Bioshock 2 and Video Games as Art

Bioshock is one of my favorite games ever, and is really one of the few pieces of genuinely potent ammunition gamers have in fighting the “are video games art” battle against the naysayers (who are all mostly snobby middle-aged men who will die before I do and leave video games culturally accepted as a significant form of entertainment and thought). Its popularity was well-deserved and I hope it serves as a model for future game designers and writers in creating thoughtful narratives and interesting gameplay that is associated with said narrative not by “and then” clauses but “therefore” clauses. (In other words, the gameplay and story are not two separate entities but entertwined)

But I just needed to gush a bit. Greater minds than I have already tackled Bioshock and generated thought-provoking and intelligent critiques.
(see http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html)

Instead I’d like to discuss Bioshock 2, partly because I’ve only just gotten around to playing it and partly because I simply haven’t personally seen any discussion about it on the level the original Bioshock was critiqued.

This isn’t a game review, and, because I am so fond of them, this critique is rife with spoilers. I’ll focus on the games narrative and ludic (I know, I’m borrowing) elements and try to understand how they come together to create a comprehensive story, or in what ways they fail to come together.

Let’s start with the audio logs, a phenomenon pretty much singlehandedly begun by Bioshock, as far as my gaming knowledge extends. Rather than directly hammer the player with exposition, the player encounters audio logs left behind by the usually long-since-dead citizens of rapture, and often by their corpses that completes the stories on the audio logs. These logs featured monologues (with excellent voice acting and writing, for the most part)  that progressed the story, filled in background details, or effectively created atmosphere. This useful method of delivering story has since been copied and (mostly) misused by many other modern games, and Bioshock still remains the king of doing audio logs right (more on this in a bit).

One of video games’ most unique opportunities as an art form is to create atmosphere. Atmosphere, or game feel, or whatever you want to call it, is unique to video games and can truly involve a player in its world by making the world feel real, not just look, sound, or read real. Bioshock accomplished this so well and made its Objectivist critique so much more powerful and its plot turns so much more effective, from a storytelling point, by making the player invest himself in this textured, organic world of Rapture.

Bioshock 2, unfortunately, has a nasty case of “sequelitis” and mostly gets it wrong. The art direction, environments, and sound design is still on point; though perhaps these elements feel less effective because we’d already seen the world of Rapture in the first Bioshock and did not experience as much surprise. The audio logs do not help enhance the world of Bioshock 2; they instead do the opposite and create disconnections.

In Bioshock 2, the audio logs are mostly those of Sofia Lamb, a few of Andrew Ryan, and many other key players in the plot. This is fine, but when you’re trekking down a hidden passageway you only managed to access by dint of electro bolt’ing a jammed door open and find a store of weaponry and loot, it’s pretty surprising to find a personal diary entry from Sofia Lamb, a psychologist and main villain of the game’s narrative, just lying around. Sure, the audio logs are still well-written (though I do have some problems with them I’ll get to next) and acted, but why the hell am I finding these things scattered everywhere I go? Some locations I find them in make sense, like those detailing Eleanor Lamb’s care under Sofia Lamb in her old daycare, but why am I finding them scattered across Rapture in a storage closet, or some other unlikely area? The original Bioshock mostly featured random citizens from Rapture and always made sure it’s audio logs fit in their surroundings; Bioshock 2 does not accomplish this and creates a big disconnection. It may not seem like such a big issue, but it is a pretty confusing plothole in a franchise so concerned with telling a cohesive, well-structured and intelligent story.

The main reason I have a problem with this is because it ruins the game’s atmosphere, or game feel. Instead of finding an audio log and having my spine chilled when its owner reveals the corpse laying on the bed next to it committed suicide after refusing to splice up like her neighbors gone rabid, I am confused as to what a recording of Andrew Ryan’s grumblings on Sofia Lamb are doing lying around an underwater subway station. The reason this is such a big problem is because game feel is the video game medium’s strongest artistic tool in affecting a player and creating a compelling story. This disconnect concerning the audio logs throws a serious wrench in Bioshock 2’s atmosphere if you stop and think about it for a second.

On the subject of game feel, Bioshock 2’s ludic (or, roughly, specific story-related gameplay elements) elements also disrupt the game’s atmosphere. In the original Bioshock, you are just as new to this incredibly foreign and hostile environment as the character you play as. There’s a reason, at first, you die in two bullets and struggle taking down a handful of enemies; you’re just an average dude. But by the end of the game you can take a few more shots (with the help of some mystical healing drugs) and with some strategizing, utilize your genetic mutations to take down groups of advanced enemies. This progression is great, and helps the player understand the story of the (literal?) genetic rat race that the Objectivist utopia of Rapture has devolved into by directly forcing them to play it out.

Unfortunately, this design makes no sense in Bioshock 2, even though it is imitated perfectly. The player begins the game struggling to handle foes and dying very easily to most enemies, which would make sense if you were another average person, but not when the player is Delta, one of the first and most powerful Big Daddies that has a giant drill attached to his arm. Story-wise, it makes no sense to be so weak; part of the Bioshock story is the build up of the Big Daddy enemies as the most fearsome creatures around, at the top of Rapture’s ecology. If the story wants the player to believe they are a Big Daddy, why make them feel like they are just a dude who happens to have a drill for an arm? The enemy Big Daddies still take tons of punishment and are able to act as they did in the previous game, but the player cannot.

Admittedly, yes, by the end of Bioshock 2 the player is much more capable than ever before, but there is a strange feeling of being made of flesh rather than pressure-proof steel. This ludic storytelling element of vulnerability the player feels works so well in the story the first Bioshock does but works directly against the narrative of Bioshock 2. This vulnerability would make sense when the player faces a foe the story indicates they are supposed to feel vulnerable against- the Big Sisters, for example – but not when facing an average splicer the story of Bioshock makes clear is no threat to a Big Daddy.

Back to the audio logs, and this time I’d like to discuss the story they tell. The original Bioshock delivered a very thought-provoking examination of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, particularly through the brilliant character of Andrew Ryan (get it?), founder of Rapture, Objectivist paradise. This examination even echoed on a meta level, exploring why we as human beings concede independence in certain situations, like playing video games, and are willing to mindlessly heed instructions without further thought. Bioshock 2, admirably, recognizes this story has been told and done so masterfully, and instead decides to tackle the opposite in Sofia Lamb, the collectivist.

Sofia Lamb functions as an anti-Andrew Ryan. Where Andrew Ryan preached the importance of the self and Objectivism, Lamb preached disregarding the self and the importance of society as the whoke, even functioning as a single organism, or her cult-like “Family”. Lamb’s Family takes over after Rapture has fallen apart and Andrew Ryan’s death, and the driving force of the plot is that she is making the player’s daughter, Eleanor Lamb, by dint of science and ADAM (no, really, that’s the explanation) into the perfect Utopian Big Sister, completely unaware of the self and devoted to the goals of the Family.

Props for originality and attempting something new. I enjoyed the story, for the most part, but honestly never felt it directly afflicted the player as it did in the original Bioshock. I know it’s not really fair to critique a work of art directly relative to another work, but as a sequel, one can at least the former work as a point of comparison, no? Bioshock 2 never really forces the player to directly confront or deal with issues regarding Lamb’s Collectivist philosophy. It seems to just sort of exist because Ryan was a selfish megalomaniac, and now we need something new. The decisions left to the player, such as sparing certain members of the Rapture Family, or rescuing or harvesting Little Sisters, function more as little morality tales instead of resonating with the game’s overarching theme of Collectivism. Those choices are fine, but they feel arbitrary and disassociated from the game’s major theme, and more like other characters have told you, “Hey, this person was a jerk, you could kill them, or maybe forgive them, whatever, up to you dude, no prob.”

As a game, Bioshock 2 is pretty fun, but ultimately fails to grasp what makes the original title’s story such an impressive piece of art. As a work of art, I don't think it strikes any particular chords. The story it tells is better than the average slop most developers stick their unfortunate games with, but does not develop its theme well or accomplish any succesfull thought-exploration or critiquing, in its narrative or ludic storytelling elements.

All that said, it’s still pretty fun to run across a room at someone frozen solid and then shatter them into tiny little pieces with a giant drill arm.

What do you think? Did you like the game? Why or why not? Am I spouting drivel? Don’t let me get away with it!

Keep thinking,

Jordan