Bioshock 1: opaque critique of objectivism/libertarianism/science-for-profit
Bioshock 2: critique of… spiritualist collectivism? it’s weird. more like a cult than anything I guess.
Bioshock Infinite: critique of Amerikan exceptionalism, history, and civil religion. The people fighting against the Amerifascists are indicated to be communist/socialist, and wouldn’t ya know it they’re just as fucked up if not more in some ways! wtf all sides bad?
I may be misremembering specifically Bioshock 2, haven’t played it in a long time and its story was a bit more forgettable than the others imo.
edit: talked with someone else who knows more Bioshock lore than I do, and in Infinite the socialist-themed group, Vox Populi, is actually the vanguard of a fucking slave rebellion in Columbia. So not only is it both sidesing America fetishism and socialism, but equating slave-owners with slave liberators.
Bioshock 2 was boring, I didn’t finish it but to me it seem like they just stuck to the mechanics the the story took a second seat. With all its flaws, though, I think Bioshock got to be a great game not so much because of its achievements as a work of art but of how it helped change the industry to open up to new paths, even if they weren’t the firsts to do this kind of things.
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I may be misremembering specifically Bioshock 2, haven’t played it in a long time and its story was a bit more forgettable than the others imo.
edit: talked with someone else who knows more Bioshock lore than I do, and in Infinite the socialist-themed group, Vox Populi, is actually the vanguard of a fucking slave rebellion in Columbia. So not only is it both sidesing America fetishism and socialism, but equating slave-owners with slave liberators.
Bioshock 2 was boring, I didn’t finish it but to me it seem like they just stuck to the mechanics the the story took a second seat. With all its flaws, though, I think Bioshock got to be a great game not so much because of its achievements as a work of art but of how it helped change the industry to open up to new paths, even if they weren’t the firsts to do this kind of things.
Bioshock’s narrative can be boiled down to the following essential statement: “Not helping people at all is bad, helping people too much is also bad.”