Yes, it's perhaps a little bit over-rated.

I hate corridor-shooters, but the atmosphere with the under-water world, the feeling of catastrophy and the Art deco art is brilliant. I really enjoy playing Bioshock.

I'm half-way through the game, and I wouldn't say it gets better as you progress. Actually it's a bit repetitive. But still great.

And so much better than Call of Duty 4.

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.

 

  

PLEASE, NO SPOILERS!!

 

 

Smash_Brother said: twesterm said: eh, I was going to go into depth, but so many other people have done better than I can. Just search for Bioshock's storytelling, there's an awesome article somewhere on Ryan's death scene and control. But that's just the problem: the game started acting like it had something to say about control and free will and then...you have the mind control removed from your head by going on a fedex quest! It wasn't a struggle for man to fight his own programming, you just needed some REVERSE programming!   twesterm said: Also forgot to add-- go back and play some of the games that supposedly have a great story. Even great games like FFVI acclaimed by nearly all that played as the best FF has a pretty mediocre story. The thing that made its story good wasn't the actual story, it was the characters and their changes. I've never played FFVII and I never will. I'm primarily talking about Deus Ex, which was both made by the same team and falls in the same genre, making it an excellent milestone for comparison.

 I do agree that the ending was fairly lame and that people that put fetch quests in the end of a game should die a slow death, the whole control thing was great and really made the story telling.  The moment you walk into the room with "would you kindly" written on the wall was just a great moment because you saw how evil and devious (I forgot the name of the person control you-- I'm terrible) was.

As for comparing the game, so far you've only compared the game to Deus Ex and said it's shit because it's not as good.  Without giving some other examples you're pretty much saying the equivalent of saying the team that loses the Superbowl is pure shit.

It is an amazing game, wether its over-rated will depend on how much you like this particular type of game, personally I feel it deserves the plaudits.

Slimebeast said: PLEASE, NO SPOILERS!!

 I can understand this type of comment when a game is still only a few months old and the game is still generally considered new but when the game has been out nearly 8 months you can't make comments like that anymore.  That's like getting mad at someone for saying Snape kills Dumbledore or Vader is Lukes Father today.

twesterm said: I feel like the gameplay is overrated but the storytelling deserves every bit of respect it gets.

Exactly what I was going to say, Twesterm. The gameplay was rather mundane and the game needed more RPG elements. The game also needed to be quite a bit harder than it was.

But the story is f***in' brilliant. The ending was a letdown but I won't hold that against the game too much because the rest of it was just so good.

Rapture is probably my favorite game environment ever created in the history of gaming. Few worlds have ever had that kind of thought and design put into them. 

Slimebeast said: PLEASE, NO SPOILERS!!

Why are you in the topic if you haven't beaten the game? There are other ways to get knowledgeable about Bioshock without coming into a topic that is discussing it's narrative. Go read some reviews or something.

 

Onyxmeth said: 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.

 I never said the story was terrible, just that it petered out at the end and fell dramatically short of what it could've been (and what I'm guessing the devs wanted it to be).

It reminded me of a shortened episode of Cowboy Bebop (like how Adult Swim edited them): it always seemed to be moving toward something but it never actually arrived there. I saw the message about control, about power and a vision of something better start to cohere, but it all basically just fell away into convolution, especially in the 2nd half of the game (which was clearly the rushed half, judging by some of the odd bugs I experienced as well).

It's just not a storyline worth immense amounts of praise.

Also, for another excellent story-driven game, try Eternal Darkness. If Too Human follows suit and tells a story of similar magnitude, then it'll be absolutely amazing, for sure. 

Bioshock was definitely one of the best games I've played, period, in several years. The writing and direction of the game are superb, the art style unmatched, and the audio (ambient sounds, voice acting) is a cut above anything else out there.

The game is smart and classy, and the gameplay is also excellent, although many of the plasmids/skills were not as effective as others.

Listening to those audio logs in the darkness, waiting for shit to jump out at you... it was a very engrossing and captivating experience.

If you just ran through the game at full speed and ignored every hole you could explore, and never listened to the tapes, you would miss a lot of the storytelling.

The ending was the games only weakness - an easy bossfight with a surprisingly short ending sequence that made it feel a little anticlimactic. In all other areas, Bioshock was incredible.