I think that the importance of Bioshock 2's story is not in the antagonist, who is admittedly not as great as that in 1, but in the main character Delta. We've seen the horror of extreme self-interest in 1, as well as the dangers of relying on those who are only interested in their own personal gains. However, Delta is the opposite of the story of 1 and the antagonist of this game in that he is largely independent. He follows no one and nothing except his desire to protect his daughter, willfully going against everyone to do so. 2 shows the dangers of mindlessly becoming part of the collective on the promise of achieving happiness. The only one to actually achieve happiness is Delta and Eleanor, who achieve their personal goals of reuniting and escaping Rapture. In the world today where it is especially evident that we are just one out of the billions of people that live in the world, 2 shows us that individualism still matters. You don't need to join the throng to make a difference in the world; sometimes your own actions are enough. This is shown in the final scene where your actions of how to use the little sisters reflects in Eleanor; whether she becomes a ray of hope or a blight on society rested on Delta's hands. Just through living and being an example for people to see can influence those around you, slightly changing the world whether it be for better or for worse.
I see what your saying but the main problem is that you aren't doing it independently. The game takes great pains to establish that you are not Eleanors real father, that you only seek her because that is how your mind was programmed, and your independence isn't real. The first game showed how being focused on self interest fails and you are forced the entire game to be self serving. You agree to help Atlas so that you yourself can escape, you help Sandor Cohen in order to pass through the area, you solve the formula for the trees so that you don't suffocate. Then in the end of the first only real choice you made about saving or harvesting sisters determines your ending. In the second game the entire point of the game is to be selfless for Eleanor. Like the video was saying the utilitarian society that was trying to take off was based on a selfless egoless individual. Throughout the game you are given choices to be selfish; by harvesting sisters, sparing people who wronged you or Eleanor and in the end these decisions again determine your ending. Bioshock 2 follows Bioshock 1 very closely the only difference is that it presents it as being a noble endeavor when you can't not save Eleanor. Your choices only effect Eleanors path not your own. Likewise Bioshock one you go from escaping to getting yourself ahead to getting revenge on Andrew to getting revenge on Fontaine and in the end if you follow Andrew's pure selfish philosophy you get a "bad" ending and if you are selfless you get a "good" ending and inbetween means you get a neutral ending. I love Bioshock two but it is incredibly similar to Bioshock 1 the main difference being in how you as the protagonist are identified.
@@williamwallace090 I'll agree that in the roles that they play story rise, 1 and 2 protags are similar. However, I believe that the biggest difference is that once you have control of Delta, he is "free." He is still following Eleanor, but your choices of sparing or killing the little sisters and the "bosses" of the area to pass reflect on Delta. Do you follow the programming that instilled as a big daddy and bowl through everything or do you show your human side despite the monster you became? Even though gameplay wise your actions are predetermined, by the story's terms you follow no one's will but your own. And even though your actions only reflect on Eleanor, it shows in each of the endings that her actions by proxy of your teachings reflects on how she takes on the world, either as someone who helps or destroys.
@@patknack7368 I see what you are saying but I just wish the ending was handled differently. In Bioshock 1 and 2 the endings are based off of your actions of sparing innocents or being greedy. That's great A+ in Bioshock 1 Andrew Ryan puts his vision of Rapture over people's lives. If you put getting power over the lives of the little sisters you get the bad ending so acting like Andrew Ryan gets you the bad ending. In Bioshock 2 it focuses on Sophia Lamb being selfless to a fault. She is willing to sacrifice her daughter for the good of the people of Rapture if you proceed to act selfish and take power and kill people like Andrew Ryan you get the bad ending again A+, if you save some people and not others you get varying levels of the neutral endings. If you save everyone you get the good ending. This doesn't make sense because you spend the game fighting against Sophia's extremist views of selflessness. What should have happened is that if you spared everybody you got a second bad ending where Eleanor saves Sophia and then proceeds to let Sophia get what she wants out of Eleanor. This is especially difficult as the game is never clear on what would happen if Sophia succeeded. Having the good ending being flipped on you and Sophia executing her plan and seeing the results would have been wonderful and it would make more since with the multiple neutral endings. As your moral decisions are not right and wrong dichotomy but rather a grey scale. This would make it a lot more realistic to what the real world is like and it would make the flow of the game make more sense. It doesn't make sense to have Sophia be the bad guy, her be selfless to an extreme, and then in order to get the good ending you have to spare everybody. It also makes the Neutral endings not worth it to get the cutscenes for. If there was two bad endings then you would be incentivised to play through multiple times looking for a true neutral ending.
I think you missed out on the part where Sophia recognized herself as a sociopath, and that she herself was unable to act to the ideals she preached, that was WHY she needed to create the Utopian
@@noahmueller709 I honestly disagree with this channel that Lamb’s philosophy was dumb. It didn’t have to be a direct word for word copy of Mill and Bentham’s works, I thought it was thought provoking and an interesting warning against groups who replace the ego with a collective
"Love is just a chemical. We choose to give it meaning." A simple quote, but even though the rest of this game's story mostly faded from my memory, that line of dialogue has stuck with me ever since. Kinda surprised it didn't get mentioned in the video.
Good line, I suppose it pokes a hole in the whole "feelings are chemicals therefore do not matter" ideology that many a fedora clan geek espouse. Delta only loves his daughter because it's his programming, but those emotions are still tangible and meaningful, even if to others they're not "real."
There were things missing ... certain sound effects and whatnot were changed or missing altogether. It seemed incomplete. The OVERALL game was just fine, but it just was lacking compared to the original.
I get why people complain about the story BUT you get to play as a BIG DADDY with Splicer powers. One of the few games where we can play as a boss character
Playing as a Big Daddy was awesome but i sometime didnt feel like a Big Daddy cuz of how fast i moved and having so many weapons others didnt have. But removing those thing would have made the game less fun so worth it in the end
@@GameLeaderR that's why you play as Alpha Series, subject Delta. You are not an actual Bouncer of Rosie so you are just a mutant human with a normal diving suit, you are not as heavy or as tough as a normal big daddy. I think this approach was pretty smart
Big Daddy’s aren’t exactly what I’d call “boss characters” and the ending of bioshock 1 feels way more like playing as a big daddy than the entirety of Bioshock 2. I went into bioshock 2 thinking it would start me out as a tank but quickly realized these splicers were doing just as much damage as if I was playing as Jack from BS1 anyways.
Sofia's utilitarianism extends beyond Rapture - as far as she's concerned, sacrificing Rapture is justifiable and even necessary _for the world as a whole._ That's whose happiness she is trying to maximize.
Exactly. She isn't trying to create one egoless saviour as the final end goal but wants Eleanor to go and save the whole world. Sacrificing one city no-one knows about is seen as a fair price.
Add to that the fact everyone in Rapture that wasn't born there already committed the original sin of moving to an objectivist utopia. It is really easy for a collectivist to sacrifice a gulag full of political dissidents if it were to serve the greater good.
Infinite is basically an amalgamation of the story of the first two games. Protagonist with suppressed memories who is looking for their daughter (who is a saviour, one called Lamb and the other being depicted as a lamb) enigmatic villain with personal connection to the protagonist who gets bludgeoned to death. Fink is Fontaine and Fitzroy is Atlas (in this case they are actually two seperate people). People will use the excuse that's it's a game within the same series, but I find it to be lazy storytelling.
@@Antasma1 it didn't, the two studios didn't have much communication and the script was nowhere near show ready between two studios when Bioshock 2 was in development.
@@Antasma1 Early drafts of infinite seemed to have a totally different story, evidence for this is depicting Comstock without a beard. It's just too implausible that no one would notice Comstock and Booker were parallel timeline clones without a beard to obscure most of Comstock's face. So they must be completely different people. Also, early promo footage of Infinite show non-vox forces trying to lynch Elizabeth, they clearly want her dead. This is in line with early drafts saying Comstock had no relation to Elizabeth and "the founders" superstitiously saw her as a threat. This was all publicised LONG after Bioshock 2 was released so if anything Infinite was "inspired" by Bioshock 2. There is a strong trend in FPS games of very macho male leads being motivated by a protective instinct towards daughter figures.
Haven't seen anyone mentioning absolutely stellar performance by Lamb's voice actress, hence the praise. Stern, razor sharp, resonating powerfully through the cascade of immaterial then material speakers and testing a neural net of our own hopes and beliefs while trying to dismantle and substitute it by weaving a new one or more like consume it by an already established collective framework of a mind. Adamant and cold but trembling just a little in the moments of exeptional emotional strain. Ferocious when faced with the unstoppable and imminent. Subtly sarcastic, filled with elusive dry irony. Toned and pitched perfectly. A truly masterful work which adds an extra layer of deepness to this character.
I think you're in the minority there, I found her droning and pretentious. She used a lot of words, to say very little, really. I think she lectures Delta about "the self" about once every half an hour, at least. It was maddening, she'd pop up on the radio randomly to lecture with no context, and it was always the same point as the last time.
@@0lionheart Well, tbf you could ascribe pretentiousness to Andrew Ryan as well, they're both somewhat dubious idealogues whose main goal is to emanate powerful, yet not very specific and meaningful speeches which should come off appealing to a broader audience and feel like they actually were meaningful. Which still didn't strip me of my appreciation for both of their voice actor's performances
@@0lionheart Same applies to lecturing as far as I remember. Sorry for bringing up Ryan and making assumptions that you wouldn't say the same about him, perhaps you would.
Maybe... 1 had worse mechanics, but the combat situations were set up better, so it was more fun figuring out how to best approach a situation, rather than just rushing the splicers (with better controls and weapons).
@@arlom5132 Bio1 focused on how to best approach a situation from the POV of the attacker. You ambushed most of the splicers you met. Bio2 is just the opposite, focusing on how to best defend against the attackers. You were ambushed by most of the splicers you met. In Bio1, you would hunt the Big Daddies. In Bio2, you were the Big Daddy that was being hunted, and you were hunted all of the game. I enjoyed Bio2 more because I found the tactics to be deeper. I never rushed the splicers. It was designed in favor of setting up traps, mines, sentries, and making the best use of the room, hallways, chock-points. Where-as Bio1 tactics were more or less "shock that guy and hit him with a wrench".
@@Pikmin2031 Yeah, it was kinda like Far Cry 3, you could just storm the enemies and brute force your way to the end, but the fun of the game is in planing and executing a perfect trap. People that rushed throught the game just made it less fun for themselves, tbh.
I’m not a father or anything so maybe it was different for you but to me Eleanore was just kind’ve annoying. I never felt like she was my responsibility and ever time she showed up she just slowed the pace of the game. BS1 has a motivation that makes sense because you show up and you just want to escape because everything’s going crazy and you don’t want to die. BS2 just forces a relationship on you with a character that was hastily introduced in one scene and gives you no real incentive to go rescue other than “you gotta”
@@stevenmccroskey3411 A lack of empathy right there. Idk, I kinda felt myself fitting into the role of a parent figure for Eleanor and other little ones almost immediately. More so in the second game then in the fisrt one. Both Johnny and Jack are an admirable characters inspite of them not being able to talk the whole game.
@@tediumlacie You're accusing a stranger of having a lack of empathy for thinking a video game character was annoying, should probably get to know someone before you judge their personal character. This isn't about me though, this is about our opinions. I said bioshock 2 doesn't give you good motivation. In BS the reason Jack doesn't talk is so the player can empathize with him better. His thoughts are yours and everything he sees is new to both the player and him. In BS2 you aren't playing as a blank slate. He's already a big part of the world and you can't relate to him in any real way. I'm perfectly ok with letting a Mother have custody of a girl I've never met so long as she doesn't send an army of cultists after me. Now had they actually done a mission where she helps you or shown anything that would make the player actually care about their relationship and not go "ok they were just brainwashed to like each other, their relationship consisted only of killing splicers while the other drinks blood." then maybe I would be ok with the cliche rescue the damsel in distress story but they didn't do any of that. You wake up in a puddle and a girl you have no relationship with tells you you have to save her cause she said so. You have options that you aren't allowed to take where as bs1 gave you no choice because they made the story in a way that accounted for any easy outs. In BS1 you had to kill the splicers because they were crazy, In BS2 all you'd have to do is say "actually I'll just leave now" and the whole thing would stop right there.
She wasn't calling me Father she was calling my character a character who already has an established history in the world with no secrets to learn. She was thrust on me in the beginning of the story I was never able to develop a relationship with her Eleanor only ever interacts with you through cutscenes and dialogue that amount to please save me over and over again there's no political ideals or ambiguous messages to make me feel bad. She certainly doesn't actually fight alongside you and help you in combat like Elizabeth does in BioShock Infinite
I remember hearing Lamb say "Utopia cannot precede Utopians" and thought holy shit that's true. We're not Utopians, how can we expect to ever have a Utopia? Nice.
I feel like the 2nd part reflects a lot about reality though--tyrants spew philosophy they don't follow through on all the time, because the point of their philosophy isn't to genuinely create a utopia, its to control people by giving them something to blindly believe in. There are way too many people in the real world who spout whatever garbage they themselves dont believe and people crumble at their feet. Not sure if that leads to an overall assessment on the game's part, but the fact that the antagonist turns out that way isn't just poorly thought out story telling--its something we see all the time.
@@gabrielgonzales5907 I suppose it's a matter of taste, but that was one of my favorite parts, because you get to plan it out strategically beforehand -- I know that a horde is going to be mobbing me in a moment, what can I do, what traps can I set up to handle them?
honestly, 2 should be the perfect Shock game. revamped gameplay and a more emotional story like Infinite, but still takes place in Rapture. also *DRILL DASH*
I think 2 was a perfect mirror of the philosophy of 1. Andrew Ryan wanted the perfect individualist utopia but it was ultimately ruined by the imperfect nature of man. Sophia Lamb wanted the perfect collectivist utopia but it was ruined by the imperfect nature of man. Those imperfections are just presented differently in the different systems. In Ryan's failed utopia, Unbridled individualist capitalism led to the devaluation of human life and unsafe medical scientific practices. In Sophia's, collectivism lead to what it always does. A despotic few ruling over the many in the name of the greater good. Just look at the Soviet Union's rhetoric vs. it's actions. Both of these systems can never truly be put into large scale practice because human nature will win over lofty ideals.
Excellent analysis. Sofia Lamb’s utopia always gave off Marxist vibes. Sounds like the perfect utopia on paper but as human history has proven time and again, human nature will always sabotage “good intentions”.
@@averageperson8882 I beg of you to actually look up the history of socialist countries and what actually led to their downfall before attributing it to a vague concept like the "inherentl selfishness of human nature".
Interesting how collectivism is presented as bad in itself, while individualism is implicitly divided into “bad individualism”, or “unbridled capitalism”, and “good individualism”, which I guess more or less happens to overlap with the modern American economic system.
@@alejandrocambraherrera8242 Individualism is based on rights and actions of individual people. Individual people are real and will act in their own accord regardless of philosophy. The idea of individualism is amoral by default since it is affectively the concept of "leave people alone". Collectivism is just a concept. There is no such thing as the collective. Just a bunch of people delineated into different groups based on nationality, demographic, etc... None of those delineations mean anything until a select few start "representing" the collective. An authority must be granted to the select few in order to represent the collective. Throughout most of human history authority has been derived from violence. The power to maintain that authority is still derived from violence. We have governments which may be elected by a majority of the people or be a system of delegates but ultimately that power is still enforced with violence. At best, collective authority is a necessary evil. At the end of the day it is still society agreeing that there are rules that all individuals must follow and that a select few may use violence to enforce those rules. How numerous, strict, and fair those rules are and how viciously they are enforced is really the difference between good and bad collectivism. BTW, I know it's a lot more complicated than that but I was trying to boil the ideas down to their most simple concepts.
There's this pervading expectation in your video essay that our villain Sofia Lamb is trying to create her idealized society in the form of The Rapture Family as we see it throughout the game. This isn't the case. She is a psychiatrist trying to treat the ruined, sickened remnants of Rapture by removing the ideologies that led it there. She does not see herself or her faction as the hands that will realize her vision, but she believes that by salvaging the humanity of Rapture, she can make someone who can. She wants to prove her ideology can be just as splendid. In the original BioShock, Rapture is a character. Sofia Lamb rejects this by not only condemning Rapture to ruin but by taking what she believes made it great all along; its people. Salvation by salvage. Sofia Lamb observes her own inability to live up to her ideals, which is a consistent characteristic of Rapture's visionaries after its fall. Ideology is treated as something of a drug in every BioShock. Everybody is high on something. Some sober up. Some never do. She isn't just a criticism of her own ideologies, but a continuation of that theme. Her hypocrisy is an expression of that, and she isn't entirely unaware of that or her own ego, even if a lot of her actions feel tone deaf in the face of her rhetoric; her plan acknowledges it. That's not where the foils end either. If Rapture repeatedly demonstrated that self interest consumed adults fail the generation that follows them, then Sofia Lamb is trying to give everything to it. If Rapture was seen as a form of salvation for the self interested, Lamb's plot is a much more biblical Rapture from Rapture and its ideologies. Leaving behind the body and the self to ascend. I know your video isn't intended to be a review of thematic expression, but of philosophical themes, so I don't mean pointing these out to be a criticism.
I feel both games together have a lot to say about class warfare, animosity between haves and have nots, and how ambitious leaders manipulate these feelings.
Facts. Infinite is literally a hoard throwing escort/rescue mission. Bioshock two already did this but was bashed for it because "No KeN mEaNs BaD gAmE"
@@KamikazeeAliens because infinite has a much better story and a compelling relationship with the protagonist and your Sidekick that actually affects moment-to-moment gameplay not just Radio Calls of oh please save me and no further character development
@@MartinJHenebury Infinite has a terrible story and the characters are dumb. It would take an essay to explain it and I'm not willing to do that. All I can say is that it was huge step down in every possible way.
Bioshock 2 remains my favourite in the series. The gameplay was the best out of the 3 by far. The locations and environment of rapture on its deathbed looked stunning in my opinion. and the story was fantastic, between Eleanor, Sophia and deltas exploration of parenthood. How Sophia’s ideals of collectivism often morphed into cruelty as she sacrificed the happiness of the individual for what she believed was the greater good. Even some of the audio logs with Andrew Ryan showing just how much he compromised on his ideals in order to keep his vision of rapture alive. Ultimately I think it’s a story about change, and throughout the game how delta acts either with selflessness and compassion, or selfishness and self preservation, shapes what Eleanor eventually becomes.
I think Lamb is just fine as a villain. Utopian ideology ALWAYS leads to people like her who believe the ends justify the means, no matter if their ideology says they don't.
Here I thought I was weird thinking this but reading comments shows there's actually a good chuck of us! It seems Bioshock 2 has a cult following...Seems fitting.
@@flamesofchaos13 True, Bioshock 1 was great up until the end, and Bioshock Infinite at times felt boring and pretentious until the dlc. But this one felt consistently decent and ended on a high note.
@@Naijiro i felt this since palying bioshock 1 and infinite i have to take breaks occasionally because i felt it getting a bit boring but 2 keep the motion at mid pace and at the end i can feel my adrenaline rushing
after five years, i still play bioshock 2 over and over and over again. the bond between delta and eleanor, the story line, the little sisters is what makes me go wild for this game. i don’t care what any professional says about this game. it is single handedly the most obsessive, immaculate, and simply beautiful game.
To me, it boils down to effort. And even if the original creators weren't involved there was still effort put behind it misaimed or not. It got more hate than it should have and is better than a pure cash grab/paywall thing like Starwars Battlefront 2.
Bioshock Infinite is a reimagining of Bioshock 2. Lamb = Comstock (both rulers with religious fanatics as followers that want to set the people on the path of salvation, but are actually monsters), Eleanor = Elizabeth (also called lamb), Delta = DeWitt, Tennenbaum = Luteces (scientist allies). Also Dual Wielding weapons and plasmids, spinning weapon with a movement feature (dash/hook grab), melee-ing without holding a melee weapon using v, also Charge Vigor? Basically Drill Dash
I like bioshock 2s narrative because it presents a situation unique to the world created by the previous game. Sophia lamb never felt like the focus of the game she felt like an obstacle in between you and the individual you have been bonded to and her confusing philosophy was presented like a product of Ryan’s rapture. Everything felt very natural and the game was really immersive as a result.
Was never about utilitarianism, more collectivism. Utilitarianism does think that the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people is what is good, but that's not truly collectivistic because within 'the greatest amount of people' includes the self (so is neither truly collectivistic nor individualistic). It's about collectivism, where the one goal that everyone is going towards is Eleanor's transformation, ignoring the greatest amount of happiness for everyone; by discounting individual wellbeing within the games philosophy, it cannot be utilitarianism. And it never tries to be - 'Utopia' (for example) fits with terms of Lamb and Saviour. Conflating the two is dumb not deep.
@@lunaurum3515 i would argue against that. i saw nothing in 2 that would convince me that she isn't his, especially not the words of people who have little to no knowledge of his background and a sociopath that is only out for her cause. she would say anything to benefit the cause. if a deleted part confirms the biological connection, i fully believe it as canon.
@@swordbrotherulbrecht3286 i believe its confirmed to be not Canon tho, as it doesn't fit into the bioshock timeline that Johnny Topside became a big daddy relatively soon after discovering Rapture, so obviously i dont think it would be enough time for him to get frisky and raise a 6 year old girl
"I don't like how the same critique of rational egoism is flipped in this game to criticize my own collectivist opinions, so I think its 'dumb'" lmfao Never change wisecrack lol
The gameplay of Bioshock 2 is fun as hell. The last chapters when you have all the weapons and some nice perks with enemies rushing crazy to you, you tottally feel like an unstoppable Big Daddy
I was in debt. I borrowed money, purchased my first truck and made money. Loans and debt payed off. So yes its possible. Loans are like a tool in your tool box, used properly can help you or used improperly can do serious harm.
I get what you are saying and I'm very glad that you worked your way out of debt however 99 percent of people who try to borrow money to get out of debt are just continuing to make the same decisions expecting a different result and end up deeper in debt. Buying a truck to get out of debt is a risky way of doing it but it seems you had a business plan. I do feel that your situation is quite a bit different then trying to get a loan to pay off loans. Good on you though bro! Very glad you got out of debt. I wish there were more people like ya!
I forget if its refinancing their house, but essentially ive had family membera manage to get out of debt by expanding on their main source to pay off the others. With it all collected to one source of debt, they were able to avoid hefty late fees and lower the monthly cost to something manageable
16:29, I think its actually mentioned (or at least suggested) in some side lore that Johnny Topside (who became delta) was actually the donor Sofia used to have Eleanor. Just a side thing that isn't at all important to anything.
One of the critiques you mentioned was that BioShock 2 takes place in the same world as BioShock, and is therefore constrained in the context of objectivism from the previous game, but I actually see that as intentional. If BioShock is a critique of extreme capitalism run rampant, BioShock 2 is more of a cautionary tale about the backlash against that system. It’s a case study about how rhetoric, propaganda, and dogmatism-such as that exhibited by cult leaders and dictators-can be weaponized to hide the hypocrisy of an authoritarian regime under the guise of a more just system.
Bioshock 1 already covers the “backlash” against an extreme capitalist regime. In fact you show up in rapture nearing the end of the civil war and see the consequences of Ryan’s Utopia. Bioshock 2 was clearly trying to piggy back off of 1’s success by having it take place in the same location. I think the game would’ve been much better in an original location without the pointless homages to characters you already knew everything about. BS1 said everything it needed to say and BS2 had a similar message about the other end of the spectrum but said it in a very unnecessarily familiar location.
Best Bioshock, especially when it comes to gameplay. Amazing and one of the most extremely underrated games ever! Also, the loading screens are legendary. So much thought went into this game, and people ignored it. Sad And the MP was very fun, too! Can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years... 😩
Story wise Bioshock 2 is undeniably the worst. It’s the least thought provoking and their wasn’t a single character I actually cared for. Eleanore was annoying, Lamb is a terrible villain and the whole morality system was ridiculously broken. Best part of the game was when I got to kill Sinclair. Really didn’t like being talked to like I didn’t know what rapture was, I’m a big daddy gosh darn-it.
@@hammerite6418 which it was because it doesn't suffer from any of the problems that the above comment addressed. You autistically slamming Bioshock 1 for no reason is getting old
@@NotTomorrow1 Infinite actually had characters I could care about. Bioshock 2 didn't have a single likable or relatable character. I'd say that alone makes 2 worse than Infite, story wise.
There is no ideological theory that lives in a vacuum, away from the rubble of it's predecessors' failures, so the setting and the leftover tapes make perfect sense.
Yeah I like both sequels better than 1. Don't get me wrong 1 is great but I had more fun in 2 and Infinite. As for story I honestly believe they're all pretty equal to each other I got invested in all of them.
@@MartinJHenebury Funny that you say that because Elizabeth and booker father daughter relationship only happened in the cutscenes aside from that all you did in infinite was go from point a to b shooting people.
Bio shock 2 Fitting sequel Gameplay loop, WAY better and more fluid Story, not bad, but could have been better With that in mind the short amount of development time they had, along with they were forced to add a half baked multiplayer component, that actually turned out pretty fun So overall pretty damn good
I remember being really into the team death match esque pvp mode BS2 had. I was zany and fun running around with a rabbit mask and a frying pan and setting traps.
I think you were so close to seeing the beauty of BioShock 2 but missed it by such a wide margin at the end. You should look at other deep dives of it and re-evaluate this. Even 4 years later
The one mystery I've always wondered is if Delta was Eleanor's biological father. There are two audio files unused by the developers, with one stating that Sofia bought Delta's DNA while he was imprisoned in Persephone, while the other planned to make it clear she was not Delta's daughter.
I know I’m hella late, but I’m guessing they were concepts. The one where it proved Delta was Eleanor's biological father would have reinforced the reasoning behind his wanting to find Eleanor. But then again, people could call it cliche because of that.
There's something interesting about the game picking utilitarianism for the core philosophy of the megalomaniacal villain of the game. One of the things you realize about Utilitarianism is that most people think that it's a flat numbers game, in that if some people suffer so that the vast majority of people are happy, then it's okay by utilitarian standards. Most people, Lamb included, think of Utilitarianism as a purely consequentiallist philosophy, but there is a specific deontological standard that disqualifies an act from being utilitarian. If an act causes suffering to people, then it is inherently non-Utilitarian. I think it's pretty interesting that whereas BS1 is about the inherent flaws with Randian objectivism leading to destruction, BS2 is about the misapplication of a generally positive philosophy leading to the same problems as the inherently flawed philosophy.
Bioshock 2 was amazing imo, its felt like a great evolution from the first one and fleshed out rapture even more, the gamplay was the best of the three imo
One thing one must also consider is the consequence of ethical choices. Recently I played on Normal difficulty and I can say I struggled. Resources, ammunition, funds, all much more limited than Easy level. I felt my frustration mount when I needed more Adam to survive and I had to defend the Little Sisters from waves of Splicers, throwing away bullets and health kits for that little extra edge in plasmids and tonics. In gameplay, you are tested in how much are you willing to put up with to survive. Will you save you inventory and get the base amount of Adam, harvest out of spite because you've wasted your ammo and it feels pretty cathartic, or hold fast and save the little girls just to see that smiling face. Narratively, you're also tested ethically. Do you take out your aggression on the bosses for throwing wave after wave at you and do horrible things to your character in the past. Or do you exercise restraint and provide a positive role model for Eleanor to learn from, ironically in the same way she is being groomed for being the idealised utopian to be the guiding light (a story beat repeated in Infinite with Eleanor becomes the Lamb to lead the people. Constants and Variables I guess). Therefor its a combination of narrative choices and gameplay choices that give you the decisive ending. Subjectively, I found the nuances in the ending differences a bit more poignant than the first as you come to serve as a parental figure for Eleanor and want to see them at their best. If I lead her down the wrong path, I despair at seeing her become a monster because of my choices. My choices become her. Comparatively, in Bioshock, doing all good or all bad leads to snarky contrasted, black and white outcomes. Just because I wanted to survive doesn't make me a dictator in search of nukes. Just as showing empathy doesn't make me a role model for impressionable young girls who have only ever known Rapture.
When do we EVER see Rapture at it's peak? We see it in Infinite, in Burial at Sea, but when Jack comes to Rapture the place has already gone to hell, just as it was in Bioshock 2. We see the Fallout yes, but not in the way you describe in the video. I would understand and align myself with your point if we were, say, a Resident of Rapture and we witnessed the Fall in 1959. However we never specifically see it, we only see the results. Also in my opinion the New Utopia has already gotten off the ground, as Lamb has amassed a MASSIVE congregation. She is currently leading Rapture in her plight to turn Eleanor into the mind of the people. Deltas death was the lynch pin for this working. If Delta had stayed dead Lamb would have gotten what she wanted, and then the Family would be at their Ideological Endgame. However, we, As Subject Delta, Destablize the Family, and begin to knock everything over in a attempt to Get our Daughter back. We aren't really stopping Sophia Lamb. We are Saving Eleanor and by extension toppling a Utilitarian Regime. Also I don't believe Lamb is a Utilitarian. It seems she falls more into the Socialist category. Socialism , by its definition, is A political and Economic theory which means that Production, Distribution, and Exchange should be owned by the Community as a whole(Thank you Google) Once could argue, however, that they are similar in nature, and I agree. It just seems to me that Lamb wishes to manipulate people into thinking they are all equal, when behind closed Doors, Lamb is just using them to get what she wants. So, in truth if you really wanted to argue it, she could actually be a Objectivist, posing as Utilitarian, or Socialist.
Also Hitler and by extension Nazism is the ultimate collectivist ideology. Socialism and Communism see the collective as a way for the individual to achieve as much as he can in his life, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need in essence means that the collective is there to give everyone what they require. In essence "the collective" is not really defined beyond people helping eachother. On the other hand Nazism imbues the collective with it's own identity - ethnicity, race, tradition - and in essence creates something that is not merely made up by all the people in the collective, but all of what came before and will come in the future, and by extension validates sacrifice for the preservation of the collective as the fundamental principle of it's function. The "socialist" collective is to serve the people, while the "nazi" collective is to be served by the people.
Žiga Auer I would say most real life examples of collectivism were a bastardization of what they were to be. With most become corrupted or just being a facade to lure people in to make them powerful.
@@dezznutts1197 But again with socialism there is the bastardization, Naziism just outright demands all citizens to be ready to sacrifice themselvss for the survival of the Nation. All is conflict, and women are to make and raise children, men are to give their lives in war, and the weak are to be enslaved or eliminated.
I enjoyed the criticism of collectivism that Bioshock 2 provided, showing that it is basically impossible for a collectivist utopia to coincide with human nature. Sophia claimed that she was working towards selfless cause when in reality she wasn’t any less selfish or manipulative than Fountaine who basically the same goals of making a “perfect being” just Lamb at the expense of others for a “greater good” or “greater being” showing that goals of radical self-interest and collectivist thought are not that different after all. She also shares her flaws with real world dictators like Mao and many Soviet leaders that sacrificed millions of innocence so they can achieve a greater society through “ends justify the means” way of thought which also didn’t harm themselves or the other elite that implemented the progroms. For me, it’s an important critique especially during a time in America and many other nations where people are seeking saviors to help them even if it means it at the expense of themselves or to keep the “other” in its place.
one of the biggest things it’s about is giving the ones you love a choice whatever that may be; beyond your control but also how our decisions affect others around us more specifically the ones we love. It’a definitely a flip from Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontain being the most important to Elenor and you being the most important
My main issue with 2? The environment: you see, it's clear that 1 tried really hard to differentiate its locations and make all of them memorable, whereas 2 is... kinda of the same? I mean, you got these ghettos, the train stations... and then? Yes, the park, but that was also in 1. I missed a lot the music in the background and all the flashy lights and neons the first one had. In 2 everything is just greenish.
@@tediumlacie I know right! I knew his shadow dropped but never payed attention. Then i started replaying it again yesterday and nearly squealed when i noticed the sisters shadow peaking over my shoulder. And how bought if we get stunned by melee attack from a bruiser the little sister will slip and her arm momentarily appears on the glass of our helmet as she tries righting herself?
I love Bioshock 2 but I think your right. But here's a thought about the shaking off of Rayn's ghost. Rapture like our world is something that started before we were born and was effected by those who came before us. We at no point are give a new shinny Rapture and we must deal with the damage they have done. It's a struggle against the inevitable. Miss Lamb tried to raise up from the ashes but fell back to the dust. Losing her mind and her way along the way. What I took from the game is we must try to make it better, even if we know we may fail.
To point two, in my opinion Lambs utilitarism or utilitarism in regular is very difficult to archieve. You, as an indivitual, would have to know every outcome and be immune to curruption if you have the power to know every outcome by minions. I think in that regard Lamb went down a path of destruction thinking it is the best solution not seeing how she strayed from that path and I think this plotpoint is not dumb. Every school of philosophy, consequential as the other two big ones, can be flawed by the person following it. So in comparison with the other two bioshocks, this fits quite well. The Person preaching a path can destroy by blind faith in the system that he believes the path should take.
El is God, Eleanor and Elizabeth are both lambs. Not sure if intended or finding something where it isn't. Eleanor Lamb and Elizabeth is the lamb of Columbia. Also, Eleanor and Elizabeth. One means 'God is my light' and Elizabeth is a form of Elisheva which means 'My God is an oath' or 'My God is abundance'.
I never took part 2 serious after part 1. But I had fun playing it, it was cool exploring Rapture and the various cast in the game. I'll leave it at that.
I basically saw it as George Orwell's Animal Farm. Yes, Sophia Lamb correctly criticized Andrew Ryan's philosophy but she ended up being just as bad or worse than him...just like the pigs at the end of Anima Farm.
I'd Argue both Ryan and Lamb were critical takes not the philosophies in question, but how neither really can be implemented without causing suffering and tragedy on a self-defeating level. Lamb's Utilitarian ethic was based on the greater happiness of the greater whole of humanity; but because she is a person operating on ego like any other it falls to her own ego-centrism. Ryan's Objectivism failed because even in an isolated system enlightened self-interest that values long term gains is a rational position and humanity as a whole doesn't operate rationally often enough for that system to be fully effective. This is the core problem that extends to things like Marxism/Capitalism or Liberty/Safety as dichotomies. Finding that the principle isn't comparable with the human condition on either a individual level and or a collective level. In both cases they attempted to create post-human results that could meet the expectations of the ideals in question but undermine the societies they create as a result.
I wonder if some Feminist Care Ethics might be found in Bioshock 2. In the sense that utilitarianism and rational egoism both focus on either the individual's relation to one self or the individual's relation to the collective whole. Whereas care ethics focuses on an intermediary level between the self and another self such as a mother and daughter or parent and child. It seems like, based on some of your actions, and a certain ending, the narrative is philosophically presenting care ethics as a a valid middle ground between the two extremes of self-interest and selflessness. Sofia Lamb refuses to acknowledge her ethical responsibility to care for her daughter Eleanor and instead devotes her life to a radical utilitarian "utopia". Whereas the player has the option of saving Eleanor and especially the little sisters which you could say the player's method of applying care ethics to adopted daughters.
While Bioshock and Infinite are fantastic games, Bioshock 2 is my personal favorite, and I think it's deserving of more love than it gets. True, it's story and villain aren't as strong as the other two, but the game's strength comes from three main sources: (a) The protagonist Delta. Honestly, I found Delta and his struggle to reunite with his "daughter" made for a more interesting character than Jack, who to be honest, didn't really become interesting until the last third of the game after his major revelation; a strong character needs to be strong throughout his/her story, not just toward the end. Delta's steadfastness in pursuit of his charge is empowering, and like the first game, his actions have consequences that affect the outcome of the game. (b) Lamb as the villain. While her philosophy may be flawed, I think Lamb's appeal as a villain comes from her animosity toward Delta: She almost treats him like a former husband that is intent on gaining custody of their child (which is kinda the case), while she acts like a vain ex-wife who will do anything so long as it harms or damns him in some way, even if it involves hurting her own daughter. It makes you wonder if these two didn't have roots stretching back farther than Rapture. (b-2) On a side note, the Big Sisters made for some really cool and terrifying boss fights. Would love to see them again. (c) What is EASILY the best combat gameplay in any of these games. Bioshock handled fine for when it came out, but it's definitely showing its age, while Infinite was just plain clunky.
Bioshock 2 gets unfairly bashed on. It has the best gameplay from the trilogy and the best DLC with Minerva's den. I'd say hands down it was better than Bioshock Infinite
Don’t forget the loading screens! Some of the greatest loading screens EVER; I always find myself listening to the music. Such a beautiful game. God, I literally cannot believe this game is almost 10 years old. I remember the day I got it. One of my favorite games of all time.
Plus, it has way more replayability value. I love Bioshock 1, in my eyes the story is as near as perfect as we have ever gotten in a video game, but after finishing it the first time I really strugled with my decision to go over it again. Whereas, with Bioshock 2, I've finished it 4 times, along with the DLC and I'm probably going to play it again when I finish writing this comment. It really frustrates me how often it gets dismissed without being given a fair shot.
Infinite literally gave Bioshock 2 the best excuse for the history hiccups, the multiple universes/timelines shown via the light houses. In Infinite the area of Rapture you see is missing the Shock Plasmid you get implying the player has passed through, but it is also missing the plane wreckage and the destroyed tunnel, implying a different set of events happened.
Yeah, but while the many universes thing makes for interesting discussions, its as lazy as the "its all a dream" revelation when it comes to solving ploteholes.
@bacon froyothat's not the point, but The Witcher trilogy, Witcher 3 being the highlight. Storytelling is hard, and one of its challenges is to make something consistent with its internal logic. We admire great storytellers (such as Tolkien) for managing to do so because of the skill it takes. But a dream revelation or a multi-verse revelation is so versatile, so loosely defined, that it can fix almost any issue the story might have. A good way to compare them is by saying that the dream/multiverse revelation is comparable in many ways to storytelling what steroids are to sports. And again, dreams and multiverses are interesting themes to set your story in, they really are. Bioshock Infinite makes use of the multiverse idea to do some great thematic exploration. But to use them as a "fix-all" for any plotholes in your story is lazy as all hell.
13:16. That's the greatest leap in logic this channel has done I've ever seen on it. You just need to look at the critiques of utilitarianism, like the ones that state that since we are not a hive mind this collective needs to be run by individuals, and that it is basically impossible for all the decisions to be made by the group causing the will to be carried out by the inner circle (that may be just one person), as you have stated Lamb is clearly altruistic, but still entirely selfish which is one of the arguments the philosophers that are against utilitarianism use. i don't know why wisecrack decided to see this from just one angle. Even when you point to the act of not mindlessly follow an belief and critiquing your own side, you seem to be arguing from a point that seems to not even consider the possibility of collectivism/utilitarianism having flaws.
I feel like it is more of a criticism of rebuilding a world based around collective syndicalism (furthermore communism) when the system prior gets overthrown or mismanaged into destruction. Everything must be a balance of the two and at the end of the day someone who advocated for a idea that might benefit the greater good is inherently selfish. IDK my two cents of what I got out of it.
Another great video to watch about the deeper meaning of Bioshock 2 came out not to long ago on a channel called poparena. I highly recommend also watching that one, it goes into greater detail in the purpose of the main character and Elanor.
Bioshock: Good Original Story and cool gameplay Bioshock 2: Do you want to play more Bioshock? The story isn't very interesting but the gameplay is improved with dual wielding and little sister defend (which I really liked, might be unpopular opinion). Bioshock Infinite: We made Bioshock but not Bioshock 2. No cares about Bioshock 2. Let's copy the story, add paradox elements, create a floating city instead of the underwater one, improve the game with Bioshock 2's quality of life changes and make some other changes (2 weapons, all vigors instead of all weapons, some plasmids)
For those saying its not an unpopular opinion. From where I grew up, from the people I knew in school, its an unpopular opinion. Hence why I said so, because of my past experiences with it.
AAAAH BIOSHOCK MY LOVE 💛💚💜 Thank you!! I talked about BioShock in German so thank you for finally covering the second game! EDIT: BioShock 2 has more than three endings...and it‘s very likely Delta is her biological father. He is her daddy already. 💙
i think the entire bioshock series focuses on the concept that you shouldnt care for only yourself NOR everybody, but that real care MUST be directed towards a selected few. in 1 its the little sisters that save you, atlas even misleads you by getting you to care for him and his "family". in 2 its eleanor and in infinite its elizabeth. the reason the protagonist goes through his ark and completes his story, even though with unexpected endings, is that his focus is on one or only a few persons whom he truly loves. so in a way i see it as a comment on the importance of personal connections in a world lost in the utopic fantasies of only a few.
I think that the importance of Bioshock 2's story is not in the antagonist, who is admittedly not as great as that in 1, but in the main character Delta. We've seen the horror of extreme self-interest in 1, as well as the dangers of relying on those who are only interested in their own personal gains. However, Delta is the opposite of the story of 1 and the antagonist of this game in that he is largely independent. He follows no one and nothing except his desire to protect his daughter, willfully going against everyone to do so. 2 shows the dangers of mindlessly becoming part of the collective on the promise of achieving happiness. The only one to actually achieve happiness is Delta and Eleanor, who achieve their personal goals of reuniting and escaping Rapture. In the world today where it is especially evident that we are just one out of the billions of people that live in the world, 2 shows us that individualism still matters. You don't need to join the throng to make a difference in the world; sometimes your own actions are enough. This is shown in the final scene where your actions of how to use the little sisters reflects in Eleanor; whether she becomes a ray of hope or a blight on society rested on Delta's hands. Just through living and being an example for people to see can influence those around you, slightly changing the world whether it be for better or for worse.
Well said
I see what your saying but the main problem is that you aren't doing it independently. The game takes great pains to establish that you are not Eleanors real father, that you only seek her because that is how your mind was programmed, and your independence isn't real. The first game showed how being focused on self interest fails and you are forced the entire game to be self serving. You agree to help Atlas so that you yourself can escape, you help Sandor Cohen in order to pass through the area, you solve the formula for the trees so that you don't suffocate. Then in the end of the first only real choice you made about saving or harvesting sisters determines your ending. In the second game the entire point of the game is to be selfless for Eleanor. Like the video was saying the utilitarian society that was trying to take off was based on a selfless egoless individual. Throughout the game you are given choices to be selfish; by harvesting sisters, sparing people who wronged you or Eleanor and in the end these decisions again determine your ending. Bioshock 2 follows Bioshock 1 very closely the only difference is that it presents it as being a noble endeavor when you can't not save Eleanor. Your choices only effect Eleanors path not your own. Likewise Bioshock one you go from escaping to getting yourself ahead to getting revenge on Andrew to getting revenge on Fontaine and in the end if you follow Andrew's pure selfish philosophy you get a "bad" ending and if you are selfless you get a "good" ending and inbetween means you get a neutral ending. I love Bioshock two but it is incredibly similar to Bioshock 1 the main difference being in how you as the protagonist are identified.
@@williamwallace090 I'll agree that in the roles that they play story rise, 1 and 2 protags are similar. However, I believe that the biggest difference is that once you have control of Delta, he is "free." He is still following Eleanor, but your choices of sparing or killing the little sisters and the "bosses" of the area to pass reflect on Delta. Do you follow the programming that instilled as a big daddy and bowl through everything or do you show your human side despite the monster you became? Even though gameplay wise your actions are predetermined, by the story's terms you follow no one's will but your own. And even though your actions only reflect on Eleanor, it shows in each of the endings that her actions by proxy of your teachings reflects on how she takes on the world, either as someone who helps or destroys.
@@patknack7368 I see what you are saying but I just wish the ending was handled differently. In Bioshock 1 and 2 the endings are based off of your actions of sparing innocents or being greedy. That's great A+ in Bioshock 1 Andrew Ryan puts his vision of Rapture over people's lives. If you put getting power over the lives of the little sisters you get the bad ending so acting like Andrew Ryan gets you the bad ending. In Bioshock 2 it focuses on Sophia Lamb being selfless to a fault. She is willing to sacrifice her daughter for the good of the people of Rapture if you proceed to act selfish and take power and kill people like Andrew Ryan you get the bad ending again A+, if you save some people and not others you get varying levels of the neutral endings. If you save everyone you get the good ending. This doesn't make sense because you spend the game fighting against Sophia's extremist views of selflessness. What should have happened is that if you spared everybody you got a second bad ending where Eleanor saves Sophia and then proceeds to let Sophia get what she wants out of Eleanor. This is especially difficult as the game is never clear on what would happen if Sophia succeeded. Having the good ending being flipped on you and Sophia executing her plan and seeing the results would have been wonderful and it would make more since with the multiple neutral endings. As your moral decisions are not right and wrong dichotomy but rather a grey scale. This would make it a lot more realistic to what the real world is like and it would make the flow of the game make more sense. It doesn't make sense to have Sophia be the bad guy, her be selfless to an extreme, and then in order to get the good ending you have to spare everybody. It also makes the Neutral endings not worth it to get the cutscenes for. If there was two bad endings then you would be incentivised to play through multiple times looking for a true neutral ending.
Pat Knack dude lamb is so much better than Ryan
I think you missed out on the part where Sophia recognized herself as a sociopath, and that she herself was unable to act to the ideals she preached, that was WHY she needed to create the Utopian
Yeah I’m kind of mad they didn’t talk about that.
Because it's dumb.
@@-----------g- Wow, hot take there, did you spend all night on that one?
@@noahmueller709 I honestly disagree with this channel that Lamb’s philosophy was dumb. It didn’t have to be a direct word for word copy of Mill and Bentham’s works, I thought it was thought provoking and an interesting warning against groups who replace the ego with a collective
@@MrSailing101 He still sounds more reasonable than the whole Bioshock 2 story, so what?
"Love is just a chemical. We choose to give it meaning."
A simple quote, but even though the rest of this game's story mostly faded from my memory, that line of dialogue has stuck with me ever since. Kinda surprised it didn't get mentioned in the video.
No monster alive turns the other cheek
Good line, I suppose it pokes a hole in the whole "feelings are chemicals therefore do not matter" ideology that many a fedora clan geek espouse.
Delta only loves his daughter because it's his programming, but those emotions are still tangible and meaningful, even if to others they're not "real."
Didn't Walter say the same shit in Breaking Bad
We give it meaning by choice
Couldn't even quote it right
@@Reddervetter no
Lmao
I don't care what anyone thinks. I like having a drill hand.
AMEN.
Seriously. Even though the story definitely wasnt as good as the first, the gameplay was a freaking blast.
Big daddy: AHHHHHHHHHH!
Connor Chmel true, but you play a bioshock for the story, no?
THE DRILLDO
@@mohammedsarker5756 No. Not really.
I still quote one of BioShock 2's ending quotes to this day. "Utopia is not a place, but a people."
@penelope f. from odin tooo?
Yep without people a utopia is nothing
Cringe
That makes her horrific idea of using ADAM to kill the self and turn people into mindless bees, make a lot of sense.
@F NO LIKE RAPTURE
The most underrated and overly hated game. Needs more credit and love.
I loved it. I didn't even know people hated it until recently.
I don't hate it. And I think the DLC is actually quite good. I just don't think it's as well written as 1 or Infinite.
Felt like a sequel not done because they wanted to tell an interesting story but to cash in on the originals success
For real man. Maybe not as good as the original Bioshock but still fun as heck.
There were things missing ... certain sound effects and whatnot were changed or missing altogether. It seemed incomplete. The OVERALL game was just fine, but it just was lacking compared to the original.
I get why people complain about the story BUT you get to play as a BIG DADDY with Splicer powers. One of the few games where we can play as a boss character
Playing as a Big Daddy was awesome but i sometime didnt feel like a Big Daddy cuz of how fast i moved and having so many weapons others didnt have. But removing those thing would have made the game less fun so worth it in the end
@@GameLeaderR that's why you play as Alpha Series, subject Delta. You are not an actual Bouncer of Rosie so you are just a mutant human with a normal diving suit, you are not as heavy or as tough as a normal big daddy. I think this approach was pretty smart
The story is much more emotional
Big Daddy’s aren’t exactly what I’d call “boss characters” and the ending of bioshock 1 feels way more like playing as a big daddy than the entirety of Bioshock 2. I went into bioshock 2 thinking it would start me out as a tank but quickly realized these splicers were doing just as much damage as if I was playing as Jack from BS1 anyways.
@@GameLeaderR but big daddies are actually faster then Jack....
Sofia's utilitarianism extends beyond Rapture - as far as she's concerned, sacrificing Rapture is justifiable and even necessary _for the world as a whole._ That's whose happiness she is trying to maximize.
fireflocs this is obious but the video totaly glossed over it and claimed selfishness on lambs part. Kinda smels like bias
Exactly. She isn't trying to create one egoless saviour as the final end goal but wants Eleanor to go and save the whole world. Sacrificing one city no-one knows about is seen as a fair price.
@@guidotipaldi5643 yeah but honestly can you be suprised these guys have a bias against violence in literally every video they put out.
Tristan Griffin “I would Kindly” Disagree! 😆
Add to that the fact everyone in Rapture that wasn't born there already committed the original sin of moving to an objectivist utopia. It is really easy for a collectivist to sacrifice a gulag full of political dissidents if it were to serve the greater good.
A cult family with a savior daughter and saint mother, that sounds a lot like Infinite’s antagonist family.
Infinite is basically an amalgamation of the story of the first two games. Protagonist with suppressed memories who is looking for their daughter (who is a saviour, one called Lamb and the other being depicted as a lamb) enigmatic villain with personal connection to the protagonist who gets bludgeoned to death. Fink is Fontaine and Fitzroy is Atlas (in this case they are actually two seperate people).
People will use the excuse that's it's a game within the same series, but I find it to be lazy storytelling.
I believe Bio 2 stole from early drafts from Infinite, but I'm not complaining because I'm happy with the end product
@@Antasma1 it didn't, the two studios didn't have much communication and the script was nowhere near show ready between two studios when Bioshock 2 was in development.
Thanks,I've been saying it since I completed infinte, it's just 2 in the air with a bigger scope and original settings
@@Antasma1 Early drafts of infinite seemed to have a totally different story, evidence for this is depicting Comstock without a beard. It's just too implausible that no one would notice Comstock and Booker were parallel timeline clones without a beard to obscure most of Comstock's face. So they must be completely different people.
Also, early promo footage of Infinite show non-vox forces trying to lynch Elizabeth, they clearly want her dead. This is in line with early drafts saying Comstock had no relation to Elizabeth and "the founders" superstitiously saw her as a threat.
This was all publicised LONG after Bioshock 2 was released so if anything Infinite was "inspired" by Bioshock 2.
There is a strong trend in FPS games of very macho male leads being motivated by a protective instinct towards daughter figures.
Ofc it’s deep. Unda da sea deep 🌊
Of course someone would make this joke
Noice
🦀
booooooooooo
Everything's better down where it's wetter
Haven't seen anyone mentioning absolutely stellar performance by Lamb's voice actress, hence the praise. Stern, razor sharp, resonating powerfully through the cascade of immaterial then material speakers and testing a neural net of our own hopes and beliefs while trying to dismantle and substitute it by weaving a new one or more like consume it by an already established collective framework of a mind. Adamant and cold but trembling just a little in the moments of exeptional emotional strain. Ferocious when faced with the unstoppable and imminent. Subtly sarcastic, filled with elusive dry irony. Toned and pitched perfectly. A truly masterful work which adds an extra layer of deepness to this character.
I think you're in the minority there, I found her droning and pretentious. She used a lot of words, to say very little, really. I think she lectures Delta about "the self" about once every half an hour, at least. It was maddening, she'd pop up on the radio randomly to lecture with no context, and it was always the same point as the last time.
@@0lionheart Well, tbf you could ascribe pretentiousness to Andrew Ryan as well, they're both somewhat dubious idealogues whose main goal is to emanate powerful, yet not very specific and meaningful speeches which should come off appealing to a broader audience and feel like they actually were meaningful. Which still didn't strip me of my appreciation for both of their voice actor's performances
@@0lionheart Same applies to lecturing as far as I remember. Sorry for bringing up Ryan and making assumptions that you wouldn't say the same about him, perhaps you would.
I've always had this opinion:
Bioshock 1 is the better story.
Bioshock 2 is the better game.
Maybe... 1 had worse mechanics, but the combat situations were set up better, so it was more fun figuring out how to best approach a situation, rather than just rushing the splicers (with better controls and weapons).
@@arlom5132 Bio1 focused on how to best approach a situation from the POV of the attacker. You ambushed most of the splicers you met.
Bio2 is just the opposite, focusing on how to best defend against the attackers. You were ambushed by most of the splicers you met.
In Bio1, you would hunt the Big Daddies. In Bio2, you were the Big Daddy that was being hunted, and you were hunted all of the game.
I enjoyed Bio2 more because I found the tactics to be deeper.
I never rushed the splicers.
It was designed in favor of setting up traps, mines, sentries, and making the best use of the room, hallways, chock-points.
Where-as Bio1 tactics were more or less "shock that guy and hit him with a wrench".
@@Pikmin2031 I had the reverse experience. Huh.
Pikmin2031 constant horde mode sucked tho
@@Pikmin2031 Yeah, it was kinda like Far Cry 3, you could just storm the enemies and brute force your way to the end, but the fun of the game is in planing and executing a perfect trap. People that rushed throught the game just made it less fun for themselves, tbh.
Even though Levine didn't want to make a true sequel to Bioshock he did end up using a lot of themes from 2 in Infinite.
More then just that, the basic plot is almost just a copy paste with different names for the characters.
@@33link333that and harder to understand. All the time jumping fucmed with my head so much that I started getting headaches.
Eleanor calling me "father" was so strong, it made me forget of the game's flaws, of which there were very few in the first place.
I’m not a father or anything so maybe it was different for you but to me Eleanore was just kind’ve annoying. I never felt like she was my responsibility and ever time she showed up she just slowed the pace of the game. BS1 has a motivation that makes sense because you show up and you just want to escape because everything’s going crazy and you don’t want to die. BS2 just forces a relationship on you with a character that was hastily introduced in one scene and gives you no real incentive to go rescue other than “you gotta”
@@stevenmccroskey3411 A lack of empathy right there. Idk, I kinda felt myself fitting into the role of a parent figure for Eleanor and other little ones almost immediately. More so in the second game then in the fisrt one. Both Johnny and Jack are an admirable characters inspite of them not being able to talk the whole game.
@@tediumlacie You're accusing a stranger of having a lack of empathy for thinking a video game character was annoying, should probably get to know someone before you judge their personal character. This isn't about me though, this is about our opinions. I said bioshock 2 doesn't give you good motivation. In BS the reason Jack doesn't talk is so the player can empathize with him better. His thoughts are yours and everything he sees is new to both the player and him. In BS2 you aren't playing as a blank slate. He's already a big part of the world and you can't relate to him in any real way. I'm perfectly ok with letting a Mother have custody of a girl I've never met so long as she doesn't send an army of cultists after me. Now had they actually done a mission where she helps you or shown anything that would make the player actually care about their relationship and not go "ok they were just brainwashed to like each other, their relationship consisted only of killing splicers while the other drinks blood." then maybe I would be ok with the cliche rescue the damsel in distress story but they didn't do any of that. You wake up in a puddle and a girl you have no relationship with tells you you have to save her cause she said so. You have options that you aren't allowed to take where as bs1 gave you no choice because they made the story in a way that accounted for any easy outs. In BS1 you had to kill the splicers because they were crazy, In BS2 all you'd have to do is say "actually I'll just leave now" and the whole thing would stop right there.
She wasn't calling me Father she was calling my character a character who already has an established history in the world with no secrets to learn. She was thrust on me in the beginning of the story I was never able to develop a relationship with her
Eleanor only ever interacts with you through cutscenes and dialogue that amount to please save me over and over again there's no political ideals or ambiguous messages to make me feel bad. She certainly doesn't actually fight alongside you and help you in combat like Elizabeth does in BioShock Infinite
@@stevenmccroskey3411 I agree with what you said. Ignore that idiot
I remember hearing Lamb say "Utopia cannot precede Utopians" and thought holy shit that's true. We're not Utopians, how can we expect to ever have a Utopia? Nice.
Dystopia usually procedes Utopians
"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" - You could write a whole thesis on this.
There is. It's called the Communist Manifesto.
We could make an ideology out of this
@@dangernoodle2868 No don't.
@@hockeater yes do
@@TheDarkAngel969 Clearly someone doesn't know the meme. Look up history of the entire world. Running joke.
Play Minervas den... it's the best dlc i have ever played
Yes! I had forgot that it wasn't the main story. I was confused for a second when he started talking about Delta
What about Burial at Sea part 2? :o
@@travismcdaniel1233 It was ok, very Philip K Dicky, not shore there is philosophical meat on it
Minverva's Den is the best thing about Bioshock 2
Bra... 2 is my favorite, but you gotta play more dlc my boi... 😂
Fun fact: the voice of the clown at the vending machine is Ken Levine
Kent Levine was a hack fraud the entire time.
NO REFUnDS NO RETURNS
I feel like the 2nd part reflects a lot about reality though--tyrants spew philosophy they don't follow through on all the time, because the point of their philosophy isn't to genuinely create a utopia, its to control people by giving them something to blindly believe in. There are way too many people in the real world who spout whatever garbage they themselves dont believe and people crumble at their feet. Not sure if that leads to an overall assessment on the game's part, but the fact that the antagonist turns out that way isn't just poorly thought out story telling--its something we see all the time.
*MAGA intensifies*
I would say most if not all people in power or with money do that. Politicians. Celebrities. Athletes
Bioshock 2 was so good, the gameplay was so good and such an improvement over the original.
AciDD00M true
It's still pretty mediocre game play
It's my favorite game of the franchise, but I still don't like fighting all the splicers while the little sister is extracting adam.
@@gabrielgonzales5907 I suppose it's a matter of taste, but that was one of my favorite parts, because you get to plan it out strategically beforehand -- I know that a horde is going to be mobbing me in a moment, what can I do, what traps can I set up to handle them?
Yes and its also improve and enhance especially on hacking and research it made more sense
honestly, 2 should be the perfect Shock game. revamped gameplay and a more emotional story like Infinite, but still takes place in Rapture.
also *DRILL DASH*
Drill dash was so good they kept it in as a Vigor in Infinite
Also
*DRILL*
idc what anyone says, i want a drill for a hand
Woah now slow down. System Shock 2 will always be the greatest Shock game
Steven McCroskey and bioshock 1 will always be one of the worst games ever made
@@hammerite6418 wut da fak
I think 2 was a perfect mirror of the philosophy of 1. Andrew Ryan wanted the perfect individualist utopia but it was ultimately ruined by the imperfect nature of man. Sophia Lamb wanted the perfect collectivist utopia but it was ruined by the imperfect nature of man. Those imperfections are just presented differently in the different systems. In Ryan's failed utopia, Unbridled individualist capitalism led to the devaluation of human life and unsafe medical scientific practices. In Sophia's, collectivism lead to what it always does. A despotic few ruling over the many in the name of the greater good. Just look at the Soviet Union's rhetoric vs. it's actions. Both of these systems can never truly be put into large scale practice because human nature will win over lofty ideals.
You get it. It's completely a worthy philosophical theme in Bioshock.
Excellent analysis. Sofia Lamb’s utopia always gave off Marxist vibes. Sounds like the perfect utopia on paper but as human history has proven time and again, human nature will always sabotage “good intentions”.
@@averageperson8882 I beg of you to actually look up the history of socialist countries and what actually led to their downfall before attributing it to a vague concept like the "inherentl selfishness of human nature".
Interesting how collectivism is presented as bad in itself, while individualism is implicitly divided into “bad individualism”, or “unbridled capitalism”, and “good individualism”, which I guess more or less happens to overlap with the modern American economic system.
@@alejandrocambraherrera8242
Individualism is based on rights and actions of individual people. Individual people are real and will act in their own accord regardless of philosophy. The idea of individualism is amoral by default since it is affectively the concept of "leave people alone".
Collectivism is just a concept. There is no such thing as the collective. Just a bunch of people delineated into different groups based on nationality, demographic, etc... None of those delineations mean anything until a select few start "representing" the collective. An authority must be granted to the select few in order to represent the collective. Throughout most of human history authority has been derived from violence. The power to maintain that authority is still derived from violence. We have governments which may be elected by a majority of the people or be a system of delegates but ultimately that power is still enforced with violence.
At best, collective authority is a necessary evil. At the end of the day it is still society agreeing that there are rules that all individuals must follow and that a select few may use violence to enforce those rules. How numerous, strict, and fair those rules are and how viciously they are enforced is really the difference between good and bad collectivism.
BTW, I know it's a lot more complicated than that but I was trying to boil the ideas down to their most simple concepts.
Bioshock 2 was fantastic. Great gameplay, and a hell of an emotional payoff at the end.
There's this pervading expectation in your video essay that our villain Sofia Lamb is trying to create her idealized society in the form of The Rapture Family as we see it throughout the game. This isn't the case. She is a psychiatrist trying to treat the ruined, sickened remnants of Rapture by removing the ideologies that led it there. She does not see herself or her faction as the hands that will realize her vision, but she believes that by salvaging the humanity of Rapture, she can make someone who can. She wants to prove her ideology can be just as splendid. In the original BioShock, Rapture is a character. Sofia Lamb rejects this by not only condemning Rapture to ruin but by taking what she believes made it great all along; its people. Salvation by salvage. Sofia Lamb observes her own inability to live up to her ideals, which is a consistent characteristic of Rapture's visionaries after its fall. Ideology is treated as something of a drug in every BioShock. Everybody is high on something. Some sober up. Some never do. She isn't just a criticism of her own ideologies, but a continuation of that theme. Her hypocrisy is an expression of that, and she isn't entirely unaware of that or her own ego, even if a lot of her actions feel tone deaf in the face of her rhetoric; her plan acknowledges it.
That's not where the foils end either. If Rapture repeatedly demonstrated that self interest consumed adults fail the generation that follows them, then Sofia Lamb is trying to give everything to it. If Rapture was seen as a form of salvation for the self interested, Lamb's plot is a much more biblical Rapture from Rapture and its ideologies. Leaving behind the body and the self to ascend. I know your video isn't intended to be a review of thematic expression, but of philosophical themes, so I don't mean pointing these out to be a criticism.
I feel both games together have a lot to say about class warfare, animosity between haves and have nots, and how ambitious leaders manipulate these feelings.
Infinite owes a lot more to this one than Ken Levine would probably like to admit.
Yes I’ve been saying this for years and someone agrees with me
Facts. Infinite is literally a hoard throwing escort/rescue mission. Bioshock two already did this but was bashed for it because "No KeN mEaNs BaD gAmE"
@@KamikazeeAliens because infinite has a much better story and a compelling relationship with the protagonist and your Sidekick that actually affects moment-to-moment gameplay not just Radio Calls of oh please save me and no further character development
@@MartinJHenebury Infinite has a terrible story and the characters are dumb. It would take an essay to explain it and I'm not willing to do that. All I can say is that it was huge step down in every possible way.
@@gimpytheimp Worse than 2???
Bioshock 2 remains my favourite in the series. The gameplay was the best out of the 3 by far. The locations and environment of rapture on its deathbed looked stunning in my opinion. and the story was fantastic, between Eleanor, Sophia and deltas exploration of parenthood. How Sophia’s ideals of collectivism often morphed into cruelty as she sacrificed the happiness of the individual for what she believed was the greater good. Even some of the audio logs with Andrew Ryan showing just how much he compromised on his ideals in order to keep his vision of rapture alive.
Ultimately I think it’s a story about change, and throughout the game how delta acts either with selflessness and compassion, or selfishness and self preservation, shapes what Eleanor eventually becomes.
I think Lamb is just fine as a villain.
Utopian ideology ALWAYS leads to people like her who believe the ends justify the means, no matter if their ideology says they don't.
Maybe i'm alone in this one, but it's probably my favorite of the 3.
Here I thought I was weird thinking this but reading comments shows there's actually a good chuck of us! It seems Bioshock 2 has a cult following...Seems fitting.
@@flamesofchaos13 True, Bioshock 1 was great up until the end, and Bioshock Infinite at times felt boring and pretentious until the dlc.
But this one felt consistently decent and ended on a high note.
It's my favourite too😁
@@Naijiro i felt this since palying bioshock 1 and infinite i have to take breaks occasionally because i felt it getting a bit boring but 2 keep the motion at mid pace and at the end i can feel my adrenaline rushing
You're not bro
WiseCrack: We won’t cover Bioshock 2
Wisecrack fours years later: Ok here’s Bioshock 2
after five years, i still play bioshock 2 over and over and over again. the bond between delta and eleanor, the story line, the little sisters is what makes me go wild for this game. i don’t care what any professional says about this game. it is single handedly the most obsessive, immaculate, and simply beautiful game.
To me, it boils down to effort. And even if the original creators weren't involved there was still effort put behind it misaimed or not. It got more hate than it should have and is better than a pure cash grab/paywall thing like Starwars Battlefront 2.
I loved BioShock 2. I never knew how amazingly well written a game could be. The philosophies of all involved make the world much more real.
Play Bioshock 1. It's much more integrated with some masterfully executed twists
@@MartinJHeneburyyea but the gameplay suckass
The story of BioShock 2 hit me more, the bond between delta and elanor is very emotional to me, he traversed rapture for his daughter, he loves her.
Bioshock Infinite is a reimagining of Bioshock 2. Lamb = Comstock (both rulers with religious fanatics as followers that want to set the people on the path of salvation, but are actually monsters), Eleanor = Elizabeth (also called lamb), Delta = DeWitt, Tennenbaum = Luteces (scientist allies). Also Dual Wielding weapons and plasmids, spinning weapon with a movement feature (dash/hook grab), melee-ing without holding a melee weapon using v, also Charge Vigor? Basically Drill Dash
WiseCrack: "14:44 the villains are never given a chance to breathe"
Me: Yeah mate, they're under water!
I like bioshock 2s narrative because it presents a situation unique to the world created by the previous game. Sophia lamb never felt like the focus of the game she felt like an obstacle in between you and the individual you have been bonded to and her confusing philosophy was presented like a product of Ryan’s rapture. Everything felt very natural and the game was really immersive as a result.
Was never about utilitarianism, more collectivism. Utilitarianism does think that the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people is what is good, but that's not truly collectivistic because within 'the greatest amount of people' includes the self (so is neither truly collectivistic nor individualistic). It's about collectivism, where the one goal that everyone is going towards is Eleanor's transformation, ignoring the greatest amount of happiness for everyone; by discounting individual wellbeing within the games philosophy, it cannot be utilitarianism. And it never tries to be - 'Utopia' (for example) fits with terms of Lamb and Saviour. Conflating the two is dumb not deep.
Yes wisecrack has some obvious bias in favor of collectivism
you have a strange understanding of utilitarianism.
Even Eleanor says that her mother rather would see everyone equal in misery than let individuals strife for their happiness, or something like that.
Actually in a deleted scene it was confirmed that Eleanor was Delta's biological daughter
It was deleted though, so it doesn't really matter canonically.
@@lunaurum3515 i would argue against that. i saw nothing in 2 that would convince me that she isn't his, especially not the words of people who have little to no knowledge of his background and a sociopath that is only out for her cause. she would say anything to benefit the cause. if a deleted part confirms the biological connection, i fully believe it as canon.
Then delta and lamb should've had split custody
@@swordbrotherulbrecht3286 i believe its confirmed to be not Canon tho, as it doesn't fit into the bioshock timeline that Johnny Topside became a big daddy relatively soon after discovering Rapture, so obviously i dont think it would be enough time for him to get frisky and raise a 6 year old girl
this Bubbly Goodness his dna/sperm was sold to lamb for the purpose of having a child. He had nothing to do with it personally.
"I don't like how the same critique of rational egoism is flipped in this game to criticize my own collectivist opinions, so I think its 'dumb'" lmfao
Never change wisecrack lol
Xdddddd
The gameplay of Bioshock 2 is fun as hell. The last chapters when you have all the weapons and some nice perks with enemies rushing crazy to you, you tottally feel like an unstoppable Big Daddy
Persephone is probably my favourite “last level” in video games. I felt unstoppable there
Get out of debt by borrowing money, seems legit. LMFAO.
If it helps you pay for assets to eventually get out, like equipment or education, it can.
I was in debt. I borrowed money, purchased my first truck and made money. Loans and debt payed off. So yes its possible. Loans are like a tool in your tool box, used properly can help you or used improperly can do serious harm.
I get what you are saying and I'm very glad that you worked your way out of debt however 99 percent of people who try to borrow money to get out of debt are just continuing to make the same decisions expecting a different result and end up deeper in debt. Buying a truck to get out of debt is a risky way of doing it but it seems you had a business plan. I do feel that your situation is quite a bit different then trying to get a loan to pay off loans. Good on you though bro! Very glad you got out of debt. I wish there were more people like ya!
@@waffensuperninja I should've said semi. I used said loan to start my business.
I forget if its refinancing their house, but essentially ive had family membera manage to get out of debt by expanding on their main source to pay off the others. With it all collected to one source of debt, they were able to avoid hefty late fees and lower the monthly cost to something manageable
loved the atmosphere. introduced me to the series and still play it to this day once in a while.
16:29, I think its actually mentioned (or at least suggested) in some side lore that Johnny Topside (who became delta) was actually the donor Sofia used to have Eleanor. Just a side thing that isn't at all important to anything.
It was. But unfortunately, they scrapped the idea.
One of the critiques you mentioned was that BioShock 2 takes place in the same world as BioShock, and is therefore constrained in the context of objectivism from the previous game, but I actually see that as intentional. If BioShock is a critique of extreme capitalism run rampant, BioShock 2 is more of a cautionary tale about the backlash against that system. It’s a case study about how rhetoric, propaganda, and dogmatism-such as that exhibited by cult leaders and dictators-can be weaponized to hide the hypocrisy of an authoritarian regime under the guise of a more just system.
Bioshock 1 already covers the “backlash” against an extreme capitalist regime. In fact you show up in rapture nearing the end of the civil war and see the consequences of Ryan’s Utopia. Bioshock 2 was clearly trying to piggy back off of 1’s success by having it take place in the same location. I think the game would’ve been much better in an original location without the pointless homages to characters you already knew everything about. BS1 said everything it needed to say and BS2 had a similar message about the other end of the spectrum but said it in a very unnecessarily familiar location.
Steven McCroskey bioshock 1 is one of the worst games ever made it’s down there with resident evil 4 and fallout new vegas
Best Bioshock, especially when it comes to gameplay. Amazing and one of the most extremely underrated games ever!
Also, the loading screens are legendary. So much thought went into this game, and people ignored it. Sad
And the MP was very fun, too!
Can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years... 😩
Story wise Bioshock 2 is undeniably the worst. It’s the least thought provoking and their wasn’t a single character I actually cared for. Eleanore was annoying, Lamb is a terrible villain and the whole morality system was ridiculously broken. Best part of the game was when I got to kill Sinclair. Really didn’t like being talked to like I didn’t know what rapture was, I’m a big daddy gosh darn-it.
Steven McCroskey like bioshock 1s story was any good
@@hammerite6418 which it was because it doesn't suffer from any of the problems that the above comment addressed. You autistically slamming Bioshock 1 for no reason is getting old
@@stevenmccroskey3411 Story wise Infinite is undeniably the worst.
@@NotTomorrow1 Infinite actually had characters I could care about. Bioshock 2 didn't have a single likable or relatable character. I'd say that alone makes 2 worse than Infite, story wise.
"A cure for wellness" is a great film that captures a similar feel to bioshock. Check it out. Its fantastic.
That film kinda went off the rails in the end, tho. Really disappointing last act.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn
Loved it.
It was a throe back to old universal horror films
JokerL1000 I am too much of a pussy 😿
There is no ideological theory that lives in a vacuum, away from the rubble of it's predecessors' failures, so the setting and the leftover tapes make perfect sense.
What I’m about to say is heresy...
I liked Bioshock 2 more than Infinite.
MrMovieMaker116 infinite was really confusing. But I was also smoking a lot of weed during the time of my life I played it so....
Yeah I like both sequels better than 1. Don't get me wrong 1 is great but I had more fun in 2 and Infinite. As for story I honestly believe they're all pretty equal to each other I got invested in all of them.
I like bioshock infinates story more but i fell in love with Bioshock 2s gamplay
that's not heresy, that's the proper opinion.
Bioshock infinite was shit in gameplay and story. There is nothing hertical with saying 2 was better.
Hater: BioShock 2 sucks
Subject delta: *HOLD MY DRILL*
Jack: hold my faster legs
BioShock 2's story wasn't quite as good as the first, but it was good, and it was definitely a fun game.
That's exactly how I feel, everything you just said is exactly what I think about that game.
Exactly and then the 3rd game.... lets not talk abt that one
@@urmumisalandwhaletv6479 which executes the father-daughter thing much better because instead of just being some cutscenes we get actual gameplay
@@MartinJHenebury Funny that you say that because Elizabeth and booker father daughter relationship only happened in the cutscenes aside from that all you did in infinite was go from point a to b shooting people.
Bio shock 2
Fitting sequel
Gameplay loop, WAY better and more fluid
Story, not bad, but could have been better
With that in mind the short amount of development time they had, along with they were forced to add a half baked multiplayer component, that actually turned out pretty fun
So overall pretty damn good
It's faster paced so it's no longer a survival horror shooter
@@MartinJHeneburyif u srsly thought BioShock1 survival horror ur hella jumpy and scared of everything
bet u got scared of pvz and had to turn it off because those fuckin zombies man, just tooo scary
Loved bioshock 2. The big sister fights were always my favorite
Bioshock is a rally against all utopian-ism, not just the version you like less.
Yep.
Yep not just religion. Also against that other-ism invented by a german with a bushy beard and not one day's work in his life
I actually preferred BioShock 2 to the other 2--heresy, I know.
I also agree
@Isaac Paczkowski same underated
i agree
Subject delta supremacy
please do an analysis of the thinker DLC to Bioshock 2. it was such a fantastic story and one of the best dlcs I've ever played.
I remember being really into the team death match esque pvp mode BS2 had. I was zany and fun running around with a rabbit mask and a frying pan and setting traps.
I think you were so close to seeing the beauty of BioShock 2 but missed it by such a wide margin at the end. You should look at other deep dives of it and re-evaluate this. Even 4 years later
I love the Bioshock franchise so much. Don't know how or why I missed out on Bioshock 2 until I got the set for Switch.
The one mystery I've always wondered is if Delta was Eleanor's biological father. There are two audio files unused by the developers, with one stating that Sofia bought Delta's DNA while he was imprisoned in Persephone, while the other planned to make it clear she was not Delta's daughter.
I know I’m hella late, but I’m guessing they were concepts. The one where it proved Delta was Eleanor's biological father would have reinforced the reasoning behind his wanting to find Eleanor. But then again, people could call it cliche because of that.
There's something interesting about the game picking utilitarianism for the core philosophy of the megalomaniacal villain of the game. One of the things you realize about Utilitarianism is that most people think that it's a flat numbers game, in that if some people suffer so that the vast majority of people are happy, then it's okay by utilitarian standards. Most people, Lamb included, think of Utilitarianism as a purely consequentiallist philosophy, but there is a specific deontological standard that disqualifies an act from being utilitarian. If an act causes suffering to people, then it is inherently non-Utilitarian.
I think it's pretty interesting that whereas BS1 is about the inherent flaws with Randian objectivism leading to destruction, BS2 is about the misapplication of a generally positive philosophy leading to the same problems as the inherently flawed philosophy.
Bioshock 2 was amazing imo, its felt like a great evolution from the first one and fleshed out rapture even more, the gamplay was the best of the three imo
One thing one must also consider is the consequence of ethical choices. Recently I played on Normal difficulty and I can say I struggled. Resources, ammunition, funds, all much more limited than Easy level. I felt my frustration mount when I needed more Adam to survive and I had to defend the Little Sisters from waves of Splicers, throwing away bullets and health kits for that little extra edge in plasmids and tonics. In gameplay, you are tested in how much are you willing to put up with to survive. Will you save you inventory and get the base amount of Adam, harvest out of spite because you've wasted your ammo and it feels pretty cathartic, or hold fast and save the little girls just to see that smiling face.
Narratively, you're also tested ethically. Do you take out your aggression on the bosses for throwing wave after wave at you and do horrible things to your character in the past. Or do you exercise restraint and provide a positive role model for Eleanor to learn from, ironically in the same way she is being groomed for being the idealised utopian to be the guiding light (a story beat repeated in Infinite with Eleanor becomes the Lamb to lead the people. Constants and Variables I guess). Therefor its a combination of narrative choices and gameplay choices that give you the decisive ending.
Subjectively, I found the nuances in the ending differences a bit more poignant than the first as you come to serve as a parental figure for Eleanor and want to see them at their best. If I lead her down the wrong path, I despair at seeing her become a monster because of my choices. My choices become her. Comparatively, in Bioshock, doing all good or all bad leads to snarky contrasted, black and white outcomes. Just because I wanted to survive doesn't make me a dictator in search of nukes. Just as showing empathy doesn't make me a role model for impressionable young girls who have only ever known Rapture.
I have been waiting for this! I honestly thought bioshock 2 is wildly underrated
When do we EVER see Rapture at it's peak? We see it in Infinite, in Burial at Sea, but when Jack comes to Rapture the place has already gone to hell, just as it was in Bioshock 2. We see the Fallout yes, but not in the way you describe in the video. I would understand and align myself with your point if we were, say, a Resident of Rapture and we witnessed the Fall in 1959. However we never specifically see it, we only see the results.
Also in my opinion the New Utopia has already gotten off the ground, as Lamb has amassed a MASSIVE congregation. She is currently leading Rapture in her plight to turn Eleanor into the mind of the people. Deltas death was the lynch pin for this working. If Delta had stayed dead Lamb would have gotten what she wanted, and then the Family would be at their Ideological Endgame. However, we, As Subject Delta, Destablize the Family, and begin to knock everything over in a attempt to Get our Daughter back. We aren't really stopping Sophia Lamb. We are Saving Eleanor and by extension toppling a Utilitarian Regime.
Also I don't believe Lamb is a Utilitarian. It seems she falls more into the Socialist category. Socialism , by its definition, is A political and Economic theory which means that Production, Distribution, and Exchange should be owned by the Community as a whole(Thank you Google) Once could argue, however, that they are similar in nature, and I agree. It just seems to me that Lamb wishes to manipulate people into thinking they are all equal, when behind closed Doors, Lamb is just using them to get what she wants. So, in truth if you really wanted to argue it, she could actually be a Objectivist, posing as Utilitarian, or Socialist.
Them: "It's hard to imagine a collectivist preforming acts of villainy". Me: Stalin, Mao, pol pot, Castro, Maduro...
Also Hitler and by extension Nazism is the ultimate collectivist ideology. Socialism and Communism see the collective as a way for the individual to achieve as much as he can in his life, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need in essence means that the collective is there to give everyone what they require. In essence "the collective" is not really defined beyond people helping eachother. On the other hand Nazism imbues the collective with it's own identity - ethnicity, race, tradition - and in essence creates something that is not merely made up by all the people in the collective, but all of what came before and will come in the future, and by extension validates sacrifice for the preservation of the collective as the fundamental principle of it's function. The "socialist" collective is to serve the people, while the "nazi" collective is to be served by the people.
Žiga Auer I would say most real life examples of collectivism were a bastardization of what they were to be. With most become corrupted or just being a facade to lure people in to make them powerful.
Žiga Auer and I love the first one because it basically shits on Ayn rand which is always fun.
@@dezznutts1197 But again with socialism there is the bastardization, Naziism just outright demands all citizens to be ready to sacrifice themselvss for the survival of the Nation. All is conflict, and women are to make and raise children, men are to give their lives in war, and the weak are to be enslaved or eliminated.
Žiga Auer the Nazis being call national socialist was just a facade. They were fascist with 70% of their economy being privatized
I enjoyed the criticism of collectivism that Bioshock 2 provided, showing that it is basically impossible for a collectivist utopia to coincide with human nature.
Sophia claimed that she was working towards selfless cause when in reality she wasn’t any less selfish or manipulative than Fountaine who basically the same goals of making a “perfect being” just Lamb at the expense of others for a “greater good” or “greater being” showing that goals of radical self-interest and collectivist thought are not that different after all.
She also shares her flaws with real world dictators like Mao and many Soviet leaders that sacrificed millions of innocence so they can achieve a greater society through “ends justify the means” way of thought which also didn’t harm themselves or the other elite that implemented the progroms.
For me, it’s an important critique especially during a time in America and many other nations where people are seeking saviors to help them even if it means it at the expense of themselves or to keep the “other” in its place.
Bioshock 2 is actually the inspiration for most of Infinite's plot, IMHO.
one of the biggest things it’s about is giving the ones you love a choice whatever that may be; beyond your control but also how our decisions affect others around us more specifically the ones we love. It’a definitely a flip from Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontain being the most important to Elenor and you being the most important
Of course it's deep: It's at the bottom of the ocean!
I'll be here all week.
My main issue with 2?
The environment: you see, it's clear that 1 tried really hard to differentiate its locations and make all of them memorable, whereas 2 is... kinda of the same? I mean, you got these ghettos, the train stations... and then? Yes, the park, but that was also in 1. I missed a lot the music in the background and all the flashy lights and neons the first one had. In 2 everything is just greenish.
Did anyone else just watch Delta's shadow? I always found his shadow fascinating.
Especially when he had a little sister on him
@@tediumlacie I know right! I knew his shadow dropped but never payed attention. Then i started replaying it again yesterday and nearly squealed when i noticed the sisters shadow peaking over my shoulder. And how bought if we get stunned by melee attack from a bruiser the little sister will slip and her arm momentarily appears on the glass of our helmet as she tries righting herself?
That was a nice touch really the only graphical Improvement besides the faces over the first game
I love Bioshock 2 but I think your right. But here's a thought about the shaking off of Rayn's ghost. Rapture like our world is something that started before we were born and was effected by those who came before us. We at no point are give a new shinny Rapture and we must deal with the damage they have done. It's a struggle against the inevitable. Miss Lamb tried to raise up from the ashes but fell back to the dust. Losing her mind and her way along the way. What I took from the game is we must try to make it better, even if we know we may fail.
And Yarn
And Nary
Darn Nay
Darn Any
Rand Nay
Rand Any
Randy An
Frankly, it isn't that easy...
Andy Arn (To Much on the nose)
Randy A.very N.
I like Randy An. A name that would truly strike fear into the heart of any enemy 😆
To point two, in my opinion Lambs utilitarism or utilitarism in regular is very difficult to archieve. You, as an indivitual, would have to know every outcome and be immune to curruption if you have the power to know every outcome by minions.
I think in that regard Lamb went down a path of destruction thinking it is the best solution not seeing how she strayed from that path and I think this plotpoint is not dumb.
Every school of philosophy, consequential as the other two big ones, can be flawed by the person following it. So in comparison with the other two bioshocks, this fits quite well. The Person preaching a path can destroy by blind faith in the system that he believes the path should take.
Loved Bioshock 2 since the very first time I played through it over night.
El is God, Eleanor and Elizabeth are both lambs. Not sure if intended or finding something where it isn't. Eleanor Lamb and Elizabeth is the lamb of Columbia.
Also, Eleanor and Elizabeth. One means 'God is my light' and Elizabeth is a form of Elisheva which means 'My God is an oath' or 'My God is abundance'.
Bioshock 2 needs more love IMO
Bioshock 2 may be controversial, but there’s one thing we can agree on: Minerva’s Den rules
I never took part 2 serious after part 1. But I had fun playing it, it was cool exploring Rapture and the various cast in the game. I'll leave it at that.
I basically saw it as George Orwell's Animal Farm. Yes, Sophia Lamb correctly criticized Andrew Ryan's philosophy but she ended up being just as bad or worse than him...just like the pigs at the end of Anima Farm.
WHAT TIMING.
I literally finished Bioshock 1 not even an hour ago.
This youtube algorithm is getting creepier
I'd Argue both Ryan and Lamb were critical takes not the philosophies in question, but how neither really can be implemented without causing suffering and tragedy on a self-defeating level.
Lamb's Utilitarian ethic was based on the greater happiness of the greater whole of humanity; but because she is a person operating on ego like any other it falls to her own ego-centrism.
Ryan's Objectivism failed because even in an isolated system enlightened self-interest that values long term gains is a rational position and humanity as a whole doesn't operate rationally often enough for that system to be fully effective.
This is the core problem that extends to things like Marxism/Capitalism or Liberty/Safety as dichotomies.
Finding that the principle isn't comparable with the human condition on either a individual level and or a collective level.
In both cases they attempted to create post-human results that could meet the expectations of the ideals in question but undermine the societies they create as a result.
I wonder if some Feminist Care Ethics might be found in Bioshock 2. In the sense that utilitarianism and rational egoism both focus on either the individual's relation to one self or the individual's relation to the collective whole. Whereas care ethics focuses on an intermediary level between the self and another self such as a mother and daughter or parent and child. It seems like, based on some of your actions, and a certain ending, the narrative is philosophically presenting care ethics as a a valid middle ground between the two extremes of self-interest and selflessness. Sofia Lamb refuses to acknowledge her ethical responsibility to care for her daughter Eleanor and instead devotes her life to a radical utilitarian "utopia". Whereas the player has the option of saving Eleanor and especially the little sisters which you could say the player's method of applying care ethics to adopted daughters.
The only I didn’t like about Bioshock 2 was it’s gameplay, it’s basically wave defense the game
I'd say Sander Cohen was actually the having a pretty good time, too.
While Bioshock and Infinite are fantastic games, Bioshock 2 is my personal favorite, and I think it's deserving of more love than it gets. True, it's story and villain aren't as strong as the other two, but the game's strength comes from three main sources:
(a) The protagonist Delta. Honestly, I found Delta and his struggle to reunite with his "daughter" made for a more interesting character than Jack, who to be honest, didn't really become interesting until the last third of the game after his major revelation; a strong character needs to be strong throughout his/her story, not just toward the end. Delta's steadfastness in pursuit of his charge is empowering, and like the first game, his actions have consequences that affect the outcome of the game.
(b) Lamb as the villain. While her philosophy may be flawed, I think Lamb's appeal as a villain comes from her animosity toward Delta: She almost treats him like a former husband that is intent on gaining custody of their child (which is kinda the case), while she acts like a vain ex-wife who will do anything so long as it harms or damns him in some way, even if it involves hurting her own daughter. It makes you wonder if these two didn't have roots stretching back farther than Rapture.
(b-2) On a side note, the Big Sisters made for some really cool and terrifying boss fights. Would love to see them again.
(c) What is EASILY the best combat gameplay in any of these games. Bioshock handled fine for when it came out, but it's definitely showing its age, while Infinite was just plain clunky.
Bioshock 2 gets unfairly bashed on. It has the best gameplay from the trilogy and the best DLC with Minerva's den. I'd say hands down it was better than Bioshock Infinite
Totally agree. I was gobsmacked with how disappointing and cheap the ending to infinite was.
Don’t forget the loading screens! Some of the greatest loading screens EVER; I always find myself listening to the music. Such a beautiful game. God, I literally cannot believe this game is almost 10 years old. I remember the day I got it. One of my favorite games of all time.
@@Nighhhts Have you played the Remastered edition on steam?
Maesterful
No. I only have PS3 & PS4.
Plus, it has way more replayability value. I love Bioshock 1, in my eyes the story is as near as perfect as we have ever gotten in a video game, but after finishing it the first time I really strugled with my decision to go over it again. Whereas, with Bioshock 2, I've finished it 4 times, along with the DLC and I'm probably going to play it again when I finish writing this comment. It really frustrates me how often it gets dismissed without being given a fair shot.
Infinite literally gave Bioshock 2 the best excuse for the history hiccups, the multiple universes/timelines shown via the light houses. In Infinite the area of Rapture you see is missing the Shock Plasmid you get implying the player has passed through, but it is also missing the plane wreckage and the destroyed tunnel, implying a different set of events happened.
Yeah, but while the many universes thing makes for interesting discussions, its as lazy as the "its all a dream" revelation when it comes to solving ploteholes.
@bacon froyothat's not the point, but The Witcher trilogy, Witcher 3 being the highlight. Storytelling is hard, and one of its challenges is to make something consistent with its internal logic. We admire great storytellers (such as Tolkien) for managing to do so because of the skill it takes.
But a dream revelation or a multi-verse revelation is so versatile, so loosely defined, that it can fix almost any issue the story might have. A good way to compare them is by saying that the dream/multiverse revelation is comparable in many ways to storytelling what steroids are to sports.
And again, dreams and multiverses are interesting themes to set your story in, they really are. Bioshock Infinite makes use of the multiverse idea to do some great thematic exploration. But to use them as a "fix-all" for any plotholes in your story is lazy as all hell.
I don't get it
honestly like 2 best of all three, be big boi with big drill
13:16. That's the greatest leap in logic this channel has done I've ever seen on it. You just need to look at the critiques of utilitarianism, like the ones that state that since we are not a hive mind this collective needs to be run by individuals, and that it is basically impossible for all the decisions to be made by the group causing the will to be carried out by the inner circle (that may be just one person), as you have stated Lamb is clearly altruistic, but still entirely selfish which is one of the arguments the philosophers that are against utilitarianism use. i don't know why wisecrack decided to see this from just one angle. Even when you point to the act of not mindlessly follow an belief and critiquing your own side, you seem to be arguing from a point that seems to not even consider the possibility of collectivism/utilitarianism having flaws.
I feel like it is more of a criticism of rebuilding a world based around collective syndicalism (furthermore communism) when the system prior gets overthrown or mismanaged into destruction. Everything must be a balance of the two and at the end of the day someone who advocated for a idea that might benefit the greater good is inherently selfish. IDK my two cents of what I got out of it.
Another great video to watch about the deeper meaning of Bioshock 2 came out not to long ago on a channel called poparena. I highly recommend also watching that one, it goes into greater detail in the purpose of the main character and Elanor.
Unpopular Opinion: I actually liked Bio 2
IMO the people who hate the game are a vocal minority
Bioshock: Good Original Story and cool gameplay
Bioshock 2: Do you want to play more Bioshock? The story isn't very interesting but the gameplay is improved with dual wielding and little sister defend (which I really liked, might be unpopular opinion).
Bioshock Infinite: We made Bioshock but not Bioshock 2. No cares about Bioshock 2. Let's copy the story, add paradox elements, create a floating city instead of the underwater one, improve the game with Bioshock 2's quality of life changes and make some other changes (2 weapons, all vigors instead of all weapons, some plasmids)
"unpopular"
The game was good, tighter controls. The story was weak. I don't think that position is particularly unpopular.
For those saying its not an unpopular opinion. From where I grew up, from the people I knew in school, its an unpopular opinion. Hence why I said so, because of my past experiences with it.
Deep
(Not fanboying)
Now just make a quick take on RDR2
Me: *Looks at title*
Also Me: "Well since it's set in rapture, It's gotta be... deep"
*slowly loads a single .357 in chamber*
use 38 man... less mess to clean
@@selfharmonization only one woul ba sufficient
Bioshock: hypnotized
Bioshock 2: stigmatized
Bioshock Infinite: we just drown your ass.
Just played bioshock 1-2 and had more fun with 2
Would you consider doing an episode on the philosophy behind the characters of The Expanse? I think it would be very interesting!
AAAAH BIOSHOCK MY LOVE 💛💚💜 Thank you!! I talked about BioShock in German so thank you for finally covering the second game!
EDIT: BioShock 2 has more than three endings...and it‘s very likely Delta is her biological father. He is her daddy already. 💙
i think the entire bioshock series focuses on the concept that you shouldnt care for only yourself NOR everybody, but that real care MUST be directed towards a selected few. in 1 its the little sisters that save you, atlas even misleads you by getting you to care for him and his "family". in 2 its eleanor and in infinite its elizabeth. the reason the protagonist goes through his ark and completes his story, even though with unexpected endings, is that his focus is on one or only a few persons whom he truly loves. so in a way i see it as a comment on the importance of personal connections in a world lost in the utopic fantasies of only a few.