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Bioshock: Infinite

…2016, Robert Rath at ZAM wrote about Infinite succeeding at a commentary on religious racism. Shortly after, Cameron Kunzelman also wrote at ZAM in the wake of Bioshock: The Collection (a combination re-release including all Bioshock games) about the renewed fervor of Bioshock Infinite criticism, citing many of the pieces I have mentioned above:

When “hot takes” on BioShock: The Collection started to appear, lots of them reiterating criticism that I had seen years ago on original release, I also saw a parallel event. Quite a few people were tweeted into my timeline with a variation on this

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BioShock

…Leigh Alexander. She also pondered whether our behavior in the game would change if our peers were aware of it (perhaps through achievements or trophies).

“A man chooses; a slave obeys.”

Choice is the subject of BioShock‘s most compelling moment, the confrontation with Andrew Ryan. This moment twists the preceding exposition of the ideas of rational self-interest into a commentary on the nature of gaming itself. Wes Erdelack views BioShock as a parable about gaming, highlighting the fact that the feeling of agency is always an illusion. The Graduate School Gamer notes in an essay comparing BioShock to…

April 14th

…his town in the new SimCity to diagnose its traffic problem. Observing the bugs in the new SimCity’s traffic modeling, he went back to SimCity 2000 to see how it handled the same problem.

On Quarter to Three, the eternally engaging Tom Chick presents us with a pretty unsettling depiction of how SimCity’s systems (inadvertently?) model contemporary malaise.

BIOSHOCK INFINITY AND BEYOND

(A general content warning, once again, for spoilers in most of the following links.)

On Gamer Theories, Ben Meakin has written a bit on how we can look at BioShock Infinite through the lens…

Kill Screen archive

…board games need know gen con 2016

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    • August 27th

    …writers from the A.V. Club attempt to piece together what BioShock actually accomplished, and whether or not it’s been an influence over game design.

  • BioShock is Still Great, 10 Years Later. Here’s Why. | Waypoint A brief tour of Danielle Riendeau’s experience in Rapture, and the ways BioShock continues to establish itself as one of gaming’s greats.

    It’s a sad game, if you let it be, and linger in the ruins of living spaces, or listen to any story bits that involve the creation of big daddies and little sisters.

    • How We Used…

    September 17th

    …Game that expresses the despair of an underappreciated artist.

    “Whoever videogame’s Bjork is, whoever our David Lynch is, they’re making games that get sub-500 plays at best. I shouldn’t mine out my 20s for this. I shouldn’t get sick for this.”

    Private lives

    Two pieces on Bioshock, and one piece on Tacoma, explore narrative techniques that provoke players’ emotions and deepen an understanding of characters’ motivations.

    • Exploitation and Rapture, how Bioshock Represents Capitalists and Workers Dakota Joyce explores how Bioshock positions the charismatic villain of Andrew Ryan in a wider social context,…

    November 27th

    …a harsh reminder of that nonsense, so I’ll take a pass, thank you very much. […] [BioShock‘s] Rapture truly seemed like a living, breathing, fully-realized world. Hell, even though it was clearly unraveling at the seams, if I somehow acquired a one-way ticket to that damned, underwater metropolis I would have jumped at the chance to go.

    Katy Meyers, writing for Play the Past, might have a reason for BioShock‘s lasting appeal as a compelling aesthetic and narrative experience. In “Anthropology of Social Behavior in BioShock“, Meyers outlines the audio, visual and behavioral cues that lend Rapture that…

    March 3rd

    …say. About doors. Never let it be said again that the doors of Dead Space 3 are not a big deal, because they’re significant constructs in the building of the entire world, man.

    Timely right now, especially with BioShock: Infinite’s ever-nearing release, is Kaitlin Tremblay’s thoughts on the use of nostalgia in the BioShock series:

    When talking about BioShock, Levine stated that the game acted as a Rorscarch for people (one that usually ended up in negativity, infuriating gamers who chose to engage with it on that level), and this is exactly how nostalgia is operating: it’s

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    April 7th

    …article, but Andy Kelly offers up a good explication of some of the funkier bits of the game’s plot. Elsewhere, on Kill Screen, Yannick LeJacq interviews a terribly exhausted Ken Levine.

    Lastly, an article auf Deutsch via our German-language correspondent Johannes Köller, Marcus Dittmar of 99leben describes how his on-and-off relationship with motion sickness prevents him from playing the game.

    AFTER –SHOCK

    But wait! There’s more. On Eurogamer, Richard Cobbett paints a fond retrospective look at that other BioShock sequel, BioShock 2. Elsewhere, Daniel Weissenberger digs even deeper into some thematic roots and cousins with a retro…

    November 1st

    Hello once again friends of games criticism. I hope that if you indulged in international cosplay-and-candy day that you had an extra special night with some extra special people, if your celebrations skewed less North American then I hope you enjoyed an extra special Saturday. Once again it is my pleasure to bring you a new edition of This Week in Videogame Blogging!

    Shocking Bios

    A number of writers remain intrigued by Bioshock Infinite and continue to write engaging pieces exploring it. Amsel von Spreckelsen pens one such piece focusing on Bioshock as “temperance fiction” like the

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