BioShock lets users take on fanaticism through fantasy
I don't usually warm up for a video game review by reading a book review. But to appreciate the new game BioShock, it helps to read "Big Sister Is Watching You," Whittaker Chambers's coolly contemptuous take on Ayn Rand's 1957 novel, "Atlas Shrugged."
Rand's book has sold millions of copies this past half-century. To several generations of libertarians, it's pretty much sacred scripture. But to Chambers, a recovered communist with an eye for the dictatorial, "Atlas Shrugged" was bunk, and dangerous bunk to boot.
The book envisions a commercial utopia founded on free enterprise at its most absolute -- so absolute that in Chambers's view, this new freedom must ultimately be enforced at gunpoint. "From almost any page of 'Atlas Shrugged,' " said Chambers, "a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber -- go!' "
Fifty years on, an erstwhile "Atlas Shrugged" fan named Ken Levine came to much the same conclusion. Rather than pound out a scathing critical essay, he created a beautiful, brutal, and disquieting computer game instead. It's called BioShock, and it's one of the best in years.
BioShock, published by 2K Games, runs on Windows-based desktop computers or the
Sounds like fun. So what's with all the mangled corpses and kill-crazy mutants? It seems some of Ryan's genetic experiments got a little out of hand. He's discovered ways to give humans extraordinary new powers, but at a terrible price. You'll need to use some of those powers to get out of Rapture alive. You can get all you want by killing giant armored beasts called Big Daddies, guardians of the bio-engineered chemical called Adam. Just one problem -- the Adam is contained in the bodies of Little Sisters, glowing-eyed, lovely little girls. To get a little Adam, be nice to the Little Sisters. To get a lot of it, kill them. You choose.
As father of two glowing-eyed, lovely daughters, this isn't much of a dilemma. I'm plowing ahead without a full ration of Adam. But that makes things more difficult, and cuts your chances of survival. A guy like Ryan would sacrifice others for his own needs; why not you? After all, it's only a game . . .
BioShock isn't the first game to serve up such moral conundrums; a bunch of Star Wars titles let you choose the Jedi path of niceness or the Vaderian Dark Side. But there's a particular, throat-catching poignancy this time. Those Little Sisters are just too cute to shoot.
On the other hand, BioShock is still a computer game, with that genre's addiction to second chances. Mess up, and you're resurrected with another chance to solve a crucial puzzle or survive a vicious attack. That makes the dilemma rather less painful, and frees you to enjoy the sheer wonder of making your way through this decayed undersea metropolis. With its lavish art-deco visuals, backed up by wonderful old pop songs like "Beyond the Sea" and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" BioShock is one of those games where you almost hope nothing exciting happens, so you can just mill around and take it all in. No such luck. Rapture was designed as a man-made paradise, but Heaven is only for the dead.
That's the insight that inspired Levine, creative director of Bio- Shock. In an interview, he told me that Rapture is his version of "Galt's Gulch," the capitalist utopia created by the hero of Rand's novel. As a young man, Levine was much taken by the idea. But in time he came to perceive the bitter, world-hating fanaticism at the core of "Atlas Shrugged." He realized, like Chambers, that such fanaticism, even in the service of total freedom, must come to a bad end. BioShock is his vision of how it would all go wrong; it's also a wonderful example of dystopian fantasy done right.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 
