tl;dr

Look, I really liked Bioshock. I’m not sure it was perfect — I cannot disagree with some of the arguments made by Tim Rogers in his rambolic review of the game, such as: why in this incredibly detailed world, with all of the effort that has been expended on some pretty incredible verisimilitude, are there gun dispensers everywhere, with cutesy designed graphics? Why does the dude stab that unnamed needle into his arm? Why is he eating all those crisps out of the bin? Worst of all, why does everyone who used to live in Rapture seem to have some sort of audio-diary-related tourettes, obsessively recording all their innermost thoughts onto charmingly anachronistic tape recorders and then leaving them lying around? So, yeah, not perfect but on the other hand the fact that these logical flaws would go unnoticed in most games but are so jarring in Bioshock is a testament to the tremendous work done by Ken Levine et al on the gameworld.

Regarding these inconsistencies, incidentally, a newsflash for Tim: they are there because it’s just a game and not the Second Coming of entertainment. Bioshock still does a lot of Accepted Game Things like bandages that somehow heal damage from falling. It’s not ideal, necessarily, but it’s not the biggest problem either.

Anyway. Bioshock made money and with money comes the idea that perhaps there is more money to be made. But… this is not a game that lends itself easily to sequels. It has a proper beginning and ending, with no room in the plot for obvious expansion, beyond the widely-mooted idea that Bioshock 2 will be a prequel somehow portraying the fall of Rapture into anarchy (which could work, I guess, with careful writing).

But wait, what is this? We’re getting a movie of it alongside the release of Bioshock 3?! THREE?! I’m an optimist and all, but even I find it hard to convince myself this is going to end well. I have the uncomfortable feeling that right now, the Bioshock franchise closely resembles the nuke in the closing scenes of Dr Strangelove. Some Take Two senior market dude is about to put on a home-made Big Daddy costume, get on top of it, and start jumping up and down trying to drop it on the world, whilst waving his big powerdril around and yee-haaing in an offensively Merkin manner.

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