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Beyond the DLC: Discussing Bioshock's DLC || Bioshock Month
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After an ominous invite to the depths of PodPack City, Satsunami dives deep into the world of Bioshock. Featuring guest co-hosts from Casting Views, RoboticBattleToaster, Howdy Beans and Game Club Pod, this is one month that you will want to submerge yourself in. So grab a podcast Plasmid and listen to us somewhere beyond the sea!
In this episode, Satsunami is joined by Alex from the Game Club podcast to discuss the DLC of the Bioshock series. From challenge rooms to narrative expansions, no stone is left unturned! But how does it hold up after all this time? Why does Minerva's Den resonate with so many in 2025? And why was Alex so mad at Burial at Sea?! All of this and more in the latest episode of Chatsunami!
Check out the Game Club Podcast here!
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Transcript
Introduction and Unexpected Side Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
After all that excitement, I think I finally deserve a break. That's right, no more underwater cities or flying fortresses for me. Just peace, quiet, and this cup of tea.
00:00:15
Speaker
Wait a minute, what was that noise? Did somebody say side mission? Oh god, please no. There's no time to waste, Satsu. Quick, grab onto my detecting locations computer and we'll be on our way. Detecting what now?
00:00:28
Speaker
Now we're in a world where podcasts are outlawed and you're looking for your long lost red panda sum. My what now? Father help. Give me that! Great. Where are we then? According to this, it's the world where everyone's Dan. What the? Welcome to Casting View City. My name is Dan.
00:00:47
Speaker
My name's also Dan. Hey, that's funny. My name's also Dan. My name's Dan. I'm Dan. I'm Dan. I'm Dan. All right. What
Bioshock Month with Guest Alex from Game Club Pod
00:00:54
Speaker
about this one? This is a world where people only speak in outdated references.
00:01:00
Speaker
ah I'm sure we'll be back. And this place? Hmm, strange. This appears to be nearly identical to our own world, except... Let me guess.
00:01:11
Speaker
We all have three heads, speak in riddles, and wear shoes on our hands. Actually, here are podcasts are more popular. Ooh, in what way? By one listener. I'll take it.
00:01:22
Speaker
Welcome to Bioshock Month.
00:01:28
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to the penultimate episode of Bioshock Month. My name's Shatsunami and joining me for this delightfully DLC filled episode is none other than the one and only co-host of the Game Club Pod, it is Alex.
00:01:44
Speaker
Alex, welcome to Shatsunami. Hello, thank you for having me here, first time ever. Yeah, I know. How has it been so long? but We've been talking about getting you on the show for, i don't know, probably a couple of seasons ago. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I've only been podcasting for a year, so, you know, it's not bad going. Has it only been a year? Yeah, I started with the boys about a year ago. Did a couple of guest episodes with them before that, and I think before then I might have done a guest episode with Dan, casting views, Dan. But yeah, no, it's only been a year. Boy, time flies when you're having fun. Careful now, this episode's recorded.
00:02:21
Speaker
I swear your honour. Yeah. Shout out to the Game Club Pod. Please don't sue us. Anyway, I'm waving down the Red Panda lawyer as we're talking. like Get him in here.
00:02:32
Speaker
ah Yes, Chatsunami versus Game Club Pod, a case for the ages. But anyway, we're not here to talk about my legal
Exploring Bioshock's Themes and Mechanics
00:02:39
Speaker
troubles. Today we are indeed flying and diving simultaneously all the way back into the world of Bioshock, which has honestly been such an incredible month. So the first week we had Dan from casting views. The week after, we had Robotic Battle Toaster. And then last week, we had Luke from the Howdy Beans podcast, where they discussed respectively Bioshock, Bioshock 2, and Bioshock Infinite. So Alex, it is your job this week to discuss with me the wonderful world of Bioshock DLC. But before we dive into that and we talk about this ah kind of cont contentious and praiseworthy world of video games.
00:03:21
Speaker
I've got to ask you, what is your history with the franchise? So I was a big fan back in the day of the System Shock series, which is obviously the spiritual predecessor to Bioshock. When I was young and I got myself at Xbox 360 one year for Christmas, I obviously decided, right, well, I need to buy the Bioshock series and see what it's all about. And I remember having very good times, probably being just a tad too young to be playing the Bioshock games.
00:03:49
Speaker
Because I think when Bioshock 1 came out, it was what, 2007? Yep.
00:03:56
Speaker
so I'd have been 15 no that's all right that's fine I think I'm thinking it's longer than it was I had a great time with one and two back in the day I remember the an announcement for Bioshock Infinite and I was looking at it thinking doesn't really look like Bioshock it's a bit too bright and a bit too pretty but I'll give it a try and then never did until now yes when I decided to force you into playing the game I apologize there was no force here Out of curiosity, and don't worry, I'll ask you for your CliffsNotes version of this because it is a shrunky game that we spoke about last week at length, but what were your thoughts on Infinite? It was fine. It wasn't a bad game, and I know, as you've said before, it's quite a contentious game. there's a lot of very vocal camps on both sides about it. I enjoyed it for what it was.
00:04:43
Speaker
Was it a Bioshock game? It was a Bioshock game in a different package, but I get what they were trying to do something a bit different and a bit new. Obviously, Rapture had been completed by Bioshocks 1 and 2, and we'd seen about all there was to see. I don't know if I would have necessarily gone into the sky, but here we are. had a good time with it. i wouldn't say it felt wasted. It wasn't the Bioshock I remember from 15, 20 years ago. Yeah, because that seems to be the running theme that I've had with of my guests throughout this month, that Bioshock is one of those games that I think is safe to say that it is art in terms of video games, where it is held in such a high pedestal, and don't get me wrong, it's got its janky moments, it's got its pipe high many games as were. But at the same time, is a game that sets such a high standard of what video games could achieve, both narratively and gameplay-wise. So when the second game came along, this is something we discussed two weeks ago, that it was a game that refined the gameplay and everything, and it made it a bit more seamless to play, but then we got to Infinite, and I think it's widely agreed that there was a lot of steps taken back with it like the yeah two weapon limit and just a lot of things that you play it and I I've said this before but I remember that Bioshock Infinite was my first Bioshock game oh wow exactly I played it I thought you know I don't see why people hate this game this is a really interesting game it's got very thought-provoking themes etc and then as soon as I went back and played the first two I was like yeah no I see it
00:06:25
Speaker
can totally see why people don't like this game it does not hold a candle to the first and second year one and two try to tell it's such a provoking story about you know things like government freedom and religion and morality and all of that it tries to tell quite a deep story where that is the focus of the story Yeah, a lot of games where there's talks of morality and religion and what have you, but it's sort of to the side of the revenge story of someone kidnapping someone's child or something like that, which this has to a degree. But I think 1 and 2 really hammered in on that story at a time where maybe discussing that kind of stuff wasn't the norm, especially in video games.
00:07:09
Speaker
And then Infinite felt a bit, you know, we've got religious zealots religion bad go stop it and capitalism is a good thing but is it and it just it felt very one and two were quite subtle in how they told those stories whereas infinite kind of just slapped you with it religion bad or whatever it might be as you said it's really interesting to see how the same director ken levine tackled the first game with his absolutely talented team of developers and artists and what not And then you go from the world of Bioshock, of Rapture, this underwater supposed utopia that absolutely crumbled under the weight of its own. don't want to say pretentiousness, but I mean, let's face it, there was a wee bit of pretentiousness. Not from the developers, I mean, more from Andrew Ryan and his... It was bad management. Exactly. A bad PR department, bad management. He should have let Fontaine go long ago, you know. There was a lot of trickle down, and I don't mean best way. I mean that in the worst way possible. Bioshock 2 expanded on that in a way that initially I was like, oh, don't know if this is going to work because it's not the same director, it's not the same writers, but they absolutely knocked out of the park, surprisingly. And then we had Bioshock Infinite, as you said, where I think during in the development they jokingly called it Flapture because it was just Rapture in the air. At least the early designs were a thing. Eventually, I think, looked more like Rapture, but just floating in the air, and then they changed it to Columbia. It's interesting how you get a game where people say, oh we've got five or six games worth of ideas that we've managed to condense into this one game, and you're like, how?
00:08:52
Speaker
ah Like, ew. I've never heard it referred to as Flapcher, but that is what I will call it from now on. Exactly. Columbia, who dat? All my homies call it Flapcher. It was an interesting game, but what's even more interesting, and of course this is what we're going to be talking about today, is the whole growth from this series, how they managed to develop on top of it. So, of course, you've got a whole plethora of DLCs, some better than others, I'm going to be quite honest.
00:09:23
Speaker
And there'll be some that will definitely have a lot more to talk about here. Bioshock, maybe not so much, but I'm going to touch on that because I think a lot the DLC that we are going to be talking about is something that we probably take for granted now with the remastered editions. You know, it's a bit like, I can't believe I'm bringing up Mass Effect right now, but it's like playing the legendary edition of Mass Effect and being like, oh, that's a cool side mission. This is a cool side mission. But back in the day, you had to get, what, a thousand Microsoft points or 4.99 something. The PlayStation Store. Yeah, to get that DLC, those side missions. Yeah, and just gather up slowly so you'd have half the game in DLCs. It's like, oh, remember Microsoft points? Oh, what a wild time. They're still a thing, but now it's mostly just used for sweepstakes that you never win. I still don't understand how that works, to be honest. It's like, sometimes I'll log in and they'll go, here you
Nostalgia and DLC Critique
00:10:20
Speaker
go, here's 25 points. And I'm like, but why? What are they? for what? Am I me, Hack? Is this a scam? Is this an email? You can get my email address. Oh, God.
00:10:30
Speaker
But anyway, my fears aside, while we dive into the world of Bioshock DLCs and basically talk about the good, the bad, and the downright bizarre. Bizarre's a word. Yeah. Oh, we'll get to it at the end, don't you worry?
00:10:43
Speaker
As we go into another dimension where, yeah, people want to hear this episode, we'll be right back after these messages. Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety of podcasts that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and general interests.
00:10:59
Speaker
Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all good podcast apps.
00:11:27
Speaker
As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:11:51
Speaker
kids! Are you looking for a new favourite fortnightly video game review podcast? Then boy howdy have we got the show for you! We take a different game every two weeks and we review them, just like a book club!
00:12:02
Speaker
You can find us on all good podcasting platforms. And some of the sketchy ones too!
00:12:09
Speaker
Simply search for The Game Club Podcast and join the club today.
00:12:17
Speaker
Well, it took about five to ten. different dimensions but i think we found it i think we found the right one here this one will do i mean i don't like the fact that there's a person that looks like dan in the background with shoes on his hands but you know what i'll let it slide i'll let it slide the three sons that's a problem for me is that a hint for the fact it's so human today ah Definitely feels like it. Oh, honestly, you have not... I was going to say lived until you felt a British summer, but you have not fried until you've experienced it. You've not suffered. Yeah, you've not had suffered, exactly. So let's go into the first Bioshock game, which I have to say is quite a curious case for the DLC, because apparently the first DLC for it came out in December 4th, 2007, and that was the Plasmid Pack DLC.
00:13:10
Speaker
Now, to me, that feels more, you know, more like an expansion or just an automatic update nowadays. Yeah, definitely. It's the, we've added new guns to Call of Duty update. Essentially, what this DLC added was the ability to disable the Vita Chamber but option. It added things like EVE Saver, Machine Buster, Machine Buster 2, because the first one wasn't as exciting, Vendor Expert,
00:13:37
Speaker
and vendor expert too, Gene Tonics, and it also added the Sonic Boom Plasmid, no relation to the Street Fighter, of course, haha, can you tell I play video games? Level up!
00:13:50
Speaker
I was expecting a Sonic the Hedgehog reference there. Well, I mean that too, but I think the audience and my co-hosts are... I'm always sick of listening to me talk about it. But, I don't know, we're packing our cases. But, of course, then, after that November 20th, 2008, we got the challenge rooms, and, oh my god. I have a few things to say about it, but i don't think... Not hundreds, but i still have enough to pick a couple gripes with it. But, before we go on, what were your thoughts on this DLC? I mean, the challenge rooms were interesting because it sort of makes you think about how you can use the weapons, of the plasmids and the environment in slightly different ways. But my problem with it was I'm dumb. A lot of them, it wasn't super clear what the actual challenge was and what you needed to do. So the first one where you got to get the decoy plasmid and you've got to use it to lure a big daddy over to a body and then jump on the big daddy's head to get across the platform. I had absolutely no idea. Partly because as you walk past the big daddy, it's not aggressive to you. So in my brain, I didn't then think, oh, well, if I put a decoy down, it'll be aggressive to the decoy. I thought it was just a friendly big daddy if those exist.
00:15:04
Speaker
So I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I think there might have been some degree of limitation from the technology, the amount of space they had for this DLC in terms of memory and everything, but it felt more frustrating. And when you completed it, it was more of a thank God that's over than a, oh, I'm so smart. What about you? What were your thoughts? I didn't like it.
00:15:27
Speaker
honest i'm not a big fan of and this isn't limited to bioshock it's just in general unless it's a co-op one that maybe you can play with your friends i'm not overly into the old challenge rooms horde modes you know that kind of thing yeah if i have to play it by my myself i'm gonna get bored really quickly there was a time when i was younger where i would play it for the achievements not anymore can't be bothered i'm too old for it now i'm like okay i want a narrative rich experience i want to play all these indie games over me that but this whole oh you got the points for killing the big daddy it's like did you know this was a deconstruction of objectivism in ayn rand it's like nobody cares shoot the big daddy Yeah, I was not really, no pun intended, enraptured by this DLC, but it actually got me thinking, and I don't know if you thought this as well, that do you think this is quite emblematic of the way that the gaming landscape was in terms of DLC at the time? because I can't really remember many DLCs that were coming out and overly expanding on the story. Like, that was more for expansion packs.
00:16:40
Speaker
Do you remember but expansion packs? Jesus. God, yeah, I remember buying World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and it came on seven discs or something crazy. Like, have you heard of them kids listening to this episode? CDs? It's a disc, it's round. Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, I know, but I can see what you're saying. And again, I think it does boil down to the limitations of the technology at the time. And obviously it was a lot harder at those times to develop things like this, but these sort of challenge rooms and the museum that exists.
00:17:13
Speaker
in this game as well they were a lot easier to put together in terms of storage and technology because effectively it was an asset flip it was right we've got this location from the game we'll stick this big daddy model here we'll put the code for that plasmid and that weapon in and we'll figure something out that's a challenge and then like you said the big production money went into the expansion packs which they could sell at a relatively cheap price compared to nowadays Yeah, because I have to say, touching on something you said there about the museum, I do think that the museum and the remastered version is absolutely incredible. I love it.
00:17:50
Speaker
I genuinely think it's one the coolest things ever, being able to go around and see the behind-the-scenes stuff. But in terms of the actual DLC with the challenge rooms and things, I mean, this was the same time that Horse Armor was being lambasted by the gaming community. You know, people were saying $2.99 for horse armour, or however much it was at the time. That's ridiculous. And for anybody, I can't believe this is the stage at my life where I have to explain horse armour for anyone who doesn't know, because I get the feeling it is going to get phased out with this generation.
00:18:24
Speaker
But... But yeah, it was essentially an oblivion where Bethesda, the creators of the game, they decided to release a DLC where you could physical money. You could buy horse armour for your horse. And don't get me wrong, it was ridiculous then, it's ridiculous now, but it was rightfully made fun of until they decided to make it for free. and everything, but nowadays we're in this slippery slope where kids and the gamers nowadays, they do not bat an eye before spending 20 quid on cosmetics for Call of Duty, for Fortnite, those kind of things. So it's definitely a changed attitude, isn't it? Oh yeah, and I think, not to put my old man hat on or anything like that, but the internet is definitely to blame for it because there is a lot of, you're using the basic character skin in this game, you must be bad at the game, you must be poor, you're a loser, la la la, that kind of rubbish and I'm sorry that at 30-something year old, occasionally playing Call of Duty when I feel like it, that I don't want to spend £17.99 on a skin of Roger from American Dad for Call of Duty. Do know I mean? I'd rather buy the horse armour. And for legal reasons, that is not a joke. That is 100% real. You can play as Roger from American Dad or Stan. from American Dad on Call of Duty. It's an absolute disgrace, but that is, again, a whole episode for another day, trust me. There's a whole episode we could go into in the predatory nature of skins and cosmetics. Can you imagine if they did that in Bioshock? because this is actually the perfect segue to Bioshock 2's DLC.
Bioshock 2's Multiplayer and Protector Trials
00:20:03
Speaker
I don't know if you ever played this, but apparently they had a multiplayer mode for Bioshock 2. And I am not even joking here. The executives thought that for some reason Bioshock was going to be the next Gears of War Call of Duty-esque game. It was going to be this high-octane shooter. It's something that Toaster and I talked about a couple of weeks ago. It was like, what part of this objectivist nightmare, these philosophical musings did you look at and you went, do know what would really fit in here? Wall running.
00:20:35
Speaker
and everybody this isn't spec ops aligned although that in itself is art that's yeah that's another story could you imagine let's be honest you and i both remember what xbox lobbies were like as a kid oh we yeah playing call of duty hell or whatever it might have been could you imagine you're listening to this philosophical speech from some egomaniac who's taken over the city and all you can hear in your xbox chat is some squeaky 12 year old saying slurs would you kindly teabag mr ryan i don't think i want to atlas you've got to teabag him teabag him now it's like no i don't want to kindly hit the gritty i'm using that phrase not a clue what it means it's some sort of dance i think isn't it or it's a dance or it's sex one of the two i think it's a type of braid probably
00:21:25
Speaker
I don't know. I listen to lot of the slang that's popping up on the internet and things, and all I can keep thinking of is how lost our parents must have felt sitting there listening to us say things like radical and oh, they're just like, I have no idea what any of this means. J popped a sick kickflip down the park.
00:21:46
Speaker
Your parents are just there like, what? Is that a drug? is what What's going And now it's all, I'm going to Chad the Skibbidy, Ohio Riztac. And he's just there like, I know most of those words individually. as a series and a sentence, you might as well be speaking Latin.
00:22:05
Speaker
I mean, you're not wrong. Just as the Romans would do. Skibbius Latius. Skibbius. Have you seen there's a skibbity toilet movie coming out? Oh, God. That's where we're at. We got a skibbity toilet movie before we got a Bioshock movie. How is that possible? Oh, man. Never mind. We know how that's possible. but Andrew Ryan was right. That's all saying. Could you imagine trying to sit one of these current generation of kids, these generation skibbity or whatever they're calling it?
00:22:33
Speaker
ah scardy thirtying Imagine trying to sit one of them down with Bioshock 1 and going, right, I want you to play through this and I want you to write me a one-page essay on what the story is. What, and they just put in old caps, Parasite Jockey or something? Just lol no riz, Atlas is a Sigma. Down in Ohio, skull emoji, skull emoji. I don't understand what any of this means. Genuinely, it reminds me of, and I don't know if you remember this when you were younger, you know those old news segments where it was telling you all of the shorthand for texting? Oh yeah. It was things that you would never use. Genuinely, it'd be like POS, parent over shoulder. That signals to their friends that there's a parent. We use that for something different. we use that for a piece of shit but yeah ah but again it's like it's all of these things where you're listening to it and you're like people would never use that nowadays you listen to some of the stuff that comes out of mouse and you're like you know what sure why not
00:23:38
Speaker
but it's like I can honestly say i can't think of a single situation I've ever been in in my life where I've needed to signal to somebody that I'm texting that my parent is looking at my phone. Different childhood, mate. When you could text a dodgy number out of a catalogue or out of a magazine, sorry. Yeah, remember those magazines. You could text a dodgy number out of a magazine and they'd send you a ringtone.
00:23:59
Speaker
ah The Crazy Frog days. Everyone did it. Now, I'm surprised that we haven't got a Crazy Frog adaptation. That's all I'm saying. Wow. Don't let them get hold of the old stuff. Well, illumination. Yeah, no doubt they all get their hands in the original model and airbrush it. Anyway, if you know you know, on to Bioshock. Sorry for our tangent down memory lane. no, we have to explain you. Because I know, I mean, that is a tangent, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, it does encapsulate how differently we see these games and how we see these DLCs, because we are going to talk about, of course, Bioshock 2 and Mirial at Sea and how completely different they are. to what we get nowadays, because for the most part, you'd still get narrative expansions and things. But for Bioshock 2, there seemed to be hybrid of all three. So you had the Protector Trials, which came out in August 2010. That was basically, again, similar to the Challenge Rooms, but it was trials where you had to protect the little sister as she gathered Adam from corpses. You know, your favourite part of the game. Yeah, it was King of the Hill Horde mode, really, wasn't it? Oh, I hated it. Once or twice, fine. Several times, no, you're going too far, Buster. I mean, it's the same gameplay loop, and we, on Game Club Pod, we harp on about gameplay loops all the time, but it ends up being the same gameplay loop of right okay so i've got the ice plasmid which i can use as a trap i've got the fire plasmid which i can use as a trap i've got the bolt gun with some trap bolts and it always just boiled down to put a circle of whatever traps you can around the little sister find a corner and just shoot and again i think this is a phrase that's going to come up a lot i appreciate what they were trying to do but it just wasn't there i've played
00:25:47
Speaker
game modes like this before in other games where they do add varying challenges and different things the environment changes and things move and unexpected enemies appear and stuff like that but this was very sort of put a circle around ah go over there, shoot anything that comes through a door. And it was always, there was never more than two doors that they could come through. So it just fell a bit short.
00:26:10
Speaker
They basically took the most repetitive part of the game and then they made it its own mode. And you're like, i feel like you slept up somewhere. I will say i do appreciate the rewards of this because the rewards you got from this was generally it was stuff very similar to the museum from Bioshock 1. It was extra information about the game development. It was character redesigns. It was, I think you got the odd few bits. To clarify it a little bit, you would do these challenges and depending on how well you did, you'd get one or three stars and you would build up these stars almost like a stamp book. and at every so many stars, you'd get some kind of reward. And I remember the very last reward that you get for this DLC is a video trailer for the Minerva's Den DLC, which I'll admit, if there wasn't some kind of reward in this, I'd have only played a round of the Protector Trials and then gone, right, well, I know what that's all about now, but that sort of, I'm only two stars from unlocking some custom artwork that I'll never see in the game.
00:27:17
Speaker
I'll do one more round and I'll get those two stars in it. Oh, look at that. That's really good. Well, I'm only three stars from... It's the bloody battle pass of its age, but it worked. Yeah, kept you coming back to play it over and over again, that damn addicting gameplay loop. but Yeah, that really addicting make a circle. Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
oh these plasmads make us so all these spots but And yeah, of course, after that, you had the, basically the multiplayer updates. It's something you actually touched on earlier. You had six new maps, apparently, that they took from the single-player campaign, rejigged changed a couple of rooms up and said, Okay, Splicers. Go nuts, go shoot everybody. But of course, we're not here today to talk about the multiplayer and things because although it is cool that they had a multiplayer mode at the time and they had the protector trials, you know we're not here to talk about those particular ones. The one that we are really interested in is
Minerva's Den: A Narrative Masterpiece
00:28:15
Speaker
some things. even today is so praised and that of course is the Minerva's Den DLC which came out in August 31st 2010 and the basic story of it you shock horror play as a big daddy called Subject Sigma no relation to the brain rot of this generation was I the only one
00:28:36
Speaker
that no but i hadn't made that connection at the time but when we were talking about the sigma ohio race just before i was there thinking wait a minute it wasn't that the name of the big daddy you played for it's like nice let's see subject delta's card oh god can you tell i've just watched that following the other day anyway ah So yeah, you play Subject Sigma, who is, again, another experimental big daddy. He goes through a tunnel we probably shouldn't have, gets nearly blown up, and he gets guided through this particular part of Rapture, which is the core for Bay basically their AI system called the Thinker, which is such a fascinating idea. And honestly, we will be talking about the themes in this, but he is instructed by the voice of a Charles Milton Porter, who, fantastic character, he basically guides you through the game, you hear what happened in this particular part of Rapture, you have to fight your way through different big daddies, through splicers, through brutes, that kind of thing. And then you have to also battle against Porter's former colleague, Reed Wall. And it is such a fascinating one. It's one that I genuinely wasn't sure what to expect, because genuinely I had been spoiled for the first Bioshock game, and I'd been spoiled for the second Bioshock game. But for this DLC, I knew nothing about it. I went in completely blind.
00:30:05
Speaker
But were you the same? Did you know anything about this DLC. No, until you mentioned this episode, I'd completely forgotten that this DLC even existed, which is very insulting for me because it might actually be one of the best DLCs I've ever played for a game. It does something that I think Burial at Sea, and trust me, but we'll get on to Burial at Sea, will be putting it down nicely and having a civilised discussion, of course.
00:30:31
Speaker
ah He said with confidence, Get your sensor button ready. I have thoughts. I'll get the ring sounding ready. But something that I think Minerva's Den does so elegantly and so perfectly is the fact that it takes something that Bioshock is well known for, its rich and strong narrative, and it blends it in with the gameplay that is perfected, but it doesn't balance one way or the other to harshly. I mean, maybe you could say it's tilting slightly more towards story by the end of it, but it's something that really caught me off guard because I thought, right, okay, it's just going to be a clone of the base game. You've got new weapons to use. Oh, you've got a laser gun. Oh, there's Bridget Tenenbaum. Why is she here? You go back and forth and you work your way through this area of Rapture that you've not really seen before. that It is just such a gut-wrenching DLC, isn't it? And sorry, before we go on, spoilers ahead, but it is gut-wrenching, isn't it?
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the story in Bioshock 1 and 2 of capitalism bad, money bad, all of that kind of stuff, they're very sort of... grandiose ideas, they're very big world altering ideas. This was the story of an individual. This was someone's personal story of what happened to them and how they became the way they are. And I think because it's a small collection of related people's story makes it hit a bit harder because you can put yourself into the story a bit more with it. I feel like, you know, I can put myself into the shoes of a world where money's driving corruption and evil. I can do that quite easily, to be honest with you. But it's big. It's a world level thing. It's not a me level thing, but the story of personal betrayal and trusting someone who then betrayed you and losing a loved one, that is a story that you can put yourself into a lot tighter. And I think that's... For me, at least, that's why the story of this DLC hits a lot harder than the story of 1 and 2. Oh no, absolutely. Because it's something that I think was quite interesting and it threw me completely off when I realised this, but apparently one of the creators for this DLC, Steve Gaynor, him and I think two others from the development team went away and they created Gone Home. You know, that old indie classic, which I'm sure you love... Yeah. ah and you can definitely tell they had a certain vision for this DLC in a certain way that they wanted to tell it, because I've heard that a lot of the lead developers for this DLC had to argue that at the very end of the game they didn't want any splicers or any enemies fighting you. They just wanted you to walk through this particular area. They wanted you to soak in the twists, the atmosphere, that basically what what this is all accumulated to and it was fascinating to see people maybe not say that it inspired the walking sim genre but it certainly contributed to what you could do with a walking sim because i think before this you had dear esther which is from what a remember a bit of a slog but i do need to go back and play it or say play but you know what i mean yeah You need to walk it. Yeah, have walk it. But you know, there's loads of games like that where they've kind of been ridiculed and looked down upon that, oh, it's a walking sim, all you do is press a button and walk from A to B and things. But some of the best games that I've ever played are walking sims like What Remains of Edith Finch, of course, being an absolutely brilliant game and an absolutely fantastic way to tell a story through such an interactive medium.
00:34:18
Speaker
And it's the same with this game because they could have easily just made this a clone of the main game. They could have made it a rooty-tooty-mores-rooty type game. But although they added to it they added to the gameplay, they decided to scale back in a lot of things. Of course, that touches on something you mentioned earlier about this being a story of betrayal, of loss, and it's something that, again, this is your last spoiler warning for my nervous then, but by the time you get to the very end of you realise that the person you were talking to has essentially been uploaded into the Thinker, and the person who you are, Subject Sigma, is, wait for it, drumroll, It is Charles Milton Porter. So you have been walking around as him this entire time, and you have been guided by his conscience.
00:35:08
Speaker
And the whole goal of it was to shut off the thinker, to sit stop him going, whereas Reid Wall wants to... I don't know, you know the usual, ooh, I want to make more money, see? I want to spread the capitalist coin and blah, blah, blah. I've got dollar signs in my eyes, you see? Hey, I'm accumulating here. You know, honestly, it's the usual, you know, it's the stereotypical, because that's the whole point, that the reason Wall betrays him to Andrew Ryan is he thinks that the thinker can essentially predict stock prices and things like that. yeah It's going to make them rich, it's going to make them powerful. But Porter, and this is so damn heartbreaking, he came to Rapture because he moved to London during the Second World War, and i think he was working at Bletchley Park.
00:35:55
Speaker
or some kind of enigma breaker anyway and unfortunately his wife gets killed during the blitz which of course horrible bombing campaign that took a lot of lives and of course it included his wife so he decided to try and recreate her personality into the thinker and there is a heartbreaking audio log where you listen to him actually put in everything that he has of her through these audio logs you know her speech patterns the way she talks the way she thinks there is just that second of clarity where initially he thinks this is amazing she's back and then it's something that I don't think we get a lot of in these games like if this was a David Cage game I'm sure he would have put her in a robot body or something but with this particular game, my god, it's heartbreaking because he realises, he takes a step back and realises, no, this isn't my wife. This is just a copy of her. This is a copy of her thoughts or feelings. And it's not a something you really see a lot of, you know? Usually there would be some kind of moral conundrum of, oh well, she's still thinking like your wife, therefore she could be your wife kind of thing. And I hate to say it, but 15 years later from when this was released, it is scary that we're back at this point, having the same conversation Minerva's Den is the Simpsons of the game Minerva did it yeah we have ei companions we have ei girlfriends boyfriends it is kind of scary how again I wouldn't say so much predict but it's not far off is it I mean that's the thing you've got to imagine that at the time obviously this DLC came out in 2010 so they'd have probably started developing it 2008 maybe 2009 This is a dystopian future, sort of not quite horror game, but not far off from horror, psychological thing. And in 2009, the idea of uploading a human conscience into a machine to then spit out a augmented reality or a VR or a AI version of said human would be thought of as, for one thing, dystopian science fiction, and for two, fairly abhorrent. But nowadays, it's...
00:38:06
Speaker
Not quite the norm, but it's very quickly becoming the norm. And it's a bit of a... For people like us who know this game well and have played these games, to look at it and go, that dystopian nightmare is our current environment, is a bit sort of unnerving a little bit. And I remember when you were mentioning about the audio log uploading Pearl's conscience into the machine. It's one of the few audio logs from this entire series of games that I remember well because...
00:38:34
Speaker
He's there having a conversation with her and it's doing the kind of stereotypical glitching of, i hi, I'm Pearl Porter or whatever it might be. And then he goes, no, reset it. And they reset and they try again and it comes out a bit clearer. And then he has that moment of, it gets to the point where it's near perfect, but then it has that little hiccup, that little sort of, I, I kind of thing. And that's when he realizes and he goes, hang on, what am I doing here? At this point in the game, when you find this audio log, there's no combat. going on. The only thing you've got taking your focus and your attention is this goddamn audio log. And it is. is just honestly so heartbreaking to listen to it and considering the audio logs you get in both of these games.
00:39:17
Speaker
That is saying a lot. That's a hard one to listen to. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I would, and again, i wouldn't say crazy, criticise, because it wouldn't go as far to say that maybe nitpick is the right word to wear. As I said before, Bridget Tenenbaum comes back, the famed creator of the Little Sister programme. Very, again, cont contentious, I'm going to use that word again, contentious character, but she comes back And something that I said to Toaster as well that I found quite annoying was Tenenbaum came back in the second game as a brief cameo and then she disappeared. It's like, where the hell was she? And then you go to Minerva's den and she plays a bit more of a significant part and then she escapes with you as Subject Sigma and for some reason she has the cure to... I don't know if they call it Adam's sickness, it's something like that, but she has the cure, essentially, to get you out of the suit and everything and you can live amongst the other people and i'm like boy howdy that would have been a great one for the splicers wouldn't it but on the flip side i wouldn't go near a splicer if they're too far gone it's like no no you're okay yeah no no you suffer over there and be a weird thing i'm glad he got his bittersweet happy ending but at the same time it's like huh Could have been using a lot more of that. All of those big daddies still roaming about Rapture. But no, jokes aside, it's a brilliant DLC.
00:40:43
Speaker
And as we were saying before, it's amazing how influential it's been. It also shows that you can blend action gameplay with a rich narrative. I mean, yeah you've seen that before as well with Spec Ops The Line and even the first Bioshock game. Now, one thing that we can...
00:41:03
Speaker
the same too, is Burial at Sea, which, as I said, this was my very first Bioshock game. i remember getting the... It's not the Battle Pass. I can't remember what you call it. It was like the Expansion Pass or something. Something like that, yeah. Right. Remember there was that weird transitional period in the early to mid 2010s where it wasn't quite a battle pass as we know it today, but it also wasn't just DLC, it was a pass to get all of the DLC, but it was like a weird purgatory, wasn't it? Yeah, because this was, you know, you paid, for argument's sake, let's say 30 quid for Bioshock Infinite, but you could pay £50 and get the DLC passes, but that's not the same as just getting the DLCs. DLC passes, which means that any future DLCs for the game, you can get for free, which you're putting your money down on something that you don't know is ever going to happen. Yeah, because when I go on it, I remember i just got the base game i tried it at the time i loved it going back to there are definitely problems with it it's more problematic i think compared to the first two games when you replay it because the first time you play it you go wow what a thought-provoking game i can't wait to talk about this with people and then when you listen to other people talk about it you're like wait a minute you're right so because i enjoyed it so much i bought this pass and it came with two dlcs it came with clash in the clouds and it came with burial at sea episode one now i was at university at the time i was in i
00:42:39
Speaker
in the same my third year at uni i remember after playing it i didn't really play much of the clash and the clouds dlc which came out in july 30th 2013 god i feel 12 years ago wow but i remember for this episode of course i played a little bit i've got mixed opinions on it. It's probably, again, it's a bit like the Protector Trials and the Challenge Rooms, where yeah it's like a bit of a horde mode, and they give a you extra challenges to do. i actually don't remember watching another YouTuber lose their mind because they were trying to do something called the Blue Ribbon Challenge. And basically that is when you have to follow a set criteria. So the game will say, oh, in this mode you can only attack from the sky, or oh, you can only use this weapon or that weapon. But if you do it all throughout, you get an achievement for it. Apparently it's very, very difficult to do, so I think a lot of people just break down and decide, nah, I'm not doing it. Yeah, it just sounds horrific.
00:43:42
Speaker
I have to say, had some fun with it, and what I thought was very American, let's just say, was the fact that you have the museum, much like the first Bioshock game, but the only problem is you have to collect money per round. When you get enough money, you can unlock certain things in and the museum.
00:44:01
Speaker
And again, I was thinking, how terribly American, just locking away history behind a paywall. Do you want to see this Elizabeth statue? Or, oh, do you want to see Daisy Fitzroy? Then... Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I don't know how to feel about that. I get the progression side of it because it encourages you to replay it over and over and again so you can unlock everything.
00:44:21
Speaker
i get it, that's game design 101. But at the same time, I don't know. Before we go on to the meatiest DLC we're going to talk about, what were your thoughts on that? Did you enjoy it or yeah, what did you think? As I said before, this was my first time playing Bioshock Infinite and the DLCs, and you advised me, play the base game before you go to the DLC for saving yourself the spoilers and what have you. So I played through Bioshock Infinite, and it didn't feel like a Bioshock game.
00:44:50
Speaker
It felt more like something maybe like Dishonored or something like that, but for one thing, it was very linear. Bioshock 1 and 2 were quite linear in their progression, but... It was linear with areas. You'd go into one area in Bioshock 2 and you would have to complete a number of objectives before you can progress to the next area. The order in which you do those objectives is relatively up to you for the most part. Bioshock Infinite was very sort of go here, do this, go here, do that, go here, do this.
00:45:21
Speaker
The combat was very quick, especially compared to 1 and 2. And obviously they introduced loads of new plasmids. They introduced all these new, sorry, they were called vigors at this point, not plasmids.
00:45:33
Speaker
And they introduced all these new weapons and everything. I can ah appreciate what they were trying to do. Obviously they were trying to show that we've got these two locations that are completely separated. You know, you've got one that's deep underwater and you've got one that's Floating in the sky. But look, regardless of that and regardless of what things are called and you can call it what you want to call it, everything ends up the same. it ends up in violence or whatever or or some megalomaniac dictator taking over, things like that. But it felt like a different game series and I'm not saying that in a good way because... It felt like it was a different game series trying to be Bioshock and just missing the mark on so many, so many sections. Because as I said before, the storytelling in this and the overarching story of this is very thin, shall we say. It's, you know, religious zealot bad, guns bad, the people rise up.
00:46:30
Speaker
bad whereas bioshock one and two there was a lot more nuance to the stories and a lot more personal ability in it it wasn't a bad game per se but it wasn't a bioshock game it's like giving someone a burger king and telling them it's a mcdonald's it might be the same kind of thing but it isn't the same and the dlc's uh
00:46:53
Speaker
That says all. Yeah. Part one was fine. it felt less like a DLC and it felt more like a demo for Bioshock Infinite because it gave you some of the elements of the game because it didn't give you all of the vigors. It gave you ah very small handful of them. It didn't give you all the weapons. It gave you a few. It didn't give you much gear options or anything like that it was bare bones bioshock infinite it felt more like an intro to the game than an extension of the story part two it felt like a walk and talk simulator which as we said with minerva's den isn't necessarily a bad thing but part two felt like a boring walk and talk simulator it was just dull And I'm going to put a little bit of a tinfoil hat on here. Part 2 introduced new weapons. It introduced new vigors that we hadn't seen. There was the Peeping Tom vigour, for example, which I don't remember seeing that anywhere in any Bioshock game.
00:47:50
Speaker
They completely overhauled the lockpicking and hacking mechanics. They completely changed all that. And they tried to make it more of a stealth game than walking and shooting game. To me, part two felt like they were working on a sequel to Bioshock Infinite and then they lost funding. So they made a DLC with what they've done so far.
00:48:12
Speaker
Because it just felt, and I know you said quick thoughts, but here we are with my tinfoil hat now. Ah, it's blinding me. It's so shiny. I know we've said Bioshock Infinite was a bit sort of a Bioshock light in a different skin. This felt like a complete departure from the entire Bioshock series, barring the characters that you play.
00:48:36
Speaker
It just felt completely different. It didn't feel like a Bioshock at all. It didn't have the gameplay mechanics. It didn't have the recognisable hallmarks of a Bioshock game, which is why I think it was an abandoned sequel. Do you want Tim Boyle hat? Do you agree or? No, I disagree with all of that. No, I'm joking.
00:48:56
Speaker
I've just been sitting here shaking my head like, no, no, says the Red Panda Podcaster. It belongs to Namlican. but No, I totally see what you mean. This is probably the most controversial DLC, I think, of the entire series. Even with Minerva's den, as we said, and we cannot praise it enough, it a perfect blending characters gameplay, storytelling, having that emotional core. And if you've been listening to Shatsunami for a while, you'll know I love me a good emotional core. It really hooks you in. And again, Bioshock 1, you can at least excuse it, as you said, because of the limitations, because of the time it came out. It wasn't as common to have these kind of DLCs. Infinite is a weird case because the actual core game for Bioshock Infinite,
00:49:45
Speaker
I think it had over six years or so to be developed and whatnot. And that was shocking to me because they had so much time to create the perfect game and they didn't. I think that was partly one the follies of Bioshock Infinite that they weren't reined in at certain points. They weren't said, right, this is the time limit, get it done for now. So that's why they had completely different artwork, completely different concepts. Even if you look at the adverts for it where the people of columbia trying to hang elizabeth there's another one where a big daddy like character in fact i think it might be a handyman drags her into this room she's got i can't remember what you call it but it's almost like the levitation or the antigrav plasmid although again as you said it's figures it's not plasmids in columbia so it was going all over the place and then by the time we got the finished game can definitely tell there is just something missing there.
Bioshock Infinite's Multiverse Challenges
00:50:43
Speaker
Now I'm going to put my hands up here for a second and say that when I first played this game and when I played the DLCs, I enjoyed them for what they were and I remember playing them thinking, oh this is a cool Bioshock game. Isn't this a fun Bioshock game? Oh I love Bioshock. But then as soon as I actually played Bioshock 1 and 2, I realised no that is a Bioshock game. That is what we should be aspiring to.
00:51:08
Speaker
Whereas when you replay Infinite, you start to see the cracks, the tears, no pun intended, and you see why the game doesn't work. And one of the things that i brought up last week that I hate about Bioshock Infinite is the multiverse angle. Yeah, exactly. It annoyed me to no end because ah no point, correct me if I'm wrong here, but at no point in Bioshock 1 or 2 was there any discussion of multiverses tearing into different universes, reading minds, what have you, seeing the future. There was none of that. 1 and 2 was a believable dystopian story that you could see happening in real life. I am not for one moment going to sit here and think, oh, well, maybe somewhere out in America there's a girl who can open portals into different universes and pull things through. Part of, maybe charm's the wrong word, but part of the draw of the Bioshock series was it was, relatively speaking, grounded in plausible reality. There wasn't too much suspension of disbelief required. And then Bioshock Infinite just went, lol, make Skyhook in air out of gravity. Good luck.
00:52:21
Speaker
Go. They probably wanted to progress the story. They probably wanted to try and do some Eb Knight, Shamalow, mind-twisty rubbish. And if they'd got a writer or a lead designer who had good, relevant experience in making those kind, because there are very good multiverse portal jumping kind of stories out there. If they've got someone in to at least advise on something like that, they could have made a good go of it, but instead they just went, what do we want? We want magical portals to alternate realities. Avengers is doing it, so we'll do it kind of thing. I don't know if Avengers was even a concept at this time, but our buddy Ken has obviously read some superhero comics at some point and gone, multiverse travel, that sounds fun. I want to make my game about that and then not really understood it at all. See, my problem with multiverse stories as a whole is I always think that undermines the main story. Whatever writer it is, whatever author is trying to tell, it always undermines it because as I was saying to Luke last week Bioshock Infinite you have a point where you have to find a gunsmith and unfortunately he's been taken by the police, he's been gunned down. This is where you find out that Elizabeth can make these tiers and she can go through the portals into a different dimension. There's different areas. You can go to one with the Vox Populi, who are the rebel faction in Columbia. The quote-unquote good guys. Yeah, I'll get to that, trust me. There's a particular point in the DLCs that... It made me side-eye it, like, hmm. But yeah, you've got that where they jump through the portal and the Volkspopuli are, oh, look at us. And it's like a shirt swap. Instead of shooting people with blue tops, you're shooting people with red tops. And it is no different gameplay-wise. It's relatively the same. It's just, it's not great. But the point I made last week was the fact that we're essentially abandoning the reality we came from. So does that mean in theory that Elizabeth and Booker have gone through this portal to get the weapons, but now that dimension that they've come from no longer has a Booker and an Elizabeth? You know, it's like you're not really helping your dimension. And I think that was the initial idea they were trying to do, but she couldn't control it and whatnot. And I don't know, it's just is too messy.
00:54:45
Speaker
But I do love the ending. I have to say, and I know that sounds so morbid to say, because the ending, and again, this is your final spoiler warning for Bioshock Infinite's ending and, of course, the DLCs. Okay, ready? Right, let's go. So, I love the ending where Booker essentially gets drowned by a Elizabeth, and it's quite a great parallel between, of course, this being a quote-unquote canon event of his life, where on the one hand, if he gets baptised, then he becomes Comstock, he creates Columbia, and that creates all the untold suffering and whatnot, whereas if he doesn't take the baptism, he just becomes a bum, essentially just a private eye. a Pinkerton, everything to the extent that gambles away his daughter, it's horrific. You know, that's the fork in the road. And then you're like, right, okay, if he's drowned at this particular point, there's no more Booker, there's no more Elizabeth, the whole timeline's white.
00:55:42
Speaker
And you think, although I don't like the fact that your character's killed, I think it is quite a nice enough way to end it. It's quite bittersweet, but you can see why ah happened. And there is that nice after-credits scene where Booker goes in to check on, well, Anna is what she's called, but he goes in to check on baby Elizabeth and that implies that there's at least one reality out there that, oh, they managed to be together, be happy, and I love that because I think at least there's that sliver of hope.
00:56:12
Speaker
Now, the video at sea DLCs basically, you know, i was going to say something very rude, but I'd rather not, but they basically take a huge rapture dump all over that on what came before it, because for anyone who doesn't know what video at sea is about, it essentially takes everything and i mean everything like asset swaps all the way from columbia and it puts it way down in rapture i genuinely don't know how to feel about that because the way it was marketed and i don't know if you felt the same as well was this was going to be like a gritty detective noir type story even the artwork before this part is beautiful. You know, you've got the detective shrouded with the hat and everything, and then you've got Elizabeth dressed as a femme fatale. And I'm going to put my cards on the table here.
00:57:02
Speaker
i do love the design of Elizabeth in this particular DLC. I know not alone in that. Unfortunately, I think it has led to a few unsavoury fans of the franchise upsetting Mr Levine because of their depictions of her so yeah not great but honestly Elizabeth is one of my favourite characters of gaming I genuinely think though in Infinite she's a fantastic character and I think in Burial at Sea they start to assassinate her slowly but But I love that whole dynamic of Booker being the detective and you're walking through Rapture with this femme fatale. It's literally that you got a name miss and he clicks his fingers and it's the... The flame plasmid. Yep, the flame plasmid and he really lights the cigarette. It's so... I don't know, it's just so smooth and then you come out and granted for the first part it is a bit of a walking simulator that you walk around, you talk to people, you get to absorb Rapture. i did like that but I have to say, but then the further you go in, the more apparent it is that this is an asset swap.
00:58:07
Speaker
You know, you've got the drinkable plasmids that ah Elizabeth, of course, says, oh, it's just like the figures. And Booker's like, what do you mean? These are drinkable plasmids. And it's like, no, they're not. Come on. Oh, they're figures.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, they're 100%. You cannot just say, oh, no, they're plasmids. And she pulls out the whole constants and variables line and you're like, oh. great lie. But then the second half of the game is just rooty-tooty, more shooty. And you're like, okay, here we go. And you get the... I can't remember what you call them, but it's basically the skyhook that you have. And it's like, oh, you can use the skyhook in
Burial at Sea: Controversies and Critiques
00:58:45
Speaker
Rapture. And I hate that. I'm going to be honest, I hate the fact you can use it. I know why they put it in, but again, I don't think... And there's something that Booker brings up later on. He's like, oh yeah, kids use these to ride on the Numo lines. And you're like, Andrew Ryan did not...
00:59:01
Speaker
ah Yeah, no, I had no point in Bioshock 1 or 2 did you see the lines or any of the hanging hooks. It's just... But yeah, no, I guess in that reality, the kids play with machinery. Sorry, apologies for the swear. That's the thing, though. A couple of weeks ago for Bioshock month, I started reading the Bioshock Rapture book.
00:59:22
Speaker
which is absolutelys absolutely fantastic, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. But one of the criticisms a lot of people had was that this particular DLC overwrites a lot of that, and it overwrites lot of what came in Bioshock 2 as well. And I can see why people are a bit annoyed at that because, in my mind anyway, the story of Rapture and Bioshock as a whole is about the vision of one man who, although obviously misguided clearly 100%, wanted to break the shackles of the way the world was working at the time. You know, you had World War twoi you had the atomic bomb, you had
01:00:01
Speaker
the cold war he had so much hostility that he wanted to escape this and go literally under the sea and he wanted to just cut off everything and try to create his own utopia was it flawed a thousand percent yes no regulation means you're gonna get bad actors no matter what Yeah.
01:00:19
Speaker
That is the thing, though. In this, it almost takes away the autonomy of certain characters, and it's not as apparent in the first part. You know, the first part is, as I said, it's a walking sim. You get to see a lot of the more famous characters, like Sander Cohen, who somehow still survives...
01:00:38
Speaker
And you get to see everyone else running about in Rapture. Then, of course, you have to find that this little sister. That's the reason why you're down there. And you end up finding her on the behest of Elizabeth, who basically tries to flame her out. And then you have the iconic fight with the Big Daddy, which is really weird because I think at that point in the lore, and again, this is me pushing up my anime glasses, like, well, actually... like Um, actually. I think at that point, the bonding system between little sisters and big daddies wasn't really a thing. So you're like, well, why is he attacking you then? Is he just being a dick? What's going on here? But then, of course, the huge twist is that, ooh, shock horror, you're a comstock, you're not a booker. And it leads me on to, before we finish up with part two, it leads me on to, quite frankly, one of my favourite reactions from you for this part. That, of course, being how baby elizabeth gets separated from her body she gets pulled that's what happens yeah so in the main game there is a plot line where as a baby elizabeth gets pulled through a portal for comstock and ranged out of booker's arms but as she puts her hand out a bit of her pinky gets sliced off and i think that's the reason she can go from portal to portal with some technical mumbo-jumbo like that but i In this, she gets her whole head cut off, and it is absolutely horrific to see unfold. And I have to say, I thought the cliffhanger was quite interesting, where Comstock tries to apologise and say, oh, I'm so sorry, and she's like, oh no, you're about to be, and she poses for the...
01:02:17
Speaker
monster you know the blood splatters over her yeah you just get drilled by the big daddy i swear it makes sense of the context but but once that happens yeah it cuts the blacks the pranals end and yeah before we finish up with part two what were your thoughts on that oh i was looking for the message i sent you a message at half 10 yesterday morning going i'm working through burial at sea did i just watch a baby get beheaded by a magic portal yeah Because it was just so out of nowhere. It was out of nowhere and it was so jarring. And obviously through the game, the originals, you had the option to harvest the little sisters. So we can't say that no one's ever done harm to the little sisters in these games because everyone's harvested them at some point in their life. We've all done it. And anyone who says they haven't is a liar. But even when you're doing that, it's not particularly overt.
01:03:13
Speaker
You kind of draw the magic essence out and then that's it. There's no... No beheadings. There's no beheadings. There's nothing particularly graphic about it. It is more of a sort of... Symbolic. Symbolic and a bit sort of psychological. This was just... ha Baby got decapitated and now it's a doll's head. Look, this is symbolism. Look at my symbolism. And it's like, well, you know, there's other ways you could have done that, but sure, crack on. Well done, Ken. Clap, clap.
01:03:40
Speaker
Mr. Levine, stop waggling your symbolism in my face. Mr. Levine, please. Do you see now? I was like, no. The twist at the end of getting run through by the big daddy at the behest of Elizabeth did catch me off guard. I didn't expect it, but it was two minutes of, ooh, that was interesting, after two hours of, this is dull.
01:04:03
Speaker
I couldn't definitely see that. It's an interesting way they went about it, but it definitely rewrites a lot of what came before. But I mean, there's a couple of minor plot holes that you could, you know, wave off or say, oh it's a different reality, blah, blah, blah. Again, it wasn't something that i picked up on before I played the original Bioshock, but after I played the original Bioshock, I realised that it basically undoes the ending of Infinite, which very... very disappointing because as i said before the whole point of booker getting drowned is again going to this word of symbolism it's that idea that he is getting the long baptism as well and he is wiping out all of the comstocks and bookers of this multiverse so where does this new comstock and booker come into he's wrestling a elizabeth off of booker so where does she come in You said it before, when you start introducing multiverse and line jumping and everything like that, it all gets very muddied and sort of the story just becomes a bit convoluted. And I will be honest, there was a point during Infinite, I couldn't tell you exactly when it was, but there was a point playing through Infinite where my brain shut off because I just couldn't keep track of what was happening because... You jump in timelines that often and it's sort of like, hang on, am I in the one where Folk Hero, or am I in the one where he's a pariah? Who am I? Where am I? And it just really takes away from it all.
01:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's just as a very icy. Again, I don't mean that as oh, it's messy, you little scamp, but it's okay. It messy with a capital M. It just all over the place. That, of course, leads us on to the second part, which came out apparently four months after the first episode. So, Bury Outsie Episode 1, that came out in November 12th. 2013 and then it wouldn't be until March 25th 2014 where we get part two and i have to say I was looking forward to part two I was like oh I can't wait to see what they would do here but I am a hundred percent with you I hate the fact that they went the whole stealth route absolutely hate when games that are usually action oriented force you to become stealthy McStealth man or woman I mean I like the intro I thought the intro was quite visceral, where you're Elizabeth and you are in Paris and you get the portrait drawn of you. See, up and until you meet Sally in that particular dream sequence, I think that's probably how all Americans imagine Paris being, that they can just talk in English and, you know, understand them. And everyone says good morning to you. Bonjour. Bonjour. Pour vous? You know, it's like, no, don't think so. I mean, maybe be some of them, but... To be honest, I don't think it's a universal experience here. Actually, before we go on, have you heard about the story of Baguette Boy in this scene? No. So there's, I don't know if you saw him. The kid juggling the baguette around the fountain.
01:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, so he's like going around the big side and he's holding the baguette. So apparently, you know the scene when you land on the beach? in Infinite, and Elizabeth and all the other people are dancing. So what they did was they took that animation and they gave it to the wee boy, and what they did was they intended initially to have a boy and a girl dancing around it, but they kept having clipping issues with the models. So they went, okay, how me this. Let's give the boy a baguette. Just get to dad's room. So that's how baguette boy was birthed into the world. That is just... I can't be bothered to fix this. It's three o'clock on a Friday evening kind of thing. I'll stick a baguette in his hand. It did really take me out of the scene briefly because obviously you're looking around at everything else and it's the same scene where all the painters are on the shorefront and everything's quite calm and relaxing and quite serene, really. It's quite peaceful.
01:07:54
Speaker
And then you've just got this moment. muppet dancing with a baguette around her sign. I genuinely thought it was going to be, you know, in horror movies where everything's normal, but then there's just one thing that is really out of odds and the character goes to look at the thing that's out of odds and suddenly it becomes a whole nightmare scenario.
01:08:13
Speaker
That's what I thought was going to happen. So I walked up to Baguette Boy as best I could and absolutely nothing came of it. so I was like, right, okay. So it's just a really bizarre choice of animation. And I will be the first to admit, obviously I studied animation in university and part of that was motion capture. When you've got someone in a motion capture suit, you do all the bits you need to do. You do your walking animations, you're shooting, you're dying, you're falling, you're climbing, what have you. And then sometimes you will just make them do stupid things because it's funny and it's really bizarre things like that are really good practice for cleaning up motion capture, data especially if it's like big explosive movements. It's really, really good for practicing your motion capture clean up. After the horror thing didn't pan out, I just thought, all right, so this is one of the animators was bored.
01:09:05
Speaker
I am laughing so much at the thought of you just staring intently at this big game boy being like, come on, do something, start the horror. And it's like all the eldritch horrors, you know, all the tentacles coming out the river sea and everything. and iPhone tower crumbling behind you. But you're watching this baguette boy and suddenly like, I know it's you.
01:09:28
Speaker
Do something baguette boy, say the line. Have you ever seen Twin Peaks? Yeah. It's like, you know the scene where he comes in with a baguette? And it's just, there's a scene, I'm not even going to start to explain what Twin Peaks is, but there's a scene where a character comes in, and ironically enough, he's just back from France himself, and they love the baguette so much that he brought two more, and he's carrying luggage home. They're having a full-on dinner, and then he just gives his brother this baguette, and they're just scoffing it as if it is the best thing in the world, like it is incredible. incredible and they're oh it's so good yeah but what about this lovely homemade meal when he just tosses it aside for this baguette are baguettes that good in france we might never know i will be honest because i've been to france a couple of times um yes getting a fresh baguette from a boulangerie as they're called oh of course it's france of course i'm gonna speak french dude
01:10:23
Speaker
ah Well, I don't know. Did you see Elizabeth? She just spoke English. Bonjour, madame. Hiya. Thank you. This me. It's like a typical British experience. No, no, hablet de angraiche.
01:10:40
Speaker
She's the kind of person who would go to France and only learn one phrase, and that phrase is une cerveza, pour vous avoir. You're feel like you've messed up the Duolingo course here, Elizabeth.
01:10:52
Speaker
But then, obviously, you walk through the street and it's all very idyllic and lovely and you're walking around. Everyone's saying good morning to you. A bit like Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, a little bit. And then you come across Sally and suddenly things start taking a little bit of a turn. But you start following her it's like, oh, no, come back. Don't run away. it gave me flashbacks to when we played Heavy Rain and you had to find Jason in the mall. but Oh, yes. because That was also a red balloon. But you start following her and then it all starts twisting and becoming Paris is burning everything's buggered and it becomes the nightmare scape I was expecting from Baguette Boy. LAUGHTER
01:11:34
Speaker
ah sort go between that scene and the scene from part one of elizabeth and buck are in the office and it's all very film noir-y i was tricked into thinking i was going to get a dlc that was going to be a little bit film noir a little bit cosmic horror a little bit something that was going to be really dark and really a bit messed up and a really dark twist for an already quite dystopian game and then we got whatever this was Not to give you any more bleeps. I'm not going to give you any more bleeps, but it wasn't good. It's a very simple scene. The scene in Paris, it's all very simple.
01:12:11
Speaker
It's like, oh, Elizabeth finally got her wish. She managed to get back to Paris. I wonder how that's going to be twisted in a weird, horrible way. Baguette, boy! and baguette boy my god but then it starts getting a bit twisted and it starts getting a bit horror-y and a bit sort of oh they're going where i hope they're going and then you end up in rapture and it's you have to find a mask to go for a dance or was that one oh no that would have been one my god i played this dlc yesterday and i've already forgotten it oh
01:12:43
Speaker
Oh, there you go. Yeah, that's it. You get kidnapped, don't you? Yeah, you get kidnapped by Atlas, who, for some reason, and I never really noticed this, but he keeps slipping between accents with his henchmen, who, quite frankly, shouldn't know that he was Fontaine. Because even in the very first Bioshock game, there is a woman called, think, Diane McCormack, who was one of Andrew Ryan's love interests, and I use that very loosely, because, let's face it, Ryan only loved Rapture. and his ideals, they didn't really love anybody else beyond that as much but he basically bet her to death to keep his secret and you're telling me he's slipping between Irish and American in front of his cronies and he's got all of his, you know what it reminds me of? You know the scene where you get kidnapped by Atlas and he's like, oh, get the code or whatever and we'll release Sally. You know the scene where you go into his room and he's got all of his disguises up like that scene in Paddington 2? Ha ha ha! You know Hugh Grant, he's got all the things up. That's what it's like. Why would you have these openly up, perfectly perched on top of the mannequin heads and the things? You're like, this is the fucking secret. Here's the evidence to all my crimes. And you know, she kind of rolls her eyes and goes, oh, he was Fontaine. And it's like, yeah, we know, because we played the first game. Jesus Christ, Elizabeth, catch up. And yeah, as we were saying, there is an emphasis on stealth, which I really did not like. And it annoys me as well, because you can go up to someone, smack them in the face with a wrench, and they don't care. They just stumble back and go, oh, what was that? And then you keep hitting them and it doesn't kill them. You have to be behind them and knock them on the head. And I get the whole, oh, Elizabeth, isn't she such a fragile, small flower? I'm sorry, no matter who it is, if they smack a wrench in your face, I mean, look at the Simpsons with Maggie. She nearly killed Homer by throwing a spice rack on them. Or was it a hammer? You know the itching scratchy episode I'm talking about? yeah i think it's a hammer yeah it's a hammer yeah because he's making the space rock yeah i refuse to believe that this woman who's gone through everything elizabeth has gone through and as we've seen in the prior games well through infinite she is capable of picking up a laser rifle or a machine gun and throw it across a room at you i refuse to believe that she can't handle a weapon But like you said, they're trying to portray her as this fragile, sneaky sort, and it's like, well, yeah, I suppose, but also just give her a handgun. I mean, if I had a penny for every time Elizabeth kicked a guy in the balls in this game, I would have two pennies, which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice.
01:15:23
Speaker
but And, you know... Oh, God, we've gone back to that reality where we're talking outdated references. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Mr. Levine, please help us escape from this hell. No, it's just as so weird why they portray her as this capable woman and everything and then all of a sudden when it gets to part two you're like, oh no, it turns out. Not that she's not capable because, you know, you've got like a dart gun and a gas gun and you've got the peeping Tom plasmid which is a pain in the backside. Did you get to the jump scare moment by the way with sander cohen i can't say i did so i don't think i got it the first time but the second time i played through it for bioshock month i went into this room it was off the beaten track went into this room and there was this kinetoscope you know the thing you look through and it gives you all the Yeah.
01:16:10
Speaker
honestly you but after this episode i pretty much sha myself no why i was terrified of it you look through and usually get information and there's a thing that pops up that says please stand by and then the police stand by start slowly rotate around and then just things like Why are you still here?
01:16:30
Speaker
why are you still standing here? Look behind you. And you know, you're still on this machine. I'm like, I'm going to put myself on her. And of course, she's turned around and it's a mannequin doll with the mask on. How it got there, I've got no idea. But again, I jumped out my skin. I was like, Jesus Christ. Alternative reality. You went through a tear. Well, my trousers went through a tear. Let's just say that. Other than that, that was quite jarring. This whole thing is why my tinfoil hat theory about it being a Bioshock 4 that got cancelled because everything about how the game plays, or the DLC I should say, sorry, everything about how Part 2 plays is such a departure from Bioshock that I don't get how it's a Bioshock DLC. Well, funny enough...
01:17:14
Speaker
And again, this isn't from Ken Levine, but was from one of the Bioshock 2 creators. They got brought on and they basically said that one of the ideas they had for the Bioshock sequel was, why don't we have a former little sister go back to Rapture and make it a Resident Evil, Silent Hill-esque experience? As I said before, it was the studio that shut them down and went, nah, nah, nah, this is going to be the next...
01:17:39
Speaker
shitty franchise, we're going to compete with all of these contemporaries like Halo and Gears of War, Call of Duty, that kind of thing at the time, which from a business perspective I can understand that, but at the same time we were robbed. Oh yeah, definitely. I feel as if though, this is probably the closest we would get to something like that, that if you were a little sister coming back to Rapture, you know, as a woman going down and having to deal with all of these horrors and everything and making it quite unnerving, I can see it working for something like that. But considering what we got for Burial and then getting this for Episode 2, it's a It's strange why they went in this direction, even though I'm not 100% sure why. And again, you're just so underpowered, and don't get me wrong, that leans a lot into the horror aspect, because you learn that for some weird reason, because you went in to save Sally, you lose your powers because of plot reasons. And you get the Luteces, who are honestly just, they're so condescending, they're like, we told you this would happen, and you're like, ah, bugger off. So Basically, they sometimes take you through a portal back to Columbia, then they take you back to Rapture. You go back and forth, you get to talk to Andrew Ryan, you get to see Andrew Ryan's fursona. Please tell me you know what I'm talking about when I say that.
01:19:00
Speaker
I don't. So there's a scene, I swear to God there's a reason, there's a scene where you walk through the attic. I don't know if it's the Little Sisters orphanage or it's just a school for kids, but you meet, well, not meet, you see a video for Ryan the Lion. Oh, God, yeah. It seems so off character for Ryan to be like, oh, you know that Walt Disney guy? Yeah, I can outdo him.
01:19:25
Speaker
It just seems like a weird choice. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I said Fursona, by the way. This entire DLC is just weird choices, i think. Because, I mean, the other bit, and this is something that I kind of brought up briefly before, is the Daisy Fitzroy part. I see why they did it, but I didn't like it in terms of a narrative decision.
01:19:45
Speaker
So what i mean by that is Daisy Fitzroy is a African-American who is the leader of the Voxpiless. Populi, and when you skip dimensions from the main game, from your dimension to where the Vox Populi are basically running free, she essentially grabs the son of the industrialist Jeremiah Fink. Sorry, she kills him first and then grabs the boy who is about to slit his throat, and then Elizabeth has to come from behind and stab her with a pair of scissors. It's like a really brutal scene and that is the transition between the Elizabeth being this wide-eyed, naive girl to the Elizabeth that we know. The murderer. Murder.
01:20:26
Speaker
Maybe. How could this be for the greater good? The greater good. of But I would watch it. But anyway, partly, and I personally didn't see it, but I did see a couple of articles on online where people were accusing that scene of being racially insensitive because they were saying that because she's black that she would be overly violent and everything. So to counter that point, they have a scene where you're hiding in the vents and you see Daisy talk to the Luteces and they convince her to go through with that, to pretend... to threaten the boy so that Elizabeth can have her arc her awakening yeah but again it goes back to this thing of well why would that have to happen because all of the ah Elizabeths don't exist after the end of the first game and even if that had to go ahead why would Columbia still exist would the Lettessies still exist no they wouldn't but Elizabeth still exists it's very messy that's what I'm saying it is very very messy when you get infinite universes and things Dorman mess with timelines.
01:21:31
Speaker
As I said with Daisy I can see why they did it but I don't really think ied thing so ah you know it No it really didn't. I mean I suppose that they were trying to assure that you know she wasn't a a psychopath that wanted to kill children it was a coercion a forced thing for her to do but it just I don't know. I mean, when that scene happened in Infinite where Daisy had the kid hostage, it was like, right, okay, this is her showing desperation. her back's against the wall kind of thing. I didn't think, oh, she's doing that because she's mentally unhinged.
01:22:07
Speaker
So I don't know, it feels like they were trying to answer a speculation that didn't exist and by trying to answer that speculation they kind of created the speculation. It was only a two minute scene in the middle of this DLC but it just felt unnecessary. You could have just crawled through a pipe and been in the next area but... It just kind of goes downhill from there where they try to desperately link Columbia with Rapture. Yeah. Where you've got things like the Songbird bonding process mixed with Sushong's bonding with the Big Daddy program and things. And we even get to see that scene where he gets absolutely drilled by a Big Daddy.
01:22:49
Speaker
Very, very brutal. But you get those kind of scenes where you're just like, this is doesn't need to be interlinked and you know you've even got andrew ryan at one point working with elizabeth and you're like pretty i genuinely don't think he would so i think he would probably be like nah nah this is a parasite where have you come from are you a parasite yourself yeah I mean, I think all these connections could have worked out really well if there had been any indication of those connections in Bioshock 1 and 2. But as a result, what they've done with Burial Dead Sea is, as you say, they've tried to force a connection, and it's very clearly a forced connection that I don't think half the designers really believed in.
01:23:34
Speaker
Because, I mean, that leads us to the final process. Probably Nail in the Coffin, or Burial at Sea, as it were, haha, where they essentially link the reason for Jack, who is the protagonist of the first game, coming to Rapture is because a Elizabeth gives Atlas the code work. Ken Levine's not beating the allegations that his daughter's the most precious princess in the whole franchise here. But I mean, you kind of sit there and you're like, oh, okay, so Elizabeth's the reason for all of this happening. And I really, like, as I said, the first time I played it, I didn't have an issue with it. Going back after playing the original two, I can see why people have an issue with it because it takes the, basically, autonomy out of the action. of the characters this is no longer a story about the folly of man a well i would say modern day but modern day in the 60s of icarus flying too close to the sun that they want to be this captain of industry and everything but because of their hubris it was his downfall but now you're telling me that this con man overthrew him because a magical portal lady came through and told him the secret code word there's nothing really clever about that
01:24:55
Speaker
um on this? Tell me I'm wrong here. It all felt very sort of like you say with timelines it gets messy and it feels like they were just desperately trying to make as many connections as possible and just none of it really worked.
01:25:12
Speaker
And then, like you say, it becomes, oh, the whole place exists because Magical Lady was born. No, Rapture exists because of human greed. Don't try and take away from that because the story that was built for that was deep. It was thought provoking and it was a very good story for its time. You can't come in seven years later and just go, lol, Magical Lady. At the very end, of course, you have that really tragic ending where Elizabeth gets beaten by Atlas and you lie there bleeding out and dying. It's a horrific scene. And I didn't like at the time either because, as I said, Elizabeth genuinely is one of my favourite characters. Maybe not in this, but honestly, I think she's a great character. But it's the way she does the whole imagining what's going to be happening in the future with the Jack coming down to Rapture and saving all the little sisters and it's like that is a heavy assumption that you're assuming he's gonna get the good ending and not the bad ending there's a 50 50 chance here come on and then of course you get the i think it's levion rose and it plays over as it zooms out it's quite a again it's a bittersweet ending but i wouldn't say it's a satisfying bittersweet ending you know what i mean i Yeah, no, it sort of leaves you wondering why they did that.
01:26:31
Speaker
And you don't sit there going, that was a really satisfying ending to the story. And I'm really glad to have wrapped up Elizabeth's story and found out ultimately how she met her demise despite everything. It leaves you sat there going, what, why? i feel like we got cheated a little bit because especially with part two with Elizabeth's story, we could have got something really deep, really thought provoking, a little bit horror-esque.
01:26:57
Speaker
and instead we got stealth simulator ah the crap edition with everything that she's gone through and everything that she's seen and everything that she can do there's a lot of potential there and it feels like they just went yeah we can't be bothered with any of that we'll just say that she died because she got betrayed but really loosely and sort of overtly she got played because she's the dumb girl of the story and it just they could have made game with Elizabeth and I think it would have probably done despite the mixed reviews that Bioshock Infinite had if they released a standalone game. Even if it was a six hour 20 quid story game Bioshock Elizabeth story. They could have done something really really good with that. and instead we got this pile of loose connections. Do you think that the legacy of this DLC has somewhat sullied what's going to come after in the Bioshock franchise? Because I know as of recording this episode, they are technically working on Bioshock 4, but it keeps getting pushed back and delayed, and there was apparently meant to be a Bioshock remake that's been cancelled as well. Yeah, do you think because of the dlc and because of infinite's legacy that's negatively impacted the franchise going forward i mean we live in a generation now where the internet is a giant echo chamber for everyone's thoughts and unfortunately it's a culture where the negative voices are louder than the positive voices So yeah, I do think that the negative reviews of Bioshock Infinite and the negative reviews are justified. Don't get me wrong there. They are 100% justified. I do think that that's probably going to result in I don't see a new Bioshock ever coming out. I know, like you say, they're actively working on them. I think it's going to get stuck in development hell and it's never going to come out. They're at a point with Bioshock now where it would be a risk.
01:28:58
Speaker
because it could be something really, really good. It could be something that lives up to the expectations all Bioshock 2. But all people are going to be thinking about is Bioshock 1 and 2 were pretty good for its day, but Bioshock Infinite was a pile If they made a Bioshock 4 where they went back to the roots of Bioshock and Bioshock 2, I would play that. I'd get that in a heartbeat because they were really good games, but they're obviously going to struggle because they can advertise from the creators of Bioshock 1. And everyone's just going to go, yeah, but the creators of Bioshock 1 were also the creators of Bioshock Infinite. So it's sad because i think, as we've said multiple times, between Bioshock 1, Bioshock 2, and this especially Minerva's Den, these games are a masterclass in storytelling, video game storytelling, at least.
01:29:50
Speaker
There's not a lot of games you can point to, even in narrative-driven games, there's not a lot of games you can point to and go, that's better than Minerva's Den. Because, ironically enough, there are some improvements, gameplay-wise at least, for Burial at Sea. For example, they take away the two-weapon limit, which was, my god, so much better. I was so grateful for that, but again, I was very confused why they did it. Yeah, because then you look at it and you think, wait a second, you could have done this the entire time and you chose not to. Yeah, that was so damn frustrating. I know they were like, oh, it could be because of realism and game balance things.
01:30:29
Speaker
No. No, give us a bombastic feeling like a superhero action set pieces. Don't feel as if you have to say, oh this has to be realistic, but you draw the line at two-weapon limit rather than... Yeah, no, this game where you're on a floating city in the sky held up by quantum particles is realistic, but oh, carrying three guns, no, no, no. Yeah, with hosts on top, of course. With ghosts, and don't forget all the magic at your fingertips from drinking the bottles you find on the street.
01:30:59
Speaker
A couple of weeks ago when I was on holiday, I think I must have sent you the picture of it, but I went on a hot air balloon for the first time in my life, and my god, I cannot imagine living that high on a balloon. I know it's obviously, again, technical jargon, like, oh, the quantum particles, and oh, the accelerator is inside this and that, whereas this was literally just, hot air goes in here. What?
01:31:23
Speaker
We go up. And you that way, I was looking down, i remember, put in the basket going, my god, that's a long way down. That's a long way down. How did the hell do people jump on the skyhooks? And they're wee, this fun. And I'm like, that's terrifying. What's wrong with you? And again, that's the thing, you've got fantastical elements like that. Then they're like, yeah, but two weapons, guys, come on.
01:31:46
Speaker
We don't want it to be too silly. Yeah, don't be silly. We can't be having two weapons. Oh, God. I'm sure there's mods or something out there to take it away, but even still, it's just, that it was ridiculous. It just, it doesn't make sense either because it's like, why? Because with the vigors, the plasmids, you'd have two active that you could quick swap through, but you still had access to all of them. Why not just do that with the weapons? It doesn't make sense. I don't get it. I'm going to be honest.
01:32:13
Speaker
Again, I know that is a very nitpicky thing, but it seems like a kind of domino effect. You know, it's like, oh, that's okay. We'll take this thing that was in the first two games out of it. That's fine. But then the more and more they start to take out the game, the more you start to see where the gaps are, especially with video let's see one and two when they try to introduce these new things. And you're like, well, if you could do it for that, why couldn't you have done it for the original game? Yeah, why couldn't you have done it six months ago?
01:32:43
Speaker
yeah and i know deadlines are a thing and whatnot but i mean they did have roughly six years or so to work in this game they had a long long time i think that is part of the problem that they were just unbound with how long they could work on the game and by the time the crunch came down it was like oh we haven't finished this so let's put this in let's put that let's cut this and you know hold back and forth and it is such a shame because there was so much potential there infinite if you will but but especially for the dlcs because the thing is with a good dlc and i think especially for a good bioshock dlc if you're going to make it a story driven one it has to be something that i wouldn't say necessarily interferes with the main storyline but it gives you something extra to expand on with the world you know you didn't have to have subject sigma doing the predator handshake if
01:33:36
Speaker
with Subject Delta going, you son of a bitch, and everything, taking down Sophia Lam together, you didn't need any of that. You just had this very small, ah isolated, intimate story about a man who had lost his wife, the dangers of parasocial relationships with AI, of course, and that whole conundrum. It was told perfectly, it was done perfectly. i mean, it has its small nitpicks but overall it was how you should do a bioshock story whereas for burial at sea there was definitely some bias towards elizabeth i think they could have probably got away with trying to make a more isolated story and again as i said i loved the beginning of burial at sea for episode one i love the kind of noir vibes and whatnot but the more the more you go into the more messy it gets
01:34:27
Speaker
And it is such a shame that beyond the remasters, this is the legacy we've got. This is the last piece of Bioshock media that we essentially have in the games. And it's a weird footnote to end on, isn't it? And we've said it a few times now. They wanted to tell Elizabeth's story. That is fine. i totally get it.
01:34:46
Speaker
It's what the fans wanted and it's what they wanted to do, but... They just went about it all the wrong way. They could have done a detective style game in Paris where you're uncovering that Rapture's influence is starting to affect other places in the world like Paris where she is. But instead they just went, let's take a four hour game and try and connect the last three games together in their entirety. No loopholes, nothing missed. And instead they just created a mess.
01:35:17
Speaker
It's your electric wire drawer. As a DLC. That's actually a perfect analogy. Because the thing is as well, they don't even cover the second game or the book. But to be fair, a lot of games don't really cover the books and the supplementary me material way anyway. So i can kind of excuse it for that. It's because books aren't real, Satsu. It's all Toctics and Kindles nowadays, isn't it? That's it, yeah, Toctics.
01:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, you know that really stupid Boomer comic where it's the kids pressing the book going, where are all the buttons? Where's the screen? all yeah I have never seen a child do that in my life. I genuinely, if there is a child out there like that, why?
01:35:59
Speaker
blame the parents not the kids for that one although then again i remember i was in a waterstones once and there was a group of kids across the shop and they started talking about fortnite monopoly and that was a good few years ago yeah that was a good few years ago so the world has changed Alex, I'm sorry. I mean, yeah. And it's not changed for the good. No.
Future of Bioshock and Gaming Industry Concerns
01:36:21
Speaker
Let's be very clear.
01:36:22
Speaker
See, as a final point, though, if there was a Bioshock game that came out nowadays and they had, like, multiplayer and whatnot, don't get me wrong, apparently Bioshock Infinite was supposed to have multiplayer and I think as far as I know could be wrong but I think all of the servers for Bioshock 2 have shut down now but do you think that companies nowadays would try to implement things like battle passes over the top cosmetics that kind of thing to let's say the hypothetical Bioshock 4 on the moon I think they would. I think that's part of the problem and is a bigger conversation about the state of the game industry as it is. I genuinely think that even if it was the original developers for Bioshock, there would be pressure for them. If they made a Bioshock multiplayer game, there would be pressure for them to put things like cosmetics and battle passes because that's how they retain player bases. And i think... If they did do something like that, that is a surefire way to add one last steaming pile to the Bioshock name. I wouldn't play it because Bioshock is a story. It's a narrative game. You can't make a Battle Pass multiplayer game out of that. Not well.
01:37:38
Speaker
There'd be quite a lot of comments made online if they tried to do something like that. Don't give them ideas. ah So you mean you don't want Andrew Ryan to be head-shotted and teabagged by Doja Cat or something? no No, I don't want to play as the Big Daddy class but have a predator skin. Or, I don't know, Darth Vader running up the halls of Rapture. Horrors are real for that.
01:38:04
Speaker
You're just there hiding an event and like, oh my god, the Big Daddies are coming and all you hear is...
01:38:11
Speaker
Or even worse, you're playing this default splicer, you turn round a corner and there's just Hank Hill with the propane flamethrower. And boy, right! I said boy! Dang it, Bobby! The worst thing is, if they did make a multiplayer online battle royale type of game for Bioshock, you know for a fact that that's exactly what would happen. Oh, 100%. It with Call of Duty. It's happened with every single... At least Fortnite was the trendsetter, and I can't be critical on them for doing it because it was successful, kids love it, it's its own isolated bubble. Now what I can insult is the other companies trying to chase those trends and being like, oh, do you want to storm the beaches of Normandy as an old Beavis Butthead?
01:38:56
Speaker
You're like, no, I don't think I do. No, no, I mean, i wasn't at the beaches of Normandy, but i don't think Beavis and Butthead were there either. Yeah, I mean, and if they were, I want no part in this, Tom Fulnery. That's all I'm saying here. But that horror aside, I think we can safely agree that hopefully the legacy of Bioshock going forward with the DLCs in mind isn't going to be sullied by modern game practices.
01:39:21
Speaker
Or rather, I should say we hope it isn't, but we know it's probably going to be an
Recommendations and Closing Remarks
01:39:25
Speaker
inevitability. Yeah, I think we can both safely agree that anyone out there who's not played the Bioshock series, play Bioshock 1, play Bioshock 2, and play Minerva's Den. Infinite and Bury Let's See do not exist.
01:39:38
Speaker
I mean, you can play Infinite if you want, but Bury Let's See, if you love the first two games, go in with medium expectations, because, yeah, I'm being nice here. Go in with medium expectations, because it is... It's a thing. We can accurately describe it as an experience. See, if you look at the box, it says right underneath, what star out of five is an experience? I think as quote, is an experience. It's dot dot dot interesting. She did what? It is a thing that exists in this world. Of all the games, it is a game. Exactly.
01:40:15
Speaker
And I cannot think of a more glowing review to end the episode on than that. So on that note, Alex, thank you so much for joining the me and talking about the DLC of Bioshock. Thank you for having me. It was an interesting way to spend two and a half hours.
01:40:32
Speaker
And before we wrap up, where can the amazing Pandalorians at home find your content? I think we're everywhere now, just about. We were on Spotify and then we've managed to get it working so that we're now on YouTube. So we are the Game Club Pod. I think it's all one word to search for us, but it might also be... Yeah, it's at the Game Club Pod YouTube. I think it's at the Game Club Pod on Twitter as well. I will never call it X.
01:40:59
Speaker
We're on Blue Sky. We're on Spotify. Anywhere you get podcasts, you will find us. We are also a part of the Pop-Up Collective, a wonderful group of podcasters and streamers and all-round fantastic people. And yeah if you would like to check out more episodes of Bioshock Month, as well as general episodes, then you can check us out at our website, chatsanami.com, as well as all good podcast apps.
01:41:24
Speaker
I also want to give a huge shout out to our Pandalorian patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster, Sonia, Ghostie, and Cryptic 1991. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. But if you would like access to exclusive content, early access to episodes, our 10-hour discussion on Burial at Sea, then of course, for legal reasons that last one's a joke, then you can of course check us out our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami as you were saying alex this podcast is of course a proud member of the pod pack collective for more information check us out our twitter slash x page at pod pack collect and i cannot believe that this is the penultimate episode of bioshock month next week we of course are going to be celebrating the finale of season five bioshock month as well as the 250th episode tsunami It's going to be a great one, honestly. Do not miss it, we'll send a big daddy after you.
01:42:23
Speaker
This is not a joke, this is a threat. You know, me and Atlas are tight, I'll get him to send one. Yeah, exactly. Just get him to smuggle in, we'll be fine. But yeah, all jokes aside, definitely stay tuned for that, because it's going to be an absolutely fantastic episode. But until next time, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, please don't dance around with a big you're going to re-traumatise Do not dance with a baguette because he will unleash eldritch horrors to which you've never seen. So, yeah.
01:42:51
Speaker
Oh, and stay hydrated as well, but more importantly, don't dance with a baguette, please. If you are going to dance with a baguette, make sure you have a drink. Yeah. Have a drink, dance with a baguette. I never thought I would say that sentence in my life, but here we are.
01:43:03
Speaker
Thank you, Barry. Let's see.