[ Ericade.radio news & podcasts ] [Podcast] 152. Bioshock 1
In today's game, we go down into an abyss of a hell built on the best of premises. The soul of the most important philosopher of the 20th century hovers over a bastion of freedom that is now just a battle ground of a dead paradise. As we run between the crazed citizens that once believed in the dream they were promised, we must face the question of what freedom really means. Who is free, and who must follow orders? Would you kindly listen to the story of today's game "Bioshock", released in 2007.
Playlist:
00:00 ericade.radio - Time for Flashback, tracks from the past - today with a stories from the retro past
00:06 DJ Daemon speaks: In today's game, we go down into an abyss of a hell built on the best of premises. The soul of the most important philosopher of the 20th century hovers over a bastion of freedom that is now just a battle ground of a dead paradise. As we run between the crazed citizens that once believed in the dream they were promised, we must face the question of what freedom really means. Who is free, and who must follow orders? Would you kindly listen to the story of today's game "Bioshock", released in 2007.
00:49 Tuna and Cs127 - Constellation
07:08 DJ Daemon speaks: In 1926, a young woman by the name of Alisa Z. Rosenbaum moved to the United States. Her memory haunted by the attrocities by the Soviet Union, she became a wellknown and influential philosopher. After a rocky start, she reached success under the pen name "Ayn Rand". She released the book "the Fountain head" and later "Atlas Shrugged". Those books set the stage for her own ideology: objectivism. This was later adopted by many that valued the strength of inviduality over collectivism. She praised the power of self fulfillment, egoism and the power of the individualism. She resented altruism and hedonism. The strong business leader, the fearless artist and the undeterred scientists were her heroes. Helping yourself stod on higher moral ground than sacrificing for others. She saw the United Stated as a country in socialist free fall. In the book "Atlas shrugged", we follow Dagny Taggart whose journey leads to the elusive "John Galt". The latter is a person that is more of a legend, who has disappeared without a trace. In the last part of the book, he is found again. He has created a town called "Galts gulch". This town is a paradise of individual freedom with very few legal and moral restrictions. What if "Galt's gulch" was located under the sea near Island and was indeed a paradise where the businesman could earn, the scientist could invent and the artist create? We are going there in Bioshock, to a small paradise called Rapture.
09:05 Harlequin - X'96 invitation - 2nd round
13:12 DJ Daemon speaks: You're fightring the cold waves of the Atlantic, frantically swimming to the a nearby lighthouse while the airplane you travelled with slowly sinks into the ocean. As you reach land and walk into the lighthouse. The you find the bathysphere and travel down into the city of Rapture, located under the sea. Your entry into Rapture is accompanied by a speech by raptures creator, Andrew Ryan. His name is off course an anagram of "Ayn Rand". So this is pretty much him embodying the core tenents of Objectivism. He speaks like John Galt, telling you that Rapture is the home of the greatest minds of the centuary and a society built on uncontrolled and unregulated art, science and business. The first view of the underground paradise is beautiful. You see a "skyline", if that is the proper word, of skyscrapers. As you reach the destination, the dream falls apart.
14:19 Beyond - Waiting
17:20 DJ Daemon speaks: The first seconds of the game is a total catastrophy. When you see the city, the first thing to happen is an attack by something that looks like a disfigured human being with some sort of claws attacking another humanoid. Soon, a message comes over the short wave radio you picked up. It's Atlas. A man who somehow know your here and asks you to help him. He needs you to go see him and guides your along the way through the terror and the mayham. You quickly learn that the people attacking you are the citizens of the now almost destroyed city. They are horribly disfigured and totally insane. They seem to believe as is well and this is just another day, while being totally oblivious to where they are and what they have become.
18:18 Candiedcat - TitleOLD
22:11 DJ Daemon speaks: Rapture was founded in 1946 by industrialist Andrew Ryan. It was a hidden from the world and people living there were sworn to secrecy. All went well until a seaslug later named Adam was found. The scientists found out that it could be used to splice genes in human beings. With it, you could change yourself to get super human abilities. Suddenly you got supersmart, strong or could throw lightning bolts. This exploded in popularity. But the unrestricted nature of the scientific development came with a heavy price. Using it was called splicing and a user hence was a "splicer". Doing it too much deformed your face and you eventuelly lost your mind.,
23:10 C512w and Viraxor - Your new friend
25:32 DJ Daemon speaks: The year is 1960 and you arrive in the tail end of the civil war that has torn rapture apart. Splicers attack eachother to get the precious Adam. It is always in short supply, so you have to extract it from the belly of a dead splicer. And then there are the little sisters. They are mindcontrolled little girls that can generate Adam in their bellies. This is a much sought after commodity, so each little sister is guarded by a "big daddy". A man trapped in a armored diving suite with a huge drill that they attack with. It is safe to be near them or their little girl protege. But attack you must, otherwise you will not have enough Adam to use for your own purposes. The big daddies can be hard to take down, but once you do, you're presented with a moral dllemma: what do you do with the little girls? You can free them and get a small dose of Adam or kill them and get a lot of Adam. Saving all, killing some or killing all will change the endings of the game.
26:49 Revvobolt - Paula's percussion
30:32 DJ Daemon speaks: At a point you must confront Andrew Ryan, who is holed up in his apartment. There you learn the nasty truth of who you are. You know you're name is Jack. But the rest is a total lie. You learn that you were bred outside of Rapture with Ryan's DNA, in order to be able to sneak through all the lockdowns that only allow relatives of mr. Ryan to pass. And another scaring experience is when you learn that you have been brainwashed into obeying all orders starting with "Would you kindly…". Andrew Ryan mocks you for being little more than a slave with his infamous "a man chooses, a slave obeys" line. He has given up on his failed dreams and orders you to kill him. And you cannot resists the urge and end him with his own golf club.
31:42 Ikage - Brighter days
35:09 DJ Daemon speaks: I don't know about John Galt, but who is Atlas? You know, your friend, who has been guiding you throughout the journey through the madness. He was the leader of the civil war against Andrew Ryan. Eventually, you find out that Atlas is a fake identity of Frank Fontaine. Yes, Andrew's cheif competitor. He was once a common thug, but rose to become a successful businessman in his own right. He is the game's main villain. It's impossible to cover all ground here, but as you walk towards your ultimate confrontation with Fontaine. You have to pick together the story by listening to the same kind of Audiologs that you have in System shock 1 and 2. This is because BioShocks chief creator, Ken Levine, was already a part of the development of the System Shock franchise. He spoke with the newspaper "Reason Magazine" and was asked: "Do you view the first BioShock as a critique of Objectivism?". He answered: "No, I don't think it is particularly. I never set out to take down Objectivism or libertarians. Just the whole concept of this very interesting worldview: Can you make a better world if you really focus on just yourself and improving yourself?"
36:45 Sysfins - Mooky tunes #6
39:58 DJ Daemon speaks: Eventually, you have to go up against a superspliced Fontaine that have to been defeated. If you spared the girls, they come around to help you by draining Fontaines powers. If you killed them, you are probably better equipped to deal with him. When he goes down, you get one out of three endings: - If you saved all girls, you will see them grow up and when you die, they sit by your side on your deathbed. - If you saved some, but not all. you get an ending where you see the splicers take over a nuclear submarine. Egads! Rapture as a nuclear superpower. - If you killed them all, you get the same ending as the last one, but with harsher narration.
40:53 Blue orian - Taira
43:49 DJ Daemon speaks: So to sum it up: the game is a very philosophical game. How about the graphics? It was very hyped up by the time the game was released. And in my opinion, it lives up to the hype. At least mostly. It can look a little bit too "glossy" for its own good. The music contains a lot of nice tunes from the 1930s and 40s. The sound effects are good and creepy as they should. The game play is fun and challenging. You can build your strength based on different skills and specializations. It gets 5 out of 5 bathyspheres
44:40 JustOrb - Sea angel
47:16 DJ Daemon presents the medley of today
47:40 Beyond - Beginner's music
50:38 Beyond - What happened to my life
53:00 Beyond - My life
55:20 Presents a new artist on the station.
55:37 Candiedcat - Cogwheels
57:54 DJ Daemon leads you into that good night with...
58:11 Ether audio - Lost in endless hallways
Production notes:
Colophon: None.
Tags: 2026, Host: DJ Daemon, Retro gaming, Bioshock 1