I think I might be getting a bit ahead of myself here considering that next weeks topic is "choice" but in class on Tuesday when we broke off into smaller groups my partner and I actually had productive and interesting conversation. I wanted to document some of the ideas before they vacate my mind to clear what little space I have left up there. One of Bioshock's big brain moments is the Frank Fontaine reveal. The game tells you that all of your actions up to this point have actually be the result of someone else's manipulation, right down to the game itself (coming to Rapture). In keeping with the internal logic of the world presented to you in Bioshock, the only way to truly make your own choice is to not play it. Every action the player takes is driven forward by another actor. In a way, Bioshock enslaves its player. With regards to the weeks readings on the divide between the narrative and mechanical aspect of games, I think Bioshock is in this light an example of a game that links the two beautifully. The inherently interactive nature of the medium gives the player an illusion of choice. The very fact that Bioshock is a video game is by itself a narrative device.
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I think Cavell's point really speaks to OP's as well. The amount of choice in Bioshock is fundamentally less than that of more modern games, especially in the ever growing open world genre. A game like Horizon: Zero Dawn, where your character can spend 25 hours on side missions only to come back and find out mere minutes have passed since you promised to rescue the sister of a main character. Here the player's choice is separated from the characters and the idea that their is no freedom (for the character) is completely detached. While I became immersed in the game and loved it very much, I did not specifically become immersed with the main character, Aloy. Perhaps this entire…
It's interesting that you use the word enslave in relation to Bioshock. When playing through, I lamented the fact that I was, in a sense, trapped by the level designs. This makes sense, as it's a first person narrative game. However, in the 11 years that have passed since the game's release, I've become used to games such as Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas, which have narratives but also allow you to transverse a beautiful environment in first person. Combine this with the unability to customize your character in Bioshock, defaulting to a white male, and it's easy to become detached from the game due to the restraints it places on you. I will say though that this is all…
The observation about how Bioshock's narrative enslaves the player is totally on-point. One of the things I love about this game's design is that it recognizes this in the climax. You have found out that you have had no choice, and the game literally screams at you (via the character of Andrew Ryan) "a man chooses, a slave obeys". When killed, he says these lines to you over and over under he finally gives out. It's very fourth wall breaking in a way, but also narratively makes sense. The character in the story has no choice and, by choosing to carry out the story, you thusly also have no choice. Though this is true for basically any linear ga…