Bioshock Preview
Jul 3, 2007
Bioshock starts with a plane crash. After a brief idyllic moment in which the main character - you - reads a note from his parents and considers an unopened gift, he is plunged suddenly into the sea. After struggling through water and fire, he comes to an obelisk jutting out of the water, here in the middle of the ocean. A doorway leads to a bathysphere, which in turns leads to a spectacular descent into an underwater city. A squid darts among the skyscrapers, and then a whale floats by where you might expect a zeppelin. The neon suggests Broadway. The art deco suggests Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The deep blue water suggests Atlantis.
Welcome to Rapture, an underwater utopia where something has gone very very wrong. This is the setting of what promises to be one of this year's most provocative and memorable games. Bioshock is the creation of Irrational, a developer known for an assortment of different games ranging from SWAT 4, to Freedom Force, to TRIBES: Vengeance. But Bioshock mostly recalls their debut game, System Shock 2, in which the player explored a spooky abandoned space station and uncovered a rich storyline in the process.
Bioshock revisits this basic concept, but at a different time and place. You're deep under water, and it's the 1950s. "Here comes the cast of Guys & Dolls," lead designer Ken Levine jokes as a group of "splicers" attack, clad in period outfits. The denizens of Rapture are called splicers for how they've been genetically modified, often to ghastly effect. They attack with pipes, rakes, and guns. They're mad, in more ways than one. But they aren't stupid.
"They react according to what you're holding," Levine demonstrates. "A splicer with a melee weapon won't rush you if you've got a gun equipped."
With the help of designer Dean Tate, they demonstrate Bioshock's combat. "We're going to show you a battle with a broad tool set," Levine says. It's developer talk for 'You get to play this however you want'. They run through the battle a couple of times, and it unfolds differently each time based on what skills and weapons are used.
There are proximity mines and a trip wire that fires an electrical shock. There's a chemical spray gun that freezes splicers so you can shatter them with a single blast from the shotgun. There are genetic powers called "plasmids", such as the enrage power that causes enemies to turn against each other, or an electrical bolt that shocks splicers standing in a flooded room. You can swap out the tank on the chemical sprayer to shoot fire into a puddle of oil. Use telekinesis to fling furniture, hold up bodies as shields, or even to catch and throw back grenades. You can hack turrets, security drones, or even first aid kits that will spray poison when bad guys try to use them for healing.
Or you can just shoot and pummel the bad guys.
Although Bioshock is mostly a shooter, it's built around character progression. You spend a resource called Adam at gene banks to improve your character. Do you choose engineering skills to make it easier to hack turrets? Do you go for offensive plasmids? Or do you choose passive gene tonics that improve your basic capabilities? The idea behind the game is that you're free to evolve your character, and therefore fight battles, however you like.
Unlike a typical RPG, there are no experience points. The only way to progress is to get Adam from Little Sisters. These are little girls infested with some evil power. They run around with giant syringes, extracting genetic material from dead splicers. Each one is accompanied by her own Big Daddy, a massive protector clad a bulky suit that's part diving gear, part powered armor. These Little Sister/Big Daddy pairs are generally uninterested in you, but you'll have to deal with them sooner or later.
When you kill a Big Daddy, you decide whether to harvest Adam from the helpless Little Sister, or whether to rescue her. If you harvest her, you get an immediate income of Adam, which you can spend at the gene bank. If you rescue her, she goes her own way and you get a tiny fraction of the Adam you would have received. Rescuers will definitely fall behind the "power curve", as Levine calls it. However, there will be some sort of deferred reward waiting for them later in the game. There are mysteries waiting to be uncovered, and plenty of moral ambiguity along the way.
"We wanted a different system than the typical dark side/light side thing, which basically determines whether you get a green or blue light saber," Levine says. "For us, it's all grey side."
"The basic idea behind Bioshock was to create an AI ecology," he explains. "I was watching a nature show. It was with a jackal and deer, or something. From this, I had the idea of an aggressor, a protector, and a passive resource gatherer. The story evolved from this." The Big Daddy was always a huge powerful guy in his bulky suit. But the collector was originally an insect. Things didn't click until someone suggested making the insect a little girl. Little Sisters were born.
It was something of an epiphany for Bioshock. "Empathy for the characters is something first person shooters need," Levine says. "People get that when the Little Sister is a little girl. And making people 'get it' is the first step." Levine says the goal in Bioshock is to create a world that doesn't need a lot of exposition or separate character screens or inventories. You don't generally fuss with your inventory or character development unless you're at a terminal.
"We don't need a tutorial. You know how it usually goes: 'All right, Marine! Now we're going to teach you how to crouch!' We don't need that. We're using things people know. Electricity and water. Fire on oil spreads. The size of the Big Daddy. All of this is visual storytelling and visual gameplay."
And it's to Bioshock's credit that it can accomplish this in a unique and memorable setting. If you're ready for something different from the usual World War II, tactical military, or horror-themed shooters, mark you calendars for August 21st, and get ready to take the plunge.