We've all read the writing on the subterranean walls. Reviewers around the world are praising the story of Rapture almost as much as BioShock's chief architect, Andrew Ryan. And like the various journals that permeate the game's underwater world, every bit of copy written about BioShock seems to trump those preceding it. It's as if the very genre of video gaming has been rocked to its core. Statements like "no matter how much you think you are prepared for this game… you aren’t" are just the generic way reviewers are phrasing it.
Read the reviews, and you'll find something more comparable to this: "[BioShock] is a beacon. It's one of those monumental experiences you'll never forget, and the benchmark against which games for years to come will, and indeed must, be measured."
You'll know you've hit the jackpot if you get the sense that said reviewer is blue in the face, having held his breath throughout the entirety of the BioShock experience. It's apparent in this example: "When confronted by a masterpiece of this magnitude -- a game that is almost more of a quest of self-discovery than a mere plaything -- it's impossible to not recognize the brilliance flooding your senses."
Really though? BioShock?
Because I like to maintain the illusion of a social life as much as possible, I only managed to finish BioShock last night. I've been playing it rather religiously since its August 21 launch date. While Jack may have powers, doo-dads, and weapons up the virtual wazoo, real-life Dave has yet to find the Plasmid (power-up, for the uninitiated) that lets him add additional hours to the day. The game's storyline is enough to carry it into the 2007 Hall of Gaming Distinction; I have no argument against that. The journals, the cutscenes, the dialogue -- everything sucked me in and, to BioShock's credit, even managed to pull me away from other games I've been obsessing over.
I'm playing these examples up a little more than I normally would on purpose. I love BioShock's story the same way I drooled over Max Payne. In fact, both games share a similar writing style -- the moral ambiguity of noir fits well with the sense of personal entitlement and ethical quandaries in the 1960s Rapture universe. But only one of those two games is rightly innovative, and I'll give you a clue: it's not BioShock.
I like to run with the dictionary definition of "innovative" when I'm talking about these sorts of things. Innovative, to Mister Webster, describes something that is "a new idea, method, or device." Fire was innovative because, prior to fire, mankind had no recourse for cold nights or cooking. A deep-fried Oreo cookie is innovative because it takes two amazing concepts beautiful in their own right -- cookies and deep-fried food -- and blends them into a single, savory product. Max Payne was innovative because it finally gave users a chance to experience The Matrix's bullet time effect in a real-world setting. You became the Neo of noir, guns blazing through level after level of brutally cinematic gameplay.
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