There is a desperate need for videogames fans to feel their form of entertainment is as serious and worthy of praise artistically, as people who follow other genres, like movies. So, anything that is good for a videogame, will get elevated to "bestest eva" of all forms of arts. Videogame stories are felt to have to compete with the best of movies and books, for the interest in these games to be taken seriously. Even MGS4 was subject to this, with people saying it was better than the best of movies, from a storytelling perspective. I am sure Bioshock also gets this to. And I do think it is real good, but I personally thought the ending of the original Bioshock was borderline corny, and a bit of a cop out. It went well as a critique of objectivism, and then they jump into the standard corny appeal as the top argument against it (family), which I have seen in overabundance on TV. Good and evil go WAY beyond this. It would be good if videogame writers would do this to. By the way, I say this feeling that Bioshock was one of the most engaging videogames I ever played (the original, not the sequel).
I would also like to comment regarding the standard videogames (and games in general) need to be held to, as art. I do NOT believe the measure of greatness of a GAME as art is in how well you have a script for it, or how awesome the plot is. I believe you measure it for the gameplay, and how well it engages a player to it, and they get something out of it. This is the base level you evaluate the quality of a game. Beyond this, you then look to the quality of the game world, and how well it lends to immersion on the part of the player and their ability to suspend current reality to feel they are in it through a character they control. After this, if you want to have games to to even a higher level, you then look towards what players get out of it after they are done. Did they learn something? Does the experience stay with them, and they remember it. I believe the original Bioshock, by the way the world was done, does definitely touch on this. Civilization does also. However, this measure is NOT the same as in a a movie. A game can be lacking in what makes movies great, and still be a great game. That is because a game is not a movie, just like a movie is not a book, and a book is not a painting. All are art, but all are different.
