Bioshlock | Castle Super Beast Clips

[@werwolfnate]

In fairness, I felt Fontaine's main strength was that he was just a normal grifter who was able to become super villain levels of powerful by abusing pretty simple and glaring flaws that rapture had. That Rapture was so fucked a dude smuggling bibles could become a kingpin in a matter of years.

[@mindshuffler3332]

What I always thought was interesting about Fontaine is that he isn't even the REAL Frank Fontaine. In the beginning of the prequel novel for Bioshock, a gangster heard about what Ryan was starting up for Rapture and kills someone who was invited to Rapture and took his name.

[@nathanieltodd5767]

Yeah like, the point that Fontaine plays in the game makes sense - he's the guy that Rapture's Objectivist setup actually promotes, he's the sort of dude that rises to the top in that situation. Unfortunately it still doesn't make him that interesting as a final boss.

[@Gatsby3737]

If the player actually engaged in those themes than that might make the character more compelling, but sadly as we saw with the other Bioshock games actually exploring the themes the game sets up was beyond that dev team.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

He's not a normal grifter. He's what rises to the top in an unregulated capitalist society. He's hyper ambitious, amoral and ruthless. He's Andrew Ryan's Frankenstein's Monster. Special guy, him.

[@SyLuX636]

the ultimate con artist, has long he gets what he wants he's willing to discard his identity to get what he wants and he actually was successful until he gets cocky and fucks himself over by his own actions and how he used the protagonist.

[@bigchomp6892]

people hate on Bioshock's ending and wisely so. but I will always love yhat Andrew Ryan's capitalist Utopia was ruined by a single scam artist

[@pickledparsleyparty]

Was Fontaine a scam artist? His company invented Plasmids. That was a legit product that the public wanted desperately but couldn't actually handle. He seems more like the final form of an unrestrained capitalist. Give the market what it wants. Don't worry about what it needs or what it can handle. Idiot masses + ambitious capitalist = social ruin.

[@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

That’s all it takes, really.

[@zanderlavastory]

B

[@tylergaye5457]

To be fair it really wasn't. It was ruined by Ryan himself, he CONSTANTLY did things that went against his free market message. He really wanted a monopoly more than a free market.

[@Guciom]

@@tylergaye5457 Yeah, while Ryan kept talking about individual development but what he was actually doing was establishing a corporate monopoly.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

I said way back during Best Friends that Bioshock 2 is the best in terms of gameplay and everyone thought I got possessed by Pat's Stand.

[@111cvb111]

Totalbiscuit is the one that said it ages ago, so I just agree with the statement.

[@hellaflaws]

Pats true Stand is making you shake the excess milk off your spoon while eating cereal.

[@anonymousnate678]

Bioshock 2 greatly refined the gameplay of the original and took some intriguing narrative decisions. It doesn't quite hold the same enigmatic tone that carries you to the the twist in the original but it still touches on a lot of the same moral and philosophical questions that the first game does in a great way. Probably overall better narrative from start to finish as well it just lacks that big twist moment that the first game had but still had it's own powerful moments such as the decisions to let certain characters live or die and the implications on the endings.

[@Unsupervisedgoat]

Bioshock 2 is my favorite honestly

[@chellejohnson9789]

@@Unsupervisedgoat same. Nothing beats the drill charge

[@Shazbo77]

As a staunch Bioshock 2 defender back in the day, it's very vindicating to see the perception of that game has turned positive over the years.

[@pteroid11]

I fucking loved Bioshock 2

[@conspiracypanda1200]

I played Bioshock 2 because I have a phobia of needles and couldn't handle Bioshock 1's constant first person view of stabbing yourself in the wrist. Also Bioshock 2 has _beeeeeees._

[@MrStath1986]

Bioshock 2 has the best narrative and philsophy vs philosophy moments in the series IMO; I really love the audio tape you can find that basically underlines what Ryan *actually* wanted from Rapture, which is to say he wanted to be alone.

[@franciscoandreyriveracano1459]

People only got butthurt because it was more of an expansion. But bioshock 2 is by far the superior game

[@ledzeppelinfan1001]

Bioshock 2 is the best game lmao

[@jsheeds]

The issue with Fontaine is that he's way, WAY more interesting as a background element in the game's history than as an active, participating character. A guy with no morals and scruples taking advantage of all the inherent problems in a society leading to said society's ultimate downfall before the start of the game? Great. But those exact same qualities makes him not very interesting or compelling as an active antagonist.

[@iannordin5250]

Pretty much. He's a perfect foil for Ryan as he's the libertarian drive without the pretense. In a lot of ways he's everything Ryan actually wished he was and promotes in his society, and being confronted with that drives him to his authoritarian mindset late game.

[@IAmebAdger]

Yup, kind of agree. Fontaine is a pretty good thing to have in the game, but I don't know how to actually make him work well as the antagonist. He was passable, I guess. I didn't mind until I got to the boring boss fight (which they 100% could have made more interesting).

[@MrStath1986]

This, to me, is what made Lamb work as an active antagonist in the second game. Someone who was trying to subvert the society Ryan established and then is trying to make what's left behind work is really interesting, especially in terms of how you can choose to forgive or punish her lieutenants and that intersecting with her philosophy.

[@Dracobyte]

Why is he not interesting?

[@carlosfred8673]

“EHHH I’M A GANGSTER I WANT MONEE! IMA KILL YUZ!” - Frank Fontaine

[@corwinchapman4565]

I am 150% confident that 'the big twist' moment, with the golf club, in order to keep it vague in case anyone hasn't played it, was supposed to be the end of the game well into development, and then everything after that point was created after someone up the chain said 'no no, it needs a big final boss thing, and it isn't long enough'.

[@gorillagravy1781]

I'll stick up for Bioshock 2's multiplayer. Surprisingly fun. Had a cool thing where you could go to your apartment in Rapture and customize your character, search for games, or just chill. Main multiplayer was pretty fun being in classic Bioshock 1 areas, using Plasmids against other players, trapping vending machines and hacking turrets. Plus I like that there was a narrative around the multiplayer, that it's the civil war that was happening right before Bioshock 1. it even has an ending when you reach top rank with a cutscene (I think) of the Bioshock 1 plane crashing into your players apartment.

[@darkpuppetlordful]

I enjoyed the shit outta that Multiplayer

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

Electrobolt+Elephant Gun was a bullshit OP combo but Bioshock 2 MP still had a really fun sandbox and setting

[@george_denbrough]

That actually sounds really badass

[@darkpuppetlordful]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mGS1dHuIo6aSg7c Here's the cutscene. It does a great job setting when the MP takes place

[@samzilla567]

My only beef with it was the TTK was way too high. Other than that, it was really good.

[@HelixSnake]

I'm surprised Breath of the Wild was not mentioned in the discussion of handholding, when the most infamously handholdy company in existence whose last few Zelda games had increasingly long and painfully paced tutorials started a Zelda game with a 1 minute introduction sequence and 1 button tutorial and then set you loose on the full gameplay loop (albeit in a somewhat restricted area) and was a massive critical and commercial success as a result, which unlike Demon's Souls / Dark Souls is noted for its incredible amount of accessibility in complete spite of its lack of tutorializing, due solely to the game design being based around puzzles having large amounts of intuitive solutions. I feel like Breath of the Wild is an even better example of a game whose success hinged on doing a full 180 on industry trends especially those perpetuating from Nintendo in the first place.

[@SIMIFU]

They...forget about BOTW a lot. They recently had a discussion on the podcast about crazy games engines/influential games in the past 5 years and it didn't even come up. I'm sure chat was screaming it at them during the stream but yeah.

[@ceriani1234]

@@SIMIFU botw is the most boring forgetful zelda game, so I can see why.

[@mika9578]

@@ceriani1234 lol mad

[@ceriani1234]

@@mika9578 are you?

[@shinluis]

That first area is the full gameplay loop of BOTW? Good thing I didn’t bother continuing it them

[@Zekana0]

I played the Bioshock games this year for the first time. The actual final boss felt like...why? It wasn't hard. I just kept freezing him and shooting him. The problem was that was it. Just shoot steroid guy to death? Really? The scene earlier with Andrew Ryan was such a powerful moment that I'd have been satisfied if the game had ended right there. Like, you flood rapture and you just watch as your character slowly drowns and that's it. Bioshock felt like one of those few games where a lack of a final boss would have been alright.

[@thelegalsystem]

The final boss is the most criticized part of the original bioshock, and for good reason. He sucks. He always sucked, and everyone just tries to forget that weird ass fight. The rest of the game more than makes up for it, and he plays an excellent villain even if they botched his boss fight.

[@user-ue8il6jx3b]

@@thelegalsystem I don't think it's as bad if you're playing on harder difficulties but if you saved all the little sisters then it's still made pretty easy. Kinda feels like idk maybe they should've saved Fontaine for 2 or something or one of the dlcs for 1

[@thelegalsystem]

@@user-ue8il6jx3b playing through BS1 on hard with no vita chambers was honestly a blast. I think it's more fun that way. Forces you to actually scrounge for food and smokes and liquor in the environment.

[@user-ue8il6jx3b]

@@thelegalsystem I never even tried a no vitamin chamber run but that's cause I usually only go back to one every few years

[@AlakethStrekaret]

Ken Levine just doesn't know how to end games. System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but the last 30 minutes are ATROCIOUS. Bioshock Infinite? Neat ideas, awful execution.

[@SliderGamer55]

My main thought about the Bioshock endgame is that its incredible that after one of the defining plot twists in games in a genuinely brilliant sequence, you then deal with Fontaine, who is most comparable to Grunty the Witch as a villain. Just a villain that exists to taunt you, so you hate them, so you feel good when you defeat them. And Banjo Kazooie did this way better and was aware its villain was a cartoon.

[@tymelthompson4182]

Bioshock 2 didn't have a final boss, it just ended with an arena match against every kind of enemy. And I think that's the best choice that could've been made. There are so many different ways that you can go about it. Traps, hypnosis, hacking, brute force. I would often save right before just so I can do it all over again.

[@darkpuppetlordful]

Big Sister is the final boss, which highlights one of 2s glowing flaws. The big sister

[@supremacistdawn]

@@darkpuppetlordful No she isn't, the "final boss" in 2 is an arena match against every kind of enemy.

[@thedazzolator3670]

It made sense given you spend the whole game fending off waves of enemies with the Little Sister gathers, the final encounter is just a beefed up version of one of those. There's a reason the game gives you a ton of tools for setting traps.

[@joshuareesor1756]

Technically, there is a narratively significant battle against a singular enemy in the form of Subject Omega, which could be seen as the game's last boss. However, he still is not the final challenge and is just one obstacle on the way through the final level, so he's only the "final boss" in a very loose sense of the meaning. He still has many different ways to go about fighting him as you mentioned, there being multiple ways to lure him out of the room and time to prepare the arena for a fight, so he fits in well with having the player make use of all of their tools for the end.

[@shazbots7287]

The wonderful thing about playing Bioshock is going back to System Shock 2 and tracing the ways the latter informed the former in game design, right down to falling flat on its face in the final act. I love you SS2, but you go full kusoge starting around the Rickenbacker. Still surprised no one ever took a crack at reimagining that chunk of the game.

[@tomisabum]

@SystemsReady I can still hear the "NAAAAAAH"

[@BinaryDood]

I disagree with the RIckenbacker. But The Body of Many... yeah. But at least there was an aeshtetical, spatial and narrative reasoning for it. You were in the belly of the beast, everything changed. All you had were the last thoughts of someone who had been there before you. Its intimidation was at least close to what you were supposed to be feeling. Even if frustration at the design was a big part of it. In Bioshock? The scenery doesn't even change.

[@CyberShadowX8]

Don't forget the best local multiplayer game, Shadow The Hedgehog's. Who you gonna pick, Shadow, Yellow Striped Shadow, or one of the Robot Shadows? We got Pink Striped, Blue Striped, Green Striped, and Orange Striped. They have GUN HANDS

[@onlythefacts999]

Aside from telling you you need to cut off necromorph limbs about a thousand times, I think both Dead Space 1 & 2 had excellent tutorial segments and to this day it still has one of the best navigation systems of all time. Why more games don't use the colored lines approach to show directions is beyond me.

[@tzeentch7118]

Dead Space 3 had a good reversal on that, it was Isaac telling others to cut off the limbs.

[@Kite403]

Fontaine fell apart as an active antagonist because his motives are wild. He spends 12 years working his con and finally achieves it, only to then (in the same breath) talk about how he's the only one leaving Rapture alive. That and the lackluster boss fight was a wet fart. Edit: For me, Pokemon Sun/Moon had an obnoxious amount of handholding at the start. I'm trying to start up a new file, but I'm dreading it for that reason lol

[@conspiracypanda1200]

Pokemon is awful when it comes to hand holding and its only gotten worse with each instalment. Gen 1-3 simply made sure you got your mons before you could run loose, but otherwise left you alone or spaced out its tutorials. Gen 4 and 5 stopped you several times in the beginning and had some NPCs lead you by the nose for a bit but left you alone soon after. (I can barely even remember what happened in Gen 6 so we're skipping that one.) But yeah, Gen 7 and 8 are _atrocious_ for their intros/tutorials which are packed with characters demanding to you meet them at X spot (which is usually only 5 steps away) while they exit stage left and teleport ahead to make sure you don't get lost on the giant, unbranching path. Shiny resetting for a starter in Sun/Moon especially is considered a lost cause due to the cutscenes for obtaining your mon lasting _three minutes_ before you can check for shininess and reset if you failed!

[@joedatius]

@@conspiracypanda1200 I wouldn't even be that mad at the handholding if the cutscenes and dialogue where EVER worth going through but 99% of the time its the most boring and forgettable stuff imaginable.

[@ryansch682]

I like how the game tells you Ryan's full of shit within the first few audio logs when he enforces punishments against people hacking vending machines, when an actual libertarian would go "damn bro guess you better beef up the anti-hacking tech"

[@tomisabum]

Bioshock 2 is worth streaming, its got a little more depth in gameplay and story. Way more than Bioshock Infinite managed to have, despite being newer. That game was miles wide and an inch deep, which is ironic for all the drowning that comes up in it.

[@Pokemen396]

Yea infinite had potentisl but fell into the typical industry standard for fps The dlc definitely felt good.

[@silvianbruno7512]

2's biggest flaw to me was it really wanted us to treat Sophia Lamb as a villain equal to Andrew Ryan, but the problem is even if you didn't agree with Ryan, you could get how there are people out that who genuinely have that mindset and believe it's the correct and moral thing to think. Lamb was like a Harry Potter villain by comparison.

[@Broomer52]

A gift to me personally was not playing Bioshock 1 I had no point of reference and as a result I throughly enjoyed 2.

[@thelaughingrouge]

Yes there are genuinely people out there with Ryan's mindset... their called Republicans.

[@cameronmcleod8419]

@@thelaughingrouge It's not even disguised, they're outright cartoonishly evil. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish they had even the puddle-deep nuance of Randian Objectivism, at this point its is all just naked greed and spite.

[@thelaughingrouge]

@@cameronmcleod8419 Like I'm shocked when I turn on the news and don't see them twirling their 1920 silent movie mustaches while tying a someone to a railroad.

[@fruitspunchsamuraig4546]

I disagree, just replayed it and if you pay attention to the audio diaries and their context, it really makes sense how Lamb just swoops in and takes all the down trodden and victims of Ryan's philosophy and Raptures war and replaces it with cult of personality and search for higher cause, and its very funny how Ryan almost can't do anything about her without contradicting himself on his philosophy. It seems very silly and forced at surface how everyone buys into her spirituality and draws butterflies for Lamb but she pretty much does what Fontaine does but from a populist perspective. She's can be cartoonish at times, but its definitely a believable role how she amassed her following imo

[@fbmb1337]

"It wasn't there, but it showed up. It was present." - Woolie, trying to defend Metroid Prime's 2 multiplayer by describing exactly how most people felt about every multiplayer mode on largely single player games.

[@warmpancaxe]

It's really tragic. In the creation of the game they wanted to do something more interesting not necessarily cerebral but definitely better than what they did. Company execs or producers ended up telling them no it's a shooting game you need a big bad boss at the end or no one is going to like it.

[@ghostlikemike]

Bioshock 1 could definitely use a proper remake one day to bring it up to more modern sensibilities because Pat isn't wrong, it's very silly to go fight big monster man as the final boss

[@pickledparsleyparty]

Yeah, Fontaine becoming Capitalist Alpha makes sense. But him turning himself into Dr. Manhattan in the middle of a final boss arena is a pretty lame way to execute that.

[@markusa5293]

@@pickledparsleyparty Just replace him with Senator Armstrong

[@conspiracypanda1200]

I think it could have been more interesting if he, as a normal but still morally fucked human being, had walled himself into some kind of automated fort that you had to crack open like a fuckin egg so you could crush his head under your boot in a cutscene (like with Andrew Ryan's death). Alternatively, in the good ending, you could fail to break into his room and watch through a porthole while he jeered at you, not noticing until the last second that the little sisters were crawling through the vents behind him to stab him to death.

[@MobiusFun64]

I played through the Bioshocks just recently after only having played the first game back when it came out and never touching the sequels. My favorite part of bioshock 1 is when the bad guy says "Would you kindly go get stepped on by a big daddy?"

[@thunderborn3231]

every difficulty slider ever 'its not harder its just more tedious'

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

I never noticed bioshock holds your hand that hard, absolutely will not allow you to cross the street alone lmao

[@chellejohnson9789]

The last three levels also ruin "the twist" that everyone loves so much "Oh wow, meta narrative. We were playing a linear game because mind control" After being "freed": Continues to play the worst chapters of the same linear game

[@pickledparsleyparty]

Even Levine said all the shit after the Andrew Ryan encounter was demanded by Paul Marketing in order to give gamers a "satisfying conclusion." Levine himself didn't like writing that stuff. Paul really huffed the spray paint before demanding all that.

[@Horatio787]

My theory is that Jack was still being mind controlled by Tenenbaum. She wanted to save the little sisters and the only way to break out of that is for Jack to go against what he's told and get the bad ending. He's finally in control but he's so broken by then it's the only thing he can do anymore.

[@chellejohnson9789]

@@Horatio787 while a cool thought, and one I used to think, it just doesn't hold up. The big thing with the twist was a code phrase, something Tenenbaum doesn't use and the ending is based on how you acted before then. The idea being that since the code phrase wasn't used for harvesting/rescuing, then those decisions are how the character will actually act at the end

[@Horatio787]

@@chellejohnson9789 Well my theory is that since she helped make him she has a different method that's not as total in control. It never tells you that, but I like the idea of a story not explicitly hinting at something. I like the idea that they never tell you things but they just line up well enough to be true. Now, absolutely it is a fan theory. But it makes Bioshock even better so it's just what I believe now, because canon is what you make it and I sure as shit don't believe the actual canon of Infinite.

[@joshuareesor1756]

The game even highlights this, with Fontaine taunting you following Tenenbaum despite being "free," just like Ryan said. It feels like the game is trying to keep playing the metanarrative angle, always needing a guide because the player has no real control over their choices. Still, it doesn't change the fact that the cohesion is broken due to no longer being under mind control, making the linearity they connected to said mind control no longer appropriate.

[@marcellosilva9286]

My problem with Bioshock 2 is that, despite controlling a Big Daddy, you sure as hell don't feel like one. Enemies deal the same amounts of damage to your heavily-armoured suit as they did to Jack's clothes in the first game. BS2 tells me that my gatling gun is firing .50BMG bullets, yet they deal the same damage as the Thompson in the first game. There's a serious disconnect here. I feel like they should've made enemies more numerous but weaker in terms of health, so instead of being capable of getting shot down by a single Splicer, their hordes would gradually whittle you down, maybe throw a heavier enemy here or there to mix things up.

[@joshuareesor1756]

I wouldn't say Bioshock 2 is supposed to be you playing as the traditional Big Daddy. The Alpha Series is less durable and lacks the raw power of the standard Big Daddy model, making up for that in aspects like mobility and adaptability through Plasmid use. This is even reflected in gameplay, as while the normal Big Daddies stay as pseudo-bosses, the Alpha Series end up as stronger enemy types like the Brute splicers. There's also the fact that the Splicers you fight in 2 have been splicing nonstop for years, following the whole 'Survival of the Fittest" ideal. Only the splicers that could kill Big Daddies could get excess Adam from Little Sisters and feed their addiction, so these splicers have basically evolved to become better at killing Big Daddies, becoming more durable and powerful in the process. I remember the developers mentioning that Jack wouldn't be able to survive in Rapture by the time 2 takes place, so everyone is supposed to be stronger as a whole. I get these are narrative excuses for why Delta ends up similar to Jack, but I always thought the importance of 2 allowing you to play as a Big Daddy was to explore their perspective and connection with the Little Sisters and Rapture in greater detail, not just for you to be a strong boss character. Even if you don't get the full "Big Daddy Experience," there are still reasons given to ground the player in the universe, so it's more a disconnect brought from expectations rather than a narrative disconnect.

[@janefkrbtt]

I didn't fucking realize woolie also had a party hat. it got me real good. I get how woolie likes to avoid visual gags on the pod. but I think a visual bit in an audio format is a good bit itself. And this had a great payoff, of him also wearing a party hat. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[@UnleashTheCrackHen]

I definitely fall into the category of "playing other media" while gaming. For me it's a mix of music and youtube videos on a second monitor. Usually I have the game volumes just loud enough to hear with speech volume a little louder than that. For me it's usually to occupy the running and gunnings times then it's paused during cutscenes or story important stuff. Mostly it's during subsequent playthroughs, since during the second playthrough onwards I have a general idea what's coming and I can relax a bit more.

[@neednolife]

Unironically, there are gamers who need that loud, in your face tutorials. My gf regularly asks for my help to figure out how to play her games. My best friend who has been gaming for 25 years still misses how mechanics and buttons work even though they are on the screen.

[@jordankolb2976]

I'm glad they're talking about my favorite apolitical game. Hope they do Metal Gear next

[@riddlemethat5597]

Solid Snake, lying on the ground: "Don't tread on me."

[@SaberRexZealot]

Disco Elysium is my favorite apolitical game

[@BaconheartStuff]

Even better, they should talk about Metal Gear Rising, the least political game to ever exist!

[@Skullnaught]

No one says they aren't

[@PvEGamingChannel]

Call of Doots is my favorite apolitical game All of them

[@phantomshotgun9223]

Oh good lord. The moment i see the birthday hats I look at the calendar and realized it's my birthday today. lol

[@punishedbrak4255]

Happy birthday fool!!

[@riddlemethat5597]

Love the complete lack of question in the comments as to why Woolie is wearing a Paw Patrol party hat. Happy Giefday!

[@themachoechidnaugandarandy7583]

He supports the police. Nothing wrong with that. Sucks the show was attacked heavily

[@darkpuppetlordful]

@@themachoechidnaugandarandy7583 the police dog on paw patrol shouldn't have mauled that unarmed man

[@charleswisconsin9196]

@@darkpuppetlordful the man didn't have arms?

[@darkpuppetlordful]

@@charleswisconsin9196 he didn't when Chase the Cop dog was done with him

[@codemonkeys3914]

Yeah the BioShock 2 multiplayer was done by some studio named Digital Extremes, they must be a bunch of losers who couldn't develop a worthwhile game Also I played the SHIT out of the BioShock 2 multiplayer and I will die defending this hill where the big daddy suit might spawn

[@blackmagemasher4031]

that dead space 2 multiplayer was SO fun on beta.... got it on launch and they changed the timing, and changed the enemies and the demo was on a dedicated server and the final product was DEFINITATLY not

[@mindshuffler3332]

Is Pat gonna stream Bioshock 2? Because I kinda wanna see him react to Sinclair in that game.

[@JCdental]

Yes, and minervas den People simp for that DLC for a reason

[@darkpuppetlordful]

@@JCdental that DLC is the only good Bioshock story

[@AdrianArmbruster]

The conflict with Fontaine is supposed to rest on the whole revenge/its personal angle. It does go on a bit too long I'd say, but you DO run through some areas that continue to reveal more of his backstory, so there's that. I suppose you'd have to establish more of a back and forth between Fontaine post-reveal and a voiced player character in order to keep the enmity running.

[@Nel_Annette]

Fontaine doesn't need to be interesting. He's just fun to listen to.

[@thelaughingrouge]

But he isn't though, his voice acting is TERRIBLE!

[@Nel_Annette]

@@thelaughingrouge I LOVE it it's so hammy.

[@Doc_Fun]

@@thelaughingrouge chewing the scenery =/= terrible. Tommy Wiseau would be a terrible voice actor, totally unable to match his vocal performance to the emotion of the scene. Fontaine's VA was just having fun with the role, and for what it is, it's fine.

[@lordanzu8763]

One of the biggest things I was worried about when Pat showed off his new set up in BC was that I didn't think we'd get any more clips of Pat petting Zangief. I am glad that this clip has proven me wrong lol.

[@TheVector119]

I remember razorfist saying something to the effect of being so dissatisfied with red dead redemption sound design that he just played the motorhead albums that he'd loaded onto his 360 over the majority of the game

[@shadowrobot7708]

My biggest disappointment with Bioshock 1 (and to some extent 2) is that rescuing litter sisters gives you almost the same amount of ADAM and exclusive tonics you can't get if you harvest them. I read that this was because the publishers didn't want to encourage the player to be evil with better rewards. That game could have had a moral choice but it was taken out. Also I didn't think last 3 levels where that bad but the very last level was pretty bad and the final boss was atrocious.

[@TheVerruckMan]

Honestly, I kind of like it, since it builds into how a core theme of Bioshock 1 is all about how Andrew Ryan's ideology is an utter garbage fire and doesn't actually work in practice. In particular, how he claims that so-called "parasites" do nothing but drain society and are useless, and therefore charity is something to be avoided at all costs. However, one of the things Fontaine did to build up his power base was set up a shitload of orphanages and soup kitchens, and the like, which ended up making him massively popular with the lower classes of Rapture, and helped ensure that he had an army of popular supporters that helped with his attempt to overthrow Ryan. Having it so that saving the Little Sisters not only gives you nearly as much ADAM, as well as giving you a ton of other goodies that arguably outweigh the benefits of the ADAM you would have otherwise gotten builds into that idea of Enlightened Self Interest, where you can do good things for other people, because doing so also benefits you in the long term as well.

[@shadowrobot7708]

@@TheVerruckMan I think the exclusive perks should be there but I don't think the present should give ADAM. I prefer when games make moral choices actually difficult or at least make you suffer some sort of consequence for choosing the morally right option. Maybe they could have had the little sisters help you in other ways if you rescued them instead of just giving ADAM. But I do think you point has merit and I never thought about it like that.

[@MattManDX1]

@@shadowrobot7708 The main choice I guess you could say is "Do I want ADAM right now or wait a bit to go collect the present?" Instant gratification vs. Patience.

[@TheAtlasReview]

The best tacked-on multiplayer modes are definitely Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Uncharted 2/3 and the Last of Us. The music composer for all the rock music in Nazi Zombies used to stream Last of Us multiplayer all the time.

[@vivamexico254]

Hell Yea mass effect 3 mp was awsome shur it was a horde mode with microtransaccions but god damit i could play as a krogan warlord and just headbut the shit out of people

[@bicksbernd1640]

The AC multiplayer modes were great, they could've made a full game out of that

[@TheAtlasReview]

@@bicksbernd1640 Some people tried, but they've never quite got it right. The Ship in particular, but it never had the polish or the energy that made AC multiplayer work.

[@achair7958]

Prey is the best bioshock game don't @ me

[@vj7248]

Prey2016 is what I thought Bioshock was gonna be. And despite that game having abit of a bad ending sequence as well.... The final twist is so good, it beats Bioshocks 'would you kindly' by a wide margin.

[@sailorshark3334]

Prey 2 never :(

[@joebin3106]

@

[@damonsghost9235]

LOL! Andrew is not even the end thematically. The character hasn't resolved the real issue. They could have just had you escape Fontaine's trap room then kill him. They didn't *Have* to have a boss.

[@ethantaylor9613]

BioShock two is the best one

[@Mecha_phant0m]

I remember I played the remaster of BS1 about a year ago because I had only previously played infinite a bunch of times. The game overall was pretty good but one moment will I think always stick out to me; the final wave sander conen sends at you after getting his photos, glued to the sole spotlight so I could see, enemy’s lunging at me from the shadows like leaping panthers, my shotgun and tommy in hand basically skeet shooting them dead mid air as they continued there aerial leap. The classic music playing that accompanied the violence and having to constantly keep on my feet, Turing back and forth, reloading after each kill. After a little bit I felt, beautiful, like a dance between one person and the whole ballroom and for a brief moment at the end of it all, ammunition almost all spent and reflexes on high alert, that i almost understood the vision of what sander’s was trying to tell me. Really great moment.

[@nateszigeti3653]

really crazy that pat was able to play dark souls 1 two years before it came out lol pat is bad with remembering what year stuff came out

[@josephbroseph3003]

I would get into huge arguments with my coworker about the Bioshock series from time to time because I think 2 is the best of the trilogy and he thought Infinite was the best in the series.

[@Velkin999]

Doing tutorials gives me nostalgia. I have problems.

[@boldandbrash9447]

There's a tie-in novel that's a prequel to Bioshock 1, essentially the founding of Rapture and inevitable rotting of the city up til the start of the game. Really good book.

[@gronzen5451]

I still maintain I want a Fallout Shelter-esque Bioshock game, like either rebuilding or trying to claim your piece of the pie in Rapture. Also in fairness, the Bioshock 2 MP was surprisingly okay.

[@Nerevar5me]

Is Pat saying the level where you get the pieces to become a big daddy yourself terrible? Because that level is awesome. Your power curve is awesome by that point and you actually don’t need to use a full clip to kill enemies if you know how to use plasmids. Each to their own opinions.

[@Nerevar5me]

Also bioshock 2 definitely has better and more fun gameplay

[@punishedbrak4255]

No, he's talking about Bioshock 1. After meeting Ryan until Fighting Atlas, it goes downhill fast.

[@Abyss3223]

Woolie should have said the Warframe devs made the Multiplayer for Bioshock 2, woulda hooked Pat with it.

[@WiqidBritt]

I agree about AC Brotherhood being a more "that generation" game than the first Assassin's Creed game. Even at the time, I thought of the first AC game as an upgraded version of a PS2 Spider-Man game, design wise.

[@Brea2108]

Bioshock is one of those games where i've played so many times and and have pretty much memorised it to a tee......until the Fontaine reveal.Everything after that i completely forget is even in the game.Everything up until the Fontaine reveal is so well crafted and Andrew Ryan is honestly one of the best video game villains out and her death is iconic for a reason and everything else leading up to him is so well put together that it feels like the last half was made by a different team who either did not know about the first half of the game or they just never gave a shit.

[@versebuchanan512]

I still maintain Infinite is plenty fun, and undeserving of the amount of shit it gets. 2 is still the best Bioshock, for definite, but zipping around on the elevated rails, jumping off to do a sprint-melee kill on someone, then leaping off a balcony to fall two stories and grab back onto a rail without ever slowing down? Shit's FUN, man. Not the same level of run-run-kill-fly fun as, like, Vanquish, but it ain't nothing, either.

[@GoldLight73]

Wholly agree. The story had some issues but I had a blast my first time through Infinite.

[@SyLuX636]

Fun until you figure out that exploration is kinda useless when you have Elizabeth throw you Infinite amounts of weapons and money. They threw away one of the most interesting parts of a bioshock game customization of weapons and ammo for your weapons. The rail system kinda gets in the way of fight unless you put on Tonic that increase the dmg of rail attack and cheese the enemies.

[@Meitti]

Its a mediocre shooter gameplay-wise. Story is stupid but visuals are nice.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

Levine's Bioshocks tell WAY better stories than Bioshock 2 did, though. Bioshock 2 was mostly a studio saying "we need more Bioshock. And you know what a sequel means: new game mechanics!" Infinite is really, really good if you think critically while playing. There's a lot of reward to be found in analyzing that one. Hint: Think about cognitive dissonance theory while playing, and consider Wounded Knee the most important detail in the story. Actually, it's kind of absurd that Pat trashes Bioshock for lack of subtlety and then trashes Infinite because he doesn't get it.

[@TigoODonnell]

@@pickledparsleyparty I honestly disagree, I can’t stand Infinite’s storyline, and I don’t think it’s about him not getting Infinite. To me and a lot of people not only was it a downgrade from the first two and what was originally promised, it pretty much boils down to making the clearly right side out of nowhere do some heinous shit because it abides by the philosophy of “every side has flaws”, even though the main villain is cartoonishly evil, doesn’t even abide by its own time travel rules, is overly complicated, and don’t even get me started on the DLC. I don’t think it’s a horrible game but imo it thinks it’s smarter than it actually is.

[@TrippyTheShroom]

I would argue every Bioshock is unbelievably good up until 80% then they go wildly off the rails because they can't wrap up the end. Bioshock Infinite had the most interesting (and in my opinion the best) ending and it still didn't feel that rewarding.

[@jman2856]

Basically, Bioshock pulled a MCU third act before MCU third acts.

[@MrStath1986]

Not really, because most MCU movies don't have nearly as much in the way of things to try and say as Bioshock does.

[@jman2856]

@@MrStath1986 That’s why I said MCU third acts since that’s been a thing since Iron Man 1 where a lot of the good character work gets severely sidestepped for a generic final boss.

[@08Darkra80]

Bioshock 2's shooting loop was pretty fun in multiplayer, of all the tacked on multiplayer modes in games I can think of it has to stand above most.

[@gkkk2735]

That last boss issue reminds of Luke cage season 1

[@DemonFireRain]

except Fontaine doesn't yell "can you dig it!"

[@Zekana0]

I mean, Cottonmouth was perfect for an antagonistic role and should of had a confrontation at the end with cage like daredevil had with kingpin. Instead we get some boring chick to replace him and make up some excuse to have a badguy to fight at the end. It was a mess.

[@gkkk2735]

@@Zekana0 the whole plot fell apart in the second half, I think that was a big issue for all those Netflix shows with the exception of daredevil

[@waypastthenorm8629]

I always said that I liked bioshock 2 most of the three games.

[@abyssion8]

I actually enjoyed Metroid Prime 2's multiplayer. Sick music, too.

[@timlerch7425]

Bioshock 2 is the best of the trilogy.

[@just_matt214]

It's insane how far we've actually come since 7th gen. Like, holy shit that was a *bad* time period.

[@marcellosilva9286]

Look at the bright side, at least when you find a genuinely good hidden gem from that era, you feel like you hit paydirt. But yeah, I don't miss that era at all.

[@shadowkn250]

Bioshock 1 and especially Bioshock infinite are glorified theme parks. usually there's a free pass through an area and then you get to go through them again with something new to do or fight. Its to its benefit at times. one of its strongest strengths even.

[@ijumpshrooms707]

I mean Ken Levine literally talked about making each level in Bioshock with a theme in mind like amusement parks.

[@rembrandtbrown6450]

There's a lot of mediocre music in those aughts games, I actually have really fond memories of using the 360s music player to play techno and moby and shit while replaying levels from Mirrors Edge.

[@punishedbrak4255]

The music player was a Godsent feature of the 360, I'll never forget playing the first Saints Row right after it came out with RHCP and The Prodigy blaring in the background. Only select PS3 games let you do it but you could do that on ANY 360 game.

[@charleswisconsin9196]

the 360's preloaded music got me into Skindred.

[@The5lacker]

I’m trying to imagine a restructured Bioshock ending with the death of Andrew Ryan, and I think it would’ve been a really interesting ending. You lose control, Andrew Ryan kills himself at your hand, and then Atlas/Fontaine strolls into the room, twiddles his mustache, and then shoots you in the head while you’re frozen. Roll credits.

[@fruitspunchsamuraig4546]

Essay time, my main flaw with Bioshock 1 (and also Bioshock 2, to an extent) is how much it wants to be this thematic and philosophical theme park but also its a dedicated revival of rpg shooters of the Systemshock and Deus Ex era. Its not bad or impossible to thrive in both areas, but without compromise, they clash rather than work together. They work really well together at first when you are learning the game and the world story from a low level, struggling upwards against Rapture and Ryan while seeing all the theatrics and tricks, but by the time Fontaine comes in, it cracks where they have to keep up the thematic part of you being a slave of someone else's engineering, but the gameplay absolutely can't reflect that so you get the section where you gotta look for a silly cure to "CODE YELLOW" and it feels like you're shuffling your feet instead of chasing Fontaine, both parts just make eachother suffer. Then, despite everything in the world building telling you how unbelievably awful and impossible Big Daddies are and they shouldnt exist, the game portion thinks thats just the natural evolution, to be a Big Daddy is the pinnacle of power of course you gotta become one, its cool right? There's so much of this clashing between themes and gameplay at the end, I think Bioshock 2 remedies it by toning down the theatrics but can't completely commit without forgoing one or the other (which is why Bioshock 1 feels more "thematic" on first experience), and why I wish they just tried one more Rapture story to perfect it, imagine Minervas Den if it were just a full fledged Bioshock 3.

[@Jonathan-ic9ef]

Show us Zangief's birthday party!

[@XShrike0]

12:52 What did the Infinte DLC do? I never went back to any of that after beating that game.

[@jojitomasu]

The events of the DLC are what causes BS1 to happen.

[@zydian_]

Honestly, I find that turning music off in most cases increases the immersion since the game isn't teliing you 'HEEJ, FEEL LIKE THIS NOW!!!' which is kitch in my eyes. An ambient volume slider that I can crank up to max is so much more appreciated

[@BinaryDood]

People, play Bioshock 2. It's good. Better than 1. Also play System Shock.

[@user-ue8il6jx3b]

Yo that bioshock 2 multi-player slapped also I fucking miss deadspace 2 multi-player. Did anyone ask for dead space 2 to have competitive multi-player besides some exec? Probably not but it did some cool ideas like how friendly fire was always on. I'm also a sucker for asymmetrical multi-player with balanced team numbers

[@venomfuryx3250]

I liked the Dead Space 2 multiplayer too.

[@cybergeek11235]

party hats?

[@DB-cm2gm]

Doggy birthday.🎉

[@cybergeek11235]

@@DB-cm2gm HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOGGYFRIEND!

[@SaberRexZealot]

Yeah I felt the same way when I first played it. The twist is a great way to recontextualize the story but after that the game just loses so much of its bounce. I think they understood this with Infinite so they saved the big twist for the end (wasn’t as good though)

[@Kasaaz]

Why are they wearing party hats? Was it a birthday?

[@punishedbrak4255]

Zangiefs (pats doggo)

[@roygad4303]

Zangief's birthday!

[@Kasaaz]

@@punishedbrak4255 That's awesome. Thanks :D

[@tivvy2vs21]

I thought the final boss was fine, but I was playing on easy. Now that you mention it, I remember liking Arkham asylum joker too

[@XShrike0]

11:39 I hate unskippable tutorials. This is part of the reason I dislike the Borderland games. A series of games that they expect the player to play through multiple times has unskippable intro tutorials. This series desperately needs a feature that lets you skip these and start at the first hub. Have random equipment, preset, or whatever. It isn't like it is going to matter. You change gear out so frequently at the start of those games that it is almost annoying. OMG, Bethesda games have this problem after Morrowind. New Vegas didn't have it because it was made by a different company. I would make saves just before the character finalization so that I could start from there. Of course, Skyrim messes this up, I think, because, after the finalization, you have to run away from a dragon.

[@KingMarkXNIRX]

I know this has been asked before but does anyone know what headphones Pat and Woolie use?

[@sharp2257]

Super Best Friends is back

[@polygonvvitch]

Bioshock should've ended with the twist. You kill Andrew Ryan, discover Atlas was using you, and now you're fucked. Credits roll.

[@Resignedbc27]

I loved those MP modes. im tired of games being SP OR MP only.

[@TheKingsPride]

I feel like Bioshock feels like such a wet fart because the writers felt like they had way more to say than they actually did. Then they ran out of track, so to speak, and they’re left with nothing to go off, so they introduce a boring villain who’s an interesting background element but not an interesting antagonist and fall back on the worst gameplay tropes of the era. I didn’t play Bioshock when it came out so I had no frame of reference and honestly playing it recently it seriously failed to capture me. The gameplay feels tired and the story feels played out. Maybe it’s a situation like The Wall where it’s cheapened by the sheer amount of influence it had where it now feels trite and contrived, but I didn’t really find it to be that great.

[@juter1122]

The gameplay doesn't really change, i don't know what he's talking about. The boss at the end was ass though

[@terla2971]

I agree with Pat yeah. You almost feel like you're playing an entirely different game after the twist.

[@TheAtlasReview]

Oh no, is Pat having another Pat opinion?

[@renaigh]

No Gods, No Morb only Sex

[@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva]

The fart-huffing "games are art" journos dumped on Bioshock 2 for not being the second coming of Nietzsche after how hard they hyped up the first game's story.

[@depp5275]

i don't know why but i've tried finishing bioshock 1 more than 3 times since it released and i just can't finish it, the beginning introduction was awesome but there's just something about the gameplay that doesn't click with me and it just keeps reducing my excitement to zero very quickly

[@SeruraRenge11]

It wasn't just the multiplayer, all of Bioshock 2 was developed by a different studio, irrational had nothing to do with it which is probably why Infinite never references it.

[@HgMorbi]

This is a common misconception, a lot of the key figures who worked on Bioshock 2 were, in fact, from the same team as 1, restructured into a "new" spinoff studio in that classically stupid way the modern videogame industry works.

[@SeruraRenge11]

@@HgMorbi The key figures were all level design people, not writers.

[@TheSergio1021]

11:38 Tell that to Persona

[@johnromero6315]

That slow burnout finally got to be too much with Far Cry 6 for me. I just can't be bothered to play the same game again this time.

[@pakapata]

boy, if pat think replaying resi 8 was bad, wait until he does it with the resi 7. Those first minutes take FOREVER to end it on the second playthrough

[@MrStath1986]

7 is still good in terms of story/characters and the like (Jack Baker is still an excellent nutjob grandpa) but overall the difference that four years makes between it and VILLAGE is just incomparable.

[@pakapata]

@@MrStath1986 i like the game more too in term of gameplay and atmosphere than 8 (i am a inventory menagement nut case, and in 8 i barely ever need to check my equipaments/items); the problem for me is only the beginning that take so fuckin much long to finally start the game for real; more than any resident evil that i ever know if i am not mistaken

[@Sintoolkicks]

What's with the party hats?

[@kapkant6197]

TFW Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War stole BioShock's twist but actually keeps good mission design How embarrassing... High brow immersive sim beaten by Call of goddamn Duty of all things

[@Rabidsage]

Cold war has awful mission design?

[@fulldisclosureiamamonster2786]

After Black Ops 1-3 had massive game-changing twists, Cold War's twist could be seen coming from a mile away. BioShock's twist actually worked, even coming from the heels of System Shock 2, and apart from the Fontaine boss fight being underwhelming, I think Pat and Woolie are overstating how "bad" the post-twist levels really are. It isn't actually boring like Infinite, it just goes on way too long.

[@kapkant6197]

@@Rabidsage Another Brick in the Wall and Break On Through are great though?

[@kapkant6197]

@@fulldisclosureiamamonster2786 Black Ops II didn't really have a twist unless you count Mason being the guy with the bag on his head, which was even more predictable than Bell being the person in the car in the opening. I can't be mad though because you didn't slander Black Ops III's campaign which was better than people gave it credit for, it just had atrocious dialogue.

[@xsoultillerx]

speaking as someone who has never played a 3D fallout without the in-game radio on or listens to music, podcasts or has videos on in the background while i play it's solely because the background music gets really tiring/boring to listen to after my first 3 or 4 playthroughs. like i'm sure that battle music is a real banger but after over a hundred plus hours of listening to it i just don't care.

[@IstasPumaNevada]

I played exactly one Assassin's Creed game. It was the one set around the american revolution, whichever one that was. It was pretty enjoyable, except the modern-day stuff which I could not care less about. Solid game other than that part. And after that I don't really feel the need to play any other AC game. (Kinda wanna do pirate ships in the pirate ship one because pirate ships, but now I refuse to buy Ubisoft games, so that's not happening.)

[@misschambers666]

They still do the tacked on value crap. RE3 had that whole separate async multiplayer game to justify the 60 dollar price tag. I never touched it once, I didn't even know what it was till it installed itself

[@Horatio787]

I have a pet theory about Bioshock that makes the story ending actually incredible. SPOILERS Tenenbaum is also mind controlling Jack. She's doing it to save the little sisters. The first choice you get is between her wanting you to save them, and atlus wanting you to kill them. When I played, after that initial required choice I just left the little sisters and big daddies alone because they weren't attacking me. The game chastised me but I was engaged with the story and I didn't want to kill these monstrous things just because they were weird. I thought they had a right to their lives as is. Until the game forced me to start killing big daddies (mind control = main objectives). So once Tenenbaum knows who Jack is, she starts mind controlling him and now Jack has to do what she says to become a big daddy and go through the motions of protecting little sisters. But it's not perfect like how Jack was being controlled before because she's a scientist and not a social manipulator who knows how to play him perfectly. Jack has three outcomes. The initial mind control where he believes that is who he is and his choices are his own. Tenenbaum using him to save the little sisters and give him a family, which she says he always wanted but that's actually what she wants, not him. The third is broken Jack. The only lines Jack says are that he was always told he'd be special. Jack has been mind controlled and fucked with his whole life, so the only way he can get out of that control is by acting against what Tenenbaum tells him with the bad endings where he takes over Rapture and just becomes a psycho like the rest of them. I feel this theory makes the exploration of choice in games even deeper in Bioshock.

[@SciontheDark]

Except that Tenenbaum doesn't ever use Jack's activation phrase. She's trying to convince Jack and treat him like he's a normal human, just like she's doing with her little ones.

[@Horatio787]

@@SciontheDark Tenenbaum helped make Jack so I'd argue it's not unreasonable to think she has some other way of controlling him in a softer way than straight orders. So it doesn't contradict my theory. The point I'm trying to make is that Fontaine wants Jack to kill, Tenenbaum wants him to revert the process on the little sisters but also kill Big Daddies, and I just wanted to leave them alone but that became literally impossible in a story that's examining player agency with goals.

[@gaw0046]

To be fair Dead Space 2 multiplayer was actually pretty good for what it was considering they forced to be put it in

[@Doc_Fun]

Bioshock 2 is inarguably the mechanically superior game, but it still shares a lot of the same flaws and bioshock was always more about the looks and atmosphere than the gameplay. That's where 2 falls flat for me, it just feels like playing a very long Bioshock 1 dlc with some mechanical changes. In retrospect I can appreciate Infinite wanting to change things up, even if they didn't execute it very well. At the end of the day, it's gonna be nearly impossible to replicate how good Bioshock 1 is through about Fort Frolic. It's like DS1, the fact that it falls apart near the end has done almost nothing to tarnish how good the first half is.