The Giant Beastcast: Episode 220

@shorap: I only can ever find Squirt in like a bottle when I drive out to Indiana from Pennsylvania. Once in awhile I find it at a grocery store or gas station in PA, but not super often.

I am exactly like Alex when it comes to open world games. I will leave the story missions dead last and make sure to complete everything else before because after credits, my brain says it's over, put the controller down.

@baltica2ga: interesting. To think, all this time I could’ve been making Smoky and the Bandit-style Squirt Runs to the east coast.

How did no one mention the beast cast being the originator of the feral hogs meme. I remember years ago there was a discussion about them when Austin was still on.

@goldgreg: Hmmm, someone should look into that. Austin was around...when? Episodes 30-50 or so?

Abby is a really good host!

Great job Abby

Man, that discussion went places in 24 hours. @BladeofCreation was on the case, so in the interest of leaving stuff best left in the past, I'll step away.

Nah, I think you made some good points. The Vox Populi weren't really based off of any American movement with an easy parallel. Ken Levine based them off of various militant leftist movements of other countries, such as the violent German student Baader-Meinhof Group,along with the communist revolutions. While it can seem comically villainous for Daisy to want to kill a child to eliminate the bloodlines of the wealthy, such a thing happened on a systematic level in China. Landlords were drug from their homes, executed in front of their families, and their children had to renounce their family name for life if they wanted a slim chance to be spared.

The problem is that most people in the US aren't as aware of the worst atrocities of the communist movements, those things were distant events despite them being magnitudes bigger. So the Vox Populi can seem like a strawman

@11111110: Good post. Although I think that there is also an aspect that makes it weird and gross in the US considering they chose to make them largely black. We are still figuring out the whole racial divide and institutional racism thing and that game has...to say the least...some racial blind spots.

@11111110: despite being magnitudes bigger than what?

Well done dude, long may it contain.

Well done buddy, you got this!

@andrewf87462: @bigwinnerx: Thanks :D

@11111110: Thank you for the kind words. The part of the discussion I wanted to abandon consisted of the conspiacy theories on the last page, which demonstrate a lack of understanding of U.S. history that a message board discussion isn't going to solve and which don't bear perpetuation. I stand by my comments on Infinite.

Since we've restarted that discussion, I'll add a few things:

a) While the atrocities that 11111110 mentioned have, of course, happened, considering that Columbia is dealing with very specifically American historical attitudes toward race, immigration, and empire, it is logical to conclude that parallels are being drawn between the Vox and specifically American opposition, not with leftism at large around the globe - particularly given the aforementioned parallels re: racial composition. Infinite very, very strongly positions itself as a story very clearly rooted in American history, and the statements it makes on politics have to be taken as statements on American politics first and foremost. While both leftist and rightist movements have committed horrible acts around the world, the "both sides" thing absolutely does not hold true for the specific struggles in the U.S. regarding race and immigration that Infinite is explicitly tackling.

b) While Levine may have, as BladeofCreation noted, conceived of Infinite before the rise of the Tea Party, games do change focus for a variety of reasons - see the reported evolution of Far Cry 5 in the opposite direction, away from overt political commentary, during its development for marketability - and Infinite was released in 2013, five years into the Obama administration. Similar movements indeed have occurred through U.S. history, but, as mentioned, the Tea Party was the movement of Infinite's day, and the beatification of the Founding Fathers is way too on-the-nose to ignore. It's not the only thing being parodied in Columbia, but it seems impossible to argue it's not one of the things.

Also, c): regardless of how much of this is Levine's intention vs. just bungling a message, there's enough to make a case that the "both sides" conclusion re: U.S. politics is Infinite's apparent political statement, and enough outlets have run with articles to that effect to make it part of its legacy, right or wrong. Except for a few select titles, shooter fans tend to move on to the next new thing, so Infinite's place in history is, more than is even usual for games, left up to the critics, and enough of them have drawn the above conclusion to impact the game's larger place in history negatively.

@bladeofcreation: all I remember was that it was in either emails or corrections. I’m going to go back and try to find it.

@sethmode:Were they? I remember them being mostly white, even if the whites in Vox were other white ethnicities that were also facing systematic racism during that era (Italians, Irish, etc). Daisy Fitzroy was originally a white Irish woman in the original reveal. But I agree making her african-american in particular is going to distance the group from the international militant socialist movements they were creatively based off of. Earlier versions of Infinite featured alternate dimensions of Columbia being explicitly communist, but the hammer and sickle flags were removed from the final version in favor of more subtle communist references.

@shorap: Magnitudes bigger than the human right atrocities done on US soil. In terms of bodycount at least.

@indigozeal: I agree that it's logical to initially assume that Infinite is meant to be a commentary on either current or past American political movements. I was just providing context on why the Vox Populi failed to much resemble any widespread leftist movements in US history. They weren't designed to. The violent acts that were done in pursuit of socialism or anarchy in the US were isolated incidents, and most US players and critics aren't going to make the connection between Vox and China's cultural revolution.

Ken Levine also said in retrospective, it was his failure as a writer to make Comstock remotely sympathetic in the way Daisy and Andrew Ryan were. He compared Comstock to Trump and said he didn't understand how the Trumps of the world think, hence Comstock was a one-dimensional villain. Then again I don't know how anyone can write a sympathetic racist.

Beyond that, the game's message about oppression is that more often than not it creates more oppressors, which is the worst part about oppression. China currently has a million Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in concentration camps, in which women are sterilized for the sake of "social harmony", partially due to a century of western imperial powers dehumanizing the Chinese

every so often you gotta have a elitist, asshole opinion, and mine is that only dumb people think bioshock infinites storytelling or ending was good or interesting in any way

moreover this is a good example of why i can't deal w dan: in his mind anyone who claims to not like binfinite is a poser who liked it initially but now says they hate it because they want to keep up some sort of appearance. if you didnt like it initially you're a liar because everyone did, or at least he did

@entireties: I hope Vinny locks Dan in the studio and blares the new Tool album Clockwork Orange style.

@ybbaaabby did a great job hosting!

@11111110: If Levine's intentions indeed were to draw parallel with the Cultural Revolution with Vox, my argument would be that you can't set your story on a continent that worships U.S. history and explicitly base one side on actual U.S. historical movements and draw at least some apparent parallels between the other side and the real-life U.S. opposition movements and drown every inch of on-screen real estate with eagles and Washington portraits and star-spangled banners, and then say, "okay, we were actually doing CHINA with this one bit here" without considerably more signposting in-game. I totally agree that some people need to be reminded of all the horrors that went down during the Cultural Revolution (and ongoing atrocities like the Uyghur concentration camps) and that it's certainly nothing to emulate.

god "philadelphia driving" makes so much sense. when I was in philly I got the 3 worst lyfts of my life. incredibly lovely drivers, but incredibly harrowing driving.

That was a fun show, thanks!

From Philly, can confirm that "Philly Driving" can manifest itself in the way that Mike described.

Damn, “Brown Pinky” would definitely have been the name of this podcast if it had show names

On the case of getting owned.

Given that you have (3) comments to your name over a year's period, all of a similar tenor, and that you voluntarily chose to refer to yourself as "DrGasm" and use the word "owned" unironically in 2019, I can safely say: Itachiitachi, you ain't hidin' your alt well.

@indigozeal: Wow, jumping straight to a conspiracy theory.

You're also making a feeble attempt to throw my (correct) label for your rantings back in my face and are nursing a petty grudge against Blade way after a disinterested party would have stopped caring, Itachi.

Having only heard the title, immoral behavior was the first meaning i came to as well. No one looks at Pence and is like WOah,, look at Vice! That's the Vice right there! Once you know it's about Dick Cheney, the 2nd meaning should start to slot in.

Lmao Dan, not everyone was thinking Bioshock Infinite was awesome. Maybe your circle, but clearly that doesn't represent the overall population. The alternate dimension gameplay was one big nothing & the gunplay was fairly bad. People didn't need years to figure that out. It was very pretty & had a nice colorful atmosphere though. Loved the music renditions as well. It's a game that you look at on release day, you see a quicklook & a stream and you're like: Man, this looks pretty & it's a new bioshock game, so it's definitly worth playing. Which it totally was. But it's just not as strong as the earlier Bioshock games.

Abby did a good job hosting this. There was a nice pace to it.

@indigozeal: First a conspiracy theory, then going on to describe one's own actions with seemingly no self awareness. Lol I think I see whats going on here.

@drgasm: And it took you only an entire month to figure yourself out!

Haven't gotten to that part in the podcast yet, but some good (for the most part) discussion on Bioshock Infinite in the comments. I've always heard people talk about it not aging well, but haven't looked up any of the break downs of the issues people had with it. I played it on 360 when it came out, never finished it, and plan to go back to it on the Xbox One version at some point and will see how I feel about it.

@indigozeal: Guy who talks about me barely ever logging in surprised that I don't log in that often, well that matches up with your detective work so far, Bladeofcreation.

@drgasm: Son, I'm sorry, but it's been four months, and you're outside the Statute of Limitations for Petty Board Disputes. Any further grievances will have to be submitted in the form of passive-aggressive subtweets.