6_Qubed said:
No, Bioshock was not the great ethics-examining masterpiece it was hyped up to be.
Name me some games that does a better job at the political, social, moral and historical themes than Bioshock? (that isn't a de-facto movie like MGS4's TV-series length of cutscenes)
I can't stand it when people ONLY think of the little Sisters harvesting thing in purely resource terms, it is reductionist, simplistic and fundamentally Dishonest. When you make the decision to harvest or save the first Little Sister you have no idea what rewards you will get for saving if any or for how long. And the most important thing is you are making the decision of the lives of children, I am puzzled at how many people just ignore the moral aspect of that.
Taking the good path, means you need the virtues of trust and patience without greed. Greed for as much Adam as you can get, rather than just as much as you need. It is a hard-headed assumption that the "good path" must come with terrible forfeits, as this isn't particularly relevant to the way things work. People are rewarded for doing good things, evil is NOT the ONLY path to riches, though it is a sure-way.
And actually stop and think of a second, if you only got half ADAM with rescuing, you would be so pitifully underpowered that the players would be bitter at doing the right thing that most would not stick with it. The haters would instead be saying "huuh, it gave a moral choice but punished you so much for the right one you know harvesting the little sisters is the only way"
PS: Only idiots get caught up in the hype. And you shouldn't let relativism with idiotic-hype detract from what the game actually is on its own.