BioShock; fight with morality- Draft

BioShock; fight with morality

              Forgotten Memories flow back to you as the plane you’re on crashes into the ocean, the only survivor you swim to the only piece of land. Suddenly you’re sucked into the underwater city of Rapture forced to defend yourself from drug crazed citizens and metal abominations as you try to escape from this submerged dystopia. BioShock makes you question cultural values and where the line between right and wrong lies. The video game forces you to make moral decisions as you play though while pointing out flaws in cultural norms, values, and beliefs. From child murder to the concept of free will BioShock challenges cultural values and reveals the negative values of society.

              BioShock the first of the BioShock series has you play as Jack, the lone survivor of an airplane crash as he finds himself in the dystopian city of Rapture a city that’s literally underwater. As you play through the game under the direction of Atlas and Dr. Tenenbaum you must fight off the citizens of Rapture who were once normal everyday people but are now drugged up lunatics known as Splicers as you try to escape Rapture. Along the way you are given the choice of either killing or saving creatures known as “little sisters” once normal little girls, they were genetically altered and mentally conditioned to harvest ADAM (A drug the city of Rapture is practically formed around) from corpses. Killing or saving the little sisters will give you points however killing them gives you more and the little sisters are always guarded by a large mindless cyborg called “Big Daddy”. While playing the character runs into large amounts of propaganda and is shown how Rapture went from an escape from the cold world above to the dystopia you fight for your life in. BioShock is a horror action game meant for teens and young adults.

              All cultures value children after all their little people and it’s considered very bad to drink their blood, which is why BioShock sets up your biggest source of power as little girls. The little sisters are the only way to get ADAM which goes towards buying powers or plasmids which gives you the ability to shot elements such as lightning out of your hand. The little sisters who were once normal children were turned into drug incubators, the now raggedy children walk the streets harvesting the corpses that line the streets. The little sister’s challenge cultural values by having kids used as a drug mules for an entire city dependent on the drug. It makes it seem as though its okay sense the entire city is on the drugs, the very despite splicers will often attack and kill them for the drug they carry and grow in their body. The player has to constantly make the decision between right and wrong by either saving or killing the little sisters. With the exception of Dr. Tenenbaum and some dead NPCs every citizen in Rapture even the first person to help you survive Rapture encourages you to kill the little sisters. BioShock sets up a world were child murder is something everyone is trying because it feeds their addiction.

              BioShock also tests the belief of free will by later reviling that Atlas who was first thought to be helping you was actually controlling your actions and using you to kill Andrew Ryan his biggest competition when it comes to controlling Rapture. The game is about power and questions the existence of free will, as with most games the story only progresses by doing as your told BioShock however draws attention to that fact. The decision to kill children is given to give the illusion of choice in the game. The belief that there is no such thing as free will is normally that of an individual and not that of groups, the fact that the entire city of Rapture believes that there is no such thing as free will is a very bad cultural belief. The concept of not having free will seems a little pessimistic on a small scale but is a very dangerous thing with mass belief. People who believe that they have no free will are more likely to not care about what happens and more likely to lean towards murder, suicide, and other crimes. Mass apathy is a very dangerous thing especially in a city full of drug addicts, BioShock doesn’t promote so much as warn about the dangers of believing that there is no free will.

              Rapture is an anarchist society which is heavy influenced by two major figures; Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine who battle for control in the quickly dividing sections of Rapture. The game is filled with anti-government propaganda posters and city wide broadcasts from Ryan denouncing established governments sense a world without big brother was why he created Rapture. BioShock promotes positive views for structured governments while showing the dark reality of anarchy. BioShock also brings up the cultural belief that there should always be boundaries in science to protect the people and animals involved. This belief is reinforced throughout Rapture as the city is flooded with science experiments preformed with no regard for who they might hurt. Creating the little sisters caused large amounts of child deaths, the big Daddies that protect the little sisters required to memory wipe and torture the men who signed up in order to graft them into metal diving suits, smaller experiments are shown throughout the game to have cause mass loss of life and unnatural results for those who lived only stand to prove that scientific progress should never come at the price life. The mad scientists of Rapture are able to do these horrible things because there is no rules to stop them just as there were none during the holocaust.

              BioShock takes a unique perspective on society the lines of right and wrong. From unrestricted science experiments to anarchy and child murder, BioShock brings to light questionable beliefs and values that when unrestricted lead to horrible consequences. BioShock brings to the surface the negative values and beliefs that come with cultural norms.