BioShock

About

BioShock is a FPS (First Person Shooter) game series, originally developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K games. The first installment of the series was released on PC, Xbox 360 and then later on Mac OS X, and Playstation 3.

History

The first BioShock game (BioShock) was released on August 21, 2007, directed by Ken Levine, and it has gained positive reviews from the critics^[1]. The game itself is considered to be the spiritual successor to System Shock. The first game's art style is a mixture of Dieselpunk^[2] a derivative of Cyberpunk and Art Deco^[3]. While the lattest installment, the Infinite's art style is Steampunk. Although it's DLCs, Burial at Sea – Episode 1 and Episode 2 returns to the series' roots, in both setting and art style but featuring the duo of Booker Dewitt and Elizabeth.

Gameplay

In the first two games of the series the player is exploring a fictional underwater city Rapture. In the first game the protagonist is named Jack, and the game takes place in 1960, one year after a civil war broke out^[4]. The second is in 1968, eight years after the fall of Rapture, though this time the player assumes the role of Subject Delta, an Alpha series Big Daddy^[5]. In both games the player uses a special items called Plasmids to gain superhuman-like powers like Telekinesis or Pyrokinesis. In the third installment of the series, BioShock Infinite, takes place in an another fictional city named Columbia, which is the opposite of Rapture with the fact that it's a floating city in the sky. The game is set in 1912, though the Vigors, created by one of the villians, Jeremiah Fink before the discovery of ADAM, the source of Plasmids, which happened several decades after Columbia's founding.

Reception

All games in the series are critically and commercially successful. Metacritic, Gamespot, and IGN gave Bioshock aggregated scores and ratings of 96/100^[1] 9/10^[10], and 9.7/10^[11] respectively. Bioshock 2 received scores and ratings of 88/100, 8.5/10, and a 9.1/10 from Metacritic, Gamespot, and IGN respectively. Bioshock Infinite received a 94/100^[15], 9/10^[16], and 9.5/10^[17] from Metacritic, Gamespot, and IGN respectively. The games are generally praised for their remarkable aesthetics and deeply immersive settings that focuses heavily on philosophical socio-political commentaries.

Fandom

BioShock instantly became a favorite among the System Shock fans, and there are currently several Facebook pages dedicated to the BioShock series. Among the many fan blogs there are some fan clubs in the US, Germany, France and Hungary. There are links to these on the 2K's official fan site The Cult of Rapture^[6]. A Bioshock Wiki exists which currently has 2,240 pages.^[8] On Fanfiction.net, there are approximately 1,600 fan fictions for the game.^[9]

Fan Art

Many pieces of fanarts had spawned on sites like deviantART^[7] about the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, also about the protagonists, antagonists, side and main characters, and the Vigors/Plasmids too.

Related Memes

Would You Kindly?

The Would You Kindly? is a catchphrase from the first BioShock game where if this sentence has spoken every order said after it or before it will force the protagonist Jack to do it. This quote is became a running joke among the fans and also it is frequently used on the official wiki too.

Search Interest

The search queries for "BioShock" reached their highest spike in August of 2007, the same month when the game was released. While the queries for "Infinte" are reached their highest spike in March of 2013, in the same month when it was released.

External References