BioShock
If this is not art, then art does not exist.Is that important? Not really, because BioShock isn't hanging in a museum.
What's important is this: is it a great game?
Yes.
BioShock is jam-packed with excellent design, thoughtful stories, brilliant voice acting, stunning music, and outstanding graphics and animation. It's polished and intense and tremendously affecting. It's Ken Levine's magnum opus.
For now.
Based on the story in BioShock, John Carmack should send Ken Levine a simple e-mail.
Dear Ken,
I was wrong.
What Carmack was wrong about was claiming that games were like porn and didn't need stories. Without the story, which is nominally about Objectivism but actually reveals, in intimate detail, the deepest failings of humanity, BioShock would be paper-thin, a potato chip of a sci-fi romp. It would still be fun to play, but it would lack the essential humanity that it explores so deeply.
And with that, the pretentious pseudo-literary section of these impressions comes to an end.
Here's the more straightforward version: this game kicks fifty different kinds of ass.
The world of Rapture is so meticulously created, so elaborately detailed, that it is entirely convincing. The art-deco style is also tremendously striking and deeply cinematic, a brilliant choice for the world, because most of all, art-deco conveys a carefree feeling. This is wonderfully ironic, because the dark reality of what Rapture has become is the polar opposite of what the architecture and decoration would have you feel.
The story is told through audio logs that you discover as you progress through the game, and they're superb--deeply personal and full of feeling, and the personalities all feel distinct. It's a combination of excellence in both writing and voice-acting, and the story they tell is outstanding.
A special mention is deserved for the sound, which may well be the best I've ever heard in a game. The sound effects are spectacular, the music composed for the game is brilliant, and the licensed tracks are nothing short of genius, selected to compliment the carefree past. They play as the equivalent of elevator music in public areas, and hearing The Andrews Sisters belt out "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" as I'm watching a splicer firefight is one of the funniest moments I've ever had in gaming.
None of this wouldn matter if the gameplay wasn't as good, but it excels. Yes, there's probably more combat than I would have liked, but only because the world was so interesting to explore. And even though the game is very tightly woven, combat is tremendously flexible. Your character can be upgraded with all kinds of genetic enhancements, and there are always multiple ways to handle any combat situation. It's a system that rewards ingenuity.
BioShock is also a game that is explicitly designed to allow you to finish the game. The difficulty level is adjustable at any point, so it's very simple to make the game easier (or more difficult). There's also a "quest arrow" that points you in the right direction, if you prefer. I turned that off immediately, but it's good to have it there as an option, because it minimizes the chances that someone is going to get lost or stuck. If you don't finish BioShock, it's because you just didn't want to, although I imagine that will be a very, very small club.
There are certainly things I wish had been handled differently--there always are--but it's a very short list, and there's only one substantial complaint. In a game that's so incredibly cinematic, it was a poor design decision to put persistent status bars on the screen. If those could be turned off, you'd essentially be playing a movie, and since the controller vibrates when your health gets low, the status bars really aren't necessary. Sure, the feedback would be less precise, but I would have gladly traded a few more reloads for more immersion.
That's a very small quibble with a masterpiece.
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