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BioShock is an action-adventure horror first person shooter series developed by Irrational Games.

Series description[]

In 1997, Video Game Developer Ken Levine founded Irrational Games, which mostly comprised of former employees at Looking Glass Studios. In 1999, Lavine failed to greenlight a sequel of System Shock to Electronic Arts due to the poor sales of the previous game. Lavine wanted to make a spiritual successor to System Shock, stating that the concept of a dystopian world was a "good one to set for a video game", and cited books like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and William F. Nolan's Logan's Run as inspirations in terms of artstyle.

In 2002, the team had come up with a core gameplay mechanic idea based on three groups of forces; drones that would carry a desirable resource, protectors that would guard the drones, and harvesters that would attempt to take the resource from the drones; these would eventually bear out as the Little Sisters, Big Daddies, and Splicers in the final game, but at the time of the concept, there was no set theme. They began working on creating a setting for the game as to be able to pitch the idea to game publishers. A 2002 demonstration version was based on the Unreal Engine 2 for the first Xbox. This demonstration was primarily set aboard a space station overtaken with genetically-mutated monsters; the main character was Carlos Cuello, a "cult deprogrammer"—a person charged with rescuing someone from a cult, and mentally and psychologically readjusting that person to a normal life. Ken Levine cites an example of what a cult deprogrammer does: "[There are] people who hired people to [for example] deprogram their daughter who had been in a lesbian relationship. They kidnap her and reprogram her, and it was a really dark person, and that was the [kind of] character that you were." This story would have been more political in nature, with the character hired by a Senator. The team collectively agreed that this game was not what they had set out to make, and were having trouble finding a publisher. They considered ending development, but as news about their efforts to create a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 began to appear in gaming magazines and websites, the team opted to continue development, performing a full revamp of the game.

In 2004, Publisher 2k Games would approach an offer to Irrational Games for publishing the game based on the drone/protector/harvester concept and allowing for freedom to the developers to develop the story and its setting. This version of the story would take place in the 21st Century, where scientist have recently unearthed a World War II Nazi base with the lab experiments formed into the ecosystem centered on the three groups. Many gameplay aspects would remain in the final game, including listening to old recordings for directions or expansion of the lore, the use of Plasmids and EVE, the use of stealth to bypass automated security systems, among other features.

While the gameplay with the 2004 reveal was similar to what resulted in the released version of BioShock, both design and story changed, consistent with what Levine says was then-Irrational Games' guiding principle of putting game design first. These areas were also issued due to some internal strife and lack of communication between the various teams within Irrational, part of the result of having to expand the team from six to sixty members for the scope of the project. The environment was considered bland, and there were difficulties by the team's artists to come up with a consistent vision to meet the level designer's goals. A critical junction was a short experiment performed by level designer Jean Paul LeBreton and artist Hoagy de la Plante, setting themselves aside to co-develop a level that would later become part of the "Tea Garden" area in the released game, which Levine would later use as a prime example of a "great BioShock space", emphasizing the need for departments to work together. Levine also found that the cyberpunk theme had been overplayed considering their initial reject from Electronic Arts for System Shock 3, leading towards the underwater setting of Rapture.

BioShock has since then received critical and commercial acclaim, selling more than 37 Million copies as of May 2021, making it one of the best selling video game franchises of all time. The first game's success led to two more sequels, BioShock 2, set eight years after the original game, and BioShock Infinite, a prequel to the first game set in 1912. It has also spawned a Flash game, four expansions, and a film adaptation by streaming company Netflix.

BioShock is best known for the city of Rapture, and plasmids, genetic alterations that mutate the user in order to give them seemingly supernatural abilities, like the ability to light a fire with a snap of one's fingers, and turning the user's body into a colony of bees, as well as the power to stun people with Electro Bolt, or put up decoys with Target Dummy, and even freeze enemies with Winter Blast and launch them high with a Cyclone Trap. It is also known for its old-school gameplay with using your environment to your advantage, and hacking equipment has never felt so awesome in a game like this. It is an “immersive simulation”-style game with many more things to do than a traditional first person shooter, with many twists and a critically praised story.The game takes place in the fictional underwater city of Rapture as well as the airborne city of Columbia. Built in the late fully in the early 50’s by business tycoon Andrew Ryan, Rapture was meant to be a laissez-faire utopia for humanity's elite to work, live, and prosper out of the increasingly oppressive hands of the world's governments and authorities. Sadly for Ryan, there were many individuals who put a monkey wrench in his plans for the city, such as the influential Sofia Lamb and the con man criminal who would soon be his rival named Frank Fontaine, to the point where it drove him to hypocrisy and corruption, all over his ego, as he made a “cathedral for the worshipping of himself”. Over the years, The Civil War ravaged Rapture and resulted in the insanity of the masses and the creation of many humanoid horrors, such as Splicers who try to kill genetically modified girls who had been implanted with a chemical called ADAM, and these little girls are called Little Sisters. This lead to them make the Protector Program, having them make heavily spliced men become Big Daddies to come in to protect them from harm.

Connection With All-Stars[]

  • The Bouncer variant of the Big Daddy, the icon of the series, is a playable character.
  • The Little Sisters appear as part of the Big Daddy's moveset, namely its first Level Super Move.
  • The Little Sister also appears as a minion.
  • Plasmids are also a big part of the Big Daddy's moveset, which fits well with how versatile of a character he is.
  • Andrew Ryan, a major antagonist in the BioShock series, is heard giving orders to Big Daddy through Audio Diaries at the beginning of every match.
  • The Songbird, the Handyman, and the Vox Populi appeared on the Stowaways stage, where they cause trouble outside the plane.
  • Murder of Crows is an item in the game.
  • Columbia appears in the background of the Stowaways stage. It also appears as another one of the playable stages, which has a mash up between BioShock Infinite and Twisted Metal.

Games[]

Trivia[]

  • BioShock was the first third-party franchise confirmed to be represented in All-Stars.
  • BioShock has the most representation in the game, having a playable character, being represented in two stages, having an item, and a minion.
    • This is the only third-party franchise that has an item, and one of the two that are represented in at least one stage, the other being Metal Gear.
      • Bioshock and Metal Gear are the only third-party series in the game whose first installment on a home console (whether exclusive or simultaneous upon release) wasn't on the PlayStation or any of its subsequent consoles.

References[]



Franchises
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (Title Fight)
First Party
Ape Escape · Buzz! · Carnival Island · Escape Plan · Fat Princess · God of War · Gravity Rush · Heavenly Sword · Hot Shots Golf · inFAMOUS · Jak and Daxter · Killzone · LittleBigPlanet · LocoRoco · MediEvil · ModNation Racers · PaRappa the Rapper · Patapon · Ratchet & Clank · Resistance · Sly Cooper · Starhawk · The Mark of Kri · The Unfinished Swan · Together Everywhere! · Twisted Metal · Uncharted · Warhawk · WipEout
Third Party
BioShock · Dead Space · Devil May Cry · Metal Gear · Tekken

Removed
Blasto · Folklore · Journey · The Legend of Dragoon
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