Emotional Contagion

Bioshock

Since it's release in 2007, Bioshock made a huge name for itself in the world of gaming. Spanning all three major platforms (PS3, XBox 360 and PC), BioShock aimed to appeal to a wide demographic of players who found the idea of an underwater Utopia fascinating. The game story is built to represent the ideas of Ayn Rand and Georgre Orwell who both deal with morality in a unique sense. It is this exploration of these ideas that hooked me right from the start and pushed me to finish the game just to know how it ends - only one of the two endings at that. The game shocked, surprised, amazed and allowed my imagination to run wild with ideas of utopian and dystopian worlds. The terrific writing, the riveting gameplay and the engaging storyline are all reasons behind my loyalty towards the franchise and my high standards for back stories within video games.

This blog is not going to be a summary of the storyline and it's certainly not going to be a review of the game - you already know I think it's pretty great. What this blog is going to be is an exploration of the underlying themes in Bioshock and why they had such a profound impact on me. For those of you who haven't played Bioshock, you can watch this video to help get familiarized with the world which we are about to embark on. 

WARNING: This blog is definitely full of spoilers exposing the game's storyline and underlying plot. The video below does an exceptionally good job of this. 

Now would you kindly step into the Bathysphere and join me as we breach Rapture.

The City

Rapture always seemed to be a living breathing incarnation of Andrew Ryan's beliefs and morals as twisted as they were. This makes sense considering he built it for the sole purpose of giving like-minded individuals the freedom to do as they wish free of consequences. The thing that got to me was how well the city itself was structured and how every level was so unique that there was never a time I felt as though I was re-visiting the same scene or doing the same mission. The destruction and dilapidation was enough to set the mood and tone of the level and the manner in which certain hallways and rooms were designed evoked genuine feelings of anxiety, not to mention they were creepy as hell. 

Walking into rooms where splicers had hung themselves or looking at blood splattered walls where someone tried to spell out a message but only made it half way through before dying of blood loss sent chills down my spine. The tape recorder with messages from past and current inhabitants of Rapture pushed the eeriness of walking into a bedroom with a corpse laying on a bed in a pool of their own blood. Knowing about these people's lives and why they couldn't handle the pressure of the societal structure of Rapture got to me and helped cement the foreboding of my encounter with Ryan. There were times when I could feel people's pain as they lost their children to testing or couldn't take the social divide between the lower and upper-class in Rapture.

Of course sudden events such as pipes bursting and freezing splicers or debris breaking through glass and flooding areas on the map were well placed and made the city feel even more alive. At no point did I forget that I was in an underwater city or that the time period was somewhere in the 60's. The environment of vibrant destruction and perfectly chosen music and lingo did a great job reminding me of this. I even noticed how structures, buildings and rooms were reminiscent of 1960's architecture and design as were weapons and machinery spread throughout Rapture. This living, breathing ecosystem really made me feel like I wasn't welcome but that I had a responsibility to hear the stories of the ghosts that live within the walls of Rapture and do something to help them get revenge on whoever put them there.

The Inhabitants

When Andrew Ryan built Rapture, he intended it to be an open sandbox for doctors, physicians, artists, musicians, etc. to stretch their creative license. These were individuals considered to be the wealthy and shall we say more extravagant members of society back on the surface. Who Ryan didn't account for was the middle to lower-class workers who helped build Rapture and ended up with the short end of the stick in a society where power meant everything. With a lack of jobs and stability, the lower-class decayed and became the Adam-hungry junkies you now see roaming the streets. It made me sad to see how the rich got richer while the poor got poorer eventually leading to their demise. Those with moral stature took their lives before Rapture had a chance to drain them, whereas those who tried to survive were brought down by the ones in power until the society eventually caved in on itself. 

There were a lot of times in Rapture when I genuinely felt scared because of the brilliant A.I. that I knew was just around the next corner ready to pop out and run towards me. There was one particular moment where silence filled a room and as I approached an operation room I could see the shadow of a mad doctor operating on a patient cast on a blood spattered wall but as soon as I turned the corner ready to fire, I noticed no one was there. I turned around to head back to wards my objective when I came across a morgue with dead bodies placed in cabinets. I didn't think much of it and continued on, unfortunately I missed the same doctor creeping out of one of the drawers until I turned around and saw the madness in his eyes as he plunged a needle into me. Good thing I had my shotgun at the ready and blew him to pieces before he could take me back to his lab for some sick experiment. 

The A.I. in this game is brilliant and had me constantly watching my back for fear of Houdini Splicers that crawl on the ceilings and drop down behind you. I could see how degraded Adam had made these splicers and how they were nothing more than puppets with no control. It made me think about how splicers were a physical manifestation of addiction and how grotesque it can make someone. At times, I was afraid that I would become one with the freaks with all the Adam I was injecting into my system and then tried to stick to guns as much as possible. I have never been more nervous playing a video game as I was when waves upon waves of splicers were coming at me and I wasn't sure what to do about them or how to handle the situation. In these situations, I would often resort to using Telekinesis to pick up whatever I could find (even if it was a dead splicer) and throwing it at the onslaught of enemies. The game managed to bring out my inner instinct when defending myself, which both surprised and impressed me on several occasions. 

Daddy's Little Girl

The dynamic of exploiting the innocence of a child was so astoundingly brilliant and the moral choices associated with such a dynamic just made the game even more engaging. On my first playthrough, I saved all the little sisters but not without thinking heard about my decision. I think seeing the splicers and what Adam had made them definitely influenced this decision but I had also read that whatever happens, you get the same amount of Adam by the end of the game. Maybe it was the fact that I have extensive experience with kids (working at a camp in the summer) or maybe it was the fact I couldn't bare leeching the innocence out of these children - whatever the case I was never able to bring myself to sacrifice a little sister for my benefit. I was truly amazed that the game managed to provoke such thought within me and figured that I would rather die a hero than live long enough to see myself become a villain. 

Big Daddies are terrifying foes and had me emptying round after round just to subdue the beast. The dynamic of a father-daughter relationship was explored very well and added empathy to a game that seemed to be terribly lacking it. This is especially true as you go on to become a Big Daddy later in the game and have to protect your Little Sister through waves of splicers. The adrenaline rush associated with that parent-child relationship is  a fantastic game mechanic and makes me feel like I'm really in charge of protecting this little girl from being harassed or even killed by junkies spread throughout Rapture. 

Revelations & Conclusion

The final reveal towards the end of the game amazed me and was one of the most unique endings to a prolific plot that managed to keep me biting my nails on the edge of my seat. I couldn't stop playing once I reached a certain stage in the game till I was finally done - this is how gripping and persuasive the narrative in Bioshock is. Knowing that you've been a puppet lead every step of the way genuinely annoyed me and made me want to destroy Fontaine for the lies and the deceit. Despite being Ryan's son, I felt a need to get rid of a man who came to control a society not meant to withstand the pressure of constraints. The moral dilemmas I faced from beginning to end got me thinking about whether a utopian society would really solve a lot of people's problems. The honest truth is, it wouldn't it would in fact create problems for not only the inhabitants and the lower class but also for the leaders and those bent on having all the power there is. Ryan believed in no restrictions by any power, yet he strived to gain more and more power and eventually lead Rapture to what he felt was its full potential. Fontaine, on the other hand, was a man who managed to survive by outwitting Ryan and prospering in a society with no government to prohibit unlawful activity. Both these men were at the ends of a power spectrum human beings still struggle to control. 

Here is a video of the alternative endings and how brilliantly the creative lead decided to end the game story based on your moral decisions in the game. The outcome may be the same but the tone controls the content. 

Although you leave Rapture behind, a lesson in human nature and survivalist instincts lives on. This was one of the numerous lessons I learnt from my time within the underwater city of Rapture. I went in a god-fearing moral man and emerged slightly less than human.