What makes TLoU2 a "political" game while Bioshock is not?

submitted by RichardsonDavis from self.Gaming

Bioshock having themes that would make the Foundation for Economic Education cream their pants isn't a "political" game or maybe because it was done with such nuance and complexity that it requires a complete breakdown and discussion with other fellow players.

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[–]proc0 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This is hard to see if you're not into politics to begin with. However it is painfully obvious that there is an agenda and that the game designers/directors purposefully took the franchise in the opposite direction of the first one.

Joel, being the flawed hero of the first one, represents the patriarchy (to the woke). He commits morally questionable acts in the first, including murdering that black woman that wanted to kill Ellie. In the second game, Joel gets brutally tortured and murdered right away, representing how woke, leftists, and feminists feel towards the character. Yet even though this sets up a revenge story, Joel never actually gets avenged. Abby, his murderer gets humanized throughout the game, and she lives in the end.

It's pretty obvious that this game had priorities, and those priorities were not to tell a good story. It was to first and foremost show "diversity", "inclusion", and to make these characters shallow because otherwise you'll forget that they're gay or lesbian. They clearly sacrificed a good story in the name of an ideology.

I would also say Bioshock is political, and influenced by leftist ideas. However it's much more subtle, and also it was that way from the beginning. Last of Us 1, was not political at all.

[–]RichardsonDavis[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is hard to see if you're not into politics to begin with. No truer words have been spoken. I try my best to get into it but I seldom fail and it gets hard to get into anything without seeing if it is woke or not. I appreciate subtlety like those in Arcane or in the case of games, Metal Gear Solid. So yeah. This is quite the insightful answer, thank you.

[–]MarkJefferson 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Abby was a very uncanny valley character. It's like they mashed together a female and a male. They claim it's based on Colleen Fotsch, and it might be, but it looks like they did some extensive Mass Effect: Andromeda stuff on them later in the modeling program. And yes, there is probably an agenda behind it.

[–]IMissPorn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't know if your premise is correct. People hate TLoU2 for having a shitty plot that doesn't logically follow the first game, and blame politics for causing that, but I don't know if I'd even say it has a coherent enough message to be a "political game" itself per se.

[–]proc0 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The politics isn't explicit in your face, but rather shows up as what influenced the designer and director of the game. It's obvious to see there is a preference for the gay, androgenous and weird looking characters, that are glorified throughout the whole game, meanwhile the protagonist of the first one, who is a straight white male, gets his face destroyed and then his murderer gets humanized and survives in the end.

I think what they tried to do is teach white straight males a lesson. They wanted to make people feel bad for liking the first game.