Finale Fireworker
Member
I think Minerva's Den is the strongest part of BioShock 2, but my feelings remain the same. It's not of the caliber of the first BioShock, even if MD is closer to it.
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BioShock: Much Ado About Wrenches; or Fun Facts About Jack
- Thread starter Finale Fireworker
- Start date
I think Minerva's Den is the strongest part of BioShock 2, but my feelings remain the same. It's not of the caliber of the first BioShock, even if MD is closer to it.
Awesome thread. Bioshock is one of my all time favorites.
I always took his name to just mean "jack of all trades".
I always took his name to just mean "jack of all trades".
Fallout-NL
Member
Have you published any of your research OP? I would love to read it.
I could show you some of my (also scholarly) work on Half-Life 2 if you're interested.
I could show you some of my (also scholarly) work on Half-Life 2 if you're interested.
PaulExcellent
Member
Fantastic thread so far.
Bioshock was one of my favorite games and the OP is doing a marvelous job at deconstructing the scenes and underlying themes of it.
Great stuff.
Bioshock was one of my favorite games and the OP is doing a marvelous job at deconstructing the scenes and underlying themes of it.
Great stuff.
Finale Fireworker
Member
I am not published. I started writing about BioShock my first year of college because I had an Ethics 101 assignment I thought BioShock would make a great topic for. The essay was really easy to write because I knew the game so well and it was easy to cite and reference. All I cared about was getting an A as effortlessly as possible.
When I did get a good grade, I jokingly said I would write as many papers on BioShock as possible for as long as I was in school. This turned out to be quite easy because each level of BioShock serves as material on a specific subject: medicine, environment, government, etc. I was able to write papers on BioShock without ever writing about the same topic twice. My goal was to write one paper on BioShock for every class. And I have more or less done that.
But I didn't save many of my papers. I was a student who was only in it for the grade and didn't consider I was actually writing a lot of really intelligent and well-researched papers on the game. It wasn't until last year a professor told me he was writing a book on JG Ballard and found my application of his theories to BioShock very interesting. It really blew my mind and I realized I had been on to something all these years.
Part of the purpose of these threads is to backtrack and rewrite many years worth of information that is either lost to time or confined within a class assignment. There are a couple papers I'm really proud of but they are not written how I would choose to write them if I were not pandering to a professor. But there has been interest in the essays so I may copy some over into GAF.
Otherwise I want to put all the same information down some other way.
So what are your thoughts on what Levine said what makes a bioshock game "bioshock"?
"BioShock is not in reference to any specific setting or location, but instead a means of encapsulating common gameplay elements that reflects on their earlier games such as System Shock 2, and the BioShock series."
" To me, there's two things that make a BioShock game BioShock. They take place in a world that is both fantastic and ridiculous. Something that you've never seen before and something that nobody else could create except Irrational, but it's also strangely grounded and believable. The other thing that makes it a BioShock game, it's about having a huge toolset of power and a huge range of challenges, and you being able to drive how you solve those challenges."
—Ken Levine.
Finale Fireworker
Member
This can still be true from a gameplay perspective without encroaching on the previous game's narrative. Infinite as it stands without DLC is at its strongest when it is completely removed from BioShock 1. When the game tries to overlap with that story it really doesn't add anything to either canon.
I feel like Infinite does a great job at inadvertently acknowledging its own derivative crutches by having so much of the technology in Columbia
being stolen from Rapture
Fan service pollutes the quality of Infinite's narrative and forces it to be contextualized by BioShock 1, something neither game needs.
Agreed. I love Infinite, even moreso than the past two Bioshocks, and it really should have been its own thing. But back to Bioshock 1 and in particular the gameplay, what are you're go-to plasmids, weapons, and gene tonics?
Finale Fireworker
Member
Weapons I always have the wrench out. I don't use guns unless I'm playing on Survivor. Dress it up with Wrench Jockey, Wrench Lurker, Bloodlust, Electric Flesh and Sports Boosts. Otherwise I really only use the machine gun and chemical thrower set to electric gel.
Default Plasmid is Electrobolt for the one-two punch and later Swarm with makes enemies "unaware" and vulnerable to the full effect of Wrench Lurker.
Use Winter Blast for hacking. Incinerate for hit-and-run damage if needed.
ElzarTheBam
Member
I already like you.
So here's a question, what are your thoughts on the exploitation of the little sisters by Rapture, its laws and its lack of ethics?
So here's a question, what are your thoughts on the exploitation of the little sisters by Rapture, its laws and its lack of ethics?
Refreshment.01
Member
This is one of the criticism i have externalized in many occasions. The game should become harder when the user chooses not to harvest the little systers, as the reward should be a clean conscience. On the other hand the game should had gave you a ton more of Adam when harvesting them. This way the game would make player choice more fulfilling.
This is not true, since all it takes for a player to know the consequences of chosing to harvest or not is just a little experimentation. i became aware of how the mechanic worked by myself in the very first playthrough.
Honestly Bioshock 2, if not MD alone seem more like side stories that don't seem to entirely reinforce all the themes presented in Bioshock 1. I think, especially in the case of Minerva's Den, that's fine because it seemed to be much more focused on the primary character. Can't remember much about Bioshock 2 though, did they try to touch on it mostly by looking through the lens of an opposite ideology or something?
How is that a twist? The first scene has you crashing in the water, going into a light house and then taking a bathysphere.
edit: Lamb4Lyfe
Solemn_In_Berlin
Member
Is it valid to say that it's that plus a combination of other details?
- Spiritual successor to System Shock
- Plasmid injection for the first time (biological shock due to alteration of genetics)
- Rapture is a synthetic biosphere
- Representation of the protagonist:
Jack's life wasn't what he thought it was and that induced a sociological shock
I think I have a similar opinion regarding Bioshock 2 and a GAFfer made an interesting rebuttal - sadly, it was in the midst of a STEAM COMMUNITY THREAD, I can't remember which one so the discussion is arguably lost.
To me, where Bioshock 2 falters is in its (arguably) main antagonist: Sophia Lamb. To me, she just pales when compared to Andrew Ryan because she is, to me, a sloppily constructed character made of "communitarianism" and vaguely left-wing ideals mixed up with new-age bullcrap that ends up feeling like a caricature, whereas I've known and read objectivist-libertarians almost as insane as Ryan (except for the part of actually building a libertarian paradise underwater). It's like they tried to compensate for the political leanings of the first game ("the first game was too left-wing, let's try to go a bit more right-wing this time eh?") Plus, the fact that they try to shoehorn her into the BS canon in a very blunt way, so it feels forced, for the lack of a better word. The argument against my viewpoint (which was very eloquently expressed by a GAFfer his/her name I sadly cannot recall) was that: Ryan wasn't BS1's main antagonist - it was Fontaine (something I conceded), and that BS2's story wasn't about Lamb and her cult at all, it was about a girl torn between two parent figures (Delta and Lamb) and family drama.
I wonder what do you think about it all.
Finale Fireworker
Member
First, I would point you to posts #90 and #95 for some thoughts on Little Sisters I have already shared. This is a wide question, so if I don't answer you as specifically as you would like I would happy to elaborate further.
I think that the important thing to note about Rapture's lack of regulation is how dangerous it becomes to live there. Rapture and its politics are built on "buyer beware" which means nobody is accountable for their products or actions. As we see in Burial at Sea, defective bathyspheres that can kill their users are still on the market - albeit heavily discounted. The business ethics that serve as Rapture's foundation also feed the zeitgeist that you are the only one looking out for you. This individualism is bad for society - it's inherently antisocial - and it exposes the flaw in the Rapture dream. Andrew Ryan and his entrepreneurs envisioned a city of Übermensch, but in actuality they just wanted a society that served them and not the other way around. As Fontaine put it:
Corporate laws and regulations ensure that the people in power do not take advantage of the lower classes who, as consumers, rely on them. This involves prevention of things like child labor and enforcing a minimum wage. The exploitation of children is not high-fantasy, it's something that happens around the world every day. The dramatic endangerment of children for the benefit of business, and the treatment of children as a commodity, is one of the many ethical issues that BioShock portrays and dramatizes to make its point.
Of course it's valid! I would say all these things are true. Similar to how BioShock Infinite references not only the infinite universes that frame its narrative, but the biblical notion that "God is infinite."
I agree with everything you have to say with BioShock 2. By exploring the inverse of Ryan and Rapture you're not actually exploring anything, you're filling in a blank that's already implied and formed in the BioShock 1 narrative. I'm actually struggling to see the other person's point.
BioShock 2 is "about" family drama, yes. It's a custody battle between a mother, who bore Eleanor, and a father, who raised her. The weakness in BioShock 2's story is that Rapture and the Cult of Lamb do not serve or benefit this narrative in any way. It doesn't tie into the Cult of Lamb or the collectivist politics of fallen Rapture. The only character in that story is Sophia Lamb - since Subject Delta is stripped of identity and Eleanor is merely an literary object of exchange.
The person you spoke to seems to operate with the understanding that literature is about plot. But it's not. Literature is about themes. The plot of BioShock 2 is a custody battle with a collectivist backdrop. But thematically, which is where BioShock 1 excels, BioShock 2 isn't really "about" anything else.
The "plot" of BioShock 1 is just a guy trying to escape a strange place with some children. The themes of BioShock 1 involve medical ethics, environmental ethics, class structure, social obligation, market study, corporate regulation, idealistic extremism, the need for law and order, and by extension crime and punishment, it's about the existential nature of playing video games and the illusion of control, it's about physical appearance, it's about drug addiction, it's a study of Randianism through extremes, it's a discussion on the justification of violence, what makes a monster, and more and more and more.
BioShock 2 is simply another story that uses everything established in BioShock 1 as a backdrop that is unfortunately no longer relevant to the custody battle plot you're advancing. There is a disconnect between plot and story, do you see?
For example, this is one of my major issues with BioShock 2 and it's directly related to nature and portrayal of Big Daddies:
In BioShock, the first monster you're introduced to are splicers. They are grotesque, they are vulgar, and they are violent. It's made immediately clear by the gruesome murder of Johnny on the bathysphere dock that these creatures are against you and will kill you.
While you are recovering from the bio-shock of your first Plasmid injection, you are accosted by splicers who want to harvest you for Adam. You are helpless, you are vulnerable, and splicers see this as a great opportunity to kill you. Suddenly, they flee. There is something even splicers fear: the Big Daddy. Your first impression of the Big Daddy is that it's a monster among monsters. Even the hoards of splicers are afraid, and we've seen what they're capable of, so what must this be capable of?
Except the splicers tried to kill you while you were vulnerable. The Big Daddy didn't.
Everyone and everything is trying to kill you in Rapture. While Jack's first kill is in self defense, as soon as he injects his first plasmid he becomes a splicer too. And boy howdy does Jack splice. Jack takes "belching fire" and "spitting ice" to a whole new level. Jack becomes a monster. And, as a splicer, what motivates their violence? Adam. Splicers will kill for Adam.
And as a splicer, so will Jack. And who guards the Adam? Big Daddies. So Jack kills Big Daddies. By the dozen, so that he - in the words of one of our earliest splicers - can get "all the tasty Adam he can drink."
But what do we know about Big Daddies? We know that they're conditioned to love their Little Sisters. They are pair bonded. The primary emotion of Big Daddies is love, and therefore love motivates everything they do. They will risk their lives to protect their children, and by Jack's hands they will die for them. They care for nothing else but their children, who in turn care only for them. But most importantly: Big Daddies are the only creature in Rapture who will only resort to violence in self defense. Big Daddies are not the monsters of Rapture, splicers are. You are. You find Big Daddies and threaten their children, and in a love-driven act of protection they will die for their children, who weep at the sight of their dead bodies. When you save Little Sisters the conditioning is broken, so the Little Sister's grief is eased. But what of the Big Daddy? What of the single kind-hearted creature in the entire city of Rapture? They fall victim to your genocide.
This is why the post-twist game, where Jack
becomes a Big Daddy
becoming
In BioShock 2, you begin where
Jack ends
The stronger narrative is clear.
I'm pretty sure that my next thread is going to be a Big Daddy study, so you may see this information refined again in a new thread. I apologize for using your question as a springboard for analysis.
No apologies are needed my good man, your reply was as insightful as I expected and some more! Thank you for the lengthy analysis.
I think I might have under-represented the other user's viewpoint. I will look for the thread and quote his/her reply to see if what I thought he/she was saying corresponded with what I thought was said
I think I might have under-represented the other user's viewpoint. I will look for the thread and quote his/her reply to see if what I thought he/she was saying corresponded with what I thought was said
Finale Fireworker
Member
I'm very interested in seeing it, if you can find it. Or if you are perhaps motivated to reattempt their argument. I know it's hard to put another person's words down.
I found it... actually, them. 'Cause there were two different users with sort-of related arguments and I somehow mixed them in my memories. Quoting:
Ultimadrago said:
Baron_Calamity said:
Finale Fireworker
Member
It's hard to comment on Ultimadrago because he knows what he means, but doesn't make it clear in his writing. This part isn't very clear at all:
Because we don't see Lamb as a mother. Especially not a loving mother. Sofia was experimenting on her daughter and glorified her as the savior of Rapture, using her as an icon for her cause. That doesn't sound like a character who is a mother before all else. That's a woman who clearly and plainly values her activism and her science more than her daughter.
Also Lamb did not "raise a theory to create order in her past" and focus on the player as some sort of new identity. She was already a collectivist and accused as a conspirator - she was a political activist. The only tumultuous thing to have happen to her was to be jailed and to lose her daughter. By escaping jail (with the help of her followers, thus validating her) and reclaiming Eleanor, I think Sofia has already made peace with her past. Subject Delta waking up doesn't change Sofia Lamb or her cause, goals, or beliefs. She does not fixate on Subject Delta as some sort of way to "continue on."
He makes it sound like Sofia Lamb was a mother in turmoil who used her activism to give her life structure and meaning, then fixated on Subject Delta to give her some sort of purpose. But this is not true at all. That's not at all what we see in the game, that's not at all what we know from the audio diaries, and neither Sofia nor Eleanor exhibit any behavior that would indicate what he is claiming is the case. Their argument is not textually accurate.
Also:
It sounds like this guy liked BioShock 2 more than BioShock 1, which is totally cool and fine, and he really hasn't taken the time to think heavily on the first BioShock. He sounds like he's taking his subjective experience in each game at face value and making unquantifiable claims. Mind control being "cartoonish" is an unsubstantiated opinion and that element of the game has nothing to do with the objectivism elements of BioShock. These two things are not even related and I'm not sure how he believes mind control and the objectivist themes of the game are at all intertwined. So it sounds like he doesn't really understand BioShock.
As for Baron_Calamity:
This also isn't correct. Eleanor growing up is the force bringing Eleanor and Subject Delta together. Now that she is growing up she is acting independently and making decisions for herself, including waking up Delta and reaching out to him as her father figure. Her adulthood allows her reestablish her bond with Delta, who then provides her with the ability to escape and be her own person. Eleanor's maturation somehow being antagonist to Delta doesn't make any sense at all.
Again, there is nothing in BioShock 2's narrative or themes, or even plot structure, that supports this claim.
ElzarTheBam
Member
A very, very good answer.
It also serves to highlight the morality of certain characters in the BioShock universe a lot more clearly, although these are relegated to being those confined to the audio diaries.
And in sense the morality and awareness of the player playing the game itself.
Great thread, I was just about to make a thread asking why we don't see more in depth analysis and critique of games. We see and have in depth discussions on movies and books all the time, but when it comes to games the most you usually get is "that game sucks" or people discussing the mechanics, it's very disheartening sometimes. Those surface level conversations are fine, but I would love to see more people really engage and go in depth by divulging the themes, messages, and so on when it comes to discussing games.
I'll give a plug to one of my favorite gaming channels on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Archengeia
I love watching his ruminations precisely because of how in depth he goes when discussing the game he's covering. It's really fascinating and helps give a lot of insight that many of us just don't ever think about when we play games. His Assassin's Creed 3 one is especially interesting.
This analysis on MGS 2 is also very interesting and an example of what I'd like to see more of when discussing games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2YuPGYabw&index=8&list=FLLszKx7HBl1kQnGjul6S6Pw
I'll give a plug to one of my favorite gaming channels on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Archengeia
I love watching his ruminations precisely because of how in depth he goes when discussing the game he's covering. It's really fascinating and helps give a lot of insight that many of us just don't ever think about when we play games. His Assassin's Creed 3 one is especially interesting.
This analysis on MGS 2 is also very interesting and an example of what I'd like to see more of when discussing games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2YuPGYabw&index=8&list=FLLszKx7HBl1kQnGjul6S6Pw
that's a great answer, thank you for sharing it. I would agree with you on principle, because from what I remember about Bioshock 2 (the last time I played it was shortly after release) was Lamb's terrible attitude regarding Eleanor. I can't remember exact details, but I always got the impression that she considered Eleanor as "rightfully hers" but never considered her as a daughter, more like a vehicle of whatever the hell her ideology was.
I guess I'll have to replay Bioshock 2 to see how well off the mark I am.
On an entirely different orbit: what do you make of Bioshock cast of supporting characters and, especially, the myriad of audio diaries found in Rapture? I mean, beyond the obvious point of fleshing out the gameworld and foreshadowing certain plot developments... how integral do you think they are to the themes behind Bioshock and Rapture itself? I'm anxious to read your thoughts about it!
Finale Fireworker
Member
As a prelude to my response, let me refer to this post from earlier about Sander Cohen.
The supporting cast of BioShock serves two purposes. One is the technical purpose of exposition, since Jack obviously does not talk and you rely on the testimony of other characters to deliver the story of the player. The second is what makes them integral to the narrative: perspective.
If you catch every audio diary, many of them form their own side-stories. These mini-stories create the portrait of the Rapture condition, and without them there is no story. Rapture is such a vivid world that it's easy to reduce BioShock to being about a city. But the city of Rapture is not just Andrew Ryan, Rapture is all its inhabitants. The supporting cast of BioShock, different people with different ambitions and a different perspective on the Rapture story, is what expands it.
Sander Cohen, for example, gives the point of view of an artist. And with the point of view of Sander Cohen, BioShock becomes about more things. Is an artist still an artist with no audience? Is an artist only valuable if he is memorable? Was what Sander Cohen doing, gory as it was, constitute as art? Did the mad Sander Cohen, who is one of the only people you meet alive, actually find a way to survive in the post-fall Rapture? So was Sander Cohen insane, or a survivor?
None of these questions, or the analysis the merit or the thematic data they uncover, would exist without Sander Cohen.
Doctor Steinman, and the level he commands, is practically an entire text book on medical ethics. Just because you can, should you? How far is too far? Change your race, change your sex, he says, and is this taking medicine too far? Or does science have a duty to attempt what is within its grasp? On the proper patients and with a sounder mind, could Steinman have been a miracle worker? Gender reassignment surgery is something that is coming up more and more often in contemporary medicine as transgendered people seek to reconcile their minds and bodies. Which brings us back to the golden rule of medicine: "do no harm." Steinman was mad, but was his science? Because Steinman could have been a pioneer in miraculous surgery that instead of harming people unified their minds and bodies to a point only he could imagine. It makes Steinman sort of tragic, because he was a genius, but also a vicious and murderous madman who lost sight of the golden rule of medicine.
Nearly every character comes with a perspective or a Rapture experience that paints a tapestry of content to consider intimately. The responsibility of assembling this complete picture is on the player, who may miss diaries or choose to not even listen to them. But to skip these diaries is like skipping pages of a book, accidentally or not.
Finale Fireworker
Member
You and I would get along. I am passionately committed to discussing games as literature and determining how games can be, and which games are, valid works of art. Expect more threads from me, on more than just BioShock, and I hope you'll take part in the discussions.
I'm mobile right now, but when I'm able I will absolutely take a look at your channels.
Finale Fireworker
Member
This is easily one of the most interesting threads I've seen on GAF in quite a while, kudos Fireworker
Thank you!
And to everyone who has enjoyed this thread. I've been looking for an outlet for this stuff for a long time. Like Sander Cohen, I am unfulfilled without an audience.
Serpens007
Member
I'm with both of you.
I'm also looking foward to see you thoughts of TLoU, with all the praise of it being the "Citizen Kane" of gaming, which I strongly disagree; maybe you will give a better point of view about what TLoU achieves.
More into Bioshock, what I'm interested in, is about it's laws and how Rapture's system is built (I study Law). We see with Arcadia how Ryan quotes the contract, or how a sexual contract should be done in BaS. What are your thoughts on Rapture legal system? What are the good things you think we, as a society, should learn of it? And also, what should never exist in western legal systems?
Doctoglethorpe
Member
Thank you! You're the first person I've seen who would agree with me on that. Well, idk about the shallow part.
BioShock Infinite is a great narrative as well. I think so much of what it questions from a videogame standpoint is "What constitutes a sequel?" Overall, this is a great thread. I wish more posters had such an academic commitment to their arguments and theories.
Levine's works are impregnated with such symbolism, what I love about his games is that so many different theories can be accepted as valid. He is similar to Kubrick in that sense. He knows which symbols work where, and how it will effect the whole.
Levine's works are impregnated with such symbolism, what I love about his games is that so many different theories can be accepted as valid. He is similar to Kubrick in that sense. He knows which symbols work where, and how it will effect the whole.
Do you believe a collective medium can be considered art? If you only consider certain games art, then you must not consider the medium itself to be art. Do you feel this way about film as well? Music?
I'm curious as to why you consider BioShock 2 to not be art at all rather than simply bad art.
Finale Fireworker
Member
I don't think Last of Us is the Citizen Kane of video games, I think BioShock is. But I have a lot to say about LoU too, and what's important is that none of the things I think are strong about LoU are any of the things that are strong about BioShock. But - again - more on that later.
As for your questions about the Rapture legal system, I will only answer the first half. I don't study law, I study narrative, and I'm not really equipped to answer that question without it boiling down to my own political beliefs. In the interest of just keeping this about BioShock and not about me, I hope you understand.
The Rapture legal system is obviously a very minimal "small government" to the liking of the libertarian population of the city. While there are originally very few laws about what can and cannot be sold, or what can and cannot be done, Ryan eventually starts introducing more and more legislation to preserve the city as he believes it should be. This is portrayed for us through Officer Sullivan's audio diaries:
What I believe Ryan was realizing, and was in denial about, was that society needs law to preserve the moral foundation it was built upon. Law is not (in good practice) about restriction, it's for the protection of ideas and people. Ryan believed that without law men were free, but free men didn't act how Ryan wanted them to and he believed they threatened Rapture, so Ryan resorted to legislation. That demonstrates the notion above.
There is the mirror of this though: that by passing legislation Ryan actually proves his point. Ryan and libertarians believe that too much legislation and too much government constricts and imprisons people, and that's exactly what Ryan's lawmaking began to do. But the problem is that laws were tailored to Ryan's vision, not the vision of the people. Therein lies the flaw with Rapture's law and order. It was not to protect and serve the people, it was to protect and serve the people in power.
One can easily draw a parallel here to the current state of western law, but I don't wish to delve into that topic here.
The Burial at Sea sex contract and Arcadia contract are part of this, and how the latter ends for one of its signers says to me that contracts are no substitute for law.
"Shallow" was a poor choice of words on my part. I believe BioShock Infinite is a much more focused story that zeroes in on only a few really specific themes. But all of these themes are very different from BioShock and it does them very well. I will be making a thread about BioShock Infinite in due time and hopefully you'll see what I mean.
I have had Killer7 on my radar for a while, but I haven't played it. But I will remember your recommendation.
What drives me crazy about Levine is that it's hard to figure out what happened deliberately and what is just a happy accident. His games spend so long in development, constantly changing direction and content, and the final product is an amalgam of all the different versions that led up to it. BioShock's pitch documents, for example, make it very clear that the original game was a combination of BioShock and BioShock Infinite.
He does us, and himself, many favors by saying authorial intent only goes so far and interpretation is encouraged.
This is a difficult question to answer about any medium and particularly difficult for games. The definition of art is not uniform through every medium and people have argued over what is art for basically all of human existence. Portraiture, for example, is art measured in quality of craft. But once you introduce a narrative you have an entirely new frame of reference to judge the piece by.
Having a really good story does not immediately make something art. Die Hard has a really good story, and it's extremely well made and one of the best technical examples of how to write a screenplay, but I don't think Die Hard is a work of art. I don't think anybody would be quick to say Die Hard is art. With narrative, quality is not enough. There needs to be "something" else. In there is the distinction between art and entertainment.
My personal definition art is somewhat flawed and is only best used as a starting point. But to determine if a game is art and not just entertainment, I hold it to the following criteria:
This is my definition that may not be right for everybody. But rather than classify something as "bad art" I think it is better classified as "good entertainment." I don't know if I think bad art is a thing, I think for something to truly be a work of art there is a standard of quality that must be met.
Finale Fireworker
Member
It did not. It's a bizarre coincidence.
Excellent thread. I look forward to hear more of you're opinions in other threads. Two questions: do you think Bioshock's story and the wyk twist would be as effective or even moreso if Jack was not a silent protagonist throughout the game? Also, some have said that Burial at Sea episode 2's ending glorifies Jack a bit. Do you agree with that or feel some other way?
interesting thread but i couldn't disagree more here. I understand Infinite was a letdown to a lot of fans but it's about as BioShock-y as you can get. maybe they could've went with a different -shock prefix though
Finale Fireworker
Member
1. It's essential that Jack doesn't speak because Jack is a twist on the whole silent protagonist that was so popular in first-person-shooters leading up to that time. The expectation was that the character wouldn't talk, and this helps the player forget that Jack is even there. It also keeps Jack from appearing unusual in any way. Generic main characters for the sake of player projection are/were a gaming staple and BioShock challenges just how accountable you would like to be for your actions. Jack's lack of character and personality means there is nothing separating the player from those actions.
2. It does, but Jack's arc is redemptive, and by the end of BioShock he has become a hero by finding personal purpose. His actions in the early game are reprehensible, but the post-twist game are his redemptive path that I think allows him some hero glory.
Finale Fireworker
Member
This is the first I've ever heard of this.
I think the only real reliance on System Shock 2's story is that of its structure. They are both FPS games that try to come up with new ways to engage the player and rely on the audio diary format for storytelling. But the only thing they have in common is that they're both escape stories and to position that System Shock 2 has anywhere near the depth of BioShock seems like an odd claim to take.
It's hard to comment further without seeing somebody explaining why they think that's at all the case.
----
Also, a thread I've made about BioShock Infinite is now live. I'm interested to hear what people think of the interpretation.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=867575
I'd argue that there is much more in common than that. I cbf to bust out a SS2/Bioshock megatheory atm, just keen for some pipe wrench style trivia linking the two. To assume SS2 lacks depth in regards to Bioshock without having played it is the true odd claim my friend, given your love of Bioshock I'd wager you'd get a lot of out of it.
/fishingforSS2thread
Nemesis_
Member
Interesting read, OP. I love stuff like this.
I noticed just skimming through the thread that you felt that BioShock 2 was not art, at least in comparison to BioShock. Which I suppose is understandable since it comes from a different mind and shoe horns a lot of plot elements into the world of Rapture.
But what did you think of Sofia Lamb as a villain?
I noticed just skimming through the thread that you felt that BioShock 2 was not art, at least in comparison to BioShock. Which I suppose is understandable since it comes from a different mind and shoe horns a lot of plot elements into the world of Rapture.
But what did you think of Sofia Lamb as a villain?
It's very true because by the time you experiment, it's already too late: You've killed a little girl for capitalistic gain.
But you can kill one and still be fine, correct? It's any more than one.
I'm not sure it's such a sound argument when you consider that.
No, you can either kill no little sisters, which gets to the good ending, a mix between killing and not killing which gets you the bad ending, or just killing all of them which gets you the worst ending.
Killing even a single girl for profit is pretty reprehensible, so no, no room for experimentation.
This is a fantastic thread - I agree with 99% of everything you've said but this quote above is something I'm not sure I do agree with.
Your analysis of the Big Daddy and its role in Bioshock is incredible - something I hadn't really considered previously. Having said that; Jack becomes a monster of Rapture by killing them (I agree.)
You also said previously (sorry I didn't quote it) that Rapture's (and Bioshock's) ethic test is your treatment of the little sisters and killing one of them results in the bad ending.
Then we have the quoted section; I don't see how this gels with your argument? I don't see how this is a redemption for Jack at all, especially considering you can still get the bad ending.
I also disagree that his pursuit of
becoming a Big Daddy
Sorry it's not super well put together - it's pretty late -.-
Still - this is great stuff!
I'd refer you to THIS great article about Bioshock and some of its more common complaints.
Refreshment.01
Member
It doesn't matter, who says a person that commits such reprehensible act would think it got a bad "ending"? When that person ended up exercising choice. Bad or good would be pretty much relative in this case.
The harvesting choice is poorly implemented in the game, i don't think you are making a compelling case that suggestes otherwise. Harvesting them or not doesn't change things much save for the closing narrative, where no actual game consequences are applied, which would be a more effective way to impact the user. This been an interactive medium and all that.
It is a great argument: you killed a little girl to score some Adam.
OP: I have really enjoyed reading through this thread, thanks.
I have not read too much discussion in the past regarding this topic: Many gamers feel completely detached from their actions while in game. I have quit a game or two because I simply could not reconcile my feelings with what was happening on screen. You touched on this briefly, but I would like to hear more.
I remember playing through BioShock for the first time around the same time as yourself, and having the acute sensation of horror and dread as I made my way though the story. The citizens were corrupted, dangerous, and plotting. I think my draw dropped when I killed Ryan.
During the final twist, however, I did not feel redeemed so much as swallowed alive. I remember trudging through in disbelief. The ending itself, did provide some redemption.
Moral relativity is a weak argument in any moral debate, and doubly so here since it is irrelevent to what Bioshock is saying. Bioshock is about objectivism. About how what is good for others does not matter in the face of what is good for yourself. The game changes based on what you do as far as economics go and fire worker said it best here.
But it comes in even more simply than that for me: Who gives the slightest fuck about how much anything changes? Are you saying it's okay to murder children as long as no one will miss them? That something that is normally evil is perfectly okay as long as the consequences are negligible enough? No. The reason murder and other such heinous crimes are wrong is not because it changes how things are in the world. They are wrong because they are wrong in and of themselves. There is no change to the world that you can offer anyone that would make it justifiable for them to murder a child. The game's ending reflects that, but that's beside the point, because the game does more than that. The game tests this to see if people would do it for capital gain. Evidently, the response various gamers gave was "Yeah, sure, I'll murder the little girls, but I think I'm getting ripped off here because it's not making enough of a change here, jeez." That is the far more interesting bit of insight into gamer's psyche that bioshock provided.