i feel like its only a matter of time before people turn on bioshock 1 the same way they turned on spec ops the line

spec ops the line was highly regarded when it came out for being subversive and critical of the modern military shooter trend but now it just seems kinda quaint and toothless

its hard to satirize call of duty when call of duty unironically has shit like FRIENDLY WHITE PHOSPHOROUS INBOUND

bioshock 1 is a markedly better game than spec ops but most modern citicism of spec ops i see boils down to "Uhm Actually You Didn't Let Me Choose To NOT Bomb These Civilians So The Game's Bad" and i feel that the same people saying that could very easily turn on bioshock

all spec ops really did was codify what call of duty does for its obligatory "war bad" moments in its otherwise completely bog-standard glorification of war and the american military

call of duty has one (1) War Bad moment per game to Make You Think before booting you right back in to the fuck year america biggest dick in the world nuke the turrist haha

don't get me wrong i like bioshock and think its good, i just anticipate there will be completely genuine "Actually Bioshock NOT good" takes coming in like... a year

anyway bioshock 2 is the best one because the drill go brr haha

bioshocks morality mechanics are laughably quaint by modern standards and the whole "what if rich people were allowed to control society with no regard for common human decency and morality" is EXTREMELY thinking emoji right now.

the underwater city and old music and atmosphere and environmental storytelling is good tho

what i'm saying is that time is coming for bioshock and it's a little upsetting to see it, but at the same time i see it coming and recognize why and i accept it

bioshock infinite acts like armor for the original bioshock by being so fucking horrible that all criticism that COULD be validly applied to bioshock 1 slingshots right past it and crashes in to infinite

remember when bioshock infinite had "racism goes BOTH ways" as its core theme and was lauded by critics as the citizen kane of gaming?

"Oh My God... If The People's Revolution Happens, They'll Kill Rich People! Clearly We Need Racism To Keep This All In Check." - Bioshock Infinite

"Oh my god... this is genius. I never thought of it like this." - Game critics in 2013 desperate for validation

I guess the point I'm trying to make this: No matter how much damage the passage of time does to Bioshock 1, Bioshock Infinite will always be there to be significantly worse and more poorly aged in literally every aspect.

I go to the Bioshock Infinite. I see the bathroom labeled "IRISH BATHROOM ONLY FOR DIRTY IRISH PEOPLE." I shed a single gamer tear and throw the softball. I rate the game 10/10 and receive a bonus for my article praising the deep writing.

I'm glad you all seem to know what I'm talking about and agree with me, because I have no idea what point I'm trying to make and am only tweeting my thoughts as they come to me.

I think the point is "Bioshock 1 has a lot of style over substance and a lot of its social criticism comes off as toothless now, but Bioshock Infinite is so much worse that everyone just kinda forgives Bioshock 1's shortcomings because its setting is really cool."

also "Spec Ops the Line is similarly fairly quaint by modern standards and has no stylistic crutches to stand on like Bioshock has, so people turned on it super hard as time passed for not really having much to say."

Like I said, in the long run all Spec Ops really accomplished was giving Call of Duty a template to follow for its obligatory once-per-game War Is Hell moments that it uses to justify having ten hours of completely unironic AMERICA FUCK YEAH BRITISH SPECIAL FORCES FUCK YEAH shit

And to tie it all back to Bioshock 2, since that's what got me going down this road of thinking: Bioshock 2 is a completely shallow sequel designed to be just "more of that cool Bioshock setting you like" and in a way that actually helps it age better than its prequel and sequel.