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There'll be a short delay on the next few episodes due to Covid concerns. Our recording day got nixed because Tea's dad had Covid symptoms and he was awaiting test results. (He's fine)
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Aug 23, 2020 02:15
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Good to hear the scare was a false alarm.
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Aug 23, 2020 07:32
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anilEhilated posted:20 episodes in, Tea buys his first plasmid slots! The challenge run is over.
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Aug 24, 2020 04:20
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Aug 24, 2020 23:14
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So if you don't raid those corpses outside Ryan's office, does he still taunt you and call you a parasite? And the "solution" to get into his office sounds like something made for strategy guides/FAQ writers.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:00
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I am a little disapointed that Tea didn't explore fort frolic more carefully. There's some good stuff (mechanically and otherwise) in the optional rooms.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:10
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Shooting Cohen in his smug disaster of a face is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Pity Tea won't have the satisfaction of killing him later though.
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Aug 25, 2020 06:43
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I think Tea's missed a number of vignettes throughout the game and the (un?)timely demise of sander Cohen is another. I suspect they wouldn't have the intended impact even if he had found them though. Interesting how actively subversive he's being throughout. Sometimes feels like he's going through the motions but enjoying it because couch co-op is always fun, but then comes out with some pretty astute observations that show he's clearly paying attention.
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Aug 26, 2020 08:48
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It was very difficult to keep a straight face after his observation at the beginning of this episode. I really didn't expect that out of him which shows you how much I know.
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Aug 26, 2020 09:58
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I kinda wonder whether Tea's occassionally-totally-on-point observations are him watching out for obvious clichés or having absorbed the impact Bioshock had on storytelling in other games.
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Aug 26, 2020 17:52
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 Sorry for the delay everyone, we should be back to a regular schedule!
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Aug 31, 2020 23:00
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One thing that bugs me about this point in the game is that the upgraded basic splicers, tommy gun leadheads and electrified thugs, are annoying bullet sponges compared to the rest of the enemies in the game.
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Aug 31, 2020 23:48
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Finally, Tea's insane hacking style bit him in the posterior. I've been expecting that this entire LP. Apart from that, I expected the Big Daddy to take a bad hit when you mined the oil slick, but not nearly that bad. ((Also, your "LP Beach" thread link goes here instead of the other forum))
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Sep 1, 2020 02:38
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Still working my way through the backlog. I'm up to episode 12, and Youtube's auto-generated subtitles thought Natural 20 said "Obama's Market" when he said "Farmer's Market".
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Sep 1, 2020 06:13
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Huh, Ryan really does seem like a parasite. He doesn't actually bring a whole lot to Rapture besides making a place where a whole bunch of other people could create stuff without worrying about "morality" or "will this kill me and everyone I know". Like, we know that Cohen made "art", and Steinman did surgery (and "art"), and Fontaine ran "orphanages" and sold plasmids (and given the trend I'm assuming "art" somewhere), but Ryan... doesn't actually seem to have produced much.
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Sep 1, 2020 08:41
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He's an Industrialist(TM) he doesn't need to actually contribute anything beyond the initial investments.
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Sep 1, 2020 08:47
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I always assumed he owned all the 'land' in Rapture and was charging everybody else through the nose for rent and utilities. One of the audio logs also mentioned something about him 'cornering the market on fish futures', and I think a lot of the plamids are marked as being Ryan Industries. Honestly that's the kind of thing you can't think too hard about, because if you start to ask 'wait, if they aren't allowed to import anything from the surface, then where are all the factories that make their toilet paper and wine bottles and t-shirts?' the entire premise of the game falls apart.
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Sep 1, 2020 10:36
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You can hand-wave the toilet paper factories' absence away by saying a) the player doesn't see all that much of Rapture except what's right next to the biggest tube stations b) by the time the player gets there, it's all gone to pieces anyway. But, video games, etc. I think I like Bioshock's plot a little more than Tea does, conceptually and how it is presented, but I have to agree with him that Ryan in particular is a very ham-fisted caricature brought to life (as it were), a golem built of Ayn Rand books. And the common criticism of Rand, courtesy here of Bob, the angry flower,  is so far embodied in Ryan in that he's only investing capital he already had accumulated earlier, be it to build Rapture in the first place, or corner the market on food and breathable air and what have you.
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Sep 1, 2020 10:49
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Gothsheep posted:I always assumed he owned all the 'land' in Rapture and was charging everybody else through the nose for rent and utilities. One of the audio logs also mentioned something about him 'cornering the market on fish futures', and I think a lot of the plamids are marked as being Ryan Industries. Isn't that a major plot point (I think already revealed, but spoilered to be safe) that After Fontaine's death, Ryan took over his plasmid business, which angered a lot of people off since he was being completely hypocritical? I remember an audiolog of a guy telling Ryan he needed to set it up as a trust for Fontaine's heir and another with Ryan talking himself into keeping it, but I'm not sure if Tea heard it. So yeah, Ryan becomes the thing he claims to hate. Also one where the designer who created the park complained about how they made this nice park and then Ryan started selling tickets to it. So he becomes the uber-renter, which I'd call a parasite but I suspect most renters disagree.
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Sep 1, 2020 17:32
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Qrr posted:Huh, Ryan really does seem like a parasite.
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Sep 1, 2020 17:53
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, it's almost like objectivism is a load of hypocritical bullshit. Weird, right? To be fair, given that this was written as a critique of objectivisim, that comes off as a little scarecrow-ish. Not that I support Objectivism (I actually know next to nothing about it) but Bioshock ain't exactly an impartial look at the subject matter.
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Sep 1, 2020 18:23
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Still makes more sense than Atlas Shrugged.
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Sep 1, 2020 18:51
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loving Timecube makes more sense than Atlas Shrugged.
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Sep 1, 2020 19:17
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Gothsheep posted:To be fair, given that this was written as a critique of objectivisim, that comes off as a little scarecrow-ish. Not that I support Objectivism (I actually know next to nothing about it) but Bioshock ain't exactly an impartial look at the subject matter. How does one create an impartial look at a subject whose creator wrote about how a serial killer was the embodiment of her philosophy?
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Sep 2, 2020 05:25
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Sep 2, 2020 23:54
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Apparently $50 in 1960 had the buying power of over $430 nowadays, assuming USD.
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Sep 3, 2020 04:32
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Tell Tea to check how much antipersonnel ammunition he has. Just went through the game again, and by this point I'd always be maxed out on some ammo or another. His pistol might have a bunch, and it makes the leadheads less sponge-y. Also Tea is full up on napalm, which is always good for splicers. Basically you just don't want to bother saving ammo so much. You'll get more, so there's no reason not to get crazy with exploding buck or electric gel or whatever.
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Sep 3, 2020 18:45
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Only a few episodes behind now. I can't express how overjoyed I am that Tea is taking a lot more pictures.
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Sep 3, 2020 23:17
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Sep 4, 2020 23:08
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I'm worried about this talk about not needing to take pictures anymore. It's almost as bad as Geop not picking up heart containers in Wind Waker.
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Sep 5, 2020 06:17
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Just caught up and i would recommend you play Bioshock 2 sometime (and it's sizeable DLC Minerva's Den), because in a lot of ways I'd say it's a better game than the original. The variety of combat is much improved and I don't remember the sudden bullet spongeyness from this game being an issue. They did a really good job with the story too given they pretty much had to shoehorn it in to such a strong existing concept. There's also a lot more relatable humanity in it's characters I think and it even fleshes out Andrew Ryan quite well in his audio logs. The one thing it lacks is the one thing it could never have which is the impact of the first time in the world of rapture.
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Sep 5, 2020 09:53
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I never finished 2, but the gameplay was a lot better, I’d also recommend LPing it.
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Sep 5, 2020 21:23
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Sep 8, 2020 00:08
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Man that part is just so dumb. Ryan clearly assumes that killing him is so inconceivable that it is the worst thing anybody can be made to do. And considering the way the scene is presented the developers seem to assume that you would want a choice to spare him. So, I haven't been paying really close attention to the game despite intending to. So can someone tell me if there is any point in the game where you are forced by the code-phrase to do something you wouldn't normally do? You do some dumb things. For example you stab a massive syringe with unidentified chemicals into your arm, and you assist sever crazy guys in their last "artwork". But I don't remember the code-phrase being used there.
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Sep 8, 2020 01:44
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For the record that Spec Ops "you can choose to stop playing" is out of context AND said by one guy who was fond of jerking off about how genius his game was. It was in the context of "there's a lot of ways people can respond to this sort of thing, and if someone decided to stop playing I'd consider that a valid response", not an intended "solution". That game was a character descending into some dark places and taking the player along with him, framed as a... I think deconstruction is the right word despite its overuse... of FPS military games that have similar actions but celebrate them. In that respect Bioshock does the same thing, kind of aknowledges the meta-ness of doing stuff just because it's a quest objective, but the second part doesn't stop giving you quest objectives or expecting you to do them despite being "freed".
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Sep 8, 2020 02:05
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VictualSquid posted:Man that part is just so dumb. This game a weird relationship with Ryan. Despite all the terrible things he does it always lionizes him a bit, respecting him for his "will" and "intellectual integrity" and other bullshit. There's also the niggling notion that Atlas being secretly a self serving criminal instead of an actual champion of the people implies that everything in Rapture was just fine and dandy before the Bad Man did Bad Things. Annecdotally, I've seen several people come off this game thinking objectivisim is rad, which is all that really needs to be said about it's function of a critique of the easiest target possible.
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Sep 8, 2020 03:25
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I think the "surprise" worked better in the time period the game came out. Back then arbitrary fetch quests were pretty much just what games did, and a player was less likely to question it; playing through immediately after launch, I could tell something was up by the mind control angle never occurred to me because I was so used to video game protagonists, well, acting mind controlled. These days there are lots of games that have meta-commentary on that aspect, or at least try hard to disguise how you're being forced into following a linear story. So I suspect it's more obvious to even a blind player that things are being weird. VictualSquid posted:You do some dumb things. For example you stab a massive syringe with unidentified chemicals into your arm, and you assist sever crazy guys in their last "artwork". But I don't remember the code-phrase being used there. I always assumed the first plasmid injection was part of the mind control, though I don't think you actually hear the "would you kindly" for it.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:30
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Spec Ops made sense from a storytelling perspective to deconstruct the American mythmaking and macho militarism in FPS games. You weren't tethered on some leash, you were simply witnessing the storyline, The other thing is that you do get a legitimate in-game choice at the end of it after the plot twist, dark and limited though it may be, which reflects the overall storyline and the themes there. I'm not talking about the developer comment whether to stop playing, I mean the choice you really do get which determines the ending, and has meaning both in terms of the storyline as well as reflecting the player's reaction to the story. On the other hand, Ryan is a legitimate fucknut and everything here has shown you've got well beyond good reasons to ice him, even with all the foreshadowing and shady bullshit from Atlas. I'm not sure how Objectivism figures into it beyond that Ryan himself and the other unpleasant denizens of this city being who they are and what they believe, are the perfect representations of it and its myriad problems, but then again, Objectivists themselves are practically indistinguishable from any other self-righteous citizens of any other imperial city-state in fiction, whether it's a make believe society or otherwise. The other criticism to be made here is that the one choice which would seem meaningful is that you can actually spare the Little Sisters where Atlas was hell bent on getting you to harvest them. Of course denying the player a choice like that and forcing you to kill them would both reveal the plot twist if not in its entirety, then at least build up such a burgeoning hatred towards Atlas that the reveal of him as a villain when confronting Ryan is obvious, and given the particular foundation of hatred built for Atlas most people would have, the backstory of Ryan playing a part in making the Little Sisters established by those tapes would make killing him that much more satisfying.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:46
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mr_stibbons posted:This game a weird relationship with Ryan. Despite all the terrible things he does it always lionizes him a bit, respecting him for his "will" and "intellectual integrity" and other bullshit. There's also the niggling notion that Atlas being secretly a self serving criminal instead of an actual champion of the people implies that everything in Rapture was just fine and dandy before the Bad Man did Bad Things. The funny thing about Fontaine is that he's a better Objectivist than Ryan because he doesn't care about creating an ideologically appropriate utopia to demonstrate the virtues of selfishness, he just wants to take power and doesn't care about property rights or the Non-Aggression Principle. And him using charity to advance his political interests is exactly what every rich person uses charity for, only instead of justifying lower tax rates and garnering favorable news coverage Fontaine was creating an army of mutant guerrillas.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:47
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VictualSquid posted:Man that part is just so dumb. I think the intent was different. The player (almost inevitably) wants to kill Ryan, and they deliberately rob you of that to underscore the entire amoral power play. Then the next part of the game is built around you gaining the freedom to choose your fate.
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Sep 8, 2020 05:31
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