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S2 Ep157: Bioshock 2
73 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they return to Rapture and finally close out the (current) Bioshock series in this week's episode!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Is Eleanor really his daughter?
00:00:10
Speaker
There we are. He's perfectly safe now. This is not your daughter. Do you understand? Her name is Eleanor and she is mine. Now, kneel please.
00:00:39
Speaker
Now take the pistol. Place it against your head.
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:01:05
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? Oh, it's going pretty good. I haven't done too much yet because it's a Saturday record. But I mean, last weekend was pretty banging.
00:01:23
Speaker
Oh yeah. Cause we didn't talk about that yet. We actually got to hang out a bit. Yeah. I mean, not really a bit. It was a full day, literally, but I was there for about nine hours and I'm sorry. No, it was fine. It was fun. Do you want to tell the audience the first interaction you had with me after like a year and a half?
00:01:40
Speaker
All right, I mean, as long as we don't include the last interaction. But yeah, I mean, we had a we hugged. So it was. That's pretty game. That's how it went down. It's completely standard. It's a standard hug. Now, they've had a backpack on. So I was like, all right, I'm going for like the the full, you know, bloody brace chest to chest to chest.
00:02:01
Speaker
Um, full hug. And I was like, Oh, I can't really grasp the backpack. So I tried to get around to his back, right? So it can constitute a full hug. Arms slid down, touched his butt. Um, so like I said, pretty good. So yeah, ladies, uh, I'm kind of off the market. So, uh, check yourselves. Yeah. But that was a really fun day. Um, yeah. I played some Smash, walked around, ate some pizza.
00:02:30
Speaker
I was overjoyed to see you guys, honestly, and just hang out and bullshit. And then we also had two meals thrown in there. And as we know, meals are like one of two things I care about. Three.
00:02:43
Speaker
Maybe three. Going down the list. Number four will surprise you. Yeah, no, it was fun. I do wish that Firebird still had wings. I will have to recheck to see if that was a temporary outage or not, because that was the only damn thing I think to the evening.
00:03:02
Speaker
It wasn't a dampener for me. It was just odd because I know you've talked about the wings on multiple occasions. The whole point I wanted to order from there. In episodes. And you're like, yeah, next time we'll have you try the wings. I'm like, yeah, I'll be down.
A day of games and food
00:03:13
Speaker
Let's do it. And then they just didn't have wings. Yeah, no. Didn't make any sense. I feel like if you're a place that's known for at least by a single individual, that individual being me, for good wings, there's not really a reason to stop serving wings, but I don't know.
00:03:31
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's a seasonal thing, wings, you know. Right. When are chickens ready? I wonder. Well, we grow them in the fall. Ah, OK. So by the spring. But then they're all gone for the summer. Yeah, I don't I don't know. Hopefully they come back. That's that's what I want to believe. But speaking of coming back to Rapture,
00:04:01
Speaker
There you go. Wow. I don't even know if I want to talk about it directly yet. Like it was a pretty good weekend. We talked about Castlevania and stuff like that. I'll jump off the segue. The segue continued off the cliff without me. And we do need to finish watching Castlevania.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think from what I last heard, you guys are like halfway through ish. Yeah, I think we're like episode six. We could probably watch the rest tonight and get some stuff done today. How are you liking it so far? It's really good. I think the quality so far has.
00:04:36
Speaker
stayed pretty consistent. It's been a while. I can't remember how many years have passed. Perhaps one. It might be like one. Yeah. Because I feel like between seasons one and two, there was a big enough gap. But I'm like, oh, people actually want to see more of this. Then they kind of ramped up. Yeah. But it's been good so far. I think continuing some of those interesting plot lines. And it's nice because it can kind of like it can take itself slowly.
00:05:07
Speaker
and keep me interested, and then also have action that's interesting, right? It's fine doing both of those. Still has that humor. Early review's good. Nice.
Catching up on Attack on Titan
00:05:18
Speaker
I definitely want to, I mean, not on air, but I definitely want to talk to you about season four as a whole when you're done, so we can just talk about every nitty gritty bit. That's fair. I guess we never did that for like Attack on Titan either.
00:05:36
Speaker
Alright, we need an episode for anime catch-up. Yeah. I might have one more episode to watch of Attack on Titan. I realize I've said that, but... What? You didn't watch the last episode of...
00:05:50
Speaker
We'll throw that in before Pennsylvania. You know that's the cliffhanger episode, right? I know it is. It's like before the break, before they do like the second half of the last season ever that they're doing. I mean like it's basically me staring down at the cliff's edge and I'm just like shaking my head. I'm like you have no power over me and I just walk away. There is no cliffhanger if you never watch the last episode.
00:06:11
Speaker
I guess that's fair. That's fair. Just can't be let down. No. But we should definitely talk after those.
00:06:21
Speaker
And as far as meeting up, I think like it's nice that the world is getting to the point where that can be a little bit more normal. Like, um, I was doing some work, uh, last week, like in the office and it was alongside some else. We have a policy, you know, you need to wear masks, obviously when there's other people around and we were doing that. And, but I was just thinking like, you know, as soon as this guy is vaccinated, then we're like, good, right? Like we don't have to worry about that anymore.
00:06:53
Speaker
Could interact a little bit more And yeah, I don't know I'm looking forward to it more than I thought I would be because I
00:07:02
Speaker
We were less, I was less deprived, I think, than other people who are more outgoing. I was just like, oh yeah, everybody's staying inside and sitting at their computers and oh man, that's got to suck. So is it more so it's just the normalcy aspect of being able to be near somebody without having like that kind of shifty, I don't know what your comfort level is slash how vaccinated you are. Like staying this far away. Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker
legitimately yesterday I went for a walk and there was like a family taking a picture and they're like hey can you take a picture I'm like sure so I walked over the guy handed me his phone like our hands touched I took a photo spark I said yeah who's the one yeah
00:07:43
Speaker
Short circuit of the phone, unfortunately. I was like, how did the picture come out? He's like, oh, it's good. I'm like, okay, cool. And then they said thanks. And I said thanks because human interaction is basically a thanks you to. And then I left. And afterwards I thought, I don't know if those people were vaccinated. They were just outside. They were family. They weren't masked up, obviously.
00:08:07
Speaker
But it didn't even cross my line until after the fact. Right. Yeah, it's like you kind of if people are out and they're walking around without masks, you kind of just have to assume that they're vaccinated, that they're taking care of it. I mean, like because the reason the way I think about it at least is I don't want to be responsible for negative impacting negatively impacting anyone else's health. Yeah, that's right. Like I probably am not breathing the virus given that I'm vaccinated.
00:08:32
Speaker
but it could be on my hands or something like that. I just don't want to be a conduit for that. That was the whole reason behind being vaccinated besides being in a slightly more susceptible group.
00:08:48
Speaker
So that was my main concern, but we're getting to the point where people are outside and they're not wearing masks. You kind of have to just assume that they're vaccinated. There's not really going to be a difference. And you have to
Social interactions post-vaccination
00:09:00
Speaker
just kind of assume people are taking care of their own health, which it's not maybe the most realistic assumption.
00:09:08
Speaker
I think it comes down to if it's a group of people you know, you have a 99% confidence of where they're at and what they're doing. So with that family, again, I don't know the situation, but since they all know each other, whether they're friends or family, they know where they're at. So it's an assumed risk or not a risk at all. Whereas I wouldn't go hang out with
00:09:37
Speaker
a bunch of strangers that apart like someone's throwing a birthday party in like two months and like 50 people are invited. And I know none of them. So we have one mutual friend who we're like, yeah, we're not fucking going. Why would we do that? We're both fully vaccinated at this point. But
00:09:56
Speaker
I don't know about all these other people and it's not going to be a, you know, how people say like, Oh, it's gonna be a socially distant thing. It's like, yeah, for the first three minutes. Right. Yeah. It's like, are we going to use a condom during sex? Yes. For the, for like, we'll say that we are for the sake of three minutes. I mean, that's the entire duration. And then you take it off. Exactly.
00:10:19
Speaker
But yeah, it's, um, people go through the motions initially, but it's, once you get back into the interaction, it's very easy for it to break down to let me go back to what we were used to. Right. Just he was hanging on a couch within six feet. Right. Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
It's perfectly fine to cuddle. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, no, I think people are social. You put people in social situations and especially after all of this social deprivation, they're going to strive to be more social. So how's it going for you? Right. People are largely they're going to need to, I think, take care of themselves a little bit here and.
00:11:04
Speaker
be a little bit honest. And if you're like, I know people who haven't yet had the opportunity to go get vaccinated. I know it's like much more easy to do now, but that doesn't mean everyone's got it for different reasons. And they'll just tell you, you know, like, hey, this is the reason I'm wearing a mask, you know, and go with that. But
00:11:27
Speaker
I mean, other people on the street, you just got to kind of, yeah, trust them, right? We're going to get to that point where things just open up, masks aren't required indoors or outdoors. And, you know, we were just like, I hope that you've at least over the last year got to the point where you can take care of yourself.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be like anything else. Just have a certain degree of caution in the same way with drivers on the road. Sure, you know how to drive. You assume other people know how to drive, but you still check your fucking mirrors because they're dumbasses, right? Right. Mm-hmm. Maybe you look back and somebody is speeding at 90 on a back road because they just want to get somewhere really quick. I got to get my groceries. They're saying. Got to get the bread and milk.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, but speaking of taking care of yourself, Bioshock 2 opens with Delta shooting himself in the head.
In-depth Bioshock 2 discussion
00:12:21
Speaker
So cautionary tale there. Don't do that. So so Bioshock 2, we've covered every other game in the Bioshock series, not necessarily all the DLC.
00:12:35
Speaker
One of which, the reason I paused was because I said C, and I was like, it wasn't one of them burial at C, it was. Yeah. Yeah. So my brain just kind of like hit those wires. But we've covered the major games, accepting Bioshock 2, which is kind of the...
00:12:51
Speaker
Um, I'd say like the black sheep of the series a bit. Um, it came out two years after Bioshock one, it was developed by a sister studio, I think. So this is 2k Marin or Marin Marin. I think it's Marin. And then also published by 2k.
00:13:11
Speaker
And as a whole, I don't think had the same impact or splash as Bioshock 1 or Infinite did. I like the term splash there. But yeah, it's, I mean, obviously Bioshock was the first of its kind. Now, like the genre was already there, so to speak, but it definitely had more of a hefty thematic touch. Right. Where it got people height for Bioshock.
00:13:39
Speaker
Bioshock is the word spiritual successor is used a lot, but it's the spiritual successor to System Shock. Yeah. But any sequel, especially Bioshock 2, is going to have that curse of I need to fill the shoes of
00:13:57
Speaker
doing something off of the back of this. So I need to still keep some core aspects of it. So people still know it's Bioshock and it's familiar. But at the same time, it needs to do something fresh and new. So it's not like it's Bioshock 1 again. Right. There's more Bioshock.
00:14:18
Speaker
And I think I don't know if they're completely successful in that. It does kind of feel like here's more Bioshock. So one of the defining aspects of Bioshock was like the awe and wonder of the descent to Rapture. There's that iconic introductory sequence when you're in the bathysphere, like looking out over the city. The music swells, Andrew Ryan's telling you about his grand vision. And for people who
00:14:44
Speaker
Like, haven't seen that and didn't know about Rapture necessarily. You know, probably maybe just a little bit from previews. It's like an awesome moment. That's completely incapable of being recreated within the same area. Right. Like, and so Bioshock also taking basic Bioshock to taking place in Rapture. I feel like is it inherent disadvantage there because Bioshock has that novelty. Yeah, it's.
00:15:15
Speaker
You're not showing anything new. You're like, hey, we're here. You're picking up where you left off, so to speak, but not with necessarily the same cast of people who you're used to. Right. It almost feels like a spin-off, in a way, where it's like, hey, you know this thing, this thing, same universe. Yeah.
00:15:39
Speaker
That's how it felt to me at least. I mean, it is a hundred percent is the main, like the macro level defense or just differences is what I'm trying to say. Not defenses. Um, between Bioshock and Bioshock two are some gameplay additions, a few, um, a few system improvements.
00:16:00
Speaker
Same rough locale some new art in certain locations things like that, but for the most part it feels It's the same city right there is no reason to make it feel different And then an inversion of the philosophy of the main antagonist Like there's some other themes and things kind of in there, but that was largely I think how it was portrayed And implemented
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, I from what little I was able to play of it before I had to switch over to spectator mode. Yeah, because this game has crashed on me religiously probably six times across my attempts to oh, I think I'll finally get around to playing Bioshock 2. Each time is like nah, you get like an hour or two. But yeah, it very much felt to me like it was
00:16:54
Speaker
kind of more of the same. But like you said, the main flip was the inversion of philosophy from Maria, Maria, Jesus, Dr. Lam, Sophia Lam. And it was like, I like some of the stuff that they did with it, but it wasn't,
00:17:16
Speaker
enough of a thing for me to be like, that was a great succession. Right. I'll touch up more on why later, when I look at the games as a whole. But how did you feel getting back to Bioshock 2? Because you played this a long time ago, I believe. Yes.
00:17:33
Speaker
So we played the, for reference, we're playing, we're covering the remaster now. Um, our, uh, it, it looks very pretty and looks kind of as pretty as I remember it, which is kind of the, yes, the point of a remaster. Um, and I actually had a lot of fun in Bioshock too, like playing through, I also suffered some crashes. I think I had like four.
00:17:53
Speaker
And the game doesn't autosave very often, I think, just on area transitions. And some of the areas are quite large with multiple objectives. So unless you're using quick save specifically to mitigate this, you could suffer the same fate. That's really unfortunate. I don't remember that being an issue the first time I played, but it could have been there. It's been a long time. But yeah, it's a return to a return to Rapture for me, right?
00:18:22
Speaker
I think I've played through probably three times now, maybe in total, but maybe two. He's the try-hard. That's why he's like, Jake, Jordan is always by his co-host, Dave. This guy just watches the games. Well, I mean, you couldn't play the game. That's another reason, I think. It's justification. More of a self-deprecating humor than anything. But was it good to get back to it from what you were remembering?
00:18:50
Speaker
I do think and like, if it wasn't for, so crashes cover a multitude of beneficial changes, to be honest, they mitigate a lot of good things. I think that Bioshock 2 mechanically is a better game than Bioshock 1. It just doesn't have some of the same pole that Bioshock 1 had. And like, there's a lot of novelty to it.
00:19:19
Speaker
Also. Well, yeah, kind of the big thing, if anybody doesn't know, is instead of playing a guy, you are now playing as a big daddy. Yep. Which, I mean, big daddy was like the cool big bad type from Bioshock 1. He's like, that's really cool. They're like, what if you could be one? What seems kind of cool? But like, plasmids is also kind of another big thing in Bioshock. They're like, you can also have plasmids. I'm like, OK.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah. And there's there's like a lower justification for all of it. You play as your character is Johnny Topside. This is his nickname because people don't know what his real name was. He like, how did he get down?
00:20:01
Speaker
I think he was just a deep sea diver. Yeah, he accidentally stumbled upon Rapture. Yeah, he just found it. And so people kind of revered him as like, you know, this this outsider just stumbles on it. But Andrew Ryan's like, yeah, government spy. Same thing as like what he thought Jack was in the shop one. Right. Let's let's just test a bunch of touch, test a bunch of plasmids on him.
00:20:29
Speaker
And, you know, it totally dies to see what the effect is. And it just doesn't die. It just keeps using plasmids and getting stronger and resisting.
00:20:39
Speaker
And that's why he has a special suit. So they're the Alpha series of big daddies. The big daddies in Bioshock have that bulbous, large suit. They're like diving suits, basically, right? And the Alpha series has some ropes attached to it. And they're a little bit more light. They're a lot more agile. Like, oh, jeez.
00:21:05
Speaker
Um, but not as resilient as big daddies. You can actually tell the difference in this game. Cause you'll go up against like tumblers and Rosie's and other variants of big daddies. Um, and then also deltas or like alphas, office series, I should say. And alpha series, you can just take out with like two harpoons. You're just like, all right, I'm good.
Gameplay mechanics of Bioshock 2
00:21:28
Speaker
I guess it's, um, it's more of a diving suit than like armored plating. Yes. Yeah.
00:21:35
Speaker
So, but it does, it also like justifies gameplay implementation for you playing Delta. You do have the drill arm, which you can kind of just like hot swap out for weapons, which is hilarious. Like, I don't know how that works. Um, yeah, but, uh, like you should have. Yeah. The more I think about, I don't know.
00:21:56
Speaker
Like how you actually on the alphas, do they show that like the drill is their hand? I don't think any of the other alphas actually use a drill. I think the others use weapons. They use like guns and stuff.
00:22:08
Speaker
Okay. And then maybe it's, I'd have to go back and rewatch some footage, but maybe it is just like you're holding onto a drill. Yeah. You just grab it. Very impressive grip. Yeah. Right. Like spitting hand, the claw. You guys can't see it, but Jake is like shaking his hand back and forth. Like he's trying to disorient the small baby. Yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
But it's a worthwhile concession because it feels really good to use the drill. There's like a fuel meter and you can like either tap attack to like just ram with the drill real quick to just like hit them or hold to like do the actual drill motion as though you're the first splicer that gets attacked by a big daddy and Bioshock one. It gets impaled and all of his organs removed.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, and it does hit stun against a lot of enemies if you're using the active drill like burning fuel. So if you're like playing on a harder difficulty or something, you just really can't afford to take another hit. You're just like, well, we're just going to be here. This is this is your fate. I'm going to I'm going to burn some fuel and you'll stand there.
00:23:14
Speaker
That's interesting. I always feel like Bioshock has a lot of hitstun options because of the plasmids. Yeah. You can like shock people with lightning. There's traps to like knock people up. Not in that way. There's like freezing people. I don't think fire does any hitstun, but no, I don't think so. Bees count. Bees also cause people to fail about
00:23:41
Speaker
Do bees make the Big Daddy variants flail? I don't think so. I think Big Daddies are immune to most types of CC. Lightning affects them for a short period of time. But in particular, I know you can freeze them, and this one at least, because I got the winter blast maxed out.
00:24:04
Speaker
At which point, if you max out any of the elementals, you get them to three. It turns into a beam if you hold the attack, where you just chill hand and just a wave of frost comes out. And you just fill a freeze meter on whatever you're attacking. And I found almost nothing, including little sisters, or big sisters. Sorry. Little sisters are different. I mean, you can kill little sisters? Hold on.
00:24:29
Speaker
That's true, right? But not with combat abilities. Big Sisters, which are like actual tough fights. You can freeze them solid. Damn. Yeah. We should touch on some of the mechanics that we mentioned, I guess. So how did you feel? Because you do start as a big daddy, there's still big daddy encounters, like where you're fighting other big daddies.
00:24:57
Speaker
And they, they have more health than you do if you're playing on harder difficulties, at least probably still as your normal, because they have like the full suit and you're in a alpha, but big sisters. How did you feel about their inclusion in the series? I liked the idea to a degree. It is weird because like they're very much, a lot of the variants are very standalone to Bioshock too. Yeah. And they didn't really go anywhere with it. Um,
00:25:25
Speaker
But it's kind of like a very sleek down. I mean, obviously it's the male to female transition for any type of archetype. Um, but they're like very fast and they jump around and they throw more shit. Yeah. But maybe it was for me for what little bit I got deployed in the first few hours, but they felt almost, I don't know if it was a, a cut scene type of fight, but they felt exceedingly difficult compared to anything else. Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
Not like meat sponges, but up there. Yeah, they have like they have both incinerate and telekinesis, like just as plasmids they can use. They definitely have a lot of health more than their armor would necessarily justify, because they're basically in like not like a zero suit level of tightness of skin suit, but definitely like a diving suit as opposed to like armor.
00:26:26
Speaker
with still the iconic rounded helmet on it. But yeah, they're supposed to be tough fights. I think you get them, their scripted encounters, every certain number of little sisters that you deal with one way or the other. Right. And big sisters are little sisters, correct? I think so. I can't remember exactly where.
00:26:53
Speaker
Their origin was, I know Sophia Lamb is making them instead of like Andrew Ryan making the, and Dr. Sue Chong, I think from Bioshock One, making the big daddies.
00:27:08
Speaker
but I believe that they're grown up, little sisters. Does that work? That might actually violate continuity because I think the little sisters are biologically immortal, so they couldn't age, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure where they come from, actually. It's a good question. Something I'll look into later. Not really, but for the sake of
00:27:31
Speaker
They're remaining inquisitive. Take inquisitiveness. I mean, I am curious, but it's it's not something I need to know. Yeah, I mean, I'll probably I'm going to end up looking this up like right now. OK.
00:27:45
Speaker
But yeah, they are like Sofia's lambs, Sofia Lam's like implementation sort of of the big daddy. But in particular, they don't like you. They don't like subject Delta at all. Because Sofia Lam does not like you.
00:28:03
Speaker
Because you're trying to take her daughter. Yeah. So apparently, lore wise, at the beginning of the game, you have her daughter as a little sister. Yep. So she got converted to a little sister by other means. You were her assigned protector. There's that bond between you two. And then she recovers her daughter on little sister's her. And then you kind of like wake up from a coma 10 years later.
00:28:32
Speaker
to be like, I got to get my daughter back. That's kind of a thing. Well, after she shot, she has you, she uses hypnosis on you to make you the hypnotized plasmid to make you shoot yourself in the head. I do like the plasmid tie in. Yeah. Like that's very in game. Cool. Yeah. And subject Delta is like, again, Johnny topside. He's like one of the first big daddies, obviously alpha series. Um,
00:29:00
Speaker
but he has like, and they go into it in the game, but he has a bond. He's like tied to Eleanor, which they've stopped doing for later big daddies to bond them specifically to little sisters. Because if something happened to the little sister, the big daddy would just like walk outside an airlock and never be seen again. Like you just walk along the ocean floor until he died. Yeah, it's very much a,
00:29:27
Speaker
I don't have a reason to live anymore. So like their body shuts down like a coma or they would just die. Yes. Yeah. If Eleanor's heart stops, he goes to a coma. But if he can't find her or something, then he is immensely distressed. It basically drove them crazy. But I mean, that's that's rapture for you. There was never anything cool or interesting without like a terrible, terrible side of plasma.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, the entire biological process of using little sisters together, uh, Adam from slugs. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'm sure they had this in Bioshock one. I'm sure we talked about it, but I recognize it again in Bioshock two, the little sister needle where they're like harvesting Adam from dead bodies, there's like a giant gun.
00:30:15
Speaker
on the back of it in the little container. There's a little nipple fake nipple from like a bottle. And then like she drinks from it. I'm like
00:30:27
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, it's freaking gross. There's a sequence near the end of the game where you play as a little sister. And I think about this. I think this is one of the shortcomings of the game. They don't include that in the animation when you're stabbing people with a needle together, they're at them. They don't have you drink from the bottle like the little sisters do. Because I guess they must have just made the call that would be a little bit too gross. But I was like, you see them do it in the game. Just drive it home. Why pull punches here?
00:30:56
Speaker
Since you brought that up, one complaint I had with it. Well, first, I did think it was cool when you got to play as a little sister and you kind of see the world through a little sister's eyes and rapture is not dark and dreary. It's this beautifully ornate place with like white curtains. Everything's very clean. Nothing's drab.
00:31:18
Speaker
but then they'll have little splotches of like reminders like, hey, you're in rapture. So kind of switch back to a standard view. But like you're walking by people, right? But like nobody's harassing you as a little sister.
00:31:35
Speaker
There's like there's a few exceptions, like if you approach a guy that's behind these like caged bars, he like reaches out towards you and then it flashes back to reality and you see he's like losing it and like trying to grab you. But in general, not all of the splicers, you see them with the masks, right? Like the I think so, like bunny masks and like operatic masks and all these other the masquerade that's basically ongoing in Bioshock because people can't stand their own faces.
00:32:05
Speaker
for a lot of reasons. But the reason not all of them attack you or try to get you is because some of the splicers realize that attempting to harm a little sister is literally death. Ah, okay. So it's a self-preservation thing. Right.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah. Like little sisters, there's a couple instances of splicers like, all right, we can gang up. We can take down the big daddy and try and like harvest the Adam from this little sister. But if you fail, you're dead. And even if you don't see the big daddy at this point, you got to think about the fact that like big sisters are around. I did look it up. They are little sisters that grew up. So you are correct. And their minds are basically like,
00:32:50
Speaker
like impossible to reconcile still. So they just continue the conditioning and turn them into useful big sisters. It's, you know, happy things.
00:33:04
Speaker
But yeah, it was, I enjoy the experience of playing as Delta. Like you said, you wake up in the vital chamber, like, um, 10 years later, uh, after being shot, after he shoots himself in the head and it's like, okay, the main plot of most of the game is get to Eleanor. Um, and she helps you out. She can like telepathically speak to you for some reason.
00:33:26
Speaker
And one of the things they expand on a little bit, and this is one of the changes I'm not like a huge fan of, but they kind of, they hint about what Adam can do as far, like plasmids literally, but also there's like ghosts in Bioshock 1, which is like the supernatural.
Lore and the role of Adam in Bioshock
00:33:51
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of them, but you can see them and like hear their conversations.
00:33:56
Speaker
Um, and the implication is because Adam is, and the plasmids you've taken up to this point, um, can actually store memories. Um, and then in Bioshock too, they're like, yeah, that's a hundred percent how it works. Like, like, yes, Adam's completely store memory or Adam completely stores memories. And if someone had all of the Adam, they would have all of the memories from all these people. It's basically prototype.
00:34:21
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know. It's weird. Yeah. It's a little too, I don't feel like it's fully justified or necessarily completely needed really. And because of that, Sophia is like overarching plot. She wants to create the first utopian or somebody without self, um, who like cares about everyone equally. She's very much crazy actually. Um,
00:34:52
Speaker
but also harder to empathize with than Andrew Ryan, who's pure capitalism. We're closer to that than being able to empathize with pure utopian. And so it doesn't really, at least for me, it doesn't hit the same way.
00:35:12
Speaker
No, they're definitely both extremists in that regard. No question about it. There's flaws with pure capitalism and pure. Like collectivism there. Yeah. I don't want to say communism because that's not the most accurate term for it.
00:35:33
Speaker
But yeah, kind of the main grievance is like you as Delta trying to save Eleanor, your little sister is because like if she was to become the first utopian, her purpose, her sense of self, being a person basically is being stripped away from her for this greater good goal, which also isn't great.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, but if we had somebody like that and we didn't have to like do any of the messy bits, how cool would that be to have somebody to be able to like take care of everybody who's super smart and helpful, right? There's I'm going to spoil one of the endings for Deus Ex the original. So like fast forward two minutes if you care about that for some reason. But this is literally one of the endings where depending on your choices, JC can use like
00:36:27
Speaker
nanobots to merge all consciousness of like the people on Earth into a collective consciousness. And he just acts as like the super AI director, ensuring that people's needs are taken care of. And like, depending on your philosophy, that could be good. It could also be absolutely bad because it's the there is no privacy. There is no sense of self. All needs are facilitated by the whole. And that's what Sophia Lamb wants.
00:36:56
Speaker
Well yeah, this gets touched on a lot in
00:37:01
Speaker
different media. I'm going to call the Bible media for a brief moment. Sure. Literature. Yeah. Regardless, it's written. Plot-wise, here's God's kind of thing, right? He wanted to give humans free will, and this is taught a lot in Christianity, so that they could have a chance to be redeemed under him. Not getting any deeper than that for the time being, but it's the ability to make our own choices correct or not.
00:37:30
Speaker
to live our lives as ourselves. And even with The Matrix, when Agent Smith is talking to Morpheus, he's like, we actually tried to make a utopia once, but people couldn't comprehend it. They couldn't process it because there were no flaws at all. There was no struggle. Part of human nature is
00:37:56
Speaker
Working towards something having something that's your own whether It's earned you made it over time Whatever the fuck that is. That's just part of being a person. Yeah
00:38:09
Speaker
So not having that at all is spoopy. It is spoopy. In fact, like one of Dr. Sofia's, it's a line she says really early in the game, but she basically, they really build her up as the antagonist. She's kind of just a douchebag or two in particular, like more than she needs to be. They should have made her empathetic in some way and they really don't. But one of the early lines she says is,
00:38:33
Speaker
Speaking to Delta, because she doesn't know why you're here, the last time she saw you was a decade ago when you shot yourself in the head, as per her orders. And she says, who would be so cruel as to show a mirror to a man who has no face? And I'm just like, a writer wrote that line. But also, it's like a really good line.
00:38:58
Speaker
kind of like you don't really have an identity. You don't have any memory of anything that's just happened. And this is her philosophy, right? Like you shouldn't have a concept of self. You should serve the collective. So having individuality and making your own choices, things like that is detrimental actually to the overall good. And she takes it, the issue I have with Bioshock 2 is she takes it further
00:39:27
Speaker
than realistically is plausible in real life. Whereas when we played Bioshock 1, you're like, yeah, I guess if someone set up a city and there was literally no regulation and people were literally just trying to make as much money as possible or advance themselves as much as possible, and there's an oligarch controlling all of this, I could kind of just see Rapture happening, massive scientific advancement.
00:39:56
Speaker
And then everything goes to crap because there's no regulation and there's no one to say no. And then hers is like crazy by comparison. It doesn't seem nearly as doable. Yeah, it's also the way she seems to recruit people.
00:40:20
Speaker
So she has like a background in psychiatry. Yes. She seems to manipulate almost all of the people who you encounter or hear loads from, not always in like a, this is completely aggressive amount to
00:40:40
Speaker
kind of like supersede your own intentions, but it's definitely like, oh, you're feeling sad about this. Do you know what could relieve that sadness? Working with the family and kind of building up this idea of we all need to work together. Again, not in like a PBS kind of way, but more of a culty kind of way. Absolutely culty. Butterflies all over the place.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah, if you have if you have an emblem you're a cult I'll say Yeah, I mean it's even in that's the part of the part of the thing like I've played other games that like have cult aspects Far Cry 5 good example of a more recent one, but like the Drive to the hole. It's just like oh you need purpose. This is really how she found purchasing and rapture was like
00:41:33
Speaker
these people initially just needed, you know, good mental health. And she was brought down to supply that. And Andrew, there's voice like some dialogue where Andrew Ryan's like, if this appeases the weakest links of the great chain, then sure, I'll bring her down.
00:41:52
Speaker
He's so derisive to her. It's just so good. But she's brought down initially for that. And then people are ready in this really confined environment where they don't have access to all of these mediums and things above.
00:42:10
Speaker
to have a greater purpose and Andrew Ryan doesn't give that to them beyond themselves. If self advancement is not enough for you in Rapture, then you're going to be unfulfilled because that's what his entire society is built around. Well, for her, it's like also have to make it and take it for yourself. So let's say your neighbor, so to speak, is more successful than you or steals from you or whatever the fuck it is. Again, there's not really regulations in place.
00:42:41
Speaker
So if somebody gets a leg up on you, you're kind of fucked. So again, this is getting like socioeconomic shit where it's Bioshock, right? Yeah. Let's say you're not well off. What are you going to look for? Oh, an option that would possibly have me be well off or would provide something of value to me and mine. Right. How do you improve your standard?
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah, because like let's say you don't have the option to go out and do it for yourself but there's a group of people who are willing to work with you or a part of society that's going to help lift you up. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like a pretty good buy-in. Yeah, a sense of belonging. You can belong somewhere and that absolutely exploded and culminated in
00:43:31
Speaker
Andrew Ryan using Fontaine, people remember him from Bioshock 1, probably do, he's the ultimate antagonist. Best boss fight ever, oh my god. No one's ever said that. But uses Fontaine to make her disappear basically in holding.
00:43:53
Speaker
For a while make her vanish get her out of the public eye without actually killing her apparently which ironically Would have I mean Bioshock still would have gone to crap But there wouldn't have been all the events of Bioshock too if that she was just killed instead of held. Yeah Maybe they were concerned about turning her into a martyr, but they basically did by capturing her anyways causes this massive explosion of influence and
00:44:18
Speaker
And then after Andrew Ryan and Fontaine die, because Bioshock 2 does take place after Bioshock 1, then she can just claim the city, basically.
00:44:31
Speaker
And I guess that's all fine. It doesn't have the same pull. Like that part of the plot, the whole utopian thing, her philosophy, none of that has the same gravitas to me as like literally Delta and Eleanor. Like Eleanor.
00:44:48
Speaker
I would argue she's a great character just through the audio diaries. You can listen to all of these audio diaries of her as a kid. And she's adorable. She's always talking about how she's like, she's like, mother says that the reason that I'm different from the children out there is because the children out there
00:45:07
Speaker
are part of a dog eat dog world. And then from that point on in all of her child audio diaries, she refers to them as dog eaters. And she's like, I was playing with a dog eater. And it's it's like it's the most human sort of like little kid dealing with all of these like macro problems bigger than herself in a childlike way implementation that I think it's freaking great. I will say I like the
00:45:37
Speaker
the audio logs of Kid Eleanor, but everything else I'm not a fan of. OK. So now we're going to touch on the other Bioshock. So Bioshock 1, it's really cool because it's a brand new thing. It's this whole Ayn Rand philosophy brought down upon you. You get to explore Rapture and all of the interesting characters in there, and it's very compelling. In Bioshock 3, which is Bioshock Infinite,
00:46:05
Speaker
you have a voiced character as Booker DeWitt, and then you have the interactions with Elizabeth and going through that whole thing. And it gets you invested because there's character interactions and a chance to build. In Bioshock 2, I feel like you have a 10 second cutscene, and then you're like, go save your little sister. There's telepathic messages here and there, and you should care.
00:46:31
Speaker
You remember Rapture? Go, go, go. And that's what the game feels like to me. So when they have stuff with Eleanor, whether it's through the telepathy, or later on in the game, spoilers. I mean, it's just I don't know, it doesn't. I don't know why I should care at that point. Gotcha. I mean,
00:46:55
Speaker
I think that's fair. They don't really emphasize because you're talking about the macro driving plot line in these games, right? You mentioned that Sophia Lamb was not necessarily compelling for you as an overall plot. You're more interested in the Eleanor and Delta relationship. Right. Yeah. So I was just saying that for me, they're equally not doing so much.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think part something that could have been improved in the early game is give more of a driving force. So they use the amnesia trope starter kind of thing. Like in a way, you know that you were a big daddy. You know you were shot in the head. You don't know anything else about your character when you start out. So one of the driving things is just like find out who you are and what's going on.
00:47:42
Speaker
That's okay. That's a ramp. That's the auto starter on the roller coaster. Amnesia always gets you a couple hours of intrigue. Right, exactly. Because you're curious. You want to figure out what's going on. I think that they do take too long to drop in. Eleanor, her mother's growing suspicious. There's a particular line where she's talking to you after she gives you one of these care packages that's delivered by Little Sisters, which she literally controls.
00:48:09
Speaker
Um, because of like the sheer amount of connection and Adam she has. Um, but, uh, she's like, uh, I know my mother can't know that I'm talking to you, but she's staring right at me right now. And like, uh, she has like a cold look in her eyes or something like that. And, um, if they would have introduced some of that, like here's actual danger to Eleanor, that would be fine. But instead they go for this, like.
00:48:38
Speaker
unless you can find her, your body will shut down because you're still linked. Um, approach, which is like, okay, but there's really no impact on gameplay. It's just periodic. Like, Oh, my heart, you know? Yeah. It's not enough of a driving force. Yeah. It's a,
00:48:57
Speaker
I will say it hasn't been done. It definitely has, but I still feel what you're describing is a shitty implementation of the, here's a kind of nebulous thing that you should care about.
Bioshock 1 vs 2 narrative motivations
00:49:08
Speaker
And then occasionally we'll just put something that will interfere with gameplay. So you're like, Oh, that thing. Right.
00:49:15
Speaker
I mean, I would love to contrast this to the first Bioshock though, right? Like, because Bioshock 1, the driving force is, you are just put in a situation, plane crash, interesting. They use spikes of interesting to like keep you going. Lighthouse, interesting. Rapture, really interesting. But then it's not until like Atlas starts manipulating you. He's like, oh, the story of my family, all of this stuff, you need to go kill Andrew Ryan. You need to go deal with him.
00:49:45
Speaker
that becomes sort of the driving force. But still, it's been a long time since I played the original Bioshock. I think behind all of that was just I was enjoying the game more than like
00:50:01
Speaker
man, I really got to kill Ryan, right? Like I really got to go. It was all means to an end. So like Bioshock one, Bioshock two, all of the Bioshocks, the game structure is I have a goal. Yeah. Oops. There's a roadblock. I need to go solve the roadblock first. And you keep having this kind of moving objective throughout the game, which I mean games do in general. Um, and then along the way you meet like,
00:50:29
Speaker
a cast of characters that kind of flesh out the universe, but they're always antagonists. You never meet somebody who's like, hey, we're going to be buds. I actually want to disagree for this one, but I'll leave it at your point.
00:50:43
Speaker
I was going to say, but with Atlas, it seems to be like, granted, you don't know the whole scheme or structure of Bioshock at this point. You're like, oh, they're just helping give direction to help me get out of the city. If I scratch his back, he will scratch mine. Atlas is empathetic. He's like, you want to work with Atlas. He's friendly and he helps you out. Grab that wrench. Give him the one-two punch. One-two punch.
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, you're not gunning for Ryan at any point. It's just like these are the subs I need to do to resolve my current situation of being trapped here. Yeah. Atlas does try to angle you there, particularly with the sub that like he sabotages or like destroys and he's just like, no, my family. And you're just like, oh my gosh, Atlas, I'm so sorry. Yeah. But even like that is something that happened to make you more
00:51:39
Speaker
invested. Yeah. You're like, OK, Atlas is a voice on the phone, but like, oh, this is my friend Atlas. Something bad happened to him. I want to help him. Exactly. Which is like. That is the theme of Bioshock 1, right? Manipulation. Would you kindly, right? They literally reference it as the WYK initiative in Bioshock 2, because Lamb finds out some details about it.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just saying Bioshock 2 did not seem to have that for me. Yes. I'm mixed on this one because some of the characters are like, I think Sophia Lamb is sort of a trash character just because
00:52:21
Speaker
She's too crazy. She's not a degree of reality separated away. But other characters are more kind of interesting. So they both do the same thing you could do in Bioshock 1, where you can save or harvest little sisters. There's a mini game of wave defense to fight off enemies. And I think that does help you use plasmids. You would otherwise not use and make them useful, like traps. That's cool. But for the most part, you still have the same moral choices. Do I kill or not kill this person?
00:52:51
Speaker
Do I save or not save the little sisters? For Bioshock 1, the only one I think that mattered was... Actually, you didn't have the option to kill NPCs in Bioshock 1. They were always boss fights. The only example was Cohen. I think you could kill after completing his quest or leave him there.
00:53:13
Speaker
You had to go out of your way to find him, correct? You had to go through his area and you had to go take a bunch of pictures of corpses after making corpses. He makes you go through his challenge gauntlet, but I don't think you don't face him, correct? You face him at the very end when he comes out to admire the work. There's the lights and he's gesturing and he's like, this is my magnum opus. And you can choose to kill him or attack him, start the boss fight at that point or just leave.
00:53:41
Speaker
In Bioshock 2, there's three characters, maybe four, that you have the option to kill or spare. And I think that's where I wish those characters mattered more because some of them have interesting personalities, like Grace is an elderly woman that
00:53:56
Speaker
is with Sophia Lamb, and she calls you like a demon. She's like a devil. She helped take care of Eleanor when she was a little girl, and then she saw Eleanor as a little sister walking alongside you. Later you find out what also set that in motion, but she blames you for all of this.
00:54:15
Speaker
But if after wiping out all of her splicers, actually confront her and then just grab the key off her table and leave her there, she starts to have this moment of introspection she's talking to over the radio. And she's like, a monster doesn't do that. Choose not to kill a man chooses that. Which a little evocative, maybe a Bioshock one. Man chooses. But I like that. Because she starts out antagonistic.
00:54:45
Speaker
But if you choose to spare her, she has a moment of development. And she's like, I think that Dr. Lam is wrong about him.
00:54:54
Speaker
And then there's another guy, I'm not going to go through these abbreviated a little bit more. There's another guy who said all of this in motion. He actually was the one that got Eleanor initially sent off to an orphanage and turned her into a little sister. Um, and he killed everybody in Dr. Lam's entire like section. She had like a specific, um, region of Bioshock, uh, of Rapture, I should say Bioshock's not the name of the city.
00:55:21
Speaker
Um, he kills everybody because he doesn't want anyone to be able to tell her that he got Eleanor turned into a little sister, like mass murder. You can choose to kill him or not. He essentially flooded a whole exhibit, almost like a, a park. Uh, cause they're all sections, right? Like he flooded the whole thing to kill anybody who could possibly know about what he did. So that's a few land would not find out. Exactly.
00:55:51
Speaker
And that's the most like one of the most justifiable people to kill and Then the last guy is like a huge atom monster Basically, and he wants you to kill him. He gives you all these he's like I'm devolving into insanity I'm gonna leave audio logs so you can take care of me like put me out of my misery regardless of what I say And then you have the choice to kill him or not and
00:56:21
Speaker
Like a couple of those are kind of like ambiguous, but between that and whether you help her hurt the little sisters, it impacts what ending you get because Eleanor, because of like the linking, like she calls you father. Um, she sees you as literally like a very strong paternal father figure and her personality develops based off of your choices.
00:56:46
Speaker
So you get different endings depending on how brutally you interact with Rapture. And if you're like ultimately brutal, then there's a final scene where like Sophia, you guys like are escaping through like a submersible going to the surface and she just like lets Sophia drown. She just kind of like just holds her there to keep her from like getting in the air and just like, nope, here's where you go. And in other endings she, you know, gives her a rebreathing. I do like that.
00:57:16
Speaker
Cause a lot of games will give you choice like that and then it just, it doesn't matter. It's just kind of the moment to moment gameplay. Am I playing as an asshole or am I playing as a, I don't want to say white knight, but just, you know, a generally good character.
00:57:31
Speaker
But then to actually have that feed in later, it gives weight to your actions. I remember at the point where later on, she's like, oh, I'm going to handle the other little sisters the way I learned from you, Father. Yes. And you're like, oh, shit. Because if you look back, you're like, I killed every one of them. Then she's just killing every one of them. But at that point, she takes their care, probably, for your play through.
00:57:58
Speaker
It's just it's nice to have it be connected versus that specific one off. She mirrors like the sort of the personality you've exhibited to some extent up in the game. And I think that's that's nice. So it's like it gives you some people like need a mirror to actually feel introspection. So you're just like, oh, yeah, I was I was like killing all the little sisters, but I got more Adam that way.
00:58:25
Speaker
But then if you see her like with her giant needle arm thing that just like rips Adam out of people and you're just like, I'm actually not comfortable with her killing kids. Whoops. Maybe you shouldn't establish that precedent then, Mr. Delta. Also, this is a side. This is a side thing. I just want to mention it.
00:58:46
Speaker
One of the coolest animations in the game that Big Sisters have is if a splicer is nearby, like a single splicer, they'll telekinesis the spicer onto the atom syringe on their arm, like the actual drain thing they used to harvest atom, and then just literally drain them dry, healing while they're attached to the syringe and throw them behind them off to the side. It's like a pyramid head-esque
00:59:14
Speaker
animation of throwing somebody up against a wall. And it's freaking great. Eleanor does it at the end, too.
00:59:25
Speaker
And there's a bug or something because her dialogues also always like really brutal in combat as though you're playing like, uh, the most evil play through. And she's just like this, this one died alone. It's like, uh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess, but I mean, I'm trying to be the good guy. Take that you fucking fuck. We don't use that language in, in rap. It's really funny.
00:59:54
Speaker
But anyways, I do like the climax. I like that your decisions feed into the end. There's when you're going through is a little sister, there's statues of Delta facing up against the different people. And it's like, how did you deal with anti-grace? How did you deal with this guy? How did you deal with this guy? Like, are you pulling the man outside of the serpents mouth or are you like, you know, stabbing an innocent person through the chest? And there's like statues depicting the choices you kind of took.
01:00:23
Speaker
Let this be a lesson to any parents listening. Yeah, your kids are gonna make statues of the ways that you deal with different situations so I Like that that was that was the reason that I like Bioshock too. I think more than Other people do
01:00:41
Speaker
I was about to say, choose your next words very carefully. I mean, I think it's not justifiably not the most like popular game. Like Bioshock Infinite does have better characters, it has better characterization and then better pacing and like really vertical gameplay. And it's just the best one, right? Like Bioshock Infinite is basically the best one.
01:01:09
Speaker
But I felt like this is Dark Souls again. I know. Because you're like, three is the best one. One was obviously good. It kind of set the standard. Mechanically, two is good. I don't really hate two. I know a lot of people don't like two as much. But I feel like it's OK. But mechanically, two is one of the best, one of the better ones in the series. An improvement over one. And nobody ever plays two. Anyways.
01:01:34
Speaker
What was your takeaway from this, though? Because I know, like, I would say, arguably, you may be a fan of Bioshock Infinite. No, don't look at my wall or his body. Well, technically, my body, the tattoo is just it's a rapture that they're all. Yeah. So that's not from infinite. Yeah. Right. Per se. But.
Bioshock 2's shortcomings vs predecessors
01:02:04
Speaker
As I went through this on YouTube, I was reminded because I think I went and watched this like four years ago type thing because I had a little bit of nostalgia or some deja vu about it, I guess, more so deja vu. But whether it was watching on YouTube, my overall cynicism
01:02:27
Speaker
or just as I get older, I like to mentally piece things together to see what comprises something. For me, I felt like I saw a lot of the seams in Bioshock 2 of how it was kind of built off of one. I think if I played too fresh when it came out after one,
01:02:47
Speaker
I would have enjoyed it a lot more and would be looking back on it more fondly. Um, I didn't find some of the characters along the way as compelling, but again, I'm at this point experiencing it after one and three. Yeah. I was going to say named four characters from Bioshock one Andrew Ryan. Okay. That was a given Sandra Cohen. Uh-huh. Oh, it's definitely a top two.
01:03:18
Speaker
I know we've mentioned another one by name at least. Su Chong's just a dick. He's a scientist. He's like, I care about progress and I hate kids. Yeah, we know. That one counts. Okay, I see your point. This is a memory test. This is a memory test. I wasn't throwing in Atlas as a freebie for the last one.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, the people you run across are just as forgettable except for Cohen, who is like freaking great exceptional across all three games. Dr. Steinman. All right. There's a lot of time. But yeah, it's like one and two both have forgettable people you run across. I think they don't really matter. Yeah, I think. And then there's Cohen who's just really good.
01:04:00
Speaker
I think one was just heightened because it's an extreme craziness of something. Yeah. Whereas two is much more. This is a human person in a situation. Yeah. So like Grace's actions and the other two guys who I don't think either of us can remember the names of like some of their stuff seemed justified from a human nature standpoint. Right.
01:04:24
Speaker
for whatever reason, they just didn't stick a whole lot. Yeah, I think it's fair. It's less creative to just multiply the philosophy by negative one and then ship it as a game. That's the antagonist philosophy. That's the least compelling part of Bioshock 2.
01:04:42
Speaker
where it was part of the defining aspect of the world of Bioshock 1. And in that way, like two just can't live up. It's just, you can't just be like individualism, collectivism. You're like, all right, but I mean, collectivism is kind of just, you know, the opposite. That's not super creative.
01:05:02
Speaker
It's not, but I digress. I'm reminded of a Prosy D video where it's like discussing Marvel antagonist. What if it's like.
01:05:14
Speaker
dark guy and he's just a really really bad guy but he's like you know just uh you know the dark mirror of another character that already exists yeah yeah the anti the uh dark link sort of sort of thing what if it's not mario but it's it's wario yeah it's like we get it it's it's not the most inspired idea yeah i get why it's done but
01:05:41
Speaker
I remember when it came out, I was like, was this like hedging against the anti-capitalism sort of themes in the first one? You're just like, oh, no, collectivism is also bad. You're like, yeah, we kind of got an extreme of any of these implementations on the bottom of the sea would be bad. You didn't need to make a game about it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, I you can you can watch so much.
01:06:07
Speaker
media about the philosophy of Bioshacks. I think we've basically covered it enough.
01:06:13
Speaker
Infinite's credit is they don't touch on that, or they touch on that a little bit less than the rest. They're like, hey, religion can be bad in certain circumstances. You're like, I mean, that's not like, I don't feel like that's a controversy you'll take, but the gameplay is good. So we were good with it. They kind of, they do, they step back into the game. It's not just religion. Like it's definitely a part of it. Yeah. But then they'll have characters who are like,
01:06:41
Speaker
I forget the name of the guy who at Finkton, Finkton Industries. Yes. And how he's essentially creating like, I want to say like a slave situation. Company story. Literally. Yeah. It's very much like oppressing people, but without calling it that. Yeah. Or you'll see touches on racism in the Ashok Infinite a lot. That's true, actually.
01:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, it did more outside of just like you're saying, turning individualism on its head. It's like, well, what about this? Because nobody left Bioshock 1 going, all right, what's the ops of individualism? Like, I got to get on board with that. And then two years later, you're like, oh, fuck. It is kind of funny that it's like you need to have a social issue, at least one to have a Bioshock game. Like,
01:07:36
Speaker
It's kind of hilarious that Bioshock is also just like an introductory philosophy course. We're like, you know, social economics course or a racial diversity course.
01:07:53
Speaker
It basically is. I feel like that's how they pick the themes for Bioshock. They're just like, all right, let's look at the the one on one curriculum here. And that one turns interesting. Let's make a game about that. Well, Bioshock four is going to be about gerrymandering, gerrymandering and the gays. All right. I would actually love to see a Bioshock where it's just like, all right, this one's like something super specific.
01:08:19
Speaker
Right, they're just like, this one is about handicap inclusion. They're just like, I don't know, surprise us 2K.
01:08:33
Speaker
But not that much, actually. Like, surprise us a little bit. Good surprise, not bad. Don't surprise us, open world, I guess. Yeah, I guess. Just remake the game if that's what's in progress. It could be good. It probably won't be. It could be good. But anyways, that's Bioshock 2. So, I don't know. It's a game.
01:08:54
Speaker
Yeah. If it crashed less, I would recommend it actually. Our friend Ian has also thoroughly enjoyed the multiplayer from what I'm told. Oh yeah, that was a thing. That's not something I ever got to try for obvious reasons. I don't know how much you did of it. Like zero. Okay. I didn't play it when there was people playing Bioshock multiplayer, let alone this, but like modern day.
01:09:21
Speaker
That's kind of the problem. I think like they had, I think it was a different studio developed it. So it didn't like eat into development, but if you're optimizing for future soapstone podcasts, don't put multiplayer in a game that will be 10 years old, 10 years later.
01:09:40
Speaker
Don't make multiplayer. Yeah, let's just remove multiplayer from everything. We'll just we'll all sit in Discord and stream. We'll make AIs that will use voice chat and call your mother things.
01:09:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh, might as well, might as well. But if you guys have episode ideas for games you'd like us to cover, you could always send those in. Be like, hey, there's a Bioshock-like game and it's better than the whole series. Man, we'd love to hear about that. Send that in to soapstonepodcast.gmail.com. Or you could join the discussion on Facebook, which presumably still exists. What? What?
01:10:25
Speaker
Sorry, I cut you off. No, you're fine. What was the, uh, what was the order? I would say obviously, you know, our Facebook, it's still soapstone. Um, but it would also be really cool if anybody wants to share this with anybody, whether it's just word of mouth. Um, so then we'll post a note piece of mail or a blanket.
01:10:47
Speaker
Just because, I don't know, if you liked it and got something out of it, maybe somebody else would too. Or maybe you can cut that person out of your life because they don't like our podcast. Yeah. I mean, that should be the defining criteria, I think. Um, yeah, actually screw Facebook. We're not even putting Facebook. You want to find the Facebook information? It's in the description. Otherwise in postcards.
01:11:10
Speaker
Your parents will love to hear from you. Anyways, you should send them a postcard, tell them about the podcast. If your parents enjoy this type of podcast, you know that they're cool parents. So if any of you need to know if you have cool parents or not, use our podcast to help them decide. Yeah. As always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:11:43
Speaker
When night is creeping and I should be sleeping in bed
01:11:49
Speaker
If you were peeping, you'd find that I'm weeping instead. My loving daddy left his baby again. Said he'd come back, but he forgot to say when. Night after night, I'm crying. Daddy, won't you please come home? Daddy, won't you please come home? I'm so awesome.
01:12:18
Speaker
No one can fill a vacant house.