That bit where... Bioshock

"A man chooses...a slave obeys."

Bioshock would most likely be in my top ten games ever, were I to compile one. It contained new and interesting gameplay, a compelling story and a dazzling world that was a real treat to explore. You play as Jack, and at the very start of the game your plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. As you surface, surrounded by burning wreckage, you notice a lighthouse nearby, so you swim over to it, and find a bathysphere which takes you down beneath the waves. Suddenly, a sprawling city stretches out before you, which in itself is one of the best moments of the game. However, all is not well within Rapture, as it is overrun with Splicers, inhabitants driven insane by addiction to Plasmids - genetic modification.

You are helped out by Atlas, who leads you to safety via radio, and he asks you to help him against Andrew Ryan, who has his family locked away. As the game progresses, you are lead around by Atlas over the radio, with the promise of escape from Rapture and back to civilisation. You begin to learn the history of Rapture, and the war between Ryan and Frank Fontaine, who helped develop Plasmids. Eventually, you come face to face with Ryan himself.

Bioshock - The Death of Andrew Ryan

With Atlas urging me on, I came close to the office of Andrew Ryan. In the adjoining corridor, I saw the words 'Would You Kindly...?" written in blood on the wall. Something stirred within me then, and I had the funny feeling something wasn't right. I mean, I had seen plenty of blood on the wall in this city, but this had something more personal about it. Anyway, I shook it off and continued to Ryan's office, soon this would all be over...

I arrive, and Ryan is nonchalantly playing golf, doesn't he realise I'm here to kill him? I'll let you watch what happens next.

I came out of that cutscene deflated. It turns out that Jack was the illegitimate child of Ryan, and was taken away by Fontaine when he was born, sent to the surface and genetically modified to age rapidly. He was conditioned to accept the code phrase "Would you kindly?", meaning that whenever he heard those words, he would obey whatever the command. It suddenly dawned on me that Atlas (who then reveals himself to actually be Fontaine) had simply been commanding me to do his bidding throughout the whole game. He had even commanded Jack to hijack the plane he was on and cause it to crash near the lighthouse. Fontaine had planned to use Jack against Ryan, as he would be able to use his father's DNA to bypass Ryan's security systems.

It was rare for a video game to have such an incredible setting and story, and even rarer for it to contain a twist such as that towards the end. It was that moment that caused this game to gravitate beyond just being a great game, up to becoming a timeless classic.

"Obey."

Thanks for reading.

The Games of 2012

January is traditionally pretty slow for games, making new posts on a blog about video games fairly hard to come by. If I find the time, I'll be reviewing some lesser known games from last year that I enjoyed (here's hoping that my timetable for the next few months isn't as overwhelming as I feel like it's going to be).

Really, the next game that I'm kind of at all excited about coming out is Mass Effect 3, and that's not until March. I didn't much care for the first game, and barely played any of it, but the second one really grabbed my attention and I started to care about what was going on. This was mostly due to the improved gameplay...I'm told the story in the first game may have been better, but the story in 2 kept me going just fine.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning seems like it could be quite interesting, but I'm going to need more convincing before I buy it for myself. I'm really not a fan of that 'Reckoning' after the colon, it's the first game bearing the Kingdoms of Amalur name, so why does it need a subtitle? Also 'Reckoning' is just the least exciting subtitle to add randomly onto a game isn't it? I guess they just went through the list of possible subtitles beginning with 're'...Revenge, Redemption, Restructured, Rearmed, Remastered, Really...?

It seems that, like last year, most of the blockbuster games will be coming out in the second half of the year. It's possible we might see GTA5 around May/June given Rockstar's recent release schedule, but that's just guessing on my part.

Speaking of Rockstar, Rockstar Vancouver have been making Max Payne 3 fairly quietly in terms of press coverage. What's exciting about that is that the studio's previous game was Bully, which turned out to be rather a surprisingly good game given the setting and subject matter. I'm not sure how much of that experience they'll be able to bring from that game into Max Payne's gritty, film noir world, but if you make good games, you can make good games, right? The release date for that is March, allegedly, so that could be interesting.

I suppose the main games coming out (supposedly) this year are Bioshock: Infinite, Halo 4, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Guild Wars 2, and Nickelodeon Dance. If all those games do come out this year (barring maybe one of them), then what a colossal year it will be for video games. That's also leaving out the inevitable Call of Duty game, and maybe even an Assassin's Creed game (although I hope not, I'd rather they take another year with that). Perhaps there's a possibility of a Skyrim expansion before the end of the year too? That would be cool, as I think I'm close to finishing all I really want to do in that game now.

 I've probably even missed some off the list...there are quite a few big games to remember... Until I get to play all of them though, I'll go back to NBA, Madden and FIFA (I've been spending an unusual amount of time playing sports games recently), and continue playing LA Noire on the PC (yeah I bought it).

Thanks for reading, enjoy your week.