BioShock Infinite and Creative Anachronism

Randall Stephens

A screen capture from BioShock Infinite (Irrational Games, 2013)

I'm not proud to admit it . . . Sometimes I play video games.  And, no, I don't live in my mother's basement with black-light posters on the walls.  I don't subsist on Cheez Puffs, Slim Jims, and Mountain Dew. I have a job. I have a life.

Confession over.  

For non-gamers (lots of people), I'd like to say a little about a fun game that draws creatively off the past.

BioShock, which rolled out in 2007, was set in a disturbingly macabre, underwater, Ayn Randian dystopia. (Shooting libertarian fish in a barrel?) The submerged city, populated by psychopathic surgeons, genetically altered loonies, and a raft of creepy grotesqueries, is the gamer's playground, where she/he looks for clues and tries to set things right. Calamitous fun all around.