Is There a Better Story then Bioshock?

[SteveeVader]

The story to Bioshock has to be one of the most interesting complex stories and even though it was the "spiritual predecessor" to System Shock to, was original in every right. So many twists and turns (one especially), memorable characters, and the best writing and voice acting I've seen in a video game thus far. Does anybody have an think there's an equally or unforgettable turn of events in a game (writing, story, premise, ect.)?

Are you kidding me? I thought bioshock had one of the worst stories iv seen in along time. Most other games atleast try to give you a reason why you character is doing things. In bioshock untill the very end the only explination is your character is a complete moron. He had no reason to go in the lighthouse or go into the little sub. Infact any sane person never would have done that.

Once your down in rapture the story is just as bad. Your supposed to believe that in a town where litterally everybody is out to get each other that you magically met the one good person just when you needed him. Once you get down to it the game doesnt really even have a main story and what it does their isnt really anything to it at all. Most of bioshock is just sidequests, actually the game is more about the sidequests and the backstory of rapture then the main quest.


I think most games iv played have a far better story then bioshock, id put its story around the same level as borderlands. As for my top five id have to go with have to go with Crono Trigger, Baldurs Gate, Prince of Persia Trilogy, Metal Gear Solid, and The Legend of Dragoon in no particular order.

Would you kindly finish the game before you start criticising the plot? Anybody might think you're missing a valuable piece of information.

Oh god if you could not see his betrayal coming you have something wrong with you and plus the ending was utterly retarded, I'm sorry but becoming super asshole or super hippy is not a good ending

 

[SteveeVader]

oh also to add Final fantasy 7 and 10
ANY BIOWARE GAME
and kingdom hearts that game is wonderful

 

[Ruairi iliffe]

Hands down, Planescape: Torment.

Never have i had a game effect me so much than it.

Wish my Cd Copy hadn't become to degraded, miss playing it

 

[burgbrand22]

Yes, Bioshock deserves to be recognized as one of those games with a story worth praising for. Yet, I think Final Fantasy VI and VIII have more enriching and deeper stories. Oh yeah, Chrono Trigger too.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

[sub][sub].....must...resist...[/sub][sub][sub]urge....to correct...spelling[/sub][/sub][/sub]

Many different games, like Age of Mythology for one.

 

[Celtic Predator]

I think it's a matter of perspectives; a story is as good as the public feels attached to it.
I loved Bioshock Story, and I know people who says nothing but praise to Spawn story, which I find pretty shallow myself, it may be good, but nothing on it interested me enough to say it's good. But I know beforehand that this is just my opinion.

 

[Flames66]

The story to Bioshock has to be one of the most interesting complex stories and even though it was the "spiritual predecessor" to System Shock to, was original in every right. So many twists and turns (one especially), memorable characters, and the best writing and voice acting I've seen in a video game thus far. Does anybody have an think there's an equally or unforgettable turn of events in a game (writing, story, premise, ect.)?

What does your title mean. It makes no sense grammatically.

Also I think that the story in the Half life games is expertly written and presented in a much more engaging way than any other game I have seen.

 

[Serenegoose]

Yes I have finished that game and im sick and tired of that shitty excuse you just gave. Up untill the very end of the game no you dont know that you character has any motivation at all for his actions. They need to provide atleast some small amount of reason as to why he is doing what hes doing. Otherwise like what they did is just filling a really big plot hole with a crap copout. In a good game you try to create a reason for why the player character is doing what hes doing at the beginning of the game not the end. Its kind of like the gets better 20 hours into the game excuse. I dont want to play a shitty game for 20 hours and then have it be good, id rather play a good game instead.

Il admit its been a couple years since I played it because well that game was so bad I returned it early.

The entire point of a 'twist' is to keep a vital piece of information concealed until a plot critical juncture, at which point it can be revealed for maximum shock value. If, the moment in KOTOR you decided to go 'oh, I don't like you *stab*' and everyone was to go 'oh, well, it was Revan, such behaviour was to be expected' it wouldn't be such a good twist, eh?

The whole narrative point of bioshock is that there's apparently no real motivation for your character, you're just blindly following orders without a clue why. Just like Jack is. If it was to pop up after the plane crash "Doggedly obey your lilting irish master because you've been genetically programmed to" that might be spoiling the surprise a bit. So no. I don't agree you need an immediate motivation. If you think that, fine. But don't misrepresent your own statement by saying there is no motivation. Just because you (the player and character) aren't aware of it immediately doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

The plot to Bioshock was near identical to system shock 2. And System Shock 2 did it way better, surely this should be a 'Is there a better story than System Shock 2' thread?

Also the Metal Gear series had a fantastic story imo.

 

[Valkyrie101]

Mass Effect, anyone?

 

[MasterChief892039]

I really liked the location and time period Bioshock is set in, and the fact that it was well written really raised my opinion of it. To say that there is no better story than Bioshock though is a little strong for me. There are plenty of great video game storylines out there, but comparing them is like apples and oranges.

 

[ClockWork]

I've been playing Alan Wake, and i have to say, the story is pretty sweet. Also, convoluted and overwritten they may be, i am addicted to the Metal Gear Solid series

 

[ZeroHero3D]

I know alot of people get up uptight about the specific difference between "Storytelling", "Plot, "Setting"...and i can agree to some small degree. But some people need to just chill

The whole narrative point of bioshock is that there's apparently no real motivation for your character, you're just blindly following orders without a clue why. Just like Jack is.

Exactly you just proved my point right there. You have no reason at all to blinding follow those orders so untill the end their is no explination. Your character has no motivation behind him at all, thats the sign of a terrible game. They didnt have to give away the big twist but if they had done anything to try and provide some motivation. Its kind of like picking up somebody elses game halfway through but not wondering why your doing what your doing.

When a character has no reason at all for doing what hes doing the game doesnt interest me. The characters need motivation to make a good story, and bioshock doesnt have that. I think every other game bar those things like tetris give a reason for your actions. Hell even the katamari games have a reason for doing what your doing. Only a complete moron would blindly follow a strangers orders, especially in an environment as hostile as rapture was.

I admit at the very end their is motivation, but that doenst help the story. You need some kind of motivation early on.

*Totally spoilertastic rant incoming*

Well think of it this way, when Jack first arrives in Rapture, he is greeted by absolute and total darkness, isolation, and a complete misunderstanding of the surroundings he was thrust into. This world he "stumbled" upon was completely unknown to him (or so we were told at the beginning). His first "human" encounter was with a Splicer, a person whose sanity and body have been warped and corrupted by genetic self-modifying. This attack on him would leave ANYBODY freaked out, then Atlas contacts him, giving you a sense that maybe you are not totally alone in this bleak and ruined world.

Throughout the game, you HELP Atlas in finding a way out of the city, away from the creator of this so called "Utopia", Andrew Ryan. As the game progresses, you start to learn about what this city was like before its downfall, who the people where like, who Ryan was before he built the city, and who he was after his breakdown. The mysterious figurehead of the common man, Fontaine, seems to appear many times, but his origins were a shot in the dark, so to speak.

It's not until you actually meets Ryan that the reasoning behind EVERYTHING is revealed. Jack is in fact the illegitimate child of Andrew Ryan and a woman working at the strip club (whose name i forget). She was afraid how Ryan would react to her pregnancy, so she kept Jack existence a secret from him. Jack, as it were, was also and experiment in MIND CONTROL, a subject who, with some minor mental modifying, would obey the commands of ANYONE WHO SPOKE THE COMMAND PHRASE, which turned out to be a phrase spoken quite often by your savior, Atlas. "Would you kindly?..." a simple remark, a way of asking somebody to perform a favour for you, or during the course of the game, a way to get the player, Jack, to actually progress in the game. It wasn't blindly following orders, until we learn that in fact it WAS. MIND CONTROL!!!!!

You just playing the game was just a ploy. Atlas was really Frank Fontaine, the man who lead to revolt against Andrew Ryan a few years before the game events too place. He learned of the phrase that controlled Jack, disguised himself as Atlas (Fontaine being a legendary Con-Man before joining the populace of Rapture), and had the player perform all the tasks he wanted to take Ryan out so he could control Rapture.

You call it blindly following orders without reasoning, the game decided to call it Mind Control, they just didn't tell us until the end of the game. If we knew, the plot would have been broken. That unknown was the huge selling point, in the the main selling point to BioShock and all Survival-Horror games. Watch Extra Credits video on the genre, it explains it much better.

STORY, BAM!

 

[Whispering Death]

System Shock 2

 

[Richard Hannay]

Ugh, Story is a word in gaming that lumps way too much together incorrectly. Let me summarize.

There is:
STORY, or PLOT, which is the basic "This happens. Then this happens. Then because of that, he decides to do X. But Person Y decides to betray him etc" It's the overarching narrative of what happens.
EXPOSITION, or STORYTELLING, is HOW the story is told. You can genuinely have a story that's just "Marines go to war. They fight a lot, then get killed." that is told so well, even barring its action scenes, that it wins awards. This depends on things like precise writing, sequence of events, what information is used to convey something (Seeing it firsthand vs reading it, hearing it from an ally, cutscene vs interactive segment)
SETTING, usually only applicable to fantasy or fictional games, is the world you're in. This is why realistic shooters are often uninteresting, but even they could have some interesting locales if they come up with some interesting twist on World of Rubble 3.

BioShock mostly succeeded in the area of Setting. No one had seen or heard of anything remotely similar to Rapture anymore, and everything in it contributed well to the world. Storywise the game is also very good, but I could probably find at least 5 games released just last year that are also just as good.

This fellow speaks truth. A better question would be: "is there a better video game setting than Rapture?" The answer is "maybe, but it'd be a short list." As to the actual story of Bioshock, I'd say it merits a big heaping "meh."