Political Ideology in BioShock

An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch at the usually-excellent Gamers With Jobs has a preview of BioShock up today. Far from being a normal piece on the game's graphics and gameplay, it delves deep into designer Ken Levine's attempts to include some extremely complex and controversial political ideologies as the baseline for the title: 'The point of BioShock, the raison d'etre, is really the story, and the messages and intellectual content that Levine tries to deliver as a payload. "Look at Lord of the Rings," he challenges. "Why is Lord of the Rings more interesting than random RPG story number 507? They're exactly the same thing. They have orcs and goblins and demons and trolls. But Lord of the Rings is a meditation on power. And it's really interesting because of that. It's what gives it it's heart." And with undenied hubris, Levine's trying to do the same thing with BioShock.'"

Comments

Political gaming?

[Trent Hawkins]

So, like. You can vote republican AND rape little girl like aliens?

Re:Political gaming?

[untaken_name]

CAN? Hell, isn't that one of the planks of the platform?

Who will get offended

[svendsen]

Wonder how many people will get "offended" if the games political ideology is different then theirs? For a 100% fictitious example: Someone plays GTA 37 and kills hookers and has no problems. Burns people and runs them over, again no problems. Their in game girlfriend gets an abortion, or says the like democrat / republican, or says the world is more than 6000 years old...all hell breaks loose.

Re:Who will get offended

[ShadowsHawk]

And how many people will play the game completely oblivious to the political ideology? There's a reason why the masses love summer romantic comedies.

Highly anticipated by me at least

[LarsWestergren]

If you have missed is, this game is made by many of the people behind horror classics System Shock/System Shock 2. It is my most anticipated game this year. I've actually stopped reading about it though, articles contain too many spoilers these days. However, if you liked the 40s-50s vibe of Fallout artwork, check out the great art deco posters in the game.

Re:hmm

[PixelScuba]

Arragorn was his pirate cousin.

Re:hmm

[bigbigbison]

I don't think that Tolkien should be the ultimate arbiter of what his books mean. To take another situation that is radically different look at Michael Richards' racist tirade. I saw his apology on Letterman and I believe that he was truly sorry and that he really doesn't think he was racist. However, he has yet to convince me that he isn't a racist.
Tolkien may not think that there is allegory in Lord of the Rings but he has yet to convince me that there isn't.