Either way, “BioShock” does little to represent the game’s strengths.īioShock tells a millenarian story of the Objectivist rapture gone awry: instead of ascending to heaven, the most promising members of society followed their modern messiah, Andrew Ryan, to the depths of the ocean. Either it is a holdover from old, largely unrelated games or it is a painfully literal allusion to the many “shocking” twists in the story. Whereas “Shock” was once a pleasing piece of alliteration that conjured up images of computer networks and hacking, its appearance in BioShock is a non sequitur. Push slightly on the concepts behind ADAM, EVE, or the plausibility of an undersea city, and you risk toppling the entire story. BioShock’s treatment of biology and genetics is about as sophisticated as X-Men’s explanation of mutant powers. An apparent nod to its spiritual (yet narratively unrelated) predecessors, System Shock and System Shock 2, BioShock carries the connotations of those sci-fi/cyber punk themes even though they do little to serve its fiction. I’ve never liked the title “BioShock” because it always seemed to be an oversimplification of the game’s ambitions. For now, BioShock Infinite represents video game culture’s tiresome devotion to the “franchise” at the expense of logic or artistic elegance. I only know what the previews reveal, so perhaps my fears will ultimately be unfounded. This is a drastic statement, and I acknowledge that I am undertaking a dubious endeavor: criticizing a game that has not yet been released is a great way to look foolish. Simply put: Bioshock Infinite is a disappointing name, one that makes me worry about the game itself, the future of the series, and the medium as a whole. In a convenient coincidence, yesterday’s announcement of BioShock Infinite expands on this conversation about names by demonstrating the power of a game’s title. This week, Jorge and I talked about the importance of character names.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |