Video Games as Art Part 1: Bioshock

First and foremost, I am a true believer that video games should be considered pieces of art. They often involve intricate plots, character development, and all of the key items that movies, books, and plays contain that define them as artistic pieces. In addition, it envelops the player in ways that a book or movie just can not compare with. By giving someone direct control over the means to accomplish a task that affects the ending outcome makes them feel like they are personally involved with the story. It is due to this fact that video games allow the memories that the player creates about the scenario to feel like they were the ones taking part in it, not just remember the story about the characters.

One game comes to mind in particular that not only captures the conceptually artistic side of video games, but the physical side as well. That game is Bioshock.

Created by the brilliant minds over at Irrational Games, Bioshock takes place in the 1960s in an underground society that was built to become an isolated utopia. The protagonist, someone the player simply knows as Jack, has crash landed on a plane nearby this utopia, entitled as Rapture, where he slowly find out that the occupants have become crazed over a substance known as Adam.

The game progresses on to take some staggering plot twists. Additionally, the player sees more and more distorted and gruesome things the longer he stays inside of Rapture.

This game also has a visually artistic side. The theme fits perfectly with the 1960s era that Bioshock falls within. Here are a couple of pictures that show the visuals present within the game:

This first picture is from an early scene in the game where we first meet the creator of Rapture

The next picture is a screenshot from a haunting moment during the story when the player comes to the realization that they have not had their own free will for some time. The phrase scrawled on the walls in blood has followed them throughout the entirety of their gameplay experience.


This last picture is a screenshot of the terrifying combatant found all over Rapture known as a Big Daddy. Here, the player is engaged in combat with the Big Daddy.

Through painstaking attention to detail and a well designed story, Bioshock embodies an artistic video game when it come to plot.