BioShock

Jul 13, 2007

I'm a sucker for Art Deco. Those who aren't amateur students of architecture or interior design may nonetheless be familiar with Art Deco's streamlined shapes, geometric designs and metallic structures from modern masterpieces like Radio City Music Hall or the design aesthetic of Batman: The Animated Series. In the 1930s it was perceived to be ultra-modern, progressive and forward-looking. It celebrated a future where rationality, science and industry would at last conquer the darkness and evil that haunts the human condition. In modern times, though, Art Deco is often used as a deliberately retro-future statement, the sad relic of a bright future that never happened. It is grimly appropriate, then, that BioShock''s ruined underwater utopia of Rapture is a decaying monument -- the last outpost of the lost world of Art Deco.

It was this week at E3 2007 that I finally got a chance to go hands-on with Irrational's BioShock. In between appointments I wandered into a Microsoft gaming lounge and sat down at an empty BioShock station. As the demonstrator fired up the game, text on the screen told me I was over the Atlantic and the year was 1960. Then there was darkness and I was surging through dark waters lit only by burning oil slicks on the surface. My plane had crashed and as I surfaced and avoided the fiery wreckage, I already knew I was in for something special. A few minutes more and I had navigated my way to a small lighthouse that contained a bathysphere that seemed to be my only hope for contacting someone and being rescued.

It was my trip down into the sea, though, that gave me my first glimpse into the amazing story of Rapture. As the bathysphere descended into the inky depths, a screen rose from the floor and an old fashioned black-and-white welcome film told me where I was headed. "Does a man not deserve to keep the sweat of his brow?" the voice of Andrew Ryan asked. "The U.S. government says it belongs to the poor, the Vatican says it belongs to God and the Communists say it belongs to everyone." Rapture, according to Ryan's message, is the place where anyone may prosper free of interference or censorship. It's a perfect world free of the corrupt influence of the weak. It's a seductive message from a radical thinker who had the fortitude to turn that dream into reality.

Indeed, it's after the film ends that I get my first glimpse of the reality, and it's everything he promised it to be. Rapture is magnificent -- there's just no other word to describe it. As my submersible heads through the city, I travel through the man-made underwater canyons formed by ornately decorated Art Deco buildings. Fish, squid and a blue whale swim by neon advertisements offering fine tobaccos, high fashion for the modern woman and something called "Plasmids." My trip through the exterior of this city fills me with awe at the grandeur of Ryan's vision. Then the bathysphere docks and I get a close look at the nightmare formed when such a dream goes sour.

We have, of course, written about this opening section of Bioshock in the past. The difference this time was this was our first opportunity to test drive the PC version of the game. It performed as well as anyone could hope and the combat system and the use of fantastic Adam-based powers feels elegant and intuitive on the mouse and keyboard. Clicking the left mouse button brings up the left hand and allows access to Adam powers while clicking the right brings up the right hand for melee and ranged weapons. Rolling the mouse wheel or hitting number keys switches between powers and/or weapons for the hand that's showing. By my second fight with Rapture's mutated citizens I was switching between hands as though I'd been using such a system for years and quickly learned that using a lightning blast followed up by a wrench to the head works wonders on Rapture's more belligerent citizenry. A few minutes later, I started learning to use the environment to my advantage by electrocuting multiple enemies in standing pools of water.

As I traveled through the drowning corridors of the city I came to understand that the landscape itself was telling me its story. I eagerly examined the ads on the walls, reminders of a capitalist utopia where almost nothing was forbidden. I kicked around discarded protest signs in the dock area. The placards were emblazoned with angry messages like "Ryan doesn't own us!" and "We will ascend!" Someone behind me expressed disbelief that I could spend so much time just looking at giant banners that hung from one hall that read "Science," Industry," "Integrity" and the like. Finally, I got a big clue about what had happened when I came to a restaurant that held the remnants of a huge party and a banner reading "Happy New Year 1959!" Suddenly the strange, ragged clothing and the masks that the mutated creatures that had been attacking me made sense. They were in formal wear! Something very bad had happened here on New Year's Eve a little over a year ago and I'd need to find out what if I hoped to survive.

Every building tells a story and the tale Rapture tells is a sad one indeed. It's a tale of a grand dream gone horribly awry. Even better, the tale of Ryan's philosophy, its strengths and its fatal flaws, seems to be a subtext to the more obvious plot of the player's character trying to escape from his predicament. The art design of BioShock doesn't merely create a pretty place to fight against Big Daddies and Little Sisters, it may be the final element that pushes a game over the edge into becoming the first undeniable piece of video game art. For my own taste, the August 21st release date can't arrive soon enough.