BioPunk focuses on biotechnology -- technology that alters the genetics of an organism. Broadly, this can even refer to selective breeding, but for the purposes of BioPunk fiction, it tends to refer to things like bioengineering, or biomods, which a...
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DEUS EX: INVISIBLE WAR
Releasing in 2003, DEUS EX: INVISIBLE WAR is the second game in the Deus Ex series, though at the time of writing it is chronologically the fourth and final mainline entry in the franchise. This second game, much like the original and the sequels that followed, are science-fiction video games with a heavy emphasis on conspiracy. The first game was set in 2052 and featured a burgeoning nanotech sector that was outclassing the old cybertech and mech shit. INVISIBLE WAR featured biotechnology. The third and fourth games were prequels to the first one and featured more of that cybertech and mech shit.
At the time of INVISIBLE WAR's release, the Xbox was King Shit in the video-game world, so it wasn't a surprise that a new Deus Ex game would be released on the system. Unfortunately, the game was designed with the Xbox in mind—this console (hence, "consolization") was slower than what a PC was capable of, and it lacked the ability to handle large maps, so the levels were reduced in size. There are still a lot of small levels, however there are also a lot of loading screens. So the game suffered for that fact.
Anyway, INVISIBLE WAR takes place in 2072, twenty years after the first game, in a world still trying to rebuild itself after something called "The Collapse": a period of economic depression and warfare, of technological disrepair. During The Collapse, certain groups used it as an opportunity to take control—the WTO (World Trade Organization), who sought to create highly regulated city-states and a military complex... basically a capitalist wet-dream; the Order Church, which encompassed all major world religions into one new faith, wanting to create a theocratic system of government; the Knights Templar, descendants of the one that conspiracy theorists know and love, who want to rid the world of biomodification because it's not "pure"; ApostleCorp, which seeks to biomodify every person on the planet in order to achieve true equality; and the Omar, a transhuman group of heavily modified people, who control the black market.
Amidst all this is Alex D.—who can be either male or female depending on your preference—a trainee at Tarsus (a worldwide academy, providing the best education), sent to the Seattle Tarsus facility after a terrorist attack destroys most of Chicago. Soon after, agents apparently from the Order Church attack the Seattle facility—or did they? Billie, your friend from Chicago, also a Tarsus trainee, joins the Order and claims Tarsus is experimenting on its subjects in a biomodication program. Naturally, Alex D. unlocks these nanotech augmentations, getting some similar abilities to JC Denton (the player character and protagonist from the previous game), but also some new ones.
From there, the game throws many twists and turns at you, and you'll be able to choose who to work with (or work with all of them, if you like). It's likely you won't know who to believe, as they all seem to be withholding information. You'll need to hack shit and chat with people and complete missions to try and figure out what's really going on in the world, where conspiracies reign freely.
A solid entry in the series, and another highly recommended title from yours truly.
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BIOSHOCK 1 & 2
Now, this one probably should've been done for the OceanPunk issue, but what the fuck? The BioShock franchise is a unique and critically acclaimed one. The whole concept is an extension of the System Shock one, which was a first-person RPG series set on a derelict spaceship under control by an insane AI, and the player needs to get to the bottom of things. BioShock takes that first-person RPG idea and takes the mysterious-floating-city concept and shoves it under the ocean.
Set in an alternative '60s, the player's plane goes down and they find themselves in the ocean, fire all around them and only a lighthouse in the distance. Swimming to it, you enter and find some sort of underwater transport system which takes you to a mysterious OceanPunk city called Rapture.
Rapture is the libertarian wet-dream. Claiming to be a haven for artists and scientists, to be free of oppressive oversight, Rapture turns out to be a corrupt shithole where highly illegal bioengineering takes place.
The first game is one of the best ever made. Seriously. The second game is still pretty damn good, but some of the magic is gone as it's also set in Rapture (albeit different areas).
Check 'em out.
GATTACA
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Been a while since I watched this one, but it's one of my favourite movies.
The movie "presents a vision of a future society where potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. The film centers on Vincent Freeman, played by Ethan Hawke, who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome to realize his dream of going into space."
Watch it if you haven't. Jude Law in one of his finest roles, too.
