Bioshock is 15 years old today!
Date: 2022-08-21
I don't usually keep track of birthdays and anniversaries. So when I looked at the internet today, and found a message on reddit, that Bioshock is 15 years old today, I started to smile. Incidently. I am currently replaying Bioshock 2, but I am also reading the Bioshock novel, called "Rapture" by John Shirley. The book has an excellent look of how Rapture become the underwater city, and ultimately how it falled.
Bioshock is a very special game and series in history of gaming. Originally developed by 2K under Ken Levine's leadership (who also did the Thief and System Shock games with Looking Glass Studios), they made one of the strangest game ever.
Ever since technological advancement in computer games, people asked if video games can be considered art. While many people still only saw flashy things and mindless gameplay, others made sure they spend most of their lives to create something beautiful, meaningful and memorable. Slight SPOILERS ahead
I always wondered, how Bioshock looks so timeless, how it looks so good after five or ten and now 15 years?! Then it hit me: it aged well, because this is a lived in world. Rapture's underwater city, is a place where people live, going to work, watch theater, going to the park and kids go to school. You have the living quarters, the hotel of the rich, or Arcadia's park where you can go to a date, or just simple enjoy the nature. Even from the outside you can see the signs on buildings, and later in the game you can travel between places too.
Even the audio diaries in the game, has an explanation. Andrew Ryan wanted to keep history of Rapture, so he encouraged its citizens to record diaries.
There are so many little detailes to be discovered throughout Rapture, that you might need multiple playthroughs of the place. And most of us will return to Rapture. The second game and its sidestory are also awesome, and in many aspects are better than the original story.
The gameplay elements in the first game are a little bit raw, but still exciting and you sure won't get tired using plasmids for the thousand times. As for the weapons, even the first one, a simple maintanence wrench can be powerful, to the point that you can find many "wrench-only" playthroughs on youtube.
It's interesting that on this day, I finished the Bioshock novel, titled "Rapture" by John Shirley. It goes behind the events of the games, and gives the backstory of how Rapture came to be. I can only recommend it to you, if you played the games. I loved it.
Bioshock is a masterpiece, an art. It successfully blends philosophy and politics, lore with a deep story, good gunplay and science-fiction elements. The environment is beautiful, thanks to art deco style, which takes us into an entirely different era, under water…
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This is post #22 of the #100DaysToOffload challenge, where we write 100 posts in a year. If you are interested in this event, check out the official website: 100DaysToOffload.com. Happy writing everybody! :)