In many ways, Bioshock was the true coming-of-age for video game storytelling. Your time in the decrepit, ruined utopia of Rapture is not only a memorable trip, but an acerbic realisation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, critiquing the book's championing of objectivism and individualism. The game is an interactive allegory, critiquing the concept of a society in which each person is completely free to pursue their greatest ambitions without considering the needs of others. Then there's the big twist, which towards the end of the game made us feel like for the past 15 hours we had pretty much no control over our actions, and were simply playing along by someone else's rules rather than our own. Of course, this is kind of the case in most games, but Bioshock made us powerfully, profoundly, aware of this fact. This is one of the purest examples of a distinctly 'video game' plot, in that there are no pre-rendered cutscenes, no dialogue coming from the player aside from the immediate intro, and very little face-to-face interaction with the game's few non-splicer characters. It's a story told through audiologs, the stunning, aspirational Deco environments of Rapture, and other fine background details of the game. Through its story, Bioshock proved that the gaming medium can be used to effectively critique philosophies, conceive its own ones, as well as make us reflect on the very nature of gaming itself. Brilliant. Buy BioShockNow, would you kindly leave a comment if you think I missed something from this list? And, if you'd like to try your hand at writing for WhatCulture, head over to whatculture.com/write!
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
