Is it my birthday? No, it’s better. Steam summer sale. Goodbye monies.

“I don’t care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don’t have any of their own”  – Nik T.
First, happy belated birthday to my crush Nikola Tesla. Well… maybe crush doesn’t sound so good considering he’s (sadly) no longer alive. We will settle with obsession. Happy belated birthday to my obsession. I enjoyed some tequila in your honor last night. 

In other news. STEAM SALE! Say goodbye to your hard earned cash my dear friends. I don’t know many people who can resist this time of year.Unless, you are having the same problem I am, where every time I try to purchase anything I get the “You are the straw that broke our camel-server’s back. ACCESS DENIED”

Or at least that’s what I read. As long as I can buy my Scribblenauts fo’ cheapz before it rockets (lawls) back up in price, I will refrain from getting upset. About that anyway.

So as I bide my time waiting on the errors to cease, let us reflect upon one of my favorite games that will be on sale. BIOSHOCK

Yes, you read that right. The first one. Not the second one with the lackluster story line building off the first, nor Infinite’s useless sidekick, but the one that made me rethink Utopian ideals, and made me revisit Atlas Shrugged.

Though all the games in the series are on sale, if you happen to have missed this gem, get it…if you can get past the error screen on the Steam store embedded in the client. (Still can’t. Frustration rising.) But lets take a look beyond the surface of both the game mechanics, and the ocean itself (lol derp) and see what really stuck out to me in that shattered utopia. 

Objectivist ideologies. There is more to the similarity between Andrew Ryan and Ayn Rand than simply their names and that sweet ass giant Atlas statue. This game is the epitome of the shift from outside governing power struggles and their transfers between characters. Foucault would have a hayday. Biopower? Bioshock? Let me elaborate without giving too much away, assuming there are still a few lost souls who have not seen this masterpiece.

You are a dude, Jack, and due to your “jack”ass of a father (and his bad character judgments of who should be brought down to an inescapable watery death trap) you are plunked into an underwater utopia that fell apart. Why did it fall apart? The short answer is that all utopias fall apart. Look them all up… I’ll wait… (Yea Ol’ Chuck Fourier was pretty crazy wasn’t he? Don’t get me started on Walt and Epcot.) Anyway, due to some hellaciously crazy sea slugs that bit an amputee, you can now wield some sweet elements and deal with the underwater equivalent to 50’s people on bath salts who are rallied into civil war.

Now I’ll give you the chance to click away if you don’t know the story line and ending. 

Still here? Flattered, really. So if you look at the characters of Sofia Lamb, Fontaine’s multiple personalities, Steinman (brief but has a point), Brigid, Andrew, and (depending on your choices of harvesting children or not) perhaps yourself. What is in common? Exploitation of others for their own advancement. The means and the end. How does this relate to objectivism? Because it’s based on a strive to be your best and no one else’s needs matter dammit. How does this relate to Ayn Rynd? Because it was her idea. And finally, how does that relate to you? Because many government officials are linked to following and studying her ideas of Objectivism. 

Don’t believe me? Look up Alan Greenspan or the Bush administration. Think it was an accident to expose our generation to this link? Look up the term in correlation to the interview with Ken Levine and how he felt this game could be used as a means to show that this political ideology is relevant to our current societal norms. He even said in an interview with Kotaku both…

“The more you know about objectivism the more interesting the little sisters become,The little sisters are an examination of the question: Do the means justify the ends” 

and…

“I think there is a certain benefit. Ultimately it doesn’t portray objectivism well, but the mainstreaming of objectivism is important too. And it’s important to see the willingness to debate those ideas even in a video game.We joke that everyone should have known that a game about a pseudo-objectivist dystopia would be a huge hit. My initial goal for BioShock was to create an environment that people could buy into and to have a level of detail that you just don’t see in games now. We have an opportunity to have players pull content out of the game rather than to push it at them.”

(It’s italicized because it is a huge quote and, when using that quote in my toomanytocount pg senior thesis paper, I had to. Old habits hang around.)

So take that in your passive gaming pipe and smoke it. (Tobacco pipes only.Illegal drugs are bad, m’kay?)

I could spend hours of your precious gaming time to talk deeper on the subject, but I will leave it at that. If you want to know more on how I feel, tweet at’cha girl @SpikenthropeGG. 

As for now, I am going to enjoy my night playing the first Boarderlands. Thanks Meetch for the pre-graduation gift. Look forward to, or cringe on it’s arrival, to my opinions on that game soon.

Oh, and my cat’s names are Nizma Aslan and Atlas Bytor Mercury. They are currently asleep storing energy in their kitty cells to most likely rip apart both my favorite shirt and my sanity when I try to sleep tonight. 

Gratuitously Gabby – Nikki

Also, here’s that Kotaku linky – http://www.kotaku.com.au/2008/02/no_gods_or_kings_objectivism_in_bioshock-2/

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Well, this is never a good sign…

Well, this is never a good sign…

Shout out to my dear friend Ryan for bringing this to my attention…

“First of all, Iwata agreed that games have gotten easier, and he affirmed that the trend could be a reason that interest in the Wii U hasn’t been as strong as it could be. Still, he defended the company’s strategy for making games easier by revealing the results of gamer testing that Nintendo has conducted that demonstrates gamers’ decreasing ability to do well in games.” -Hot Hardware News

omgwhut? One of the men who stands for a company that helped sculpt my childhood and lack of sunlight has proof that gamers are doing worse? But… what about the streamline closer-to-a-movie than gameplay Final Fantasy…or what about the graduation from sandbox rpg styles to linear gameplay!…or the awe inspiring complexity of grinding in MMO’s,resulting in such attention to storyline detail in gamers…OH! and the outright skill needed to manage my TapZoo, Farmville 2, Fishdom, AND my advergame for EA a.k.a Themepark at the same time!

Ok, I can’t even fake it anymore. Kudos to you Mr. Nintendo. It’s sad but it is true. The complexity of games has been on the decline for years. But we can’t blame the industry. They are only making a product that can be sold to a mass audience. Maybe our hope lies in specific genres and Indie games now.

But really? 90% couldn’t pass 1-1? My mom still plays the lost levels at 56. I guess I got it honest. Be ashamed children of today. Very ashamed. Your Ipads won’t save you from the zombie apocalypse like our knowledge of where to spend our skill points will.

I need a hug from not one, but both kitties to heal this kind of blow.

Gradually Grumpier – Nikki

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What the heck is a blog anyway? Well, let me introduce myself.

 

 

 

I’m Nikki. You can call me Spikenthrope, or just Spike. With my lack of a social life, I feel my brain is beginning to respond more to my gamertag as a stimulus than my legal name anyway. I go to school full time at The Ohio State University graduating in a few weeks with a major in Comparative Studies of Science and Technology. I’ve done research with professors on video game effects on the human psyche ( to put it broadly). I hope to eventually get my life together and go to grad school and work in that very research field. I have two cats. They are divas. 

So I made a blog. I got sick of reading boring blogs depicting the glamorous life of gaming,  crappy revues that tell me nothing of what I want to play, and inaccurate college testimonials.

Let me be honest. Being a gamer sucks in real life. I am constantly figuring out what I have to sacrifice in order to play an hour of League of Legends ( assuming my team doesn’t throw it within the first 10 minutes). Speaking of honest revues, most games suck. I want something refreshing and addictive. Call me crazy but here’s a shout out to everyone who wants a revamp of old games. You don’t. I promise. We love them because they are classics and we didn’t have the beauty of HD when we were kids to compare them to. Sure the novelty of a Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts remake sounds fun until you realize how horrific it made your childhood. There was no reason for it to be that hard. And no one wants to see Arther’s high def briefs when you go stark naked after an enemy breathes on you. No one. The answer? New games, new styles, new innovations?That is a bit hard considering most things have been done by now. The idea is to perfect that which has already been put into place. At least refresh a story line with familiar characters. (Shameless shout out to the new Zelda unveiled at E3)

And mostly college sucks. When I was younger, I was told college would get me anywhere I wanted to go. RIght. It’s basically an expensive high school diploma. Now a Masters is the new Bachelors. Awesome, I cant wait for my masters to be crap when everyone has their PHD. Still though, I’m very glad I stuck with it. I just wish I had the opportunities to take more coursework related towards my interests instead of 45 credit hours of fluff.

Also, whilst learning the blog rules and regulations, I came across what photos I can and can not post. Freedigitalphotos.net is home to about 1 trillion free crappy pictures. Example…Image

No. No no no. College is not manicured nails,freshly waxed eyebrows, miniskirts, and boots while reading a book that just makes your jaw drop. The only jaw drop is when you see that you have to write 20 pgs on that sucker. These photos are crap. I need a digital camera to take my own crappy pictures.

Well, that’s about it. I will be writing some revues of old games I plan on playing whenever I can find the time, as well as sharing my experiences of my online endeavors. Also expect stories about my cats and their purr~suit of happiness at my expense. 

Good Game – Nikki

 

 

 

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