I know next to nothing about BioShock; FPS isn't my genre, I don't own an XBox and my PCs aren't really up to speed for modern software. In fact, I've probably never even played anything that runs on Unreal Engine. But wave a little bit of dystopian thematics under my nose and you've got my attention; when a game's Creative Director (in this case, Irrational Games' Ken Levine) cites George Orwell and Ayn Rand as his influences, I can't help but get interested. Lots of times, this kinda talk is exactly that; a little prétension égotiste. Designers in this particular arena of gaming have, at times in the past, gained a sort of star status with their large claims and eccentric behavior; Levine wouldn't be the first one espousing hoity ideas only to crank out a total disaster. But BioShock will most certainly treat certain ethical issues; that, and its functional theme, are provoking thought and discussion, and that can only be a good thing.
This morning, I saw an interview with Levine discussing certain aspects of the game's design. The core idea of BioShock involves the player's self-modification through the harvesting of energy, called ADAM (I think it's supposed to be some kind of pure stem cell); in the post-utopian undersea city of Rapture, all living things need ADAM simply to survive. This necessitates interaction, by the player and enemies, with Little Sisters, creepy ADAM-generators who look like little girls, and Big Daddies, the hulking bouncers created to protect the little stem-cell factories from harm at the hands of Aggressors, enemies who'll kill them for energy. The interview (which is also in podcast form, if you're not in a reading mood) touches on the ethics surrounding the Little Sisters; the decision to make them look like female children, and the option that confronts the player-- rescue, or harvest?
Coincidentally, just last night we were playing some games-- Shadow Hearts 2 (yes!!) and Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (shut up, it's not mine). In both of these games, I saw a child getting whupped-- tiny brat Anastasia Romanov getting knocked on her teeny beanie in the first, and the many children of the bizzarely singleminded (and decidedly homoerotic) fighting heroes of the endless Dragonball series. It certainly wasn't the first time we've seen child characters take damage; in DBZ we can actually play a hulking monster and pummel the stuffing out of little Goten and his cheerful juvenile friends. Last night, though, I couldn't help but note my own occasional, visceral discomfort at beating a kid.
Not that I'm a proponent of child abuse, but it seems to add a dimension of thought investment when we add these sorts of moral quandaries into games, as Levine is doing with BioShock's Little Sisters. Above all, these are video games with fictional stories, so I'll never make the assertion that people should actually judge or avoid issues in games as if they were real-world decisions. There are some people who, if they found themselves forced to survive in BioShock's City of Rapture, would rather die than harvest a child for energy. Wonder if you can play the game that way? If you can't-- rather, if sparing every Little Sister would render you unable to proceed-- there's definitely a high-impact emotional experience you can get when a game forces you to do things beyond the realm of your value system. By that means, it forces you to feel something you wouldn't ordinarily feel-- and, more importantly, allows the player to experience the sense of desperation and world-gone-mad feeling essential to make life in a dystopian underwater ruin believable.
The use of children in uncomfortable situations was also employed to incredible effect in the controversial PS2 title Rule of Rose. The player,a teenage orphan girl, is centrally in conflict with a wicked society of fellow orphans who are often stomach-churningly brutal-- burying a pet dog alive, or menacing each other with a dead rat on a stick. Rule of Rose is, loosely, a survival-horror game, so it's supposed to be disgusting and scary. But seeing children as the proponents-- and recipients-- of violence brought wide swaths of censorship from the usual watchdog types. Lots of people also took issue with a certain (mild) sexualization of the kids that was implied, even innocently, in some somewhat discomfiting cutscenes. In fact, Sony refused to release it in the states, and we never would have seen it at all if not for Atlus. Under pressure from wide condemnation in the EU, Rule of Rose never saw a UK release.
There's little I can say about the resolution of the game's conflict without spoiling, but I have to say that it wouldn't have been effective as an experience without the very elements that offended so many people. Strictly as a game, Rule of Rose was damn shoddy. I choose to believe the frustrating, stilted combat engine was a metaphor, and it's not meant to be a melee game at all (right). But the battle system sucked and gameplay was generally tedious. As a story, however, and as a sensory experience, I wish more games would tear a page out of that handbook. The characters, objectives and environments were very affecting-- precisely because they forced the player to empathize in a dangerously nontraditional, thought-provoking way.
The reason I've rarely enjoyed FPS games is largely because, eventually, I start to zone out. Staring down the barrel, I become a mindless killing machine. Once I've mastered the game mechanics enough so that I no longer fear confrontation, and I've memorized every little bump of every enemy to the point where I hardly see them anymore, the game loses all appeal. But an FPS that ads the "uncomfortable empathy" factor? Definitely, definitely an idea with the potential to be compelling.
