrational; after all, these guys did give us the extremely creepy and atmospheric System Shock 2.

The developers refer to BioShock as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and the reasons are hard to miss. The behind-closed-doors demo I saw of BioShock revealed a game that feels more like a psychological thriller than a summer action movie. You'll still shoot stuff, and there will be enough explosions to satisfy your id, but the rest of you psyche will be riveted by the unique setting and plot crafted by BioShock's creators.

The Opposite of Utopia

It's sometime during the 1950's. You're the lone survivor of a horrible plane crash floating in the middle of the ocean. Flaming debris surround you and you're quite sure that these will be your final moments. That is, until you see a lighthouse. Yes, a lighthouse. In the middle of the ocean. Go with it. You swim towards this lighthouse and go inside and are eventually led down to an underwater city known as Rapture.

Rapture was originally a Utopia, but one look at the place is all you need to see that this isn't the case anymore. Water is leaking in everywhere, everything is in disarray, and hideously deformed corpses litter nearly every room. To top it all off, you're now stuck in Rapture. From here on out, you're on your own. BioShock is designed to be a completely non-linear experience.

It won't be long before you stumble across the path of Big Brother and Little Sister. The first is a large lumbering man-thing in what looks like a deep-sea diving suit that looks like it was designed by a collaboration between H.G. Wells and Tim Burton. The second appears to be a young girl looks just a bit "off". If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. Little sister is on the lookout for "Adam" the one commodity that the remaining inhabitants of Rapture covet more than anything else. Little Sister may look and sound sweet and innocent, but your opinion of her will probably change when you see her jam a foot-long syringe into a corpse and drink up what she extracts.

Less Than Human

Sound twisted? That's exactly the point. Irrational isn't so big on making the usual demons and monsters as bad guys. Instead, the baddies you'll deal with are all human, or basically human. Remember those "deep themes" I hinted at earlier? The loss of humanity is one of them. Every adversary you face is human who, through the course of whatever calamity happened in Rapture, has become less than human. You'll soon learn that most of these people have become this way to survive in Rapture, and you'll have to make some similar decisions if you want to stay alive.

We saw freakish women who can crawl on walls and ceilings and are more than happy to eviscerate you with the sharp blades they hold in each hand. A glimpse of the concept art for BioShock reveals a ghoulish man dressed like a 1950's football player, another shows a doctor that would be the last person you'd ever want to give you a check-up. Some of these people will be oblivious to your presence, while others will attack you on sight. If you're smart, you can find ways to turn them against each other.

A Matter of Survival

Out-thinking your adversaries is a good idea considering how scarce ammo will be. Yes, you'll be armed; in the demo we saw a gun that fit right at home with the art-deco stylings of the rest of Rapture. Your firearm can use different types of ammo, each to suit different situations. For example, armor-piecing ammo will be handy against mechanized bad guys, but not so effective for putting down flesh and bone opponents.

You'll also have access to a set of abilities called Plasmid Powers. These genetic goodies will let you pull off super-human moves, but don't last forever. They don't grow on trees either so you'll want to use them only when you really need them. One Plasmid ability we saw lets you move super-fast; another increases aggro for NPC characters to encourage NPC-on-NPC violence.

Love the Decor

BioShock has a unique atmosphere that blends 50's music with old-school sci-fi gadgets, horrific enemies, and a sense of unease that I haven't felt since I saw The Ring. It's also been a while since fantastic graphics have been blended with such a unique art style. The design of Rapture is 1950's art deco with a bit of Jules Verne and Rube Goldberg thrown in for good measure. No grey offices or endless brown corridors here.

Water also plays heavily into the surroundings. You're surrounded by it on the outside and it's seeping in everywhere inside. You hear it almost everywhere you go. Thanks to a heavily tweaked version of the Unreal Engine that Irrational has dubbed "Vengeance", you may not see better water effects anywhere outside of the Atlantic and the Pacific. There will be no multiplayer mode, but that just means Irrational has more time to focus on the single-player game.

BioShock is scheduled to arrive in 2007 for both the PC and the Xbox 360. Other than the control schemes, both versions should be identical, and, from the looks of things, well worth waiting for.