And what do you make of the sequel where a cult of Altruists are the antithesis to Ryan's Objectivist distopia? Are the game makers/storytellers saying that Objectivism as an extreme is bad, but that Altruists (forced/compelled Altruism or Socialism) are even worse? If the 2nd game compares Altruism to Selfish Objectivism... what are the opposing philosophies of the first game? Is it just about failed objectivism, or is it about chaos vs objectivism?
Finally- I loved the Ryan Amusements Museum/Ride. I thought that was really well done.
I actually really like this subject, and will give a more lengthy response when I have the time.
I think the first game was definitely just trying to say outright that Objectivism is bad and a society based on Objectivism like Rapture, is doomed for failure. Being a bit of an idealistic fan of Objectivism, I don't exactly agree with that message, but I concede that it would be extremely hard to create such a society with any sort of success, and that in such a society excluded from the outside world like that, perhaps Rapture isn't too far off the mark. This is the sort of discussion I wanted to have after first playing the game, but never found anyone who had played it that really cared to take much time to consider the social and political aspects of the game's story, rather the deepest they could get was "Holy crap! That "a man acts, a slave obeys" and "would you kindly" stuff was really deep!". So even though this is a few years delayed, it is a very welcome discussion (though I fully predict the enjoyment of it will take a few hits due to an excess amount of nonsensical ice cream jokes).
I found it both strange and cool that the sequel took the opposite direction with the altruistic (almost communist) cult. I will give more indepth thoughts on all of this later.
Still not done with the second game, but I have been making progress over the last few days, as you saw for yourself. I am realizing that it is a whole lot more diffucult than the first. The first one I played through on the hardest and never found anything too frustrating, this one I am playing on normal and on several occasions have been tempted to turn the difficulty down. Funny that my old methods from the first game for effortlessly felling Big Daddies still works flawlessly, but when I find myself fighting two or more splicers at a time I find my med packs disappearing one after the other.
And yeah, Ryan Amusments was extremely cool. I spent a while admiring the anamatronic Andrew Ryan, then moved on and actually missed the 9-Irony achievement. So I have to start a new game and go back and snag that one sometime. :(