Muh objectivism is the midwit, surface-level interpretation of BioShock and its themes. If you want to peel the onion and get to the core of Rapture's creation within Ken Levine's (and thus Andrew Ryan's) head, watch American Krogan's video essays on both the first game and Infinite.
Unlike Levine's shitty Ayn Rand "satire", this theme effuses out of both BioShock games he worked on like stench from a corpse. It's also why he hates BioShock 2 and refuses to acknowledge it.
2 did the unthinkable, in treating Leftist rhetoric and ideologies with the same brush that the first did to Right leaning ones. It called out collectivism, victim narratives, and the brainwashing power of therapy. Things sacrosanct to the Left.
So even if Levine's ego was small enough to acknowledge it, he still wouldn't because its an evil game that would get the studio cancelled if released today.
Hm, didn't know this, I skipped out on the sequel because I thought it was (at the time) just a way to 'add more' to a story I already felt was good, and thus would be worse.
Most people did. It was made by a B team and wasn't marketed super well. But it ended up being a better game in everyway, with a well made story that barely touches the original other than adding some background to it.
BioShock created a fantastic world full of philosophies and moralities worth exploring, then decided "eh, too much work" and made it Half Life But Capitalism Is The Bad Guy. Very lazy Saturday morning cartoon morality.
BioShock 2 is a better game because both extremes are represented and portrayed as disastrous. Anarchy got us the hellscape of drug addicted supervillains that is Rapture, while collectivism got us The Rapture Family. Midwits accuse it as being boomer-tier "both sides are bad, I just want to grill" fence sitting, but the real message is that extremism itself is bad no matter what form it comes in.
Muh objectivism is the midwit, surface-level interpretation of BioShock and its themes. If you want to peel the onion and get to the core of Rapture's creation within Ken Levine's (and thus Andrew Ryan's) head, watch American Krogan's video essays on both the first game and Infinite.
Unlike Levine's shitty Ayn Rand "satire", this theme effuses out of both BioShock games he worked on like stench from a corpse. It's also why he hates BioShock 2 and refuses to acknowledge it.
2 did the unthinkable, in treating Leftist rhetoric and ideologies with the same brush that the first did to Right leaning ones. It called out collectivism, victim narratives, and the brainwashing power of therapy. Things sacrosanct to the Left.
So even if Levine's ego was small enough to acknowledge it, he still wouldn't because its an evil game that would get the studio cancelled if released today.
Hm, didn't know this, I skipped out on the sequel because I thought it was (at the time) just a way to 'add more' to a story I already felt was good, and thus would be worse.
With this in mind I'll have to check it out then.
Most people did. It was made by a B team and wasn't marketed super well. But it ended up being a better game in everyway, with a well made story that barely touches the original other than adding some background to it.
BioShock created a fantastic world full of philosophies and moralities worth exploring, then decided "eh, too much work" and made it Half Life But Capitalism Is The Bad Guy. Very lazy Saturday morning cartoon morality.
BioShock 2 is a better game because both extremes are represented and portrayed as disastrous. Anarchy got us the hellscape of drug addicted supervillains that is Rapture, while collectivism got us The Rapture Family. Midwits accuse it as being boomer-tier "both sides are bad, I just want to grill" fence sitting, but the real message is that extremism itself is bad no matter what form it comes in.
Little Sisters as a sort of "virtuous blood libel" is so incredibly obvious in retrospect, I'm embarrassed a youtuber had to point it out for me.
It really is. That's one of the reasons it rings true is how obvious it is in retrospect. It has the "it could never have been any other way" feel
May be my favorite video series of all time.