Games of the 7th Generation: Bioshock

I don't expect this to be much of a controversial choice, but I will say this might be the game on my list wherein I had the least fun.  The combat was functional but nothing special, the entire key to this game was its story, and more particularly, it's plot. 

My friend and former co-worker Tom Abernathy gave a talk wherein he claimed plot wasn't as important as characters in video games and that gamers could rarely remember plots but could frequently remember characters.  I assume this is accurate as he has great amounts of research data to back it up.  Bioshock is one of maybe 3 or 4 games to buck this trend.

The plot of Bioshock was completely unexpected and the twist in the middle was amazing and questioned the very nature of video games. It was a brilliant moment and the build up to that moment was possibly one of the best examples of plot in a game I have ever seen.  There are characters, to be sure, but the characters are all extremes, larger than life.  The character for whom the plot has such a huge impact is nothing but a cipher; it's you. 

The plot is able to pull you in through a combination of atmosphere and fantasy fulfillment.  The very idea of rapture is so engaging.  The way the game is set up it feels like the whole world is a 1940's nightclub after some horrible event and you're picking through the remains.  It's impossible to play the game and not imagine Rapture at its best though, people drinking and dancing, and everyone somehow special. 

The world looks like an underwater city and the opening moments suck you in like few other games (Half Life 2 comes to mind).  The bathysphere dive, and the first time you see the great underwater structures are forever burned into my gamer memory, incredible moments.  The world itself has a fantastic sense of place.  It doesn't feel like you're progressing through video game levels, it feels as though you're going through a real place.  Areas you go through seem to have utility, and yes, there is backtracking, but that helped me appreciate the "realness" of the place.

The game also manages to set up some intensely creepy moments, the time you meet a "doctor" splicer in the hospital, and there was a particular "treasure chest" in Sander Cohen's level that was in a room with a bunch of mannequin splicers that only moved when you didn't look at them.  Really brilliant stuff.

The storytelling could be a little clumsy, and the dialogue wasn't as natural and easy as Naughty Dog has managed to pull off in their last few efforts, but it was quite impactful and occasionally brilliant.

The game completely fell apart after the twist, unfortunately, and the less said about the remainder is better.  Despite its failings, I still find this to be one of the best games of the seventh generation.