Bioshock is decent, but its still shooter with some RPG elements taped on it, nothing more. Planescape Torment was mentioned before, but you can take stories of most older RPGs and still come with better stories. Planescape deserves special mention because its more like interactive book than anything else ...
Is There a Better Story then Bioshock?
- Thread starter Celtic Predator
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Bradd94 said:Goddamit. Stupid Flame shield. I'd cook you, I would! ><Kagim said:
On a serious note, I suppose Atlas could've just skipped the sub scene. I think though the whole gaining your trust thing was vital for him because perhaps he knew about the antidote Suchong developed, and letting you know from the off might have allowed you to cure yourself quicker, preventing Ryan's death etc.
I heard all the audio diaries also, which tied in all of the storyline. I don't really understand how the twist was a major plothole or that, but maybe I'm oblivious to it really.
OT: Basically BioShock's storyline wins for me. But honourable mention to the Half Life episodes
The problem with the twist that i don't like is that every event up to the twist loses its impact. All the way up to the twist where you find out your a slave Atlas is trying to convince you he's just a man trying to survive. He builds a sense of relationship with you. When Andrew Ryan forces you to kill him and Atlas is revealed to be Fontaine my piss off points come to light.
1. Why did he lie about a family, your under his mind control. Why couldn't he have made it seem like Atlas was trying to work with you to escape. The Creation of a fake family doesn't make sense. If flat escape was his goal then fine i can understand that, but if he was planning on still taking over rapture then the absence of his family would be notable.
2. Why would he try to kill you now that ONE enemy is gone. Tenenbaum is still out there and clearly a threat. If not a threat then she has the little sisters. Either way Fontaine still needs you to at least deal with her. As well if flat escape WAS his goal in the beginning with the sub then he has no reason to kill either of you as he could just leave now. If domination was his plan the whole time then once again the family thing doesn't make sense. If he just changed his mind he still has no reason to kill you, which leads to....
3. Why would he try to kill you at all? Your under his control, he doesn't need you to even like him in the first place. The fact he tries to establish some kind of relationship with you would assume that he wants to be sure that if you somehow break control you won't come after him because of the bond created. So why does he even try to kill you after creating this mass illusion. After Andrew Ryan is dead why not keep you as his grinning guard dog? You have a super human who would be willing to fight and die for you! When Fontaine gives the order to kill yourself he clearly still thinks your under his control so why do it at all?
4. Why pretend to be Atlas at all? Since he clearly was planning on just killing you at some point why pretend to be someone else. Andrew Ryan knew who he was, Tenebaum knew who he was. There was no actual reason to hide himself from you. Only to hide himself from the player. This is kinda a bother to me because it breaks immersion. The characters lack motivation outside of fooling the Viewer. That's bad practice to me. If Tenenbaum and Andrew Ryan actually didn't know who he was a)What's the point of hiding who you are NOW. b)Tenebaum at least sure doesn't act to surprised, or like she even cares. c)Any foreshadowing that was loosely present is stripped of its meaning.
What this adds up to is the narrative is lying to the viewer. I don't feel like Atlas lies to me or obfuscated facts. I don't feel like Andrew Ryan Lied to me or obfuscated facts. I feel like the game lied to me directly, not my character. What it seems like after the twist is that Atlas didn't know he was Fontaine, that he has NO motivation. That he is somehow an idiot despite all he has done to survive up to this point.
1. Why did he lie about a family, your under his mind control. Why couldn't he have made it seem like Atlas was trying to work with you to escape. The Creation of a fake family doesn't make sense. If flat escape was his goal then fine i can understand that, but if he was planning on still taking over rapture then the absence of his family would be notable.
2. Why would he try to kill you now that ONE enemy is gone. Tenenbaum is still out there and clearly a threat. If not a threat then she has the little sisters. Either way Fontaine still needs you to at least deal with her. As well if flat escape WAS his goal in the beginning with the sub then he has no reason to kill either of you as he could just leave now. If domination was his plan the whole time then once again the family thing doesn't make sense. If he just changed his mind he still has no reason to kill you, which leads to....
3. Why would he try to kill you at all? Your under his control, he doesn't need you to even like him in the first place. The fact he tries to establish some kind of relationship with you would assume that he wants to be sure that if you somehow break control you won't come after him because of the bond created. So why does he even try to kill you after creating this mass illusion. After Andrew Ryan is dead why not keep you as his grinning guard dog? You have a super human who would be willing to fight and die for you! When Fontaine gives the order to kill yourself he clearly still thinks your under his control so why do it at all?
4. Why pretend to be Atlas at all? Since he clearly was planning on just killing you at some point why pretend to be someone else. Andrew Ryan knew who he was, Tenebaum knew who he was. There was no actual reason to hide himself from you. Only to hide himself from the player. This is kinda a bother to me because it breaks immersion. The characters lack motivation outside of fooling the Viewer. That's bad practice to me. If Tenenbaum and Andrew Ryan actually didn't know who he was a)What's the point of hiding who you are NOW. b)Tenebaum at least sure doesn't act to surprised, or like she even cares. c)Any foreshadowing that was loosely present is stripped of its meaning.
What this adds up to is the narrative is lying to the viewer. I don't feel like Atlas lies to me or obfuscated facts. I don't feel like Andrew Ryan Lied to me or obfuscated facts. I feel like the game lied to me directly, not my character. What it seems like after the twist is that Atlas didn't know he was Fontaine, that he has NO motivation. That he is somehow an idiot despite all he has done to survive up to this point.
Once again, these are the things that bug me about the games story. You could always say "well he went crazy" but that feels like a cop out and doesn't improve the story at all.
This is what i walked away feeling.
I loved animal farm...Cptn_Squishy said:
And yeah i agree. Both stories are okay. Not these massive achievements they are claimed to be. The game play itself is about a hundred times better in both(for me) and it bugs me people are praising its on par storytelling over its awesome shooter aspects.
THAN Bioshock!Celtic Predator said:
How the fuck can you appreciate a story when you lack a simple grasp of English?
woah! talk about a blast from the past, that post was 1month old!rabidmidget said:
anyway thanks i love my avatar
this group made it for me http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/The-Avatar-Store-New-and-Second-Hand
if u go to them for an avatar might i suggest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch1lO9aFRvU
0:28-0:29
PLANESCAPE TORMENT. The story and writing is actually better than about 90% of all fantasy literature, so put that in your stinkweed pipe and smoke it. Also, there was this crappy little game called Knights of Xentar I played back in the day. It was bad, but the dialogue was so funny I nearly soiled myself.
Ew, ugh, just blah. The story was alright in Bioshock, but if you didn't see the twist coming, shame on you. Really. We're hailing it as the second coming of Christ and it really didn't hit me nearly as hard as it seems to have hit the rest of the gaming community. Bioshock should be praised for its ability to set up a very engaging/immersive atmosphere. Not for the story.
My favorite story goes to Mass Effect so far. I don't know of a best story, but Mass Effect definitely has my favorite vote.
My favorite story goes to Mass Effect so far. I don't know of a best story, but Mass Effect definitely has my favorite vote.
Disclaimer: Before I begin, allow me to make it clear; this isn't a flame. It's one Bioshock fan's effort to illuminate the plot-thread a bit in a way that might explain the story of the first game. Take it or discard it as you see fit; after all, a man chooses.Kagim said:
It's actually perfectly logical. Fontaine tries to take over via economic control of ADAM and the development of newer and deadlier plasmids. Ryan, not willing to be beaten out, eventually drops the hammer on him. Fontaine, seeing the writing on the wall, fakes his death and creates the Atlas persona, using his stockpiles of ADAM, plasmid research, and his keen if cynical understanding of how people work to convince the downtrodden to rise up and follow him. Anyone who finds out the truth dies.
Meanwhile, he worked behind the scenes, using Ryan's bastard son as a test subject to create, in effect, the perfect weapon. Not only was he easily controllable thanks to the WYK programming, but since he had Ryan's genes, the genelocks- mentioned as being basically crap since relatives of those programmed in could use anything genelocked to a given individual -were all fair game. This included the Vita-Chambers, bathospheres, and ultimately the master control unit in Ryan's own inner sanctum. Fontaine played the long game from both sides; either Atlas and his men would take over, or his custom-designed assassin would bypass the majority of the defenses, up to and including death thanks to the aformentioned Vita-Chambers, and be able to shut Ryan down.
Why did he use the Atlas persona all the way up to Jack shifting the city to his control? In case anyone, including Ryan, was listening in and figured it out. WYK was often slid into conversations, seemingly just as a quirk of speech on Atlas's part. Fontaine underestimated Ryan, however; his own agents, or possibly even Ryan himself, gathered the data about what was really going on and pieced together the clues. Follow Ryan's dialogue in the later levels... he's begun mentally to unspool the secrets of who Jack is and how he came to be there. Once he figures them out... well, it was pretty straight forward from there.
And why does Tannenbaum keep you ignorant? A variety of reasons come to mind; for one, if she gives away that she recognized you and tries to explain things, Atlas's next comment could easily be 'Would you kindly shoot her in the head?'. Even failing that, Tannenbaum isn't a threat to Atlas/Fontaine directly... getting involved in a way that legitimately compromises that could make her, as well as the Little Sisters she'd rescued, targets. She knows what Fontaine- and you -are capable of. Hell, Fontaine even directly states that once he's done with you, he's going to 'take his time' with Tannenbaum and the Little Sisters.
Not sure how it came to be that you assumed Atlas's actions didn't make sense. Partly because there WAS no Atlas. There was always just Frank Fontaine, conman, businessman, monopolist, would-be tyrant, bully, control freak, and all around complete monster. Atlas was no more real than the character an actor might portray. And Ryan never figured out the depth to which Atlas/Fontaine's plans ran until it was too late to do anything but try and take him- and Rapture -down with him. Hell, even then he didn't have all the clues... note that in the end, he was still calling Atlas out when he prepared to burn Rapture to the ground. To his death, he at least believed Atlas and Fontaine were different men. He wasn't in on it, and there was no Atlas to be in on things; there was, again, only Frank Fontaine.
Meanwhile, he worked behind the scenes, using Ryan's bastard son as a test subject to create, in effect, the perfect weapon. Not only was he easily controllable thanks to the WYK programming, but since he had Ryan's genes, the genelocks- mentioned as being basically crap since relatives of those programmed in could use anything genelocked to a given individual -were all fair game. This included the Vita-Chambers, bathospheres, and ultimately the master control unit in Ryan's own inner sanctum. Fontaine played the long game from both sides; either Atlas and his men would take over, or his custom-designed assassin would bypass the majority of the defenses, up to and including death thanks to the aformentioned Vita-Chambers, and be able to shut Ryan down.
Why did he use the Atlas persona all the way up to Jack shifting the city to his control? In case anyone, including Ryan, was listening in and figured it out. WYK was often slid into conversations, seemingly just as a quirk of speech on Atlas's part. Fontaine underestimated Ryan, however; his own agents, or possibly even Ryan himself, gathered the data about what was really going on and pieced together the clues. Follow Ryan's dialogue in the later levels... he's begun mentally to unspool the secrets of who Jack is and how he came to be there. Once he figures them out... well, it was pretty straight forward from there.
And why does Tannenbaum keep you ignorant? A variety of reasons come to mind; for one, if she gives away that she recognized you and tries to explain things, Atlas's next comment could easily be 'Would you kindly shoot her in the head?'. Even failing that, Tannenbaum isn't a threat to Atlas/Fontaine directly... getting involved in a way that legitimately compromises that could make her, as well as the Little Sisters she'd rescued, targets. She knows what Fontaine- and you -are capable of. Hell, Fontaine even directly states that once he's done with you, he's going to 'take his time' with Tannenbaum and the Little Sisters.
Not sure how it came to be that you assumed Atlas's actions didn't make sense. Partly because there WAS no Atlas. There was always just Frank Fontaine, conman, businessman, monopolist, would-be tyrant, bully, control freak, and all around complete monster. Atlas was no more real than the character an actor might portray. And Ryan never figured out the depth to which Atlas/Fontaine's plans ran until it was too late to do anything but try and take him- and Rapture -down with him. Hell, even then he didn't have all the clues... note that in the end, he was still calling Atlas out when he prepared to burn Rapture to the ground. To his death, he at least believed Atlas and Fontaine were different men. He wasn't in on it, and there was no Atlas to be in on things; there was, again, only Frank Fontaine.
Here are some fine examples of some (and yes, Im serious about all of them)
I DO LOVE BIOSHOCK, these just happen to have better stories.