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nano_mooseHay gais! My work schedule is kicking me in the ass. Alkdjjksal. I leave too early to post and come home too tired to think, and so instead stare dolefully at my screen and download things. Like the Bioshock soundtrack! :D
Speaking of which, as anyone who has chatted with my over the past week knows, I bought an Xbox 360 and an Xbox 360 copy of Bioshock.
Things I have learned not to do: finish the game I spent far too much money on the weekend I bought it. Why.
Totally worth it, though. Every penny. Now I am ridiculously tempted to buy the copy of Atlas Shrugged I happen to know has languished in our local second-hand shop for the past eight months, so I can make fun of Andrew Ryan with a solid basis in his ideology. I'm on my second run-through, and I must warn you: when playing it, be thorough and read all the diaries, otherwise the story will make absolutely no sense. It is like FFVII in this way.
Atlas makes me aww. He really does. Waxing lyrical about his wife and calling Ryan the "bloody king of Rapture" and sounding upset over random people and just generally being slightly worrying but also endearing (and Irish). Er - but the game does go a little over-the-top with the violin music as he implores you to save his wife and kid. (Also, dude, stop being so optimistic. Stop it. This is a Ken Levine game. Things do not go well for people in Ken Levine games when they have high hopes.)
The Big Daddies are my favourite AI's, I think. The first time I worked up the courage to train a weapon on one and pull the trigger, it let loose a godawful roar, seemingly flew across the space dividing us, and hit me like a Mack Truck. I had to physically check that I still had all my teeth. Later, I was crouching beneath some stairs watching a throwdown between a BD and some Splicers - I saw the BD pick up the Little Sister and carefully put her behind him, where she would be protected, as bullets whizzed around them. It was...strangely adorable. She even went "Wheeee!" There's something endearing about such huge, brutal creatures displaying gentleness, and I always felt a bit guilty after killing them, even though the game requires it (or at least, is extremely difficult to complete without it).
I like the Splicers a lot, too, though. They're very chatty and well-voiced, and someone must have spent hours upon hours thinking of stuff for them to say. I had one memorably scream "I just want a hug!" while he swung his lead pipe, and a cat-masked woman demand I "clean it up, clean it up!" They have little moments of interaction that made me crack the hell up, like one trying to get another to stop following him by resorting to explosives, and Steinman's creepy little rant about how everyone is ugly, ugly, UGLY!!111!!!!!
Ooh, speaking of combat. I'm very much of the 'meh' school of enthusiasm when it comes to combat unless it is particularly awesome, and I'm kind of upset that I wasn't given the option to peek around corners or hide in shadows. That's probably just my Thief fangirl showing. On the other hand, it is entirely possible to send an army of security bots after a Splicer as you lob a flaming teddy bear at it and electrocute it as it heads for water then finish it off with a swipe from your trusty wrench. This does not even take into a account all the cool things you can do with traps, or stuff like hacking gun turrets, or the universal joy of the flamethrower. I predict dozens of TTLG threads over the coming months with the topic "Hey, look at what I just did!" Or at least, when they're done bitching over how it wasn't exactly like System Shock 2 and it's all the fault of the console players.
The device with the logs playing as you play, with characters talking to you as you fight, why hasn't that become more popular? It's one of those motifs unique to gaming and a powerful storytelling tool, yet the most I see is the occasional rambling boss-monologue. Is it a side-effect of the push to make games more cinematic?
Attention all game designers: That section with Sander Cohen? That is how you do a linear sequence of events. Also, how you voice-act a whackjob. Wonderful, wonderful.
Somebody find the art team, so I can personally hug each and every one of them. That is if they haven't been put to death so they can never make anything more amazing for another company. Rapture is a veritable masterpiece of crumbling, Art Deco once-beauty, and the water - and the light - and - and - and...
The detail. Man, the detail. Drifts of leaves and petals and confetti, cracked tiles, spattered blood, striated rainbows in oil, the reflection of fire on water. Flickered lightning, shimmering ice. It's all so lovely!
Would you kindly scroll back if you haven't finished the game? I mean it about the spoilers.
Ryan asks you what you've built. Combined Half-Life 2/Thief 2 reference? I think so.
There's the glorious moment when you approach the city's center - the power core built on an underwater volcano, from which the city draws its electricity. The tunnel you walk through is drenched in orange light, with stark black shadows cast by the bracing pillars. It's beautiful, giving off a tangible feeling of heat, when the rest of the city is so clammily cold.
Fuck, man, the "Would You Kindly" revelation deserves some kind of award. Watching gormlessly as my own hands beat Ryan savagely, beyond my control, watching him crawl forward and scream defiance through his smashed lips, his broken mouth...god.
I'm going to be lynched for saying this, I just know it, but the plot lost a lot of momentum after Ryan's death. I think it was because the death itself was so powerful, and I couldn't really fear/admire/pity/hate Fontaine in the same way I did Ryan, though Fontaine did his best. I did feel myself going cold with rage when he mocked me about Atlas. His voice-acting is extraordinary - that slow, permanently mocking inflection, full of slangy asides, such a contrast to Ryan's clipped eloquence.
The chain tattoos on Jack's wrists? My guess is that they're Fontaine's idea of a joke.
So, Ryan's death, huh? I've seen people wtf-ing over that he ordered it, but I'm pretty damn sure he was trying to prove a point - a man chooses, a slave obeys. He chose to order you to kill him. You obeyed. He knew he would have died anyway, and he'd set Rapture to die with him. All that remained was to go out in style. Ryan is hardcore.
I think that Bioshock had two themes, really. One was the difference between reality and ideals, and the other was family. The latter felt like it came out of left field until I started to think about it a little - who are the people guiding you through Rapture? Ryan, Fontaine, and Tenenbaum. Father, stepfather, stepmother. They all made you and helped you and cared, in their own ways. (Fontaine, of course, didn't understand family, since he never really cared about you, personally. Ryan was too crazy, too wrapped up in his ideal, and he didn't work it out until the very end, but he refused to raise a hand to one of his blood. Tenenbaum did understand and tried to guide you into being a good person, and whether she succeeded or not was up to you.) Family is everywhere - in the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, in Fontaine's intricate lie, in the rambling diaries of Rapture's citizens, even in the Splicers (woman stroking a gun in a pram and whimpering about how she misses when her 'baby' used to be 'warm and soft'. Oooh, topical.)
What used to be here: a rambling comparison between Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Metal Gear Solid 2 all being to various degrees examinations on the relationship between video game and player and scathing commentary of humanity's willingness to submit to whoever looks most friendly when uncertain. I'm far too tired to reason it all out now. But it's there. Hmm, will other modern games start to take this route as they grow more mature and technology becomes less of a hindrance? Quite possible.
It is an awesome game and all of you must play it at some point so you can prompt me to write fic for it. However, I understand if you wait until the price goes down, since my bank account is still whimpering from the blow.
Speaking of which, as anyone who has chatted with my over the past week knows, I bought an Xbox 360 and an Xbox 360 copy of Bioshock.
Things I have learned not to do: finish the game I spent far too much money on the weekend I bought it. Why.
Totally worth it, though. Every penny. Now I am ridiculously tempted to buy the copy of Atlas Shrugged I happen to know has languished in our local second-hand shop for the past eight months, so I can make fun of Andrew Ryan with a solid basis in his ideology. I'm on my second run-through, and I must warn you: when playing it, be thorough and read all the diaries, otherwise the story will make absolutely no sense. It is like FFVII in this way.
Atlas makes me aww. He really does. Waxing lyrical about his wife and calling Ryan the "bloody king of Rapture" and sounding upset over random people and just generally being slightly worrying but also endearing (and Irish). Er - but the game does go a little over-the-top with the violin music as he implores you to save his wife and kid. (Also, dude, stop being so optimistic. Stop it. This is a Ken Levine game. Things do not go well for people in Ken Levine games when they have high hopes.)
The Big Daddies are my favourite AI's, I think. The first time I worked up the courage to train a weapon on one and pull the trigger, it let loose a godawful roar, seemingly flew across the space dividing us, and hit me like a Mack Truck. I had to physically check that I still had all my teeth. Later, I was crouching beneath some stairs watching a throwdown between a BD and some Splicers - I saw the BD pick up the Little Sister and carefully put her behind him, where she would be protected, as bullets whizzed around them. It was...strangely adorable. She even went "Wheeee!" There's something endearing about such huge, brutal creatures displaying gentleness, and I always felt a bit guilty after killing them, even though the game requires it (or at least, is extremely difficult to complete without it).
I like the Splicers a lot, too, though. They're very chatty and well-voiced, and someone must have spent hours upon hours thinking of stuff for them to say. I had one memorably scream "I just want a hug!" while he swung his lead pipe, and a cat-masked woman demand I "clean it up, clean it up!" They have little moments of interaction that made me crack the hell up, like one trying to get another to stop following him by resorting to explosives, and Steinman's creepy little rant about how everyone is ugly, ugly, UGLY!!111!!!!!
Ooh, speaking of combat. I'm very much of the 'meh' school of enthusiasm when it comes to combat unless it is particularly awesome, and I'm kind of upset that I wasn't given the option to peek around corners or hide in shadows. That's probably just my Thief fangirl showing. On the other hand, it is entirely possible to send an army of security bots after a Splicer as you lob a flaming teddy bear at it and electrocute it as it heads for water then finish it off with a swipe from your trusty wrench. This does not even take into a account all the cool things you can do with traps, or stuff like hacking gun turrets, or the universal joy of the flamethrower. I predict dozens of TTLG threads over the coming months with the topic "Hey, look at what I just did!" Or at least, when they're done bitching over how it wasn't exactly like System Shock 2 and it's all the fault of the console players.
The device with the logs playing as you play, with characters talking to you as you fight, why hasn't that become more popular? It's one of those motifs unique to gaming and a powerful storytelling tool, yet the most I see is the occasional rambling boss-monologue. Is it a side-effect of the push to make games more cinematic?
Attention all game designers: That section with Sander Cohen? That is how you do a linear sequence of events. Also, how you voice-act a whackjob. Wonderful, wonderful.
Somebody find the art team, so I can personally hug each and every one of them. That is if they haven't been put to death so they can never make anything more amazing for another company. Rapture is a veritable masterpiece of crumbling, Art Deco once-beauty, and the water - and the light - and - and - and...
The detail. Man, the detail. Drifts of leaves and petals and confetti, cracked tiles, spattered blood, striated rainbows in oil, the reflection of fire on water. Flickered lightning, shimmering ice. It's all so lovely!
Would you kindly scroll back if you haven't finished the game? I mean it about the spoilers.
Ryan asks you what you've built. Combined Half-Life 2/Thief 2 reference? I think so.
There's the glorious moment when you approach the city's center - the power core built on an underwater volcano, from which the city draws its electricity. The tunnel you walk through is drenched in orange light, with stark black shadows cast by the bracing pillars. It's beautiful, giving off a tangible feeling of heat, when the rest of the city is so clammily cold.
Fuck, man, the "Would You Kindly" revelation deserves some kind of award. Watching gormlessly as my own hands beat Ryan savagely, beyond my control, watching him crawl forward and scream defiance through his smashed lips, his broken mouth...god.
I'm going to be lynched for saying this, I just know it, but the plot lost a lot of momentum after Ryan's death. I think it was because the death itself was so powerful, and I couldn't really fear/admire/pity/hate Fontaine in the same way I did Ryan, though Fontaine did his best. I did feel myself going cold with rage when he mocked me about Atlas. His voice-acting is extraordinary - that slow, permanently mocking inflection, full of slangy asides, such a contrast to Ryan's clipped eloquence.
The chain tattoos on Jack's wrists? My guess is that they're Fontaine's idea of a joke.
So, Ryan's death, huh? I've seen people wtf-ing over that he ordered it, but I'm pretty damn sure he was trying to prove a point - a man chooses, a slave obeys. He chose to order you to kill him. You obeyed. He knew he would have died anyway, and he'd set Rapture to die with him. All that remained was to go out in style. Ryan is hardcore.
I think that Bioshock had two themes, really. One was the difference between reality and ideals, and the other was family. The latter felt like it came out of left field until I started to think about it a little - who are the people guiding you through Rapture? Ryan, Fontaine, and Tenenbaum. Father, stepfather, stepmother. They all made you and helped you and cared, in their own ways. (Fontaine, of course, didn't understand family, since he never really cared about you, personally. Ryan was too crazy, too wrapped up in his ideal, and he didn't work it out until the very end, but he refused to raise a hand to one of his blood. Tenenbaum did understand and tried to guide you into being a good person, and whether she succeeded or not was up to you.) Family is everywhere - in the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, in Fontaine's intricate lie, in the rambling diaries of Rapture's citizens, even in the Splicers (woman stroking a gun in a pram and whimpering about how she misses when her 'baby' used to be 'warm and soft'. Oooh, topical.)
What used to be here: a rambling comparison between Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Metal Gear Solid 2 all being to various degrees examinations on the relationship between video game and player and scathing commentary of humanity's willingness to submit to whoever looks most friendly when uncertain. I'm far too tired to reason it all out now. But it's there. Hmm, will other modern games start to take this route as they grow more mature and technology becomes less of a hindrance? Quite possible.
It is an awesome game and all of you must play it at some point so you can prompt me to write fic for it. However, I understand if you wait until the price goes down, since my bank account is still whimpering from the blow.
