Comments on: Levine meets Objectivists

By: John Hummel

John Hummel — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:00:31 +0000

I think the comment on extremes is accurate. I don’t think we’d want to live in a “purely” Objectionist world (who would be the police, or the fire department? Some people might pay for Cop Squad A, others for B, and the guy with the most money would win when they “bought” the best police force).

On the other side, clearly a true “liberal” world view would be just as bad (last time I checked, there aren’t enough Jesus personalities to make it work). This game seems to take the view of “OK, what happens when you go waaaaay to far one way” – which is cool to explore those ideas (much like System Shock 2 explored the Many).

Something like Fallout seems to explore the middle – what happens when society has to rebuild from scratch, and all philosophies other than “survive” are thrown out the window.

Anyway, I’ll probably pick up Bioshock once I’ve finished with System Shock.

By: Ryan H

Ryan H — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:04:43 +0000

Games can make serious and meaningful arguments. Which is more than one can say for Ayn Rand.

By: Grill

Grill — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:34:16 +0000

And of course Fontaine is “neat info” and Tenenbaum is “Enema Tub”, pointing to an entire tub girl in-game subtext… :P

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:02:38 +0000

No, we got that one Gril. I didn’t want to do any hand holding.

Also, the irish bloke’s called Atlas. Atlas!

By: Grill

Grill — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:00:54 +0000

I don’t have to point out that Andrew Ryan contains a anagram of Ayn Rand do I? Well, I’m going to anyway.

By: Simon Westlake

Simon Westlake — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:06:44 +0000

The wonderful thing about this post is that it shows you that some games can stir up (somewhat) meaningful debate.

It gives me a bit of hope that are still people trying to push games in the right direction.

I still remember the joy (and terror) of playing SS1 when I was fairly young and, the older I get, the less and less interested I am in most games. I thought for some time that this was just a part of getting old but I sometimes think it’s a sad fact that most games today pander to lowest common denominator and they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Although I can definitely see the dumbing down of Bioshock, I still think there’s enough in it to take me back to the days of yore. I hope, anyway..