Rapture is
the underwater city where the games
Bioshock
and
Bioshock 2 take place. The city has a long,
storied history before
the protagonist encounters the city. It was conceptualized and created
in 1946
and finished construction in 1951, somewhere in the North Atlantic
Ocean. The
city was meant to act as a new type of society, free from religion and
governmental pressures. The brightest minds of the surface world were
brought
to the depths, where they were free to explore their scholarly
endeavors to
their hearts desire.
Technology made immense strides in this new society. There
were computers running many of the systems, allowing for Rapture's own
botanical gardens in which crops were grown. Perhaps the most
fascinating
discovery was that of a substance known as ADAM. ADAM allowed for
genetic
modifications, from correcting abnormalities to giving the user
unimaginable
powers, such as shooting bolts of electricity from their hand. A side
effect of
the ADAM use is that the user must use more ADAM to stabilize the DNA
after it
becomes unstable over time.
Problems soon arose from the fact that
everything in the
society was privately owned, and therefore came with an
ever-fluctuating cost.
The health care, food, and oxygen supply were all a matter of money and
privilege.
These necessities for life started to draw lines between the different
economic
classes of Rapture, and started to erode the peaceful foundations.
Civil war broke out in Rapture, creating
a downfall of the
once great city. With no hierarchy, and no one to answer to, rampant
ADAM use
began around the ruins of Rapture, causing mass chaos and deformed,
ADAM-starved humans known as Splicers. Splicers killed anyone who stood
in
their way of getting ADAM, causing the population of Rapture to drop to
very
sparse numbers. This is where the protagonist of
Bioshock
comes in to
the picture.
The underwater nature and unsettling
desolation of Rapture
makes it one of the most uncomfortable and unnerving games I've ever
experienced. The eerie silence could be broken by a leaky pipe, leaving
me on
edge through my entire playthrough. The twists in the story were
cemented in my
mind, blindsiding me during my time in Rapture. This is one of my
favorite
games ever, largely in part to the unique atmosphere.
For more information, please check out
Bioshock's
website,
provided by the
publisher, 2K Games.
