Smash_Brother said:
| Onyxmeth said: Secondly, videogame stories are horrific judging directly to other mediums like literature and films. I'm not actually sitting here thinking Bioshock is better than The Squid and the Whale, just that it's better than the crap most other games consider a narrative. Bioshock has a heavy advantage over many story driven games from the past, because the extra power of today's 360 and PCs allowed it to tell it's story better. The voice acting was terrific, the confrontations with adversaries were realistic and intimidating, and the themes, while being good for only VG standards were among the best. |
I can agree that it's better than what we're used to, but the game just had such a weak finish that it was saddening. The scene with Andrew Ryan was easily the best in the game, but I once again have to cite the fact that we weren't playing the scene, we watched it like a movie. In fact, we watched the whole game like a movie. And here's why that kills me: the same people who made System Shock also made Deus Ex and Bioshock. I've seen what these people are capable of and as a result I can see where Bioshock was more than likely stripped down so it would be more easily swallowed by the console market. And that really, REALLY sucks, and this is why I hate it when I see people praising it for the story when the story was only a shadow of what it could've been. There's no reason to play as a character who is a voiceless, nameless drone in a linear start-to-finish storyline when the team behind it was so clearly capable of creating an immersive, empowering story with a likable protagonist for the player to control. |
I never said there weren't disappointing things with Bioshock's story because there were. The ending was entirely too short and the big twist and everything that happened following it could have been axed for all I care. The strengths of it's story, as linear as it may be, still outweighs the weaknesses, and was told much better than probably every game ever made minus 10 or 15. There were themes in the story that addressed real issues, there was an amazing backdrop to tell the story in, and there was a sick sense of humor the developers had where they poked fun of their own game. It's hard to hate a story just because it plays out like a movie, because most games are completely linear with their story. Games like Deus Ex are a rarity, not the norm.
