Bioshock

Bioshock is a computer and video game in development by Irrational Games, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. It is intended to be a true 'spiritual successor' to System Shock 2. It has been in development since late 2004 (and in planning for some time before that). On January 9, 2006, Take-Two Interactive announced that they had acquired Irrational Games, and would be publishing Bioshock under their 2K Games publishing label, "planned for release in early 2007". According to an article in the March 2006 issue of Game Informer, development for the PlayStation 3 has not been denied (nor has it been confirmed). The title of the game was initially BioShock; on April 4, 2006, it was announced that the letter 's' in the title had been changed to lower case.

The game was originally going to run on an enhanced version of the Tribes Vengeance engine, the highly modified version of Unreal Engine 2.5 technology. Used by previous Irrational titles Vengeance and SWAT 4 and The Stetchkov Syndicate. The "rendering engine and lighting has been completely re-written", according to Ken Levine In an interview at E3 in May 2006, Levine has revealed that, " we've moved to Unreal 3, we've done a lot of modifications on top of it," particularly to the way the engine handles water effects, which he boasts will be very impressive, "we've hired a water programmer and water artist, just for this game, and they're kicking ass and you've never seen water like this."[http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7461&pg=3&comments=&preview=

Bioshock is said to include a great deal of interactive environments and player-driven choices, called emergent gameplay by the developers. While the term has been used for a variety of games, such as the popular Grand Theft Auto series, most believe this gameplay will borrow highly from System Shock and System Shock 2.

The game was originally planned to be set at some point in the near future, in an abandoned WW2 laboratory. Coverage in the March, 2006 issue of the magazine Game Informer sets the game in the 1960s, in an underwater city known as Rapture.

Initial story

The game starts with the player underwater following a plane crash in the ocean, surrounded by debris. No introductory cut scene is displayed explaining how this happened, leaving the player to decide for themself why they were on the plane. Nearby, a lighthouse is sticking out of the water, in the middle of the ocean. Upon getting inside and traversing the internal stairwell, the player finds a bathysphere, with a corpse inside. Upon removing the corpse and descending in the bathysphere (having nowhere else to go), the player eventually reaches an underwater city on the ocean floor.

A plot unfolds involving the crumbling city, named Rapture, and the utopian society for which it was built. A man named Andrew Ryan, a former Soviet citizen, built the city in 1946, and the society was envisioned as the ultimate capitalistic and individualist paradise, with the elite achieving for themselves, rather than for the whole. Protected by a network of giant sea walls and consisting of a cluster of enormous skyscraper-shaped hive towers, Rapture was designed to be entirely self-supporting, with all of its electricity, food production, water purification and defense systems powered by the natural undersea currents of the ocean. At one point, it is learnt that Rapture's population numbered several thousand at its peak during the early 1960s, composed of those people Ryan viewed as the best examples of mankind. A large and tiered economy grew among the people, catering different quality products to different levels of the society. The city itself is inspired by Art Deco and has an appearance merging the futuristic and arcahaic.

A scientific discovery upset the balance of the society. Two scientists studying ocean-floor dwelling creatures discovered a species of sea slug that secretes pure stem cells. These could be used to enhance one's body, improving physical or mental capabilities, curing diseases and healing injuries. A young entrepeneur name Fontaine invested early on in ther research to gain control over the material. The substance, dubbed "Adam", became so sought after in the society, that it became the dominant currency of the city. A "full-scale genetic arms race" broke out between Ryan and Fontaine as Fontaine's monopoly on Adam threatened the current social structure. Ryan eventually won, but everyone in the city was permanently changed. During the war, it was discovered that Adam could be used to modify one's body, combining technology and mutations to adapt and survive the conflict, but losing their humanity in the process. During the conflict, all natural sources of Adam were destroyed, which eventually resulted in a major shift in the "ecology" of the city, as all inhabitants had become biologically dependant on Adam to survive.

When the player arrives in Rapture, the city is in a state of disrepair, its vast underground living areas and laboratory complexes scarred by the effects of the civil war and poisoned by biological weapons. Low-level flooding is also found to be a problem, as the use of high-powered explosives and corrosion weapons during the war created small breaches in the city's sea walls, allowing the sea to enter some of the buildings.

As the player descends through the underwater city, he or she will explore the many levels of the giant undersea base, including the huge living quarters modules, the multi-floored scientific headquarters and the undersea monorail transport network. Remnants of the last days remain in notes and recordings made by the citizens before and during the collapse of Rapture's society. Not only does this provide background, it also opens new avenues in the player's interaction with the ecology of Rapture.

Enemies

Three main categories of enemies are encountered:

Aggressors: Deformed, genetically modified remnants of Ryan's army, the Aggressors cannot survive in an oxygen atmosphere due to their extensive biological modifications. They wear little or no armour, and normally roam the levels of Rapture, searching for other inhabitants to kill and steal Adam from. As their name would suggest, they are aggressive and violent, and will use their enhanced physical strength, group tactics and, sometimes, semi-biological weapons to kill all in their path.
Gatherers: Genetically modified children, the Gatherers were created as a solution to the Adam shortage. They extract Adam from the dead, and their bodies reprocess it into a usable form again. The team designed them so the player would have a moral conflict in killing children to obtain Adam.
Protectors: Lumbering bio-mechanical monstrosities, created to protect the Gatherers. They are heavily armored and wield high-powered weaponry. Their armour somewhat resemble large diving suits. Most of the inhabitants stay out of the way of the Gatherers and Protectors. According to lead designer Paul Hellquist "Once you mess with them, you find out why no-one messes with them."

Self-modification

To adapt and advance their character, the player can spend Adam to gain upgrades called "Plasmids" to modify themselves and give themselves new and/or enhanced abilities and weapons. Some of these are grouped under trees such as Weaponry, Engineering, and Psionics.

One of these abilities, as mentioned in a gamespot preview of the game, is Aggressor Scent, which causes all nearby enemies to attack the target of the plasmid. Another allows the player to temporarily command a Protector. And a final one allows the player to disguise itself as a Gatherer, gaining Protector aid and scaring away some Aggressors.

Influences

Levine has stated in an interview with gaming magazine IGN that the project has drawn on many influences, mostly from utopian and dystopian literature; "And I have my useless liberal arts degree, so I've read stuff from Ayn Rand and George Orwell, and all the sort of utopian and dystopian writings of the 20th century, which I've found really fascinating." He also states that he wanted to confront challenges that face the modern world such as, "stem cell research and the moral issues that go around."

Ayn Rand not only acted as literary inspiration, but also as personal inspiration. As a former citizen of the Soviet Union, she was driven by the freedom she saw in the United States to develop Objectivism, a philosophy advocating reason, rational egoism, individualism and laissez-faire capitalism. The founder of Rapture seemed to suffer a similar epiphany, but rather than expressing it through literature, he attempted to form a society based on it.