Being Creepier Than GTA Makes BioShock A Hit
Grand Theft Auto has always served as the poster boy for video games that drive parents and government officials up the wall. Take-Two Interactive Software took a lot of heat for the violent and sexualized content, and made a whole lot of money selling it. But they've had trouble coming up with a follow-up to their signature title. It looks like their gamble on the new first person shooter -sort of- called " BioShock" is just what the doctor ordered for their ailing bottom line.
The game is part first-person shooter, horror flick, and morality tale. Players explore a failed underwater utopia torn apart by clashes over a DNA-altering substance that bestows health and superpowers.
Players have to collect the substance in order to gain more abilities and advance through the game.
The catch is that the only source is "Little Sisters", small girls who are guarded by "Big Daddies", lumbering fellows in deep-sea diving suits whose skin-crawling bellows sound like angry whales.
Players can either kill the girl to harvest the substance, or rescue them for a lesser amount and the promise of rewards later, a choice that heightens the game's disturbing atmosphere and affects the story later on.
Killing or rescuing "Little Sisters" ought to be just the thing to keep Take-Two on the front pages of the paper, now that Grand Theft Auto violence can't get a rise out of anyone anymore.
