Granted, video games aren't the only medium, electronic or not, that has been accused of corrupting the otherwise vulnerable youth of America. For starters there's Harold Hill of The Music Man as well as the "less than library darling" Huck Finn.
All joking aside, the video game's slightly older brother, TV appears to have "gotten away with murder." Or any other corrupting act you can think of. And we're not even talking cable yet. Yet somehow video games are more capable of indoctrinating one's child into becoming the next Manchurian Candidate because the player willfully decides to act out whatever occurs on-screen. Now naturally, the person isn't able to play out any varied sadistic fantasy they want to, anything they do, is merely within the paramaters of the game, no matter how wide it is. And, as for gaming console's doubling as "killing simulator," tapping/holding down depressable regions of a game controller or awkwardly flailing a Wii-mote fail to strike me as something that could possibly instruct a seven-year-old in the fine art of operating a flamethrower. Anyone that lets their child waltz around the background playing "Cops and Robbers" with a plastic gun probably has a greater likelihood of creating the next Al Capone.
Yet, this article is not meant to debate the influence of video games in corrupting America's youth, or the degree to which other mass media mediums (say that three times fast) are equally culpable of the same effects. Instead, I'd like to discuss how the issue of morality is presented within the title of Bioshock, in addition to providing an attempted "cursory" glance at the game on the whole.
At the outset, Bioshock borrows several techniques from the Half Life series. The player is dropped into the title in media res, sitting in a seat on what appears to be an older airplane, which is only ascertainable by the seat design, as well as the fact that the protagonist is clearly puffing away and not even attempting to hide it in the lavatory. Like the FPS legend, Bioshock does not intend to reveal the appearance of the main character...though it's quite amazing that while Rapture has enough water to fill all the kiddie pools at Neverland Ranch three times over, you never mange to glimpse your reflection. But that's just a small quibble. In fact, Irrational Game's title attempts to "one-up" Valve by refusing to give the main character a name. While we quickly figure out that Earth's savior, Gordon Freeman, is a MIT graduate conducting subatomic research at Black Mesa facility, when he more or less tears dimensional rifts between Xen and Earth...we have NO idea why the character named "Jack" by readers and fans is on the plane, where he's going, whether it's business or pleasure, or even the TYPE of cigarette he's smoking. Then again, even the player's gender could be considered to be up in the air.
What's amazing is that when playing the title, none of this matters. Just when I was beginning to be frustrated by the "withholding nature" of Bioshock, the flight path deviates from whatever unspoken location it was, to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Suddenly being concerned about whether or not the stewardess is going to bring me some peanuts and a Coke is the least of my worries, as groggily treading water while the tail of my plane slips beneath the surface of the waves. Oh, and the rapidly enclosing ovals of ignited fuel from the plane's tank cause a certain Johnny Cash song to come to mind. That and the possibly impending third-degree burns. And that sort of "warp-vortexy" black hole-ish whirlpool that shows up whenever, well, something large plunges under the Earth's surface. Whatever that scientific effect is technically called. I believe I called it: "Oh FUCK, it's that thing from Titanic!"
Few games have managed to bring out those "primal survival instincts" as well as that "trial by fire" in Bioshock. Whether it was the ever enclosing rings of fire, or that fact that the game refused to provide me with any tutorial suggestions other than the fact that swimming away from the fire would be advisable, my heart was pulsing at a rate that would have sent the heartiest of Vice Presidents in cardiac arrest. Perhaps it was the fact that after surviving something so...exotic...as a plane crash, there was no way I was going to kick the bucket in such a mundane method as drowning. Soon enough you're "dog paddling" to the nearest and only visible landmark, a lighthouse. And, instead of waiting for the Coast Guard to come and pick you up, you descend in the bathesphere that leads you down to Rapture. Please note that I said one goes down to Rapture. There was a certain amount of irony in that, that I appreciated.
A View of Rapture from the Bathesphere
During the ride, you are introduced to Rapture, an underwater metropolis founded upon the principles of unbridled capitalism without safety nets, science sans morality, and an undeniable Darwinian philosphy permeates throughout all of it. The founder, Andrew Ryan decides that it's "high time" to build an aquatic Hong Kong on steroids, and, with the help of the best, brightest, and mind-numbingly demented scientists of the world, does exactly that. Not exactly the typical "American Dream," but bear with me. Unlike the famous colonizers before him, Ryan does not "plant the flag" in the name of another nation-state, or for one diety or another, nor even in his own name. He does it in the name of objectivism--the belief that a moral life is dictated by "rational self-interest" which can only be achieved in a society whole-heartedly endorsing individual rights, as well as a laissez-faire economic attitude. It's the same attitude that Any Rand endorsed in her books, such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Enboldened by these values, Ryan's scientists discover that by extracting the stem cells from a particular sea slug, which vastly accelerates Rapture's genetic engineering aims, in keeping with Ryan's fixation in naming things after early forms of paradise, this material is called ADAM. ADAM is thrown onto the open market and begins the meteoric rise of the plasmid industry. What is a plasmid? Well, Wikipedia explains it as "an extrachromosomal DNA molecule separate from the chromosomal DNA and capable of autonomous replication. In many cases, it is typically circular and double-stranded. It usually occurs naturally in bacteria and is sometimes found in eukaryotic organisms (e.g., the 2-micrometre-ring in Saccharomyces cerevisiae)." Now, I really don't know what that means, but from playing the game, I can give this layman's understanding: plasmids are the panacea for ALL of life's problems: male baldness, not being athletic enough, or anything else that could possibly be triggered by toying around with one's genetic make-up.
Of course, these plasmids have a much more useful implementation for "Jack," allowing for such abilities as telekinesis, shooting lightning bolts from one's finger tips, or freezing enemies with a single touch. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is so quick to endorse Aristotle's adage of "everything in moderation." Many go a little too "over the top" in "playing God" that they become deranged and mad from excessive ADAM use, and go by the term "Splicers." The Splicers are the only inhabitants of Rapture, save for a few humans in hiding, after a mobster by the name Frank Fontaine challenges Ryan for control of Rapture. It's a long and intricate story narrated by various log entries left around Rapture, but suffice it to say, not much of Rapture is left when you show up. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
Forget Peanut Butter and Chocolate, H2O and Electricity is my new favorite combination
As for why exactly Rapture self-imploded, or how you might have any "seemingly" non-existant connection with this exotic locale, that's basically the main objective. One that, after a few skirmishes with Splicers within the first few minutes of arriving, you realize is going to be quite difficult without plasmids. Scratch that, make it impossible. While the more callous gamer might not think twice, for myself there was already something eerie about using plasmids. After all, what good is it to become what you have sought to destroy? That whole "what good is it if you save the world and lose your soul" argument. While Irrational Games sadly did not address this issue (although, it would appear that it would take a LOT of ADAM usage to become a junkie) this much is made evident: to survive in Rapture you are going to need to get your hands on progressively stronger and varied plasmids. And while Resident Evil 4's weapon stash was delivered "in full" by that raspy masked bandito with the red eyes and the seemingly infinite trenchcoat pockets...
This post will be finished at a later point, as I am trying to meet self-imposed deadlines on other things
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