Retronauts Episode 163: BioShock
Added 2018-07-30 19:59:12 +0000 UTCBack in 2007, Irrational Games wowed the world with BioShock, an FPS experience that bridged the gap between PC and console games with its role as the "thinking man's shooter." With 2013's Infinite closing the book on the series—and Irrational Games as a whole—and still no new Ken Levine game to speak of, there's never been a better time to revisit the recent past and a game that really kicked the HD generation into high gear. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and Gary Butterfield as the crew dives deep into BioShock and decides if the world of Rapture is just as enthralling as it was over a decade ago. Now, would you kindly leave us a five-star review on the iTunes Music Store?
Comments
I love the pod but I can't stand when criticisms boil down to not liking a creator because of some industry gossip you heard. I don't know the whole story of Irrational Games and I'm sure Levine could have conducted himself more professionally but I imagine he was also under tremendous pressure and in over his head on the business side of things. Another criticism I take issue with is that you say that the game is too oblique with regards to its stance on philosophy. Good art puts faith in its audience and is open to interpretation. The fact that a vocal minority identifies with Andrew Ryan, Alex (A Clockwork Orange), Patrick Bateman or any other iconic character is really beside the point.
Matt De Marco
2020-10-01 20:09:17 +0000 UTCI might be in the minority, but I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite more than Bioshock 2. Bioshock Infinite was not a great game, but I felt like Bioshock 2 was a slog. Having to fight the Big Daddies, defend the Little Sisters, and finally fight a Big Sister made the Vita Chambers feel necessary. That made every encounter feel neither fun nor frightening. I also felt a little weird about how much ret-conning Bioshock 2 did to the plot of Bioshock 1 by inserting a new character who was both extremely important yet totally unmentioned. Finally, there's the consistent both-sides-ism by making Rapture under the control of some kind of collectivism that leads to terrible dystopia. I'll admit that I didn't play Minerva's Den, but putting the best part in DLC was not a great practice either. BI felt like a game with the germs of interesting game ideas that didn't work well together. The shooting and jumping from skyhooks was fun on its own. Having Elizabeth warp things into the world was a neat idea and felt fresh at the time. I liked the details of Columbia and felt, if nothing else, that they tried something different. I enjoyed the out-of-place pop songs from other eras. I'd concede that BI has serious problems that likely came from the desire to sell a bazillion copies, and the approach to racism wound up falling short. Still, I don't think BI was so terrible and Bioshock 2 was so great. I loved the episode. Gary Butterfield is one of my favorite guests.
Ian Derk
2018-08-04 01:00:20 +0000 UTCI think the beauty of Bioshock is the twist is something that couldn't have been pulled off in any other medium. A book couldn't do it, nor could a movie. It resonated with me a lot and though I haven't gone back to it in a long time, I have found memories of Rapture. It's atmosphere really was second to none.
Leigh Lamb
2018-08-03 20:41:12 +0000 UTCI loved BioShock when it came out in 07, but I've certainly cooled on it. I loved BioShock 2 and I still love it. I hated BioShock Infinite when I played it, and I kind of hate it more as I've grown more "woke" as it were. As far as games that took BioShock's lead and ran with it, I still think the best is Spec Ops: The Line. It took BioShock's "Would you kindly" and wrapped it within a military/just following orders context, and really created an effecting narrative at a time when we were swamped with military shooters that only sought to tell players how great America was.
Phazonmasher
2018-08-03 19:11:38 +0000 UTCI bought the Everything Bioshock pack from Steam and am looking forward to finally playing Beyond the Deep. And I agree about the backlash to BioShock's reverence, which I also feel like happens a lot with other popular games (Final Fantasy VI, Portal) that really do deserve their acclaim. People critique the acclaim and not the game. It's weird. I'm playing my first Uncharted since 2 (Lost Legacy) and holy crow it's phenomenal.
Beefington von Barnstorm
2018-07-31 23:12:59 +0000 UTCThis was great! And I still have tremendous fondness for this game--I actually struggled to get into it for a while, but enjoyed Bioshock Infinite enough to go back and play through the first two. I replayed the whole series a couple years ago, which is something I hardly ever do, and still love the first two games. I appreciate the criticism that the original game is "shallow," but I also think that a lot of that criticism is sort of a backlash to the game's reputation for being "deep"; while that's understandable--it's not that deep a game--it also feels excessive because the criticism is so often separated from the experience of Bioshock itself, and directed instead at the game's reputation. I'd argue that, apart from its dodgy final third, Bioshock does perfectly fine by its themes: objectivism is inherently corrupt, and the encouragement of every-man-for-himself will ultimately destroy everything. It's not deep or nuanced, but I'm not sure why it has to be? It's not objectivism itself is particularly nuanced. (I do agree is the better game largely because its systems are better realized. And BI, even though I enjoyed it at the time, is worse because it has barely any systems at all. It's also worse because the quantum reality thing is one of the laziest outs I've ever seen in a longform story, the quintessential example of a writer who has nothing to say trying to go big. And while the DLC is interesting, it's also kind of ugly and the longer it goes on, the shoddier it gets.)(oh, and please, if you ever do an episode on a Naughty Dog game, have someone on who likes them?)
Zack Handlen
2018-07-31 13:36:55 +0000 UTCBioshock was realy important to me, and still is, for reasons that don't paint me in the best light. I grew up hardcore Republican but in my 20s I started to question a lot of the foundations of the party after the Iraq invasion. Like a lot of people in that age group, I ended up becoming a staunch, argumentative libertarian for almost a decade, and Bioshock was a big part of making me reconsider when I finally played it several years after its release. As shallow as the game's critique of Objectivism feels now, at the time I encountered it it cut through my mix of arrogance and naivete to really make me consider the worldview in a way I hadn't before. Dumb as it sounds, the thing that really made me sit up and take notice was one of Bill McDonagh's audio diaries where he says he can't hire decent help because the only people willing to relocate to Rapture believe they're above fixing toilets and sealing bulkheads. It was the start of me re-evaluating the beliefs I'd been raised with, the ones I'd adopted as an adult and the beliefs of those around me I'd thought were incompatible with my own.
Zachary Adams
2018-07-31 02:11:57 +0000 UTC
