The Bobby Darin song Somewhere Beyond the Sea paints a sweet lullaby for lovers, conjuring images of blue translucent shimmering reflections, slow dancing on white sand beaches and lazy afternoons staring at an endless horizon of clear water. That song and its predecessor, La Mer, have graced countless moments in entertainment history, but arguably none so sinister, none so glazed in irony then when it played underneath the chilling iron title graphics of 2k’s 2007 breakout game of the year Bioshock.
In the two years since the original game’s release, an underground has sprung out of the undersea mythos. Words like ‘Splicer’ and ‘Plasmid’ have entered the modern lexicon. Seemingly unchangeable fixtures like Adam and Eve have taken on new meaning and people are rarely referring to family when talking about their Big Daddy or Little Sister.
This rabid group of Rapturians have been waiting patiently for their return to the undersea Art Deco Mecca – and the wait is now finally over. Nuzzled in a small alleyway of San Francisco’s Mezzanine was the Bioshock 2 launch party, the final proclamation to start the clock ticking away the last 48 hours until that thick iron portal door would swing wide and we would hear the thud of metal boots and the low menacing groan of a city’s lost spirits again.
Words by Aaron Reardon, Photos by Ben Ceraso
