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" In terms of the long history of world culture, video games are the nouveau riche ragamuffin rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy of film, literature, art and music. Despite being more than 40 years old, the games industry is still relatively just a teenager, occasionally tripping over its own heels as it reaches for the higher cultural echelons. But for every convoluted fantasy adventure featuring some embarrassingly big-busted vixen, there are now developers creating games that really try to push the boundaries of narrative, storytelling and character. Titles such as Mass Effect, LA Noire and Heavy Rain have showed what is possible in games development, but few have quite found the winning mix like BioShock.   The 2007 masterpiece, created by Ken Levine&amp;#039;s 2K Boston (now known as Irrational Games), dazzled with its undersea city of Rapture and created the megalomaniacal idealist Andrew Ryan to allow the brilliant minds of the world to thrive without the meddling of the state. But best intentions did indeed pave the road to hell, as Rapture&amp;#039;s citizens mutated into genetically-tweaked splicers, consumed by their own unfettered greed. BioShock, the &amp;quot;spiritual successor&amp;quot; to the System Shock series, excelled by telling an incredible story (including its mind-boggling twist), but also by doing so with peerless first-person shooter gameplay. Levine and his team will return next with BioShock Infinite, taking the series into the clouds, and so we caught some time with the creative director to discuss the state of video game storytelling.   BioShock Infinite bears equally as lofty aspirations as the first BioShock (BioShock 2 was handled by 2K Marin). The game unfurls in 1912 on a floating city called Columbia, another fractured world riven by civil war, competing ideologies and frenzied violence. Levine thought long and hard about where to set the next BioShock, needing to find a similar environment that could heighten the sense of fear, claustrophobia and wonderment.  The source material that crystalised his minds was The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. Erik Larson&amp;#039;s 2003 non-fiction book follows the strangely connected tales of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect behind the 1893 World&amp;#039;s Fair in Chicago, and Dr Holmes, one of America&amp;#039;s first documented serial killers who is said to have taken some of his victims from the cultural showpiece. For Levine, drawing on such source material is an integral part of his approach. &amp;quot;I like to connect with people who have an eclectic set of tastes,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;When we were first thinking about the time period, Sean Devlin, Stephen Alexander and the art guys had read Devil in the White City, which was about the World&amp;#039;s Fair, which covers the period in question, and they were just like, &amp;#039;Yo, you need to read this book&amp;#039;. If they hadn&amp;#039;t, I don&amp;#039;t know if I would have read it, or been exposed to what was the first step on the journey to understanding the time period. We had to read that book to really capture some of the zeitgeist of that period.&amp;quot;  BioShock Infinite interprets the climate before, during and after the World&amp;#039;s Fair, an era that is often referred to as American exceptionalism. This broadly meant the spreading of what was thought to be a unique ideology from the emerging powerhouse nation that would dominate the world right up to this present day. Levine said that the game will explore what America means, and whether it is ever justified to brand something as &amp;quot;un-American&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;To me... there is a diverse range of activity that could be termed American, so it&amp;#039;s probably best not to throw that term around,&amp;quot; he commented. &amp;quot;I think on a basic level this game is a struggle between the haves and the have-nots, and also the natives versus the foreigners. That has happened so many times in history, from the scenes in Martin Scorsese&amp;#039;s Gangs of New York to the present day Occupy Wall Street movement. It&amp;#039;s not that we can see into the future to know these things, it&amp;#039;s because we are such students of the past.&amp;quot; Many video games developers are history buffs, but it is possibly Levine and his team&amp;#039;s thirst for literature that really sets their games apart. Characters in acclaimed novels and literature stories sometimes differ from TV and film, being much richer and more complex, while the pacing of their actions and dialogue creates a greater connection with the reader. All too many video games trot out a parade of one-dimensional characters, going from point A to point B with dreary dialogue and uninspiring actions, just like the worse end of blockbuster movies. Levine feels that BioShock excelled by adopting a &amp;quot;novelistic&amp;quot; approach to its storytelling, unfurling the lives of numerous different characters through snatched conversations and collectable audio-logs, just like &amp;quot;short stories that are captured in a novel&amp;quot;.   He said: &amp;quot;You have all these characters and subplots going on. If you go back to BioShock, there is the story about how all the ice formed after they had problems with the heating, then there is also a smuggling story, and the story of Sander Cohen and the other artists, and the rivalry they had. These are all basically short stories that are captured in a novel, and they come together and unite as a whole. It&amp;#039;s these micro-stories, such as the woman talking to her dead baby in the pram, and all those little Splicer moments. It&amp;#039;s all those micro-stories in the main story. That is a real opportunity, because there are so many stories that we want to tell, but you have to edit those very carefully and not go too far down the rabbit hole. We must not overwhelm the player.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s clear that Levine spends as much time debating the characters in his games as he does tweaking aiming reticules or rebalancing cover mechanics. For him, the story informs the gameplay as much as the gameplay informs the story. Speaking about BioShock, he said that the casting process was just as rigorous for minor characters as for major roles. It was essential that the characters fit with the scenario, but also that they never slip into the clich\u00E9d, such as the tortured hero, the washed-up detective or the damsel in distress. &amp;quot;You think, &amp;#039;I need to tell a certain plot point or thread, and I need to cast that story, so who is the interesting person who could tell that story?&amp;#039; Maybe it could be an artist who had a rivalry with Cohen who was sucking up to Ryan, then I think, &amp;#039;Who would that person be and what would they sound like?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; said Levine. &amp;quot;We have to make sure characters don&amp;#039;t step on each other with different accents or delivery. You also don&amp;#039;t want multiplayers, like two or three football players, so that people can keep track of them. Often when you get stuck with something, I find that as a writer, it just needs to be simplified. Or a lot of stuff needs to be thrown out. Often it&amp;#039;s that the wrong person is talking. It&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;This should be the gardener, it should be the woman who lives next door&amp;#039;. And when it&amp;#039;s right, you just know right away.&amp;quot;  Levine says he has a &amp;quot;degree of trust&amp;quot; with his audience, meaning the player is relied upon to keep up with what is going on, or they could &amp;quot;miss stuff&amp;quot;. BioShock did not feature lengthy cut scenes, although it did &amp;quot;nudge&amp;quot; people in the right direction with sound effects and visual hints. Levine feels that it is so much better if the player discovers things for themselves, as they will appreciate them so much more, just like the solution to a puzzle. But when asked why BioShock&amp;#039;s story excelled where others have not, Levine proves more pragmatic. &amp;quot;I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am the writer and I am in the room,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I am in the level review and I am in the gameplay design, because I am there I can see opportunities - it&amp;#039;s more about my presence than my talent. I am very familiar with the game. I did one game that I wasn&amp;#039;t so much involved in and I don&amp;#039;t think that I did a good job. You can&amp;#039;t underestimate the strength of being in the room. At Irrational we tend to give people areas of responsibility, but I have final edit over what is in the game. I have to collect a lot of opinions, but at the end of the day I have to make the final decision. But if I make that without consulting my colleagues who I respect and admire so much, I would be doing them, myself and the project a disservice.&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;We throw away a tonne of stuff. Because honestly a good project is a bad project until it turns good. Every project starts off terrible and the question is whether it is going to come good. Nobody is going to want to play the first thing we put on the screen because it is going to be awful. Some games never get good, but it&amp;#039;s only by refining it along that way that you make progress.&amp;quot;  When considering the current state of video game storytelling, Levine said that he is seeing some &amp;quot;very encouraging things&amp;quot;, such as Playdead&amp;#039;s puzzle-platform game LIMBO, which he said was able to tell the story &amp;quot;without stepping on the experience&amp;quot;. Levine believes that it is vitally important not to &amp;quot;drag&amp;quot; players into cut scenes and break the vital narrative atmosphere. &amp;quot;People tend to overdo it with their story and not strip it down to the bare minimum. There is a rule that you start the scene as late as possible. When two people are going to discuss their divorce, you don&amp;#039;t start with them waiting outside, going inside, picking up their menus - you come in at the last possible moment while also giving all the information required in the scene, and then you end it as soon as you can. A lot of games have that problem in that they don&amp;#039;t understand that - there are long cut scenes and a lot of talking. I try to respect the gamers&amp;#039; time as much as possible. At Irrational, it&amp;#039;s not really about doing something bold, it&amp;#039;s more about doing what we are interested in. It&amp;#039;s hard enough to make something great even if you are passionate about it, but if you are not passionate about it then you don&amp;#039;t have a prayer. You won&amp;#039;t get through those long nights, or get yourself up in the morning, or go on long plane journeys. If I don&amp;#039;t care about what I am doing, I can&amp;#039;t do all that, I&amp;#039;d be bored out of my mind. You have to have the passion.&amp;quot; More BioShock Infinite coverage: &amp;gt; BioShock Infinite: Ken Levine interview &amp;gt; BioShock Infinite video reveals skylines &amp;gt; BioShock Infinite to feature Move support &amp;gt; BioShock Infinite wins E3 Best of Show award &amp;gt; Preview: BioShock Infinite BioShock Infinite will be released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC sometime in 2012. Watch BioShock Infinite&amp;#039;s Factions at War trailer below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a351747/telling-tales-bioshocks-ken-levine-on-video-game-storytelling/>