Given that videogames are now challenging comicbooks and graphic novels as the new frontier being mined by the movies, it’s no surprise that “BioShock,” the award-winning Xbox 360 sensation released last year, will be adapted into a live-action film, with Gore Verbinski, director of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” pics, at the helm.
Alyssa Finley, producer of “BioShock” for gamemaker 2K, says she and the company have been striving to make their games more cinematic in scope, and “BioShock” might be the first step in delivering on that promise.
“BioShock” places the player in the role of a plane-crash victim who must ward off attacks by mutants and drones in the underwater city of Rapture. If all this sounds like the kind of survivalist dystopia normally visited by adolescent boys targeted by the male-dominated gaming industry, not to mention Hollywood, the philosophical and moral dimensions of “BioShock” raise the enterprise to a whole other level.
In the Game Critics Awards for 2007 — in which critics for such publications as Time, Newsweek and Wired weighed in — “BioShock” earned the top two scores among more than half the judges polled.
Finley credits her creative crew with giving 2K’s games a kind of epic grandeur. “In the end, it totally comes down to the team around me,” Finley says. “We are trying to build a world that people can connect to and help the player feel as if they are part of a movie.”
In the meantime, Finley and 2K are working on the PS3 adaptation of “BioShock,” which is being readied for an October release. Having surrendered countless hours making sure the initial version reached videogame-hungry players in a timely fashion, Finley hopes this process won’t be as grueling. “(There won’t be) as many long nights as there were for the Xbox version,” she assures, “but, again, we haven’t really gotten to that part yet.”
Role model: “My mom. She got thrown a bunch of curveballs in her career, and every time she turned them into an opportunity to make things better for herself and others.”
What I’m reading now: “Sewer, Gas, and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy” by Matt Ruff.
Fave leisure activity: Biking.
Career mantra: “‘Love the bomb.’ … You can’t make something great by being safe all the time — sometimes you have to throw that risk-averse mentality out the window, stop worrying, and just go for it.”
