Ayn Rand Meets Video Game; Players Win

The Onion A.V. Club, surely the best entertainment section anywhere (with the exception naturally of The Brady File), recently reviewed the new vid game Bioshock in a way that some readers may find interesting:

Atlas shocked: A gorgeous game channels Ayn Rand, unsatisfying ending and all

Once or twice a year, a game's technology and craftsmanship raise the bar so high that, Pixar-like, it leaves everyone raving. This summer, that game is BioShock. Fighting through the ruined underwater city of Rapture means being constantly dazzled by the intricate Art Deco-inspired design, the jaw-dropping water effects, and gameplay that deftly mixes skin-crawling horror, comic-book superpowers, and exhilarating shootouts.

More here.

reason undertook a Mario-like quest to seek out the deep politics of video games here.

Update: GregA notes that Wired made the Rand-Bioshock connection here.

Comments

[GregA]

Wired Magazine also pointed out the Bioshock-Rand connection in a short piece titled "First-Person Shooter BioShock Owes More to Ayn Rand Than Doom". Online here:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/15-09/pl_games

[Number 6]

I got to the last level of the Fountainhead game, but my character kept falling off the construction elevator. Of course, she was wearing high-heeled shoes.

The Rand RPG possibilities are nearly endless- "I'm a level 5 industrialist and can smite you with my gold dollar sign of rationality. Failing that, I can strike you down with my spell of infinite didacticism."

[Lost_In_Translation]

The Rand RPG possibilities are nearly endless- "I'm a level 5 industrialist and can smite you with my gold dollar sign of rationality. Failing that, I can strike you down with my spell of infinite didacticism."

That was just wrong...

[Lib Vegan]

This is a great game, but if you actually play it through, there's a distinctly "look at all the bad things that can happen to you with in a free market world" vibe to it.

Kind of that creepy feeling you get when walking in Amsterdam's Red Light district - you're all for the concept, but in execution....

[Cesar]

Aside from the political overtones, this game absolutely kicks ass. It makes me want an HDTV so badly.

[NotThatDavid]

Ironically, the most Randian game in recent memory also came with the worst copy protection in recent memory.

[de stijl]

I'm on my second play through. Solid game - I'd give it a eight or nine out of ten. The ending was a bit underwhelming and the pacing lags in the last third.

The objectivist libertarian aspects are utterly hilarious what with the radio broadcasts denouncing parasites and exhalting the benifit of the "sweat of one's brow", etc. Weapons upgrade station are called "Power To The People." The paranoid, hypercapitalist founder of the underwater city is named Andrew Ryan and one of his enemies is called Atlas.

Has anyone played it with harvesting ADAM from the Little Sisters instead of rescuing them? How does that impact the Tennenbaum interactions, ending, etc.?

[guy in the back row]

Lib Vegan - I haven't played the game, but I have walked through Amsterdam's red light district. I felt many emotions, but creeped out wasn't one of them

[Rex Rhino]

This is a great game, but if you actually play it through, there's a distinctly "look at all the bad things that can happen to you with in a free market world" vibe to it.

Well, not exactly... There is clearly some pretty unambiguous anti-socialist parts as well, but I can't talk about them without spoilers.

[Brandybuck]

I got to the last level of the Fountainhead game, but my character kept falling off the construction elevator. Of course, she was wearing high-heeled shoes.

I was getting very frustrated with that game, until I realized you had to blow up the building you just erected. Geez, this rationalist stuff is harder than it looks.

[javier]

video games are usually pretty libertarian. Resistance: Fall of Man, takes place in an alternate history when smoot hawley never happen and we avoided the great depression and world wide depression of the 30's which led to WW2 never happening. However, the soviets have walled themselves of from the rest of the world which lead to race of chimera coming from behind their walls and Sgt. Nathan Hale must fight them.

[isildur]

The interesting thing is that, if you 'read' the game closely enough, it's not actually much of a condemnation of Objectivism (well, to the degree that Ryan's version of Objectivism resembles the Real Thing). It's certainly a condemnation of his implementation of it -- but the worm in the apple of Rapture isn't Objectivism, it's fraud.

If anything, I'd call it a condemnation of the Galt's Gulch idea -- that it's possible to create a functional, totally independent mini-society comprised only of people who imagine that they are leaders in their fields. Bioshock asks: Ok, what if your only doctor turns out to be crazy? Because real people are more complicated than Randian caricatures.

Anyway, it's a neat game. Ken Levine, the designer, has been talking about the links to Objectivism for quite a while. Guess you folks ought to keep up with the gaming press.

[dhex]

nerd hat on:

it's an anti-utopian game. it runs into many of the same problems the kibbutzers ran into. and it's more complicated than "this is an evil free market" and more like "oh jesus christ was everyone who came here a fucking crazy jackass?"

i did read an objectivist forum where they were all flipping out like "this game doesn't support my value system" which is sort of a strange thing to wish for but diff'rent strokes and all.

i have to admit that i cheered during the intro (NO! SAYS THE MAN IN WASHINGTON - IT BELONGS TO THE POOR) and during a certain story about a certain forest and a certain government. it's definitely a "you go, evil walt disney!" moment.

the sander cohen section is pretty much flawless as well, but has few if any political connotations.

it was, overall, quite a good game. they dropped the ball with the little sisters, and the ending is kinda shit, but overall a worthy modern successor to some of the ideas and ideals of system shock (1 and 2).

so long story short, if you like shooters with some thinking in them and with surprisingly good voice acting, then you will probably dig on bioshock. it's not horribly scary, and it is not the narrative leap many a hopeful nerd thought it would be, but it is competent, fun and compelling.

[Stormy Dragon]

Bioshock isn't Objectivist; it's a socialist's characture of Objectivism.

[Jim Bob]

Up next, an in-depth study of monarchy Vis-a-vis the characterization of the princess in Super Mario Bros., and its relation to the plight of Italian plumbers.

[isildur]

"Bioshock isn't Objectivist; it's a socialist's characture of Objectivism."

No, it really isn't. It certainly isn't Objectivism, but calling it a caricature is unfair. It actually has some pretty sophisticated analysis of Objectivism as applied in the game setting's limited scope.

Calling it a caricature is stupid and dismissive. I've read a lot of caricatures of both Objectivism and Rand -- and this is clearly not one of those. Levine quite obviously has a good grasp of Objectivism, and makes a lot of fairly compelling critical arguments that someone for whom the whole system is just 'evil capitalism' would never be able to make.

And given the 'final' tagline, which sums up the entire game's point, calling Levine a socialist seems improbable at best. That final line, which basically informs the entire plot, is: 'A man chooses; a slave obeys.'

[dhex]

yeah if you think bioshock is socialist you haven't actually played it.

i can't really rip into that further unless this thread is marked SPOILARZZZZ

[Luke Johnson]

"i have to admit that i cheered during the intro (NO! SAYS THE MAN IN WASHINGTON - IT BELONGS TO THE POOR)"

I got goosebumps at that part.

[A Munn]

I'm not a conservative, so you might like my take on this game (I finished it).

The characters in the game are alot more "real" than the typical Rand novel. Alot of the people running the show don't see as commited to Objectivism or Ryans ideals, and Andrew Ryan is forced to compromise some of his ideals.

I wouldn't say this game is pro- or anti-Objectivist, though it might be an unflattering look (tacky ads for discount childrens coffins, for instance, seem to me to show the cold heart of capitalism- but would a real Objectivist use those kinds of ads? Who knows). The fact that guns are readily available, along with dangerous biomodifications, also seems unflattering. It's no wonder there are crazed splicers with superpowers running around and tearing the place apart, in my mind.

There is nothing in the game that would change my mind regarding the virtues (or vices) of capitalism or Objectivism. Compared to Deus Ex, the way the philosophical ideas behind it don't ask you to think for yourself all that much; it's just a backdrop for the game- there's only maybe one basic moral choice in the game, and it involves the Little Sisters, not like in Deus Ex where it is constantly a moral choice in how your character will behave. This game didn't cause me to have any deep thinking on politics and power like Deus Ex did.