Let me start by saying that if you haven’t beaten the video game “BioShock” you probably shouldn’t read the rest of this because I’m going to compare the similarities of this truly amazing video game to the writings of author Ayn Rand. There you have been warned.

From the very beginning of “BioShock” it is obvious that the game was influenced by two of Ayn Rand’s most popular works “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged”. The overall style of the 1940’s-50’s era incorporated into the game along with the concept of the city of Rapture screamed Ayn Rand to me.

In the novel “Atlas Shrugged” all of the individual leaders in the world of industry, science, art…etc go on strike because they feel they are being taken advantage of by a society that exploits them and takes them for granted. I’m probably not serving Rand’s novel justice with my brief summary here but that’s how I interpreted the book. The characters in “Atlas Shrugged” can easily be compared to a bunch of ambitious people who decided to build an underwater city in “BioShock”. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that there’s a character named Atlas in “BioShock” along with Andrew Ryan being what could be considered wordplay for Ayn Rand.

And I swear that the quote “Is a farmer not entitled to the sweat of his own brow” used in Andrew Ryan’s opening statement at the beginning of the game is a direct quote right from the pages of “The Fountainhead”. Continue Reading »

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In the current generation of the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3, videogame prices have bloated to an average of $59.99 per unit; while Nintendo has maintained the previous generation’s $49.99 per unit average due to lower development costs.

Costs to develop videogames are on the rise and while the Entertainment Software Alliance (ESA) claims piracy is a factor we question does the sale of used software increase the suggested retail price of our beloved hobby?

Continue Reading »

I have to admit I was pretty excited when I saw Halo 3 on the cover of Time magazine. Of course after reading the article, I’m damn near livid. It’s rare that we see games covered in a fair (or even remotely balanced) way. Well the trend continues.

We’ll start with the simple stuff. The stuff that points to the laziness of the reporter in doing even a minor amount of research. Take the following pictures that talk about Halo merchandising. The picture of the Scarab is not a “sculpture” as the caption states, but a Heroclix game piece used in the table-top game. The “Halo 3 branded console” is also completely wrong, and looks nothing like the picture included.

Lev Grossman does his best to devalue and marginalize video games and, by extension, video game players. I’m not entirely sure what the point of the article is, but with comments like games working their way out the ghetto to one day play with the popular kids, one must assume that Grossman simply and completely disregards video games as anything other than a mere distraction to the serious work he must think he engages in (just so you know that link there points to his story about the godlessness of Harry Potter).

Click the link for mind-numbing quotes. Continue Reading »

Hello All, Santos Gonzalez (AKA Grim Santo) here. I am the latest addition theBBPS loony bin. Instead of posting a bit of news for my first post, I figured I would post a story from my gaming past.

When I was a wee Santos and didn’t have much money. I remember saving up money to buy a game. I used to take long trips; long trip meant going 10 blocks away from your house. I remember hoping on a bus and heading to Main Street, Flushing Queens. I walked into a random electronic shop.

You see back in the day you didn’t have Gamestop like we have now; you got your games from Ma and Pop shops. Anyway I would go in with the little money I had and picked up Strider for the NES. I liked the arcade version a lot and figured the NES one was going be the same thing. This was way before the internet’s, you didn’t really know if a game was good or bad until you bought it or a friend got it. EGM was around but their reviews were always late. So I jumped back on the bus and while taking the trip back, I took the box out and stared at the back just imagining how good the game was going to be. I couldn’t wait to get home, I was so excited that I ripped open the box and started reading through the manual. At this point I am so psyched I get home and plug it into my NES. I start to play and I am confused. The game is nothing like the arcade. They turned it into an adventure side scroller, but I play on.

I get stuck at this one point. In my head I think I found a bug. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what to do. If the internet was around at that time, I could have easily gone to Gamefaqs and found a faq, but this wasn’t the case. So I take it back to the place I got it from. Of course they wouldn’t take it back. I was all sad and mad on the bus ride back. I got back home and figured out what I was doing wrong. It turns out there was nothing wrong with the game. It was quite good in fact. Continue Reading »

An excellent column from Clive Thompson over at Wired talking about why Hollywood horror sucks these days and what the game companies seem to be doing so right. Finally, and excuse for why I have a hard time playing Condemned and Bioshock in the dark. What’s that Mr. Bubbles?

An excerpt:

“For several years now, I’ve found that my favorite horror experiences aren’t coming from movies any more. They’re coming from games.”

“Games already seem like dream states. You’re wandering around a strange new world, where you simultaneously are and aren’t yourself. This is already an inherently uncanny experience. That’s why a well-made horror game feels so claustrophobically like being locked inside a really bad — by which I mean a really good — nightmare.”

It’s a good read.

Considering our new found love for the Atari 2600 Label Maker — and taking my recent podcast meltdown on the subject of Madden 08 into account — I thought I’d take chocolate and peanut butter and make me a Reese’s;