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BioShock (series)
''BioShock'' is a retrofuturistic video game series created by Ken Levine, published by 2K and developed by several studios, including Irrational Games and 2K Marin. The ''BioShock'' games combine first-person shooter and role-playing elements, giving the player freedom for how to approach combat and other situations, and are considered part of the immersive sim genre. Additionally, the series is notable for exploring philosophical and moral concepts with a strong in-game narrative influenced by concepts such as objectivism, total utilitarianism, and American exceptionalism. The series consists of three main games. '' BioShock'' (2007) and '' BioShock 2'' (2010) take place in the 1960s in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. '' BioShock Infinite'' (2013) is thematically and narratively tied to the first games, and takes place in 1912 aboard the floating city of Columbia. After ''Infinite''s release, Irrational Games was downsized and rebranded as Ghost Story Games to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BioShock
''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms in August 2007; a PlayStation 3 port by Irrational, 2K Marin, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes was released in October 2008. The game follows player character Jack, who discovers the underwater city of Rapture, built by business magnate Andrew Ryan to be an isolated utopia. The discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city's turbulent decline. Jack attempts to escape Rapture, fighting its mutated and mechanical denizens, while engaging with the few sane survivors left and learning of the city's past. The player can defeat foes in several ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture's defenses against them. ''BioShock''s concept was develop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shield Tablet
The Shield Tablet, later relaunched as the Shield Tablet K1, is a gaming tablet, developed by Nvidia and released on July 29, 2014. It was Nvidia's second portable gaming device that uses Android. Compared to the Shield Portable, the controller is not permanently connected to the screen, rather it can be purchased separately. Up to four controllers can be wirelessly connected at the same time. While the Shield tablet features an 8-inch 1920×1200 pixel display, it can output 4K resolution signal to a television via HDMI. In November 2015, the tablet was refreshed and renamed as the ''Shield Tablet K1'' and the price was reduced to $200. In August 2016, Nvidia announced it had cancelled plans to release a hardware upgrade to its Shield Tablet products - a speculated reason for the cancellation was product conflict with the Nintendo Switch, which uses similar technology. In mid-2017 the tablet was no longer for retail on Nvidia's website or any of the other websites in which th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rapture (BioShock)
Rapture is a fictional city-state in the ''BioShock'' series published by 2K Games. It is an underwater city that is the main setting for the games '' BioShock'' and '' BioShock 2''. The city also briefly appears in '' BioShock Infinite'', and is featured in its downloadable content, ''Burial at Sea''. The game's back-story describes the city as envisioned by business tycoon Andrew Ryan in the mid-late 1940s as a means to create a utopia for mankind's greatest artists and thinkers to prosper in a laissez-faire environment outside of increasing oppression by the world's governments and religion. However, the lack of government led to severe wealth disparity, a powerful black market, and unrestricted genetic modification, which turned the city into a dystopia exacerbated by Ryan's tyrannical methods to maintain control. The masses turned towards political activists like Atlas who advocated an uprising of the poor against Ryan and the elite of Rapture; and on the eve of 1959, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BioShock 2
''BioShock 2'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games. It was released worldwide for PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, Windows, and Xbox 360 on February 9, 2010; Feral Interactive released an OS X version on March 30, 2012. The game takes place in the dystopian underwater city of Rapture (BioShock), Rapture, eight years after the events of ''BioShock''. In the single-player campaign, players control the armored protagonist Subject Delta as he fights through Splicers—the psychotic human population of the city—using weapons and an array of genetic modifications. The game includes a story-driven multiplayer mode that takes place before the events of ''BioShock'', during Rapture's civil war. After the success of ''BioShock'', 2K Games formed a new studio, 2K Marin, to create the sequel. 2K Australia, Arkane Studios, and Digital Extremes provided additional support. The developers focused on improving gameplay elements from the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Exceptionalism
American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is either distinctive, unique, or exemplary compared to other nations. Proponents argue that the Culture of the United States, values, Politics of the United States, political system, and History of the United States, historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage. It originates in the observations and writings of French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, most notably in his comparison of the United States with Great Britain and his native France. Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" following his travels there in 1831. The earliest documented use of the specific term "American exceptionalism" is by American communists in intra-communist disputes in the late 1920s. Seymour Martin Lipset, a prominent political science, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Utilitarianism
Average and total utilitarianism (also called averagism and totalism) are variants of utilitarianism that seek to maximize the average or total amount of utility; following Henry Sidgwick's question, "Is it total or average happiness that we seek to make a maximum?". They are theories of population ethics, a philosophical field that deals with problems arising when our actions affect the number or identity of individuals born in the future. Total utilitarianism Total utilitarianism is a method of applying utilitarianism to a group to work out what the best set of outcomes would be. It assumes that the target utility is the maximum utility across the population based on adding all the separate utilities of each individual together. The main problem for total utilitarianism is the " mere addition paradox", which argues that a likely outcome of following total utilitarianism is a future where there is a large number of people with very low utility values. Parfit terms this "the rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Objectivism
Objectivism is a philosophical system named and developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute"."About the Author" in Rand first expressed Objectivism in her fiction, most notably ''The Fountainhead'' (1943) and ''Atlas Shrugged'' (1957), and later in non-fiction essays and books. Leonard Peikoff, a professional philosopher and Rand's designated intellectual heir, later gave it a more formal structure. Peikoff characterizes Objectivism as a "closed system" insofar as its "fundamental principles" were set out by Rand and are not subject to change. However, he stated that "new implications, applications and integrations can always be discovered". Objectivism's main tenets are that reality exists independently of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immersive Sim
An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player abilities, allow the game to support varied and creative solutions to problems, as well as emergent gameplay beyond what has been explicitly designed by the developer. This definition is not to be confused with game systems which allow player choice in a confined sense or systems which allow players to easily escape consequences of their choices. Immersive sims by definition allow for multiple approaches, and typically incorporate elements of multiple genres, including role-playing games, stealth, first-person shooters, platform games, survival horror and adventure games. Although they typically have smaller worlds than open world games, they also generally allow for open-ended gameplay, allowing the player to progress in any order and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Role-playing Video Game
Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills). Role-playing games almost always feature combat as a defining feature and traditionally used Turn-based role-playing game, turn-based combat; however, modern role-playing games commonly feature real-time Action role-playing game, action combat or even non-violent forms of conflict resolution (with some eschewing combat altogether). Further, many games have incorporated role-playing elements such as character advancement and quests while remaining within other genres. Role-playing video games have their origins in tabletop role-playing games and use much of the same :Role-playing game terminology, terminology, Campaign setting, settings, and Game mechanics, game mechanics. Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include develope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-person Shooter
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through the eyes of the player character, main character. This genre shares multiple common traits with other shooter video games, shooter games, and in turn falls under the action games category. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D computer graphics, 3D and 2.5D, pseudo-3D graphics have proven fundamental to allow a reasonable level of immersion in the three-dimensional space, game world, and this type of game helped pushing technology progressively further, challenging hardware developers worldwide to introduce numerous innovations in the field of graphics processing units. Multiplayer video game, Multiplayer gaming has been an integral part of the experience, and became even more prominent with the diffusion of internet connectivity in recen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, most commonly shown in a video format on a television set, computer monitor, flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices, or a virtual reality headset. Most modern video games are audiovisual, with Sound, audio complement delivered through loudspeaker, speakers or headphones, and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides Touch, tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for voice chat in online gaming, in-game chatting and video game livestreaming, livestreaming. Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform, which traditionally includes arcade video games, console games, and PC game, comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retrofuturism
Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation. Characterized by a blend of old-fashioned " retro styles" with futuristic technology, retrofuturism explores the themes of tension between past and future, and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. Primarily reflected in artistic creations and modified technologies that realize the imagined artifacts of its parallel reality, retrofuturism can be seen as "an animating perspective on the world". Etymology The word retrofuturism is formed by the addition of the prefix "retro" from the Latin language, which gives the meaning of "backwards" to the word "future", a word also originating from Latin. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
