I can see Bioshock getting flak when its released

There is a new developer walk through video out for Bioshock called Hunting the Big Daddy. If you have not seen it, watch the video till the end (the important part for this blog), if you have seen it.. continue on..

Video (remember the end part is the most important



Video Games should and usually do give us some sort of emotional reaction. Either joy, frustration, fear, sadness, etc.. when we play the games we should get some sort of emotional response. Who hasnt given a finger to a boss in a video game? Or yelled "Hell Ya" when you finally beat some major level that almost had you weeping? I am sure we all have.

Bioshock will certainly push us to the next level of emotions in regards to how the player has a chance to exploit the little girls. For those that are not keeping up on Bioshock, the little girls pull out the currency in this underwater utopia from dead bodies, this currency is called ADAM. They then drink it to process the ADAM. ADAM is needed by everyone and everything to work. It is used as money, to hack items/computers, to basically do anything in the game. In a game like Bioshock you are not limited by a linear set of choices so this is where the emotions will come in. You can leave the little girls alone, you can kill them (promotional materials have this listed as "Do you like to murder little girls?"), you can exploit them and keep your ADAM supply up, and even more.

Now the response of the little girl at the end of the video shows us she and the other little girls will be unwilling to help us, especially after we have to kill her protector, the Big Daddy. The girls give a fairly realistic emotion and if you just look at it like a video game character, no real emotional response will be needed from you, or expected by a rational person. But will the political wind bags out there find this video or hear about it in some way and say the game is promoting violence against little girls? Her realistic reactions could be plastered all over CNN for the people who are not in the know to look at and have an emotional response over. What kind of game is this? A game where you scare and MURDER little girls? Our kids dont need this kind of game.. etc etc. You have seen it all before.  You will see it again.

So when Bioshock is finally released at the end of August, and the media hype increases, I will not be shocked to see some lawyer or politician hack use 6 seconds of the video to say video games are evil, and what I say is this.. Havnt you ever just wanted to kill a little girl? :P