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Ken Levine On The Background of Bioshock
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 26, 2007 01:11 PM
from the please-keep-ayn-rand-in-non-zombie-format dept.
from the please-keep-ayn-rand-in-non-zombie-format dept.
GameSpy has up an interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games. While Levine has spoken previously about Bioshock's ideology, this piece discusses a number of the elements that went into creating the game. He touches again on objectivism, but expands on the title's connection to its spiritual predecessor System Shock 2 and the process of actual developing the game. "Sterling: Segueing away from storyline a little, what sorts of hardware limits did the team encounter from pre-production leading up to this point of near-completion? Ken Levine: As a credit to my programming team, honestly, I didn't hear much about them. There was some hesitation on the part of some of programming team in pushing a level of physical simulation in the world, in part because they knew how much work that was. To their credit, I'll say, not only did they do it, they knocked it out of the park, because I've never seen this level of simulation ever in a shooter."
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An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch at the usually-excellent Gamers With Jobs has a preview of BioShock up today. Far from being a normal piece on the game's graphics and gameplay, it delves deep into designer Ken Levine's attempts to include some extremely complex and controversial political ideologies as the baseline for the title: 'The point of BioShock, the raison d'etre, is really the story, and the messages and intellectual content that Levine tries to deliver as a payload. "Look at Lord of the Rings," he challenges. "Why is Lord of the Rings more interesting than random RPG story number 507? They're exactly the same thing. They have orcs and goblins and demons and trolls. But Lord of the Rings is a meditation on power. And it's really interesting because of that. It's what gives it it's heart." And with undenied hubris, Levine's trying to do the same thing with BioShock.'"
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The much-anticipated spiritual successor to System Shock 2, Irrational Games' Bioshock, is finally starting to emerge from the depths of secrecy. The 360/PC title is due on store shelves at the start of August, and a bunch of sites now have previews available for perusal. Eurogamer, CVG, IGN, Team Xbox, and Gamespot all had hands-on experience with the title recently and now can report back. From Gamespot's writeup: "As you investigate Rapture's sprawling, doomed infrastructure, its crumbling art deco facades, and leaky corridors, you'll uncover the secrets of what went wrong. Stepping out of the diving bell, you'll see signs of a struggle ... We'd barely set foot onto the first platform of the city proper before running into a splicer, which is one of BioShock's common enemies and one of Rapture's former residents. As Atlas will quickly fill you in, it seems that overuse of Adam turns the subject into a crazed monster that fiends for--what else--more Adam. Imagine a crazed junkie dying to get his hands on a fix; only this junkie can throw fireballs out of thin air and move large objects with his mind. And those are just the basic enemies." For a more visceral experience, 1up has a video preview of the game, which looks as creepy as it sounds.
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According to a senior designer on the 2K Boston (formerly Irrational) game Bioshock a number of publishers turned them down when the company brought the title to their doorstep. "Ken (Levine) spent years pitching the game to publishers but no one was interested, incredible as that seems now. I joined Irrational in December 2004 and my first job was to get a publishing deal for the game (I worked as the Business Development Director for the first six months). I remember pitching the game to one publisher who later told a friend of mine that it was 'just another f-ing PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units." Just in case you didn't catch it over the weekend, there's a demo for the game up on Xbox Live. PC owners hold tight: a PC demo is coming, and hopefully before the game launches on the 21st.
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It should come as no surprise that the level of hype BioShock reached in the last month has had some aftereffects. The game itself is really good; few are disputing that. There were, however, some problems. Next Gen has a few words with Ken Levine on BioShock's troubled launch looking at the broken Big Daddies, the allegations of a rootkit, and the 'widescreen issue'. There are other issues still floating around, of course: despite rumours Levine has now confirmed there will be no PS3 version of the game, and one problem may just be starting as big media finds out about the Little Sisters. 'The Boston Patriot-Ledger ... argues that BioShock is "testing the limits of the ultraviolent gaming genre with a strategy that enables players to kill characters resembling young girls." Despite the shock-inducing lead, the article goes on to give a more or less accurate description of BioShock's choice between saving and harvesting the creepy Little Sisters ... The conclusion tries to draw a link between BioShock's violence to a stabbing death allegedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but the connection is pretty weak.' To close on a good note check out 1up's profile of Levine's career, or download the BioShock score ... which is beautiful.
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Ken Levine On The Background of Bioshock
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Bioshock vs. Halo 3
(Score:3, Interesting)Segueing away from storyline a little
(Score:2)What I hope for from Bioshock
(Score:4, Insightful)That kind of complexity is one of the things I really loved about Thief: The Dark Project. [Spoilers follow.] In Thief TDP, the Hammerites are a bunch of oppressive fundamentalist assholes. The main character hates them, and rightfully so. But, as the plot progresses, it turns out that at least one of the Hammers' wackier beliefs is in fact quite real, and that they are quite essential in protecting the people of the City from a rather nasty fate.
Deus Ex was also, of course, quite good with this stuff. You've got layer upon layer of conspiracies, whether true or false, deliberate hoaxes, elaborate cover-ups, etc., leading up to opposing ideals of world government vs. anarchy; humanism vs. trans-humanism; open society vs. secret rule; none of which is presented in a wholly good light.
I liked System Shock 2, but not for those reasons. It's pretty hard to sympathize with Shodan or The Many... or those freaky monkeys, for that matter. What was great about System Shock 2 was the off-balancing level design and the set-piece hallucination. There were some real classic moments there, like the apparition in the Bon Chance lounge (should've been "Bonne Chance", but that's Tri-Optimum for you...) and the tunnels in the Garden. I hope that Bioshock is able to provide some of those elements... but even if it doesn't, I'm still definitely going to get it.
previewshock
(Score:1)(Last Journal: Monday July 09, @12:31PM)