Monthly Archives

July 2019

066: Bioshock

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We take a stroll through Rapture and see what Andrew Ryan has built.

Developer: Irrational Games | Publisher: 2K Games  | Release Date:  August 21, 2007

Mike, Jacob and Moe share stories about the great year 2007 was for games, how they came to Bioshock, and whether the twist holds up in the current day and age.

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Players: Michael Ruffolo (@ruffolom), Jacob McCourt (@JacobMcCourt), and Moe Murtadi (@mmurtadi)

Website: LeftBehindGame.Club | Twitter: @LeftBehindClub | Instagram: @LeftBehindGameClub

Show Notes (spoilers):

  • 2:00 What did we know about Bioshock coming into this?
  • 4:30 Bioshock was like going to Disney world
  • 5:10 2007 was a great year for games
  • 7:25 Expectations were high and it broke Mike’s heart playing it again
  • 8:15 Do the game mechanics age well?
  • 8:40 “The Citizen Kane of Games” and Roger Ebert
  • 10:10 How did we play it? PC, console, original and remaster
  • 11:58 What is Bioshock and how does it start?
  • 13:15 Morality system and consequences (or lack thereof)
  • 13:50 Who is Andrew Ryan?
  • 15:30 Splicers and Atlas
  • 16:30 What does the game look like? Answer: dark and creepy
  • 19:10 Rapture feels like a character
  • 20:00 This game still looks good, and looked great back in the day
  • 20:45 What are Plasmids?
  • 22:00 What is Adam and Eve and where did it come from? Sea slugs and superhumans
  • 23:15 “Little Sisters are Demons”
  • 24:00 Big Daddies are like momma bears and just as tough
  • 26:00 How did you take down Big Daddies?
  • 28:00 Incinerate and Shock
  • 28:50 Plasmids and the wrench
  • 30:15 Jacob feels the gameplay is dated
  • 32:30 KOTOR is the best game ever made and Mike’s co-hosts are trollish dickheads 🙂
  • 33:30 The AI is really good
  • 34:20 What are your favourite parts of the game?
  • 38:30 Jacob and Mike geek out over Fort Frolic and Sander Cohen
  • 41:30 What did you do with the Little Sisters? Jacob McCourt is a bad man
  • 45:00 Tennenbaum and the different endings
  • 48:30 Bioshock and the illusion of choice
  • 51:00 Frustrated with a second playthrough
  • 52:00 The bad PS3 port made Mike happy
  • 53:20 Jacob felt it drags on and doesn’t end well
  • 54:00 What we felt about the ending
  • 55:00 Randian Objectivism and the politics of the game
  • 59:00 Simple impressions on the sequels, Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite
  • 1:01:00 LBGC connection to Bioshock 2
  • 1:03:00 What’s next for Ken Levine?
  • 1:04:30 Sharing our final thoughts and takeaways
  • 1:05:20 Mike almost got a regrettable Bioshock tattoo