BioShock is a great game. It has evil concepts that seems so good for the soul and you actually want to be one of them. However, there is a double twist to the story and it really intrigue me.
Company Background
BioShock is by Irrational Games (yeah what a name). They were the people that brought you Freedom Force (those Marvel and DC Comic real-time tactical RPG) and SWAT 4. Those where never games that held my interest for long. Anyway...
The Setting
During the 1960s, in Rapture, an underwater getaway city built in 1946 on the mid-Atlantic seabed. Rapture wast the future, a selft-sufficient city, powered by submarine volcanoes. The owner and founder of Rapture was Andrew Ryan. He envisioned Rapture as the solution to the problems above water; increasion political and religious authority oppression. Ryan wanted Rapture to be the getaway for those that exemplifies the best in humanity, making Rapture the new "Eden".
For all Eden(s) there lived an ADAM. ADAM are stem cells created from certain sea slugs by Dr. Bridgette Tennenbaum. ADAM was the answer to all human lackings and weaknesses. ADAM was the ingreadent of creating plasmids that allows humans to have extraordinary abilities. And with ADAM there must be an EVE. EVE are the serum needed for the plasmids to work (even utopia men needs females).
The Little Sisters and Big Daddies (Yeah a kinky naming concept but in the games its more hellish then kinky). Little Sisters initially were ADAM factories that lets the slugs live within them. But later during the war, Little Sisters were used as collector of ADAM from the dead and process it within them. Big Daddies are armed and highly advanced humans in diving suits that protects the Little Sisters.
The Downfall
Nothing perfect lasts forever. Ryan's vision was lost and soon he tried to keep his utopia a secrect and passes a single law, contact with the surface was prohibited; this turned out to be one too many. Soon this opened to the possibilities of black markets and backdoor transections. Former mobster Frank Fontaine had the same vision as Ryan but he wanted control. His wealth, combined with his monopoly on Tennenbaum's research, soon gained Fontaine enough power and followers to challenge Ryan for control of the city.
In late 1958, Ryan lost patience with the conflict, and apparently had Fontaine killed. But soon Atlas took Fontaine's place as the leader of the opposition. On New Year's Eve that year, Atlas and his ADAM-augmented followers fomented a riot and civil war between Ryan and Atlas broke out that eventually spread to all of Rapture. As the war progressed, Ryan began to betray his ideals. He began using torture and mind control in his battle with Atlas. Eventually, he became so unreasonable that a number of his supporters attempted to assassinate him. By the time the player enters Rapture, only the "Splicers"—citizens with severe mental and physical problems caused by excessive ADAM use—are left, scavenging throughout the city. The remaining non-mutated humans have managed to barricade themselves in the few remaining undamaged areas.
The Story
This is where Jack (the character controlled by the player) comes in as a passenger on a plane that crashes over the Atlantic Ocean in 1960. Where he enters into the dystopia of Rapture. Atlas assists Jack via radio in making his way to safety, while Ryan, believing Jack to be a government agent, uses Rapture's automated systems and his pheromone-controlled Splicers against him. Atlas tells Jack that the only way he can survive is to use the abilities granted by plasmids, and that he must kill the Little Sisters to extract their ADAM. Dr. Tennenbaum intercepts Jack, and urges him to save the Little Sisters instead.
The games unfolds until Atlas tells Jack that Ryan must die. After finding Ryan, Jack uncovers his true identity. ack was actually born in Rapture two years ago, genetically modified to mature rapidly; he is Ryan's illegitimate son as a result of an affair with Jasmine Jolene. Jack was designed to obey orders when given the specific phrase "Would you kindly" then followed by the order. He was sent to the surface when the war started to put him beyond Ryan's reach but later brought back by orders to hijack the plane and crashed it near Rapture. Ryan then orders Jack to kill him, so as to die on his own terms. After Ryan's death, Atlas reveals himself as Fontaine and leaves jack for dead by the reactivated security system.
The End
There are two final possible endings to the game. One being if Jack saves the Little Sisters and they along with Dr. Tennenbaum helps Jack safely away from Rapture to the surface and living full lives under Jack's care, including them graduating college and getting married; it ends on a heart-warming tone, with an elderly Jack surrounded on his deathbed by all of the adult Little Sisters. The alternative being if Jack harvested (and therefore killed) any of the Little Sisters, the game ends with Jack turning on the Sisters after defeating Fontaine, making him the new ruler of Rapture.
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