Arby

Look for the Black Fortress extending infinitely upwards into the sky; surrounded by the piles of the dead. That's probably it.

I'm no physics expert either, but I don't think "time" itself moves, space-time can bend, but I don't think it can move(isn't it everywhere at once?). The speed of light causes those delays because of how big space is.

The Movies page itself could use an update. The Tunnel and FM 32 aren't there yet.

My favorite is probably the rant about how everyone told him he's paranoid, and how everyone that said that is dead.

Whoa! how did I miss Ross posting in this thread? It's two pages back if anyone else missed it too.

there's another 10+ page thread on this. We all share your pain, anger, and desire to murder the nearest person/anthropomorphic frog person in sight. Oh and 6+ days, not just 3.

Sutter Cane is from that movie I mentioned.

I'm with you on escort missions in general, I especially didn't like the one at the end of the first Bioshock, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the gathering sequences in 2, I love the series's gameplay, so much variety, and I always had a new opportunity to see how I would take the greatest advantage of my location to defend the sister as best I could. I have to say they're my favorite part of the regular gameplay. As for the ending, it was probably the most personally satisfying I've ever had in a game. It was warm and fuzzy, the villain got justice they deserved, Elanor became a powerful and moral individual free to start a new life as you gained immortality as her father, forever on her shoulder. I have to say that while I like how the ending is influenced by your choices, I only received what I consider the best ending (the happy one where Lamb dies) by misunderstanding Gracie's misunderstanding of your situation with Elanor. If you kill all three you get my favorite ending. Kill the others but spare Gracie, and Elanor talks about mercy instead of justice and Lamb lives.

Semi-offtopic, but In the Mouth of Madness is one of my favorite horror movies, nice reference.

Ok, multistep reply mode engaged. I have listened to his podcast in the past, but haven't kept up on recent editions. Integrity is a key philosophical property, identity. proceeding without ever stopping to consider or question the consistency, let alone the rationality of one's actions produces the hypocritical delusions such as those Ryan came to suffer. that quote by Miss Rand is regarding individual rights, its meaning is not to disregard the rights of the accused, especially when they are inconvenient, but of the secondary nature of those rights to individual rights. Lincoln's response was, as your quote demonstrated, appropriate. Ryan's enemies were motivated partially by forceful ideologies and criminal actions, i.e. lamb and Fonataine, but the people of Rapture were not solely followers of them. The Rapture Civil War has its roots in Lamb, and later Fontaine,'s instigation of Ryan. They were the thugs and thieves he'd built rapture to escape. His battle with them was legitimate, but his reaction came in the form of increasingly greater infractions against the rights of the people of the city, who responded in kind with demands that he end his campaigns and restore order and rights to the city. He refused. I would like to think that a large portion of these people were the ones recruited by Atlas, along with the savages he'd farmed a crop of with his poorhouses and other initiatives to stir up an anti-Ryan underclass of thugs. It would be these people who would fight and die for rights that Ryan would no longer acknowledge, let alone defend. Regarding the legitimacy of Ryan's government. I have always thought that it's basis derived from property. In it's earliest stages Ryan was the sole developer and creator, and thus owner, of Rapture. It was his and anyone within it was subject to his authority. As the city grew other people came to own property. The exact question is how was the official governing body formed. As far as I know this was never made explicit, but I believe Ryan was selected to lead the city because of his patriarchal role in its development. When a government was formed, Rapture ceased being his city and became the property of the people (metaphorically, I'm unsure how to precisely define this as I know governments cannot own property, but Rand never got around to defining the specifics of this area of government. I think Peikoff did something on it, but I can't remember.) and Ryan ceased holding sole authority over it, he was subject to their law, and most importantly their rights whether recognized by his government or not. I think that under the circumstances, his actions had as much legitimacy as King George did over the former Colonies and his actions were just as condemnable. His philosophy was never expressly stated to be Objectivism, but whatever it was, he ceased to practice it with full consistency and deviated to ever increasing degrees as he persecuted the people of the city. He didn't suspend habeas corpus and put down Dr. Langford out of defense of the rights of those under his charge, instead he murdered a defenseless woman, even if she was associating with a known criminal who was actively trying to overthrow his government, he had lost all legitimacy. It was a criminal versus a tyrant at that point. He did own Arcadia, and it was his property he destroyed, but in doing so it would extinguish all air in the city, killing all inhabitants. Many were splicers, for whom death would be justice, but not all were and his actions would be further murders in the name of holding onto the city which he no longer rightfully held claim to. Sorry for wall-o-text.

Oh, and just to wrap things up, I love what Ryan was, what he did, and what he showed was possible, before his fall from grace. I love Bioshock 2 more than the first because of thrusting the player into the role of a strong individual character who is rediscovering his humanity and identity whilst battling a clearly villianized Collectivist/Altruist on a personal mission to rescue the only person to ever matter to him, all the while showing the grander side of the once great Ryan while heightening his tragedy by showing how far he has come, on top of what I felt was much improved gameplay. the only flaw being the horrible, tacked on multiplayer put in by the marketing department. that's my perspective on the Bioshock series so far, and I have great hopes for Infinite. Now back to the philosophical discourse.

I did a bit of digging. I think this was the audio log I was thinking of: "Doctor Suchong, frankly, I'm shocked by your proposal. If we were to modify the structure of our commercial Plasmid line as you propose, to have them make the user vulnerable to mental suggestion through pheromones, would we not be able to effectively control the actions of the citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However... we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures." http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Desperate_Times here's another good one: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Mistakes

It has been a long time for me as well, so I don't have many examples on hand, but I remember many a corpse being left along with a log by Sullivan detailing the death of the party in question. The lady Sander Cohen had a rivalry with springs to mind, killing her was a favor, as does the wall of corpses outside Ryan's office. Remember the signs near your bathysphere demanding freedom, or people being corralled into Apollo Square at gunpoint? I don't chiefly blame Ryan for what happened, but he was, indirectly, a murderer and his justification was the protection of his city from the parasites. There is an audio log I remembered as I'm typing this, found in the farmer's market--at the feet of a corpse hanging from a noose--I believe, where Ryan talks about making compromises to his code in order for the city to survive. EDIT: I just reread your post. The elimination of political and ideological opponents by forceful means is another topic, for a longer discussion, but what could make you justify Langford's gassing? Her only crime was an extremely limited association with Fontaine, which only consisted of briefly speaking to Jack, and her death serves a clear example of Ryan's paranoia at that point. She wasn't even helping you, she only reacted when Ryan killed all the trees and cut off the air., before that she had years of valuable service to Ryan, creating Arcadia, selling oxygen, etc..., her death was obvious murder.

I've always hated how he stressed "petty morality" as if he wants to escape any moral code in that line. I think it would read better as 'a petty morality' but maybe it wouldn't flow as well.

Valve: I've got a surprise for you. Not a fake surprise like last time. A REAL surprise! With tragic consequences! and REAL Confetti. The Good Stuff.

this makes that "*time before public release is unknown" note really hit doesn't it?

I consider 10.5 a dorito induced trance/vision dream thing. It did happen, just in Freeman's head.

How many more people are going to die if 35 goes on that chart without 33 being released?

inb4lock

ditto

I've read that the free-roam aspects were cut in favor of linearity for pacing, which I can understand.

Geeks love that: http://stuffgeekslove.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/pop-culture-references/

I stand by Avast.

I do find it weird that the US release date would be a few days later than the international one. It's usually the other way around. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Desperately awaiting the release of the Duke Nukem Forever demo/Freeman's Mind 33.