A spiritual successor to the System Shock series, Irrational Games’ BioShock (2K Games, 2007) was critically acclaimed for its
storyline, immersive biopunk environments as well as its unique representation
of its fictional Orwellian underwater city, Rapture. To help immerse the
players, clever and efficient world design is key to allow such players to
experience the world of BioShock, by playing the demo, we will be able to
analyse just how even the first half an hour or so of the game can convey so
much.
The game begins straight after the player experiences a
cutscene depicting a plane crash into the Atlantic Ocean, causing them to
resurface to find themselves surrounded by fire, which serves as a contextual
visual guide, urging the player onward to find a hard-to-miss landmark,
complete with flickering lights at the bottom of the stairs as a visual cue for
the player to boot.
Fig 1. The
aforementioned unmissable landmark, not conveyed
in this screenshot, but a light is broken at the bottom right, drawing the
player's eyes to the flight of stairs there.
As soon as the player enters the building and into complete
darkness, only for the room to light up, revealing a statue of Andrew Ryan, a
banner proclaiming “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.”, providing an emergent
narrative and clues to the player on the secular and objectivist nature of
Rapture. As the player continue onwards, they are guided primarily by music
towards the bathysphere (with the music growing increasingly louder the closer
the player is). Entering the bathysphere will trigger a cutscene that will
introduce the player to the splendour of Rapture with panning establishing
shots.
Fig 2. An
introduction to Rapture and its creator's ideology.
The player will then witness the demise of Johnny at the
hands of a splicer, before leaving the bathysphere in order to progress.
Despite the darkness of the level, again there are visual cues that will aid
the player, such as a single flickering static monitor, as well as a singular
spotlight on a conveniently placed wrench.
Fig 3. The
singular lonely wrench, ready for the taking.
Since the player can now combat enemies, they will encounter
some splicers later on, before coming across a plasmid vendor, causing the
player to black out and wake up in front of a previously inaccessible door with
a “fistful of lightning” (a simple puzzle which comes in the form of a broken
control panel with the same coloured bolts as the ones in the player’s hands).
Once the player is able to move on, they will then come across a rather
memorable part with a splicer talking to her ‘baby’, the player will of course
naturally peek inside the stroller, discovering their first firearm, a
revolver.
Fig 4. One of
BioShock's more memorable scenes, providing one of many insights of how far
Rapture has fallen.
Inside the Kashmir Restaurant a distant couple of voices can
be heard, prompting the player to seek out the source and discovering two
splicers arguing, which is also visually framed in such a way that the player
can witness the exchange without being noticed, and strategize their approach
accordingly. Taking care of the splicers will allow the player to move on into
the Footlight Theatre, where Atlas will introduce the player to the backstory
and explanation for the Little Sisters. A broken flight of stairs that the
player will have to drop from can inform them that it is a point of no return,
and that usually such cues are evident of the end of a chapter, or perhaps a
significant encounter of sorts shortly after, which comes in the form of an
indirect confrontation with Andrew Ryan himself.
Fig 5. The
player's first proper interaction with Andrew Ryan, Rapture's creator and
founder.
During this timed and scripted event, splicers being to
attempt to break into the room which the player is trapped inside, heightening
the already tense situation, which ends only when Atlas finally opens the
locked door for the player to flee through.
SCREENSHOT REFERENCES:
(all screenshots in this blog post were taken from Mike
Mangold’s Visual Walkthrough website)
Mangold, M. (2008). More
flames block your path, but you can see this building to the right of the
plane's tail section. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/5.jpg
Mangold, M. (2008). This
statue and slogan are your first introduction to the philosophy of Andrew Ryan.
Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/8.jpg
Mangold, M. (2008). Grab
this wrench and use it to smash the debris blocking the door. Crouch to squeeze
through, then avoid the flaming furniture as you ascend the stairs to the
lounge. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/19.jpg
Mangold, M. (2008). Turn
right to witness this disturbing scene. Finish off the Thuggish Splicer and
grab the revolver in the baby carriage. Retrieved from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/35.jpg
Mangold,
M. (2008). Watch this message from Andrew
Ryan. More Splicers attempt to get to you, but are held back. Retrieved
from http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/bioshock/welcome/53.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment