TITLE
Does the Sneaker Have to Matter?
AUTHOR
Tom Bissell
PUBLICATION
Grantland
YEAR
2013
ARTICLE TYPE
Interview
FROM THE ARTICLE
Last winter, I received an interesting invitation. Would I, and my video-game-writing partner, Rob Auten, like to travel to Boston to spend a weekend playing a complete but not yet fully polished build of BioShock Infinite, the spiritual successor to BioShock, which is among the most beloved first-person shooters of all time? After our playthrough, we were told Ken Levine, the writer and creative director behind the BioShock franchise, wanted to have a chat, writer-to-writer-to-writer, about what we thought. Now, if you’re at all interested in action video games, video-game writing, or video-game narrative, this was a little like being summoned to a screening of a 90 percent–edited version of Citizen Kane and having lunch with Orson Welles afterward.Obviously, we went. I struggled with aspects of BioShock Infinite‘s opening. Rob loved it without a qualm. Rob struggled with aspects of its ending. I loved it without hesitation. We sat in Irrational Games’s test lab for two hours, arguing over our interpretations of what the game meant, what it was trying to say, how we felt. Before long, reality set in: This is not what typically happens after playing a shooter.
[…]
The day after we played Infinite, Ken [Levine] met with Rob and me. At that point, I’d been “working in video games,” in some capacity, for two years. Listening to Ken talk about his process, and his goals, I learned more in four hours than I did in the preceding 24 months.
Ken agreed to have another chat with me about BioShock Infinite, and much else, on the eve of its publication.
GAMES MENTIONED
BioShock
BioShock Infinite
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Ken Levine
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive