It Shocks

Bioshock was one of the most hyped about games of the year 2007. At that time, I was running my computer on integrated graphics (yes, I know. horrible), and so couldn't play the game when it came out. I did, however, get a card some time later- and then I ran amok playing games left, right and center.

How could I miss Bioshock? Not only did it seem interesting, but it was dubbed a pseudo-RPG. An RPG set in an underwater dystopian nightmare? Thank you very much, yes I'd like to play it please.

And so my adventure begun, as I took control of Jack, whose plane just crashed into the Atlantic. Swimming to an island very close by with a lighthouse on it, I find myself in a bathysphere, soon descending into the underwater city of Rapture, the dream-creation of Andrew Ryan.It wasn't very long until Jack runs into one of the 'little sisters'. And this is where it gets somewhat disturbing.

So... I have two choices, now:
a) Drain the 'little sister' of Adam to the last drop, killing them.
b) Drain the 'little sister' of Adam only partially, and saving them.

The term presented for a) was ‘harvesting the little sisters’. For more powa’.

If you keep on 'saving' the little girls, after a point, you'll be rewarded by their keeper, Dr. Tenenbaum and the little sisters with Adam and other stuff. Sign of gratitude. So, regardless of whether you 'kill' or 'save' the girls, you get the same amount of Adam, anyway. (I've never compared- but that's my guess).

Now. Everywhere that I've read anything on Bioshock, this 'choice' has been praised alot. It's a very moral thing, apparently.

Alright, then. Let me get this straight- I have to choose between... SAVING a little girl or HARVESTING her... A dilemma, surely.

How is that supposed to be a moral conundrum, exactly? That's not a choice, but an ultimatum. Let me quote:
By turning the gatherers into Little Sisters, Levine expanded, the team created a moral choice - and that choice, in itself, informed much of his later thinking on the kind of capitalist utopia Rapture was.
"We ended up with a game where we had to confront this moral choice, rather than setting out to create that choice," Levine explained.
According to technical director Chris Kline, the Little Sisters also solved a major gameplay problem - gatherers at one point were slug-like creatures, and players tended to kill them for no reason, since "that's what you do to slug-like creatures".

Uh. So, instead of killing slug-like creatures, which is what we do to slug-like creatures, we can now kill little girls, because that's one of the things we could do to little girls... because that solved a major gameplay problem, which were the slug-like creature thing. More powa’, indeed.

"We ended up with a game where we had to confront this moral choice, rather than setting out to create that choice," Levine explained.

That makes less sense than shit. Let me repeat: You can either SAVE a little girl who looks no more than six or seven years old, or you can KILL her. Yes. Amagad, whatever shall I do.

Note to self: Be wary of games tagged with ‘morality-based storyline’.

- E

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