I recently saw the 14+ minute video of gameplay footage that was narrated by Ken Levine of Irrational Games. You definitely should see the video first before reading on further. Also, I viewed the video as though I were the one playing the game, and refer to it as such. I will start with some simple observations that could very well be resolved simply as part of the game development, then move on to something a little deeper.

First, the setting is fantastic, and I’m dying to enter that reality. The world design makes the game seem to be set in a place, rather than “levels”. The ambience is spectacular. However, the enemies I’ve seen so far look too much the same. Every female mutant wore the same green dress with the same tears in it and the same red rose pinned on the front. Levine specifically points out that they are trying to destroy first-person-shooter clichés, and I think they need to work on that repetitiveness next. Water looks great, but I’m disappointed that there’s no ripple caused by the player when submerged waist deep – it really pulled me out of the reality of the world. Having an impact on the game environment is so empowering, and not seeing the water affected by the player lowered the sense of my presence in that game world. I am also left to wonder, if the city is slowly flooding, will that in anyway be handled dynamically in response to my actions? Or is the water largely cosmetic? Cosmetic or not, the water and design of this game are stand outs and the anticipation for it is palpable and well-deserved. However...

Now for the meat of this post: I experienced something I didn’t expect to, and it troubles me. There’s a scene near the beginning of the video where a marginally mutated child, referred to as a “little sister”, approaches a dead body in front of the player. When you approach her, she shrieks in fear and runs for the protection of the nearby “big daddy” (a mutated adult in an armor-like diving suit) behind her. It didn’t seem like you could garner any response other than fear from this girl. The thing is, she exhibits intelligence, and is capable of speaking with the clarity of a being that possesses rational thought. That’s where things broke down for me.

The thought of being unable to try to speak to this girl as part of the game experience profoundly impacted my perception of what that experience would be, and reminded me that the interactivity was still so very limited by our current technologies. While most of the game seems to be designed to allow you to take logical courses of action, the inability to open a dialogue with a character that seems intended to be intelligent and fully capable of conversing kind of depressed and saddened me. The interaction was so…game-like. Wouldn’t I try to talk to this person, who is trapped in this world as I am? Wouldn’t she be curious about this man who is nothing like the tainted humans who threaten her? In a dangerous environment, is there any course more logical than trying to make allies?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer for how to fix this. There is no existing technology that can recognize natural speech (or even text…see Façade for an example of about the closest anyone has come) and interpret that as something it can produce viable responses for. At least, not on any level that would match the immersion of the rest of this game. I hate the thought of adding dialogue boxes because they would grind the immersive game flow to a halt. The game has some built-in mechanics for tricking NPCs, so you could fool the girl into thinking you are a “big daddy”, and I’ve heard indication that you can offer her a lollipop for hopefully a gift of the adam resource in return, but that really doesn’t solve the problem in my mind. I want there to be some genuine means of communicating with these characters. I’ve been so excited by the potential of the set-up that I am now afraid the actual experience of playing Bioshock is never going to be what my imagination wants it to be. And maybe it cannot be that in our current stage of evolution in the game industry. But it depresses me, nonetheless.

Addendum: I just saw the second trailer for Bioshock the other day…it is in turns beautiful, intriguing, horrific, and in the end, utterly fantastic. The video is, I am 99% sure, a prescripted CG film that demonstrates first person gameplay in such a way that the video feels like it was meant to be promotional material that explains what the developer’s intention for the gameplay could be like. The video features much player activity that I doubt will be available in the final game, though I will make the assertion that some of it actually could be present given experimentation and wise design choices. In the end though, the video is chilling and memorable and I recommend that everyone see it (I found it in several places, though I know for sure that you can download it off of IGN).