Kotaku has a feature today about a new enemy in “Bioshock: Infinite”, a Motorized Patriot. It’s a robot George Washington, with a machine gun. And you blow its face off. Fox News is probably already prepping cameras and hiring Jack Thompson as we speak.
The “Bioshock” franchise has been a lot of things, but none of those things are “subtle”. The first game was, and fairly deliberately, a condemnation of extreme right-wing ideology, followed up by a condemnation of extreme left-wing ideology in the sequel.
Now in the third one we’ve got angry Communists running around fighting racist corporate fat-cats in a city that’s supposed to represent the American Ideal, but something has gone terribly wrong. Let’s not even pretend this game doesn’t end with Columbia falling out of the sky; that’s a symbol too good for any writer to pass up. And this game is streeting on the eve of an election that’s been contentious as both parties have supposedly gone further to the left and right.
What do you think? Is this a clever analogy for a contentious couple of years? Is it just a game and we’re reading too much into it? Or do you think Irrational, and other game companies, should stay out of the political arena altogether?
image courtesy Irrational
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I think if you’re honest about it, you recognize that every medium of expression (whether it’s music, painting, film or video games) is political whether it’s overt or not… Even if a game maker or film maker decides to eschew politics altogether, that’s an inherently political decision. So the question becomes not whether you should avoid politics in video games, but whether you can.
Actually, Dan, the first Bioshock was a satire of unfettered Libertarianism. Yes, Libertarians can be very right-wing on some issues, but they also fight against drug prohibition and theocracies. There are a ton of references to Ayn Rand, who is the high priestess of Libertarians (though she herself called herself an Objectivist). But on a more simple level, Bioshock is a basic dystopian nightmare – which can happen in any political environment.
Bioshock 2 should not be considered part of the “Bioshock” series, I think. Bioshock 2 was shit because it wasn’t written by the original creators.
We have a bad habit in our culture of thinking “fairness” is South Park down the middle both sides are bad garbage.
Bioshock was a fully realized parody/critique of Objectivism and Randian fiction. Bioshock 2 was an incoherent mess because it tried to make a completely different political criticism of the EXACT opposite of the first game while somehow setting it in the same setting. This ended up just making everything clash aesthetically and philosophically. If you want to make a game condemning collectivism, do it as its own project. Don’t just do it because the last game condemned objectivism.
But, on topic, politics in video games should happen. If you nerds want to call games art, games need to tackle issues greater than “fuck all aliens/robots.” It just needs to be mature in its criticism. Bioshock 1 was mature. Bioshock:Infinite looks mature. Bioshock 2 was immature South Park “fair and balanced” horseshit.
/me mad
Is that why Bioshock 2 was in the used bin for like 8 bucks a few months after its release?
+1
POLOTIKS IZ B0RING DERP DERP I JUS WANZ 2 SH00T ALIENZ MASS EFFECT3 4 LIFEZ!!1!!1
M0AR SHOOTERS PLZ DERP DERP
Every single thing that Axissillian said.
Definitely doesn’t sound too political. General, ideological sort of politics in a game can be pretty neat, and make a story more interesting. If characters are going around talking about abortion rights and tax cuts and shit, that’s where it gets a little uncomfortable for me.
The politics are occurring on a floating continent filled with biomechanical Minutemen. Im pretty sure its a fictional scenario. All the Battlefield games and almost literally every modern FPS is entirely centered around real-life wars and terrorism, which are about a billion times more “political” than putting a George Washington mask on a gatling gun-toting robot