The third game in the popular Bioshock series, BioShock Infinite breaks away from the underwater setting of the first two games to take players into a floating city held aloft by dirigibles. The game is set in 1912. The protagonist and player is Booker DeWitt, a disgraced former private detective who’s picked up a new case, and his goal is to find Elizabeth, a young woman who’s gone missing and return her unharmed. The only problem is that she’s being kept on this flying city. Columbia was once a symbol of America’s success as a nation, floating around the world as a traveling World’s Fair, a marvel of human innovation. But strange things have happened since Columbia’s unveiling in 1900, and now the city has disappeared into the clouds. DeWitt knows how to find it, but over the years stories have been told about Columbia having unlawful heavy armament and deranged citizenry. Bioshock is reputedly one of the best selling video games of all time, selling over 9 million copies with the Bioshock series since its release.
The five elements of drama present: act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose are all seen here but to more or less varying degrees. It may be argued that Scene is the most relevant element of drama seen here, as DeWitt notes all of the propaganda posters he sees as he explores Columbia (“Let’s fight the foreign hoards”) and also other elements of the city such as how deserted it is, how its citizens are either deranged in the sense that they are excessively violent or isolated unless provoked; how it floats, and its sort of futuristic zip line. The city is set in the past but appears to have futuristic elements. However, it can also be argued that towards the end of the video, Act as an element of drama becomes more significant as it concentrates on DeWitt fighting and riding the zip line, as well as battling Elizabeth’s captors, among other machinations. Agency also contributes as DeWitt’s powers of telekinesis, as well as his accrued powers of controlling killer ravens helps him defeat the madness of Columbia; but contribute to the artifact less than Scene and perhaps Agency might. The agent, is virtually a blank canvas as he is played by the player who can customize him as he sees fit with appropriate powers and game control – however, his fundamental qualities are that he can accrue these powers in the first place, and his purpose is to save Elizabeth, which is overall the purpose of the game.
Pop Studies and Rhetoric 