BY: SCOTT MILLER

The "Video Games: Art or Entertainment?" debate has another major player: 2K Games' BioShock is a graceful, brooding, visually stunning game that demands to be contemplated as much as experienced.

He's close now; I can almost smell the oceanic salt caking his rusty joints. Lumbering down a sodden, dimly lit corridor, his hulking frame clinks in that ancient diving suit as he trails behind a small girl with an unsettlingly long needle. I'm ready for this fight; a voice over the short-wave radio tells me so, and the encouraging sight of his shuffling gait, large and lazy under those colossal steel trappings, doesn't contradict it. Without further deliberation, I unceremoniously unload the contents of my six-gun into his tarnished metal spine. The suit's yellow bulbs immediately flash a merciless shade of red; the air around me shatters as his guttural cry blurs my vision. Crimson orbs rush through the haze like water from a ruptured dam and the world tumbles into blackness.

Thus ends my first encounter with a Big Daddy, the iron-clad poster-boy for 2K Games' (formerly Irrational Games) "genetically enhanced" first-person-shooter, BioShock. Looking past my iconic adversary's enthusiastic offer to "kill me dead," his diligence allows us a symbolic peek into the minds of the game's creative team, who, protective of their lofty, genre-bending goals, chose early in development to either dismantle the opposition or go down fighting. Copious sweat and creativity have clearly been channeled into every piece of this ambitious jigsaw, ensuring a snug, efficient fit for each within the beautiful finished puzzle. 

Words like "beautiful," however, are frustratingly ambiguous in trying to describe BioShock's versatile moving parts. The game's visual design, for instance, is stunning both for its technical prowess – which molds the Unreal Engine 3 with unmatched flair, especially regarding water effects – as well as its striking 1940's aesthetic. Rapture, the drowning undersea utopia in which the game is set, was built in 1942 and it provides a gorgeously detailed art-deco backdrop for the ensuing mayhem. Though it's obviously not gaming’s first drool-worthy locale, Rapture separates itself by feeling eerily alive, a once prosperous city sputtering its last few painful breaths in the presence of ghosts and monsters.

But the game’s convincing tone can’t be chalked up to imagery alone; it's Rapture's semi-human denizens who steal the show, facilitating their decadent digs' descent into madness by splicing their DNA into a thick genetic paste. These challenging enemy AIs, along with a myriad of amusingly nasty genetic powers called "plasmids," keep combat fun and unpredictable throughout the game's 20+ hour running time. For example, you can set an enemy ablaze and he’ll run to water, which can then be electrocuted. Experimentation with battle mechanics is a joy in BioShock, one that is further encouraged by a complex NPC ecology system. This complex network of relationships cooks up one astonishing gameplay scenario after another as enemies roam the halls dynamically in search of resources, don't always attack on sight, and even engage one another should the mood strike them, allowing players to decide whether to sneak by unannounced or exploit their preoccupied vulnerability.   

Although first-rate game design abounds, BioShock's tastiest ingredient is a multifaceted, character-driven story; the scope, pacing and substance of which calls to mind not mere games or movies but classic literature. It’s a twist-filled tale of betrayal and retribution – not to mention a provocative take on Objectivism and anarcho-capitalism – that unfolds for its fish-out-water protagonist via audio diaries, in-game scripted events, and clever mise en scène (e.g. smugglers' crates strewn about the city are filled with contraband Bibles rather than drugs or weaponry). Combined with writing and voice acting that rivals the best in video game history, these storytelling techniques gradually reveal Rapture’s intensely disturbing undercurrents.

More exciting than its spectacular presentation and thematic gravitas, though, is the way the plot never encumbers accessibility. For the investigative gamer, hard-to-find audio diaries fill in the blanks by providing heartbreaking glimpses into Rapture's tragic fall: one subplot, involving a lost girl named Masha and her fearful parents, comes to a particularly chilling end that will not soon be wiped from my memory. A similar bonus for well-read gamers are the frequent literary allusions, from more obvious nods to Ayn Rand and Milton (amidst the city's fading neon splendor, a brothel's signage reads, "Eve's Garden: Come Bite the Apple!") to subtler draws from Orwell and Dostoyevsky, among others. It adds depth without forcing academia down any disinclined throats.    

Alas, like any creative enterprise, BioShock has flaws, such as the lenient consequences for a much publicized moral dilemma and some environmental shortcomings (why doesn’t ice melt into puddles? Why won't water freeze, trapping enemies or causing them to slip?). The ocean, which seeps in through Rapture’s every cracking wall and window, is also slightly disappointing because it plays a huge role in the game's visual design but rarely impacts gameplay. My list goes on a wee bit further, addressing occasional pop-in textures and challenge dampening vita-chambers, but these trivial objections falter in the shadow of the game's exhilarating strengths, which mesh with a cohesiveness of concept and design that shames most of its contemporaries.  

So, to those of you listening on a semi-regular basis to uninformed lectures on how video games are entertainment, not art, take a deep breath and invite them over to play BioShock. Show them its graceful storyline and brooding themes; show them its emotionally fractured city dwellers, for whom most gamers will feel pity before anger; show them a stoic metal guardian shielding his Little Sister against a violent world, two lingering bastions of innocence on a sadistic genetic playground. Not art? For what other purpose does art exist?  Extracting beauty from a meticulously crafted moment; touching the mind and heart of a willing participant; provoking contemplation long after contact with it has ceased. While the majority of modern humans are forced by a fast-paced life to focus only on the finish line, BioShock reminds us that rushing often ruins all the fun ... and results in missing many of the most important points.