I remember pre-ordering “Bioshock” as soon as I could. “System Shock II” was one of my favorite games. It was a rare and weird game adding the RPG sauce into the first person shooter dish. It also used clever ideas to overcome visual shortcomings. The result was one of the most effective survival horror games ever created. “Bioshock, its normal shaded, Unreal 3.0 powered spiritual successor could only be better” I thought, not remembering the fact that whenever I thought, it always got me in trouble.
In theory “Bioshock” is great. Instead of the sci-fi story of “System Shock 2”, it has a story which takes place in the past, in 1960. It features realistic physics simulation, allowing you to exploit the conductivity of water, or to simply throw things at enemies. Unlike “System Shock 2” it has no weapon durability stat or no character classes. The player is able to make use of every single action in the game at any time giving him a much wider palette of choices. And isn’t that the whole point of a non linear story? Hell, the game has three possible endings you can reach depending on the moral choices you make. Like “Silent Hill 2” I thought. In theory it is great.
Silly me. Being the Pisces I am, it is hard to tear myself from the land of dreams and remember the horrifying difference between theory and practice.
In practice the story of Bioshock is–shall we say–patchy.
We follow the exploits of one Jack, a passenger on a non-descript airplane, which suddenly decides to fall into the ocean. Being the sole survivor of the accident, our hero discovers a light house in the middle of the ocean and naturally swims for it. It appears there is a huge underwater city underneath that light house. This underground city was constructed by an idealist maniac called Ryan. In order to create a perfect society Ryan gathered all the most brilliant but misunderstood people in the world and made them part of his project. But as legions of B Movies taught us: “You can’t contain super science.” Things have gone horribly wrong in a horribly short time. Now Jack is trapped in this nightmare and the only way out seems to be through following the instructions of a kindred soul, one Atlas, who also wants to get out.
Of course things are never that simple. There are at least two big plot twists and several homicidal crew members approaching you with murderous intent, not to mention an abundance of fetch quests. The unnerving part for someone who remembers “System Shock 2” is that underneath all the polish very few things have changed.
The template and the general narrative flow of both games are astonishingly similar. Our hero whose body was modified by nanomachines or their 20th century equivalent genetics (frankly, I think for 1960, nuclear radiation would be more appropriate due to its well known Spiderman producing properties) finds himself in an isolated environment in which something has gone horribly wrong. He has only one ally with whom he only has radio contact. Of course it turns out in the end that this ally is the main villain. Everyone else is gone zombie. Those who have not are about to, or else they will attack our hero for no logical reason at all. On top of that, the entire security system (the incredible high tech security of the 60s) is against him and the whole location will soon be destroyed, so he’d better get out quickly.
Besides this template, the method of conveying the story is similar too. We listen to many voice recordings and/or read through endless paragraphs of diaries. It seems both in the future and past everyone loves keeping diaries. Direct interaction between characters is mostly restricted to beating the shit out of crazy inhabitants of the place. Furthermore we see reenactments of previous events in form of ghostly apparitions acting out the event. This does seem a bit too similar for two entirely stories taking place in entirely different settings.
The whole thing may be due to the fact that according to Ken Levine, game play always comes first; story presumably second, or maybe last. He says that during the development, the story of “Bioshock” changed entirely, several times. It is clear that Levine wanted to make a new “System Shock” game. Sadly “System Shock” belongs to Electronic Arts. So he did the next best thing. He made a new “System Shock” which is not really “System Shock”. The result is like trying to fit a star shaped block into a circle shaped hole. It doesn’t work. So Levine takes his hammer and pounds on the story until it fits.
The main difference between the two stories is that in “Bioshock” the already shaky suspension of disbelief goes out of the window. One of the unique elements of “System Shock 2” was that the villain was also the setting. SHODAN, the antagonist, was an AI with a God complex and she controlled every single part of the brightly lit and sterile looking environment you had to walk around. She was everywhere, watching your every move. In “Bioshock”, though, the villain is pretty much human. The environment is still against you, but there is no concrete reason for that.
We also have all the elements from System Shock’s game play, without any rational explanation: Automatic sentry turrets, security cameras, and killer robots, all of which you can hack. Remember it’s still the ‘60s. We know that Ryan hired rather clever people and brilliant scientists for his utopia project, but the audience has no idea as to how these contraptions work. We get a vague explanation about some miracle element and advanced genetics, but that’s about it. Mind you, this is not like “Fallout”, where the microchip is a lamp based circuit. “Fallout” was a story taking place in the future, seen through 1950s style goggles. Conceptually, that was a brilliant idea. But “Bioshock” is still in the ‘60s. Levine expects his audience to accept that in mere 4 or 5 years incredible advances were made in all fields of science but he still doesn’t explain how security cameras using 35mm films ended up with that incredible face recognition software so that they can instantly recognize you as foe and lock onto you. What can I say? As a PhD student in Cinema, I DO want their film development lab.
With the believability of the setting murdered, all you have is the art deco style environments and the story; of which, frankly, there isn’t much. The game assumes that the main hero will either be a power hungry psychopath or an angel clad in human skin.
Even without prior “System Shock 2” knowledge, the twists and turns of the story are rather obvious. There is next to no character development, no conflicts to resolve, nothing. All you have is recountings of previous events and a final twist. And what a twist that is.
The “Would you kindly” twist is, I must admit, a very good one. It reveals that the choices and the actions of our protagonist weren’t really his own. This not only makes sense, but also patches up many holes in the narrative and the irrationality of the protagonist’s actions. However, it could have been much more.
The main plot twist has further implications just like the plot twist in “Haze” does. The protagonist doesn’t really have a choice. He does what he’s been told, much like a character in a video game, which Bioshock happens to be. This could have been a great narrative on the nature of choice and the alternative lives we live in video games. Or it could have been something entirely different. A moderately talented author would have taken this concept and turned it into gold.
What you end up with in “Bioshock”, however, is a classic example of a story consisting only of a nice twist. Even with the twist, there are a hundred holes. How did they send Jack out? How did he live out there? How did Fontaine communicate with him? What kind of stupid plan is crashing the plane? What if Jack didn’t survive (and he almost does drown)?
And why would anyone surviving a plane crash, upon finding a huge syringe filled with a suspicious blue fluid, be instantly overwhelmed by the desire to stick it into his arm? (There is no “would you kindly” dialog there.)
It seems Levine, like most so called intellectual game designers, hates cinematic cut scenes and says the story should be conveyed through game play, without ever taking control from the player. But if this means I’ll have to listen to hours of voice recordings and read endless lines of text, I’d much rather read a proper book or listen to a radio play.
Levine may or may not be right. Game play may or may not be king. But surely the narrative in “Bioshock” doesn’t hold any noble titles, even if it does look quite enlightened compared to other games.