Is a Man Not Entitled to the Sweat of His Own Brow?

“No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor.”
“No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God.”
“No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.”

Yeah that’s right fools, I played kind of a lot of BioShock this weekend. If you don’t know, BioShock is a game currently released for the (incredibly badass only) PC and XBox 360. My experiences with it so far have been pretty terrific (and terrifying), so if you have a 360 or a computer beastly enough to run the game, I recommend playing it.

The general consensus of the game community is that the effective combination of elements from many different genres of games make BioShock extremely effective in its gameplay. I don’t disagree; shooters have been getting pretty lackluster over the past year and a half or so, even I found the relatively well-received F.E.A.R. to be disdainfully ho-hum. Same-old, same-old.

Personally, however, I think BioShock excels in its astounding ability to use setting to drive its narrative. A lot of games try to do this and do it poorly, or don’t bother trying; the end result is a lackluster game. There are exceptions, Half-Life 2 being the example that sticks out the most in my mind, the Zelda series also does a decent job.

“But how does it work in BioShock?” You ask.

BioShock takes place in 1960, in a remote underwater city called Rapture. Purely fictional, but 2kGames, BioShock’s publisher, writes it best when they say on their official blog that the signature art deco style utilized in Rapture’s architecture is “at once futuristic and archaic.”

This picture belongs to 2kGames. I’m using it to illustrate a critical point. Please don’t sue me.

If you’re reading this, and you know anything about architecture, you’re saying “hold the phone, art deco peaked out in the twenties.” And you’re correct. According to the game, however, Rapture was constructed to be a bastion for the elite individual. The exuberance seen in art deco architecture embodied the spirit of the roaring twenties, after the stark, unforgiving fervor of War. Rapture was constructed for the conspicuous consumer, which is abundantly clear in its heavy use of this opulent style. Lights, neon, and sculptures of grand design litter the city.

Litter the city.

The extravagant underwater high-rises are all too quick to lure the player into a false sense of hope. A flickering neon sign lies in a tattered, waterlogged tavern among decaying corpses. “Happy New Year, 1959.” This contrast is stark, and it is everywhere.

Setting is a powerful thing.

Just don’t get me started on the Big Daddies.