Video Game Sandwich

It’s a funny, almost intended slap in the face that mere hours after writing my previous article about the length of Bioshock and its seemingly endless story I completed the game. Quite happily, might I add. And its conclusion was worth every ounce of frustration I’d collected along the way. While I agree with peoples beliefs that the final boss could have been more challenging (it took ME one try… Me! And I generally am rather bad at any game that isn’t sports-related), the experience itself is so arresting, and inevitably rewarding. And the final sequences offer the perfect antithesis to the journey you take, so much so that even if you’d deemed yourself a heartless, cold-blooded monster for the duration a wry, warm fire may light inside your dark, grimey brain dungeon.

The game is certainly something, and when I use the term experience it is entirely apt. It’s an experience which exercises the kind of narrative, story-driven concepts most films cannot even manage. To understand this experience, like any story worth its salt, one must revisit with an even keener eye. Attention to detail will not suffice; only attention to every detail. Because, if you’re as naive as I, you’ll have discarded many of those taped recordings and background nuances as filler; extra freak-out content. When the truth is, once the game nears completion, you suddenly realise that every one of those touches were crucial puzzle pieces.

You may consider me far too bold to make the following statement, but in my eyes Bioshock is almost the Citizen Kane of the gaming world. We may not fully appreciate its sheer tour de force of all encompassing technical and creative prowess right now, but in years to come we will all be looking back and marking this as the point gaming became just as important as film or music for rich metaphorical content and social critique.

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