Poll: Half-Life 2 vs. Bioshock Infinite

[Lilani]

In Bioshock Infinite you can make choices, but HL2 is completely linear. Infinite had huge statements to make about choice and morals, and all sorts of different meta-narratives like Bioshock 1 had. HL2 doesn't have a lot of hidden messages--it's just the story of Gordon Freeman and the Black Mesa incident.

'Choices'. That buzzword again. A game does not need choices. A linear, predetermined experience is fine if the plot is crafted around that. And HL2 plot just reeks of the message that your choices don't matter. You could stop fighting but by your very nature you are forced into it. Your very presense at this place is decided by someone else, your progress is decided by someone else. You are a mere pawn in a bigger picture.

When did I ever say a game needed choices? I love HL2 and its linearity. I never said it was a bad thing, I just said it was a difference between the two.

In Bioshock Infinite you can make choices, but HL2 is completely linear.

Infinite had huge statements to make about choice and morals, and all sorts of different meta-narratives like Bioshock 1 had. HL2 doesn't have a lot of hidden messages--it's just the story of Gordon Freeman and the Black Mesa incident.

I actually agree with most of what you said, but I felt I had to address these two particular points.

I would argue that what few choices you can make in Bioshock Infinite are still, largely, linear in nature. The choices end up being almost superfluous.

I would also argue that Half-Life 2, while at face value a story told entirely from the point of view of Freeman, is about far more than him or what events he's privy to.

There are a lot of hidden narratives, secret meanings, and allusions to other concepts and philosophies. Some grand. Some small and personal.

Granted, they're no where near as obvious as those present in Bioshock Infinite. Many you won't notice on your first, second, or even third play through. But I promise you, they are there.

And no, they're not something I made up in my head. I swear I'm not crazy.

Really. I'm not.

[sub]I swear.[/sub]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of hidden narratives in the Half-Life series, but I think the problem with picking these up at this point is we don't know the end of the story. It is a possibility, but until we know how all the pieces fit together and figure out what the final fate of the G-Man and the Vortigaunts are we can only speculate.

 

[White_Lama]

Half life 2 is one of the most overrated games that I have played so far.

I liked Bioshock Infinite. Overrated on its own a bit as well, but its still TONS better than HL2.

Aaaaaand /thread.


My vote goes to Bioshock Infinite, because dat ending.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Half-life 2 wins hands-down imo.

It pulverizes Bioshock's (any bioshock game's) gameplay easily. I personally never found the gameplay compelling in any Bioshock game, fights are hectic and confusing without many redeeming qualities and minigames are irritating, in every one of their games I ended up using only 1-2 powers do get through the entire thing as well.

In Half-Life, fights are equally chaotic, but you can manage to find your own way around them much more freely, I also found a use for every weapon in that game, sometimes in creative and original ways. There are also many more different situations: getting sniped, hordes of zombies coming for you, having to run and hide from gunships and other nastiness... BI never really gets further than throwing waves of enemies in your face.

In terms of puzzles HL2 also tramples all over Bioshock.

When you look at settings and atmosphere, Bioshock is more creative, but Half-Life 2 takes its time to let you explore, experience and breathe it all in, while Bioshock rushes you along.

Storywise, again, Bioshock might be more creative, but they don't manage to give you the same sense of impact imo. Infinite and the original do have far superior endings of course, but Half-Life is still ongoing (well, I hope anyhow), so that's no surprise.

I love Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, but neither of those games is a match for HL2 in my opinion, not even close.

 

[hermes]

I will go with bioshock. In terms of gameplay design and storytelling, Half Life was certainly revolutionary at the time, but its not better.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Honestly, I think both games are way overrated, but if I had to choose, it would be Half-Life 2. The thing is, HL2's story never felt at odds with its gameplay, as opposed to BioShock Infinite, whose story felt way too pretentious for its overly-generic first-person shooter gameplay. HL2's story felt like it was movie you and your friends watch over the weekend just for a couple hours of fun, and the gameplay backed that up. Infinite's story felt like it was trying to be that incredibly dramatic, thoughtful story that sticks with you for days after you finish it, but the gameplay was as far away from that style as you can get.

On top of that, HL2 actually did better with what it tried to do. Yes, it had a not-so-serious story, but it was a fun story to follow if you didn't try to take it too seriously. Infinite's story was meant to be complex and allegorical, but all it really did was come across as incredibly pretentious, and not in the appealing way that Braid was. That pretentiousness is only made worse when you consider the RPG genre has been doing everything Infinite tried to do for years, and the RPGs are generally better at it. Not to mention, other games like The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Trilogy and Braid already told stories very, very similar to Infinite's, but they did it much better than what Infinite did (as in, Infinite isn't even the same league with them). Sure, HL2 isn't the greatest story ever, but it is a great example of how to just have fun with the story.

Finally, HL2 was better paced and more focused. Yes, places like Ravenholm were little more than filler material, but again, the story wasn't that serious to begin with, and who can go through Ravenholm without realizing that Valve wasn't taking themselves too seriously? Not to mention, the transitions from when you were interacting with people and going through challenges alone was smoother. You actually went over area that made sense when you transitioned from "populated area" to "not-populated area". Infinite's transitions between these areas was jarring, and it took a while to go from "wonderful populated mode" to "sort of boring combat mode". This jarring nature was only felt more when you consider the obvious transitions in themes (going from a commentary on American nationalism to timeline jumping?).

In the end, HL2 just understood what it was and what its genre was about much more than Infinite did. If we were to compare HL2 to either of the first two BioShock games, then I can see some competition here in terms of storytelling, but so far, I think Infinite is easily the worst example of storytelling the franchise has to offer. Oh yeah, and it doesn't help Infinite that its ending was just a boring, overly pretentious 10-20 min. of them explaining everything they failed to work into the rest of the game. Sorry, but any story that has to take time at the end to explain itself isn't good. I don't care if they add a few revelations that change your perspective on things, or if the characters finally realize what everything else in the story was trying to teach them (i.e. the end of character development), but that isn't what Infinite is. Infinite's ending is the game telling you, the player (not Booker), what its story is about simply because it failed to slowly and thoughtfully explain itself throughout the rest of the game.

 

[TomWiley]

Half Life 2 all the way. Infinite is a great game, make no mistake, but I just feel that Half Life 2 does a better job of presenting it's story, which is told via character development and scenes that play out in front of you rather than collectible audio diaries.

 

[Vigormortis]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of hidden narratives in the Half-Life series, but I think the problem with picking these up at this point is we don't know the end of the story. It is a possibility, but until we know how all the pieces fit together and figure out what the final fate of the G-Man and the Vortigaunts are we can only speculate.

Granted, but the speculation is only relevant to the primary story line. This would include the true nature of the G-man, the intentions of the Vorts, the role the Nihilanth plays in all of this, etc, etc.

However, there are still quite a lot of hidden bits of narrative and references strewn throughout the game. Throughout the series, in fact.

Allusions to past events that are never discussed and to side events, both large and small, that may or may not be key to Gordons travels. References to world-renowned authors. Homages to classic literature and characters, both within science fiction and with out. Metaphoric statements on philosophical concepts. Allegories representing socio-political concepts. Etc, etc, etc.

Again, some may think I, and others, are reading more into the story than is actually there. But I promise you, with a certain level of scrutiny, it's all there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In fact, there's a scene in Episode 2 wherein, upon riding an elevator (gasp! how unorthodox!) out of the Antlion caves, Gordon and his Vortigaunt companion happen upon a charred and decaying corpse resting solemnly on a comfy chair in front of a television. The Vort pauses for a moment to point out the poignant, ghastly image of the scene.

This is Valve essentially poking fun at themselves. They're referencing their tendency to put very precisely designed images and references in many of their level designs, but because they work them into the surroundings so well most people miss them without someone stopping to show them.

 

[RogueportJack]

Oh god Half-Life 2. BioShock Infinite was balls. The story was pretentious and the gameplay was a bunch of boring Modern Warfare esque drivel. Half-Life 2 is terribly overrated, but only because it's story elements are weaker than everyone says. In terms of level design it's still a masterpiece, and IMO there still hasn't been a single player first person shooter that has come close to it.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Half-Life 2, no question.

I'm not even a huge Valve fan, but Infinite wasn't THAT good.

It was decent, but it had a lot of glaring problems that dragged it down.

Bioshock ONE on the other hand beats Half-Life any day.

 

[The White Hunter]

I never understood the seemingly unlimited love for Half-Life 2. It was great at the time of it's release, sure. But I can't force myself to play it again. I only had the energy to play it once. It's filled with extremely boring driving sections and very bad first person platforming. And I don't really care about the story either. To be honest, I was a fan of Half-Life 1 multiplayer. I was never a fan of the single player aspect of the series. I think the internet just accepted that Half-Life 2 should be universally praised as a flawless game and people are afraid to say anything bad about it because they fear that they won't be taken seriously. Well, since I don't give a shit I'll just say what I mean. I had more fun playing Bioshock games than I ever did playing any of the Half-Life games. And I care about the story in Bioshock Infinite a lot more than I ever even attempted to care about anything that went on in Half-Life 2.

As a matter of fact, HL2 probably wouldn't even make it on my Top 100 list. I'm not even joking. I think it's THAT boring.

Don't worry Mr Jensen. Your opinion may be unpopular but it is no less valid and you are not without allies.

I don't really get the fuss with Half Life 2, Half Life 1 is much more of a leap forward and even the first Halo is a bigger shake up of formula. Half Life 2 was fun and everything but it's mostly kind of boring and playing it now it just isn't a very involving experience, we've moved so far beyond it. It's not bad, and it was great in the day, but now it's not really the kind of game I can go back and play any time and have a blast, so I can't duly call it a classic.

 

[BleedingPride]

Not a fan of half life personally, the only interesting character for me was Dog, and that's not a good thing. At all. However with Bioshock Infinite I just loved everything about it, and you *need* to play that before the year is up.

 

[Headsprouter]

Timesplitters can be thought of as a bit of a cult classic. An article here even referred to it as such. In fact, it was this one. It'd be better thought of as a cult classic than Half-life, anyway, seeing as it sold a horribly small amount of copies compared, and as far as I know, won no awards. Actually, fun fact! Timesplitters 2, in the group of challenges "The sincerest form of flattery", references Half-Life with the challenge "Half-Death", as well as a couple other of it's FPS competitors.

But more OT, I don't really know, seeing as I've played only Half-Life 2, and none of the subsequent episodes. I should do that. Disregard my opinion if you wish, but I'd have to say Bioshock, seeing as it actually kept my attention enough to play the whole game in uninterrupted by the thought of others. I was more dedicated to Bioshock as a series, though...

 

[LiquidGrape]

I genuinely believe Infinite is at best a mediocre title with very suspect moral suggestions, and only an inviting visual design to somewhat redeem the otherwise forgettable mess.

Half-Life 2 in virtually every respect.

 

[Do4600]

Half-Life 2, Bioshock: Infinate and Bioshock all end on cop out endings as far as I'm concerned, so really if you want to talk about story nothing is ever truly resolved.

In Infinite I found myself asking more questions about what happened right before the ending than in any other part of the game. The story arch in Infinite and the gameplay arch in Infinite are totally mismatched. While the gameplay is receiving it's denouement the story is continuing to have crises until it's totally removed from the gameplay experience and tension altogether. It's like they could have made an entire game just based on what happens after there stops being guys to shoot. They could have just made Bioshock: Columbia and than Bioshock: Infinite.

It's the exact opposite problem in Bioshock. The story seems to be over towards the 3/4 mark but the gameplay continues to have crises and a climax after that point. This is the problem with twists and twist endings, If you've been under the assumption of one thing for nearly the entire experience a twist can have the effect of invalidating the tension built by previous crises. In the case of Bioshock the twist comes during the denouement of the plot that's been building since the beginning, it ends and new one starts for the last three hours of the game, it's really sloppy. It's like a made for tv movie that's also supposed to be a pilot for a television show, but they ended up just trying to merge together the scripts for the first three episodes.

This is my exact problem with The Dark Knight Rises, which is why it's so inferior to the previous film, they spend two hours building up tension and then they release it without a climax and start a new story immediately, they should have just had a "sequel moment" along with the other "sequel moments" during the resolution.

Half-Life 1 does a really great job of having a twist that doesn't end the story and start a new one.

In Half-Life 2 the story and the gameplay are synced. The gameplay's climax is also the story's climax. The twist is the denouement, it's short and it doesn't add a million new concepts that were invisible to us before the climax, it still denies us a resolution though, one that isn't present until, I believe, Episode 1.

Both of the Bioshock games have more drama and tension, emotional impact, but they do it in a very wasteful way, in a way where only a few of those emotional moments are actually supported from the point they are introduced to their resolution. Resolving those emotions within the viewer are the most important part of dramatic story-telling.

Half-Life 2 is a better told story, but the Bioshock stories are better but told in worse ways.

The gameplay really makes the difference here, I hated Infinite's gameplay(I played on hard) I hated it so much, good ideas but totally ruined by giving enemies exponentially higher health on higher difficulties.

So Half-Life 2

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

How it's told?

Bioshock: Infinite goes for a traditional story approach: everything is told through set pieces and character interactions, the main character included, most memorably in cutscenes
Half-Life entirely does away with cutscenes and relies on what the main character silently observes

But beside the main character talking, Half-Life and Bioshock Infinite have incredibly similar ways of telling you the same story -- just, sometimes Bioshock pulls out a cutscene that can get actiony and tumultous with the first-person view where Half-Life prefers giving the player control stable control the entire time.

At that point it's a personal choice. You can "X had a better story than Y", but there's no good grounds to compare the two different plots on, and we are more talking about the presentation. Do you like enormous set pieces that you observe, or do you like enormous set pieces that you are thrown in and cannot control yourself while it occurs?

And then there's the collectibles. Half-Life's collectibles, through the lambda caches, were resources to live, but Infinite was helpful resources and story exposition. Again, personal choice -- do you want Half-Life's 'piecing together from the environment' or Infinite's 'I have to search every corner of the map for the game to tell me the answer'. Again, personal choice.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

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