This review contains spoilers

yeah yeah yeah libertarians are dum dums and plot twists are unexpected, who cares

here's my own very personal gripe with bioshock. think about the storytelling in major games released shortly before this, like half-life 2 or psychonauts. what was it driven by? the characters and the environment -- pay attention to what's around you, listen to what people are telling you, and you'll get some part of the story. some parts you just won't get, ever, at all, because they've been left that way, or maybe because you've missed some non-obvious detail; maybe you'll come back to the story at a later time and it'll still surprise you with something you missed. it's up to you to wonder and interpret and use your imagination.

how does bioshock tell its story? through fucking audio logs. everywhere. everyone in rapture is constantly journaling their innermost feelings and secrets. why do they do this? because system shock 2 did it first. but that was on a god damn space ship in the space future, where you could easily believe personal audio recording devices have been commonplace and a part of life for generations, and besides, it was referencing a similar storytelling method from preexisting scifi like star trek: tng, which itself makes a great deal more sense because space naval officers on a journey of exploration would have both the time and the professional motivation to keep journals regularly.

bioshock takes place in like 1960 or so. magnetic tape recorders were "common", sure, in their industrial applications like radio, tv and the music industry, but they were not common household appliances, not until the introduction of cassette tapes in the second half of the 60s.

okay, let's say rapture's magical super technology driven by waves hands led to the creation and popularization of personal audio recording in less than the uhh two decades this city is supposed to have existed for. still doesn't explain why everyone is keeping a damn journal, except that it's for the player's convenience!

okay, so maybe it's a popular hobby, everyone's doing it, it's an expression of unfettered bourgeois individualism to treat your every insipid thought as worth recording for posterity (much like this review), sure, whatever. but then, in the game's timeline, the bad government starts cracking down on dissenters at one point -- you think that wouldn't have led to people destroying both their recorders and the recordings en masse? even people who probably had nothing to worry about but wanted to stay on the safe side anyway?

there's a guy who's supposed to be an ESL speaker doing a funny accent -- why is he recording these very private messages in broken english, instead of his first language? i guess it can be for practice... but come on! you don't really believe that! it's just because audiologs were established as the main storytelling method by the time he appears in the story, so he has to be audiologging for your convenience too.

why is it like this? well, in my personal opinion, vindicated by later developments in the series, it's because ken levine thinks he's a fucking genius among mortals and the rest of us mere jesters and bumblers need every background detail explained very slowly and carefully.

what's worse still, i think bioshock audiologs can be pointed to as one of the first occurrences of the dreaded phenomenon called "lore", which to me is not synonymous with worldbuilding and background detail, but background detail done badly -- i.e., the ubiquity of in-world information that you have no reason to have obtained, but that is given to you anyway, just so you can understand what's going on.

you shouldn't understand what's going on in a place that's gone to hell and eaten itself alive! it should be a lot of work to piece it together! it should be cryptic and disorienting and maybe nonsensical on your first go! but just like the profound moral choice of kill little child vs don't kill little child, this entire game was made for a certain intended player, one that exists solely in ken levine's imagination, and who is a gormless fucking fool. that's what this game thinks you are.

you don't even have to hand it to ken that he's right about the libertarians or whatever. of course the most extreme and ridiculous expression of american free market ideology is extreme and ridiculous! now if he'd managed to examine the same ideology as it expresses itself in more moderate, everyday, "normal" forms and still find the nightmare embedded within it... then maybe he would have made night in the woods instead. but i doubt that's something he's capable of.

Reviewed on Jul 13, 2022


5 Comments


1 year ago

I wish I could like this review an infinite amount of times, if only for the use of the word "gormless".

1 year ago

I love this game but still found myself nodding enthusiastically in agreement the whole time I was reading this

6 months ago

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6 months ago

One of the most unique, fully realized settings on any game ever and the most liked review here gave it half a star because the audiologs are implausible. Yep, it’s a Backloggd review alright

6 months ago

pal i got paid less than a month's rent to translate a good half of this game's text in 2007 and was not credited in any way, i can write you five more of these if you like from various angles and they'll all be a) this spiteful and b) true

23 days ago

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23 days ago

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22 days ago

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17 days ago

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9 days ago

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9 days ago

I for one would enjoy five more if your spite-o-meter caps out again