When I speak on the matter of Bioshock, know that I am speaking from the heart for a franchise that matters more to me than any other video game series. In fact my passion for the game dwarfs my interests in most things movies, music & sport. The City of Rapture is one of the most unique and tremendous environments ever created for entertainment purposes & I will never believe that the games have gotten their due credit. I tell you this because I want you to know where I am coming from and how big a deal the surprise announcement of a third Bioshock installment was.
I’m sure if you cared enough to read this far into the post that you are aware of Bioshock and aware that a new trailer is out for “Bioshock: Infinite.” This will be the first in the series that does not take place in the underwater city known as Rapture. In the interests of full disclosure, I am aware that the concept of Rapture seems to have drawn heavily on ‘Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. Anyone that has played the series knows that the environment was a HUGE part of what made the game so appealing. The music, look & feel of the game was just as important as the gameplay. If not more so. That is why I am very nervous about taking Bioshock out of Rapture. I am worried about taking the darkness out of what is a very dark franchise. “Bioshock: Infinite” will take place in the flying city of Columbia. From what we’ve seen thus far, the visuals are very bright and stunning. Another huge difference is that the dystopian city of Rapture was built by Andrew Ryan to escape the nationalism and politics of the world’s super powers while Columbia seems to be built BY those very things.
What is even MORE concerning for this patriot is that it looks like you are fighting an enemy that is flying the American flag. I’m sure the antagonist will prove to me some sort of zealot that is corrupting the ideals of our great country, but I still don’t like it. I don’t kill Marines in Call of Duty, I do not relish the idea of fighting Americans. Have we become so overly politically correct that the only nation we feel comfortable making a villain in a video game is our own? I can look past all of the gripes I have laid out here. If Ken Levine & Irrational Games are making this thing and the mechanics are similar to the first Bioshock, they already have my 60 bucks. What I am discussing here is legacy. The most important aspect of the first 2 games, the one thing that HAS to remain in this third installment no matter WHERE it takes place is the moral question. To rescue or harvest. The moral dilemma in harvesting the Little Sisters. To slaughter a child to further your own cause. Nothing like that had really been attempted in gaming before. There are multiple references to children in the trailer for “Infinite.” There is even THIS propaganda poster that features a mother CHOOSING between one child & another. This aspect of the game is essential and I’m confident it’s developers are cognizant of that fact.
That leaves the Big Daddies. The most important characters from the series. The minibosses that were not evil, but had to be dispatched during the game. They were enigmatic monsters that were discovered to be quite tragic figures. IGN did a nice little breakdown of the “Infinite” trailer. During the video, you see multiple images of tiny Big Daddy model. This is strange because the events of this game are set decades before the events of the first two Bioshock games. There is some sort of robotic monster featured in the trailer that pitches the protagonist out of a window. The guys from IGN that are breaking down the trailer hypothesize that these could just be lumbering sentinels inside the city. That will not suffice. Whatever these things are, they are very important to the success of this game. The Big Daddies had human beings trapped inside of them. Will a robot with merely a human heart suffice? I’m not sure.
The good thing about this whole thing is that we don’t know shit. We know dick now, but we still don’t know shit. There is enough here to spawn debate and conjecture for months amongst fanboys like me. I am of the mind that Rapture was the perfect setting for multiple video games that could last us for years & years. I have confidence in Levine and his mob, but I loved Bioshock 2 also. I am looking forward to the upcoming downloadable content for BS2 that continues the storyline established in that game. If there could be some sort of trade off, a la Call of Duty between developers, I’m all for that. One game in Columbia in 2012, one in Rapture in 2013? Done & Done. The point in all this is: if you are going to change something that is really, really good, please don’t fuck it up. Check out the official site HERE.
*UPDATE* The very detail oriented Bioshock Wiki has a great description of how the city of Columbia came to be. Not sure how much of this was included in any of the previous articles, but the city definitely seems to have a lot of mystery surrounding it. Sounds more like it’s sister metropolis of Rapture:
Constructed by the American government as “Project Icarus” and originally conceived as a floating symbol of American ideals at a time when the United States was emerging as a world power, Columbia is dispatched to distant shores with great fanfare by a captivated public. The buildings were constructed on giant reactors and self-sustaining balloons to make the city literally fly over the clouds. But what begins as a brand new endeavor of hope turns drastically wrong as the city after a strange incident loses all controls and soon disappears for a decade into the clouds to whereabouts unknown.
However in 1912, former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt has been sent to find it and to rescue Elizabeth, a young woman imprisoned in Columbia since childhood for 15 years.
Click HERE to see for yourself and spend some time on the Bioshock 2 viral information if you want to be drawn into the lore further.
