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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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 Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:15 am |
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There's also a little snippet in the demo in the Ladies washroom, where you get this weird (psychic?) flashback of a woman who is disgraced at her appearance because she's been splicing too much. It probably makes sense that in a hyper-competitive society many people wouldn't care for freaky-looking-faces to go about unmasked!
That was the sense that I got, anyway.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:22 am |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| But more than that, this is supposed to have been a closed environment city. There wouldn't be very many animals running around at all. |
I did notice a dead cat behind one of the respawn-vat-a-ma-doodles at one point! Poor thing.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 3:56 pm |
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| taidan wrote: |
| Marco makes a good point; in a society that's supposed to let its inhabitants do what they wish unhinged by morals, some people would think its a good idea to make such Plasmids. How they appear in vending machines...well I suppose they had to go crazy sooner or later. |
I'm just barely starting into the game, so I don't know what happens later on in the plot but...
What if the "fall" was rather drawn out? I mean, there's evidence from newspapers, protests, and recordings that Rapture was in an increasing state of civil violence/rioting/terrorism, but still functioned well enough for, well, newspapers to be printed and such.
So, you are living in an ultimate-objectivist, regulation and moral-free environment and said environment is increasingly dangerous and violent., wouldn't you feel a little safer if you had some sort of self-defense? And if there is a demand for self-defense, why not set up a business to start selling out well-branded self-defense plasmids and weapons for the whole family?
Why put them in vending machines? Well why not, convenience for the customer, and c'mon it's a gigantic city at the bottom of the Atlantic and heavily satirical anyway so it's pretty hilarious in a Snow Crash kind of way!
But yeah, why the hell would some stranger immediately know what to do with those needles and still go ahead and do it? There'd better be some sort of explanation!
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:19 am |
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| Dracko wrote: |
| Wait, is that only for the Steam version? |
Boxed version too. Apparently, the installer needs to phone home and register itself, which it will fail to do if you've registered twice previously.
Now, supposedly if you run the uninstaller it will phone home and deregister you, so in theory this thing only prevents you from having more than 2 simultaneous installs. Just make sure that if your hard drive fails you have the foresight to dutifully give Securom your papers in advance so that you'll be allowed to install the game on a different PC later on.
It's total BS that it's on the Steam version as well. I know I have games from Steam installed on 3 separate machines (although, come to think of it, I'm not 100% sure that I have any given game on all three, but some are definitely on two) and as long as I don't try to run games on more than one machine simultaneously I'm pretty sure I'm good.
When Earth runs out of ADAM you better believe DRM proponents are gonna be first on my list to get to splicing.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:53 pm |
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Well, I'm rescuing them all but I don't entirely trust the motives of the one who wants me to rescue them. And I've definitely been feeling the ADAM hurt, enough that I've been tempted to harvest one or two here and there. I can usually only afford one or two items at a Garden, except for when a gift package comes down.
I don't get the "this game has bad dialogue" thing. I could listen to that McDonough fellow talk all day long. Besides, they're all monologues.
Anyone else have some volume level issues with the recordings? Some louder than others? Tennenbaum in particular, I can never hear what she's saying unless I pause the game and lean in close.
I do think this game could stand to be a bit less repetitive so far. Also, I wish I could do things like read newspapers and flyers and memos and other stuff like that. Might make the whole plot presentation a bit more varied and plausible than the endless number of audio diaries scattered about.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:51 pm |
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| Moogs wrote: |
This... most likely was mentioned earlier in the thread, but what's the deal with your character automatically injecting himself with the first syringe he comes across?
And yet... I had to be told to pick up a wrench so I could defend myself? |
Yeah, this... this still seems really really weird, like they just lost an audio cue somewhere from Atlas saying, "hey dude go grab that over there." There's other things like this later (A guy sends you looking for 4 other guys, and your objectives tell you where they are by name but the one sending you never really says anything about it.) Odd.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:05 am |
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| Dracko wrote: |
| Where's the theme of practicality versus moral judgement? I mean, it's bad enough that neither one of the endings truly address the themes of the game |
I'd say the game wears its theme quite openly: You are rewarded for giving a damn. The "good" ending makes this quite explicit.
| Dracko wrote: |
| in the end, it really isn't more practical to harvest them at all: You get more rewards out of pretending to give a damn. |
Yup.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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Nate
Joined: 01 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:55 am |
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| Dracko wrote: |
| Unfortunately, the "good" ending is exactly the sort of cliché that I thought BioShock was attempting to do away with. It's like a Z-movie, or a Wachowski brothers film or something equally trite. The "bad" one is just as bad. |
Well, that may be or that may not be, and I don't know what Bioshock was or was not attempting to do away with. But it tells you: being altruistic toward others is rewarding, and not necessarily just a way to be exploited by parasites.
This is reinforced by at least two other major elements of the game, one is the harvesting mechanic, and the other is kind of a spoiler so I won't elaborate here.
| Dracko wrote: |
| But beyond that, why harvest at all if it's made explicit it isn't in your interest? How is making the practical option the "good" one supposed to reveal your better moral stance? |
Is the game supposed to be a vehicle for me to reveal my moral stance?
Perhaps the game was more interested in imparting its moral stance?
I don't know what Ken Levine's answer to these questions would be, (and I'm not going to read that interview with him because I kind of don't care and I'm also sure he would just say PR stuff that would just end up depressing me), but in execution the game is firmly saying "No" to the first and "Yes" to the second. Except for the bad ending video, which was just dumb and without point, although I can kind of salvage it in my mind if I shoe-horn in an interpretation that ties in with the mid-game Ryan scene.
Also, the fact that harvesting is not in your interest is NOT made explicit in the game until after the fact. Unless you read about it elsewhere, like on a games-related internet discussion forum.
_________________
"There are billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping me alive and healthy, and every one is a potential traitor and foe." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 |
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