Episode Notes:
In an attempt to decrease the length I decided not to do an intro and get right into it. This ep is finally getting into the meat of what drew me to the series: the off-screen conflict between Ryan and Fontaine. Next episode will close the book on Elizabeth and Columbia, but full disclosure, I’ll be taking a break from this world. Just really wanna cover other games! We’ll revisit Rapture in another video or two, but this will be the final bit of Bioshock content for a while.
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A Declaration:
Welcome to the Gameological Dig, a channel devoted to playing games with obtuse and interesting stories. The aim of this channel is to treat these game worlds like an archeological site, meant to be unearthed and studied, so that we may better understand their plots, characters and themes.
Game Notes:
The game’s concept was developed by Irrational’s creative lead, Ken Levine, and incorporates ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller. The game is considered a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, on which many of Irrational’s team including Levine had worked previously.
BioShock is set in 1960. The player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Built by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, the city was intended to be an isolated utopia, but the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which can be used to grant superhuman powers, initiated the city’s turbulent decline. Jack tries to find a way to escape, fighting through hordes of ADAM-obsessed enemies, and the iconic, deadly Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and eventually learning of Rapture’s past. The player, as Jack, is able to defeat foes in a number of ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture’s own defenses against them.