Atlas Shrugged: and so did I

This year marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the publishing of Atlas Shrugged, the foundation of libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand‘s Objectivism ideals. In the years since her passing she has largely slipped from the public conscience and with the fall of communism her ideals have largely been taken for granted or simply left to decay like so many Soviet tanks in a field. There have been efforts to reopen her philosophy for debate. Bioshock was a thinly veiled critic of John Galt and Ayn Rand. And now someone has seen fit to make her Magnum Opus into a movie.

Dollars and Sense

This is the moment I realized I had played this before.

I thought Fallout 3 was a great game.  I played it for sixty something hours.  I played the main quest through in its entirety.  I spent hours just roaming the countryside looking for interesting things, of which there were many.  I used internet faqs and YouTube videos to find the bobble head dolls so I could get an achievement.  So naturally, when Fallout:  New Vegas was announced, I was psyched.  New adventurers to be had in the fallout universe?  In Las Vegas?  Sign me up!  It was a release day purchase for me.  I played New Vegas a little over an hour on that first night…..and haven’t touched it again since.  So what happened?  I realized something when I turned on the game for the first time and got to the main menu.  The menu was the EXACT same one as Fallout 3.  I was about to play the same game.  The characters were different, the story was different,  I’m not saying there were no changes.  I just realized while staring at the main menu that while I had enjoyed playing Fallout 3 I just wasn’t interested in playing more of the same.  Now this isn’t true for every series.  I’ve played all the Call of Duty’s, all the Assassin’s Creed games, both Bioshocks, both Gears of War, Halo 3 and Halo Reach.  I am not championing myself as too cool for sequels.  They have their place.  I’m just growing concerned that developers might be cashing in, literally most of the time, on brand names at an amazingly high rate recently.  I’m growing even MORE concerned that we, as gamers, only have ourselves to blame.

Dead Space: I am scared

I’m not really a scary movie type person.  It’s not that I dislike being scared but I feel like finding a good horror movie amidst the giant sea of absolute crap that comes out is very difficult.  I want the scares to be EARNED.  I want a plot that at least makes sense.  Most movies fail miserably.  One game that surprised (and scared!) the hell out of me though was Dead Space.  An original property from EA (weird, I know) that supposedly was less about action and more about making you curl up in the fetal position had me intrigued.  If the now Gears of War style Resident Evil games make you angry, Dead Space is what should be in your console.

What is the best game IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE?!

And now for something completely different!  The debate over the best game ever will never be settled of course, but it is always a fun discussion.  All three of us faceplanters take to the interwebs to discuss the matter.  Elrood (THAT IS ME HI I’M WRITING THIS INTRO LOL) will start, with Tophat then Enosh responding, then back to Elrood again, then another round until the question is settled or we’re all not friends anymore.  Onward!

Bioshock 2: You’re not my real dad!

I heard the announcement that there was going to be a Bioshock 2 with a wince and a fair amount of anxiety, dreading the return to Rapture just as much as I would dread seeing one of those awful Disney made-for-DVD sequels of their classic movies.  Uh, not that I have a soft spot for Disney movies or anything, shut up.  You don’t know me.

It really didn’t add up.  Bioshock ended tied up in a nice little ribbon on top of it, and I don’t know about you, but I got the feeling Rapture wouldn’t last much longer regardless of which ending you saw.  The dream was dead, all that was left was for the rest of the underwater city to realize it.  Plus, Bioshock was the first FPS game I played that really went above and beyond its genre, story wise, gameplay wise, and philosophically.