Episode Notes:
Insert obligatory 'hardest episode yet.' Except this time, it def was. The original cut was over an hour in length and took forever to edit. I had to cut out content, edit the script and re-record lines to make it more manageable. That was probably the most frustrating part. Some of my prose didn't make it into this final version, and that sucks. I'm done with long videos. I'll stick with the 20-ish minute runtime for subsequent episodes, even if that means truncating my storytelling a little bit.
My Patron Page:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4106047
Your donations go a long way, even if it's just a dollar. If enough people give, I might be able to do this full time and get some serious production value in these movies.
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.