Why wasn't Bioshock our Watchman?

[Devon Dent]

Play systemshock, and then replay Bioshock, it wasn't our watchmen because Watchmen would not be our watchmen if it had been released 10 years ago, and like all remakes was far worse then the origional.

 

[moretimethansense]

At all the people that seem to think the movie is why comics started being considered an artistic medium.

It came out in eighty six for god's sake!

As for Bioshock, it's because non gamers don't get it and will never get it.

Anyone can read a comic, watch a movie or read a book but it's only game players that can play games.
You'd be lucky to find a non-game player that could press the buttens without looking at the pad every ten seconds.

 

[Durananrananrananran]

The problem with Bioshock being accepted, or any game really being truly understood universally, is the learning curve required to understand it. I mean, navigating a figure around in a 3D space is a skill that does take some time to learn. For people like us, we're so full of muscle memory and basic gaming knowledge that we can pick up virtually any game and play it right away. It's practically second nature. For non-gamers, however it's significantly harder to pick up and understand.

Agree. I remember having to learn the current console controls for an FPS way back with Halo and it took quite a while - and that's already having played GoldenEye etc - now it's second nature. It would take significant effort for someone completely new to games to dive into an FPS.

The other issue comes with how the game got the message across. It made me feel smart for about 10 minutes towards the end, and it is always nice to see Ayn Rand get metaphorically punched in the face with her own copy of Atlas Shrugged, but it doesn't change the fact that about 99% of it was shooting dudes in the face. Forcing the player to carry out hundreds, or even thousands, of graphic murders gets in the way of any artistic or philosophical statements that are being made.

But the issue of your complicity as the player in graphic murders is the heart of the point the game is making - or at least that's how I interpreted it.

Don't get me wrong, I thought that the game was freaking amazing. The environment sucked me in, the opening sequence was easily one of the best ones in any game that I've ever played, and the twist towards the end served as an amazing deconstruction of the FPS genre and made me as a player really think about what I was doing when playing games. It's a brilliant statement, but there's an EXTREMELY steep learning curve to really appreciate it.

This I agree with entirely.

I'm not really bothered if more people didn't get Bioshock, because I did, and that matters to me. Just like I'm not bothered if more people haven't read, say, Moby Dick.

Bioshock isn't gaming's Watchmen - if anything Bioshock (an ultraviolent game making a comment about ultraviolent games that is talked about by fans) is gaming's Ichi the Killer (an ultraviolent film making a comment about ultraviolent films that is talked about by fans). If you haven't seen it, would you kindly go and rent it...

 

[The Youth Counselor]

I think that this could be proven by saying that Watchmen only became popular after it was turned into a movie (a more accepted form of media).

You're probably going to invite a lot of flaming, but I'll spare you for this.

My sister had to read Watchmen years before the movie was even announced as part of her Literature course in college. This wasn't just some fun student-run course at a community college either, it was assigned by her professor in Cal and only one of two comics she had to read there.

Everyone who even knows something about comics has heard of Watchmen.

 

[SpaceArcader]

I think that this could be proven by saying that Watchmen only became popular after it was turned into a movie (a more accepted form of media).

You're probably going to invite a lot of flaming, but I'll spare you for this.

My sister had to read Watchmen years before the movie was even announced as part of her Literature course in college. This wasn't just some fun student-run course at a community college either, it was assigned by her professor in Cal and only one of two comics she had to read there.

Everyone who even knows something about comics has heard of Watchmen.

Agreed. It's a bit like saying that Sherlock Holmes became more popular when Guy Ritchie made his film. Bioshock was great no doubt and I'm sure other developers would look on it's success in terms of storytelling but I think you left out the Half Life series and perhaps Duke Nukem 3D where the interactivity was just beyond.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Watchman (and to a lesser degree the Dark Night Returns) was the turning point for comics, finally they were accepted as an ART FORM by the general public. Ok, comic books themselves quickly crashed within a decade because of an uncontrolled speculator market and the moving away of comic books from grochery stores to comic book stores (leaving the general public unable to easily get the things) and continutity made it impossible for them to get into comic books if they even got one. However, through thick and thin, Watchmen has itself endured, being the only comic book to land on Time's best books of the century for it's deep plot, great writing, and the deconstruction of the entire superhero genre.

Bioshock also was a great game, lauded with it's deep plot, great writing, and small deconstruction of the entire FPS genre. It did gain tons of awards and is beloved beyond reason by people that played it, it never reached out and convinced everybody that this was an art form. Why? It seamed the time was right, coming out in the year everybody from your little sister to your grandmother got themselves a Wii, and was easily the biggest year in gaming history. Yet, here we are, waiting with eagerness and dread over the Supreme Court's ruling on the California gaming law. Why didn't it change the industry?

Besides the Wii, the biggest change in the industry that came out of 2007 was CoD 4. Bioshock in comparison was barely a blip on the radar. So, I ask you my fellow Escapists, why wasn't Bioshock our Watchman?

How the hell did CoD 4 change the industry other than prove that people will buy essentially what is an annually released fps sports game? All it has done is pass itself off as a "realistic shooter" and dominate the market by continually out-dating itself. It is commercially a work of genius but as for advancement of gaming, it is causing stagnation.

I never said it was a positive effect, I just said the impact it had on the industry was much greater, putting the FPS the biggest genre to be developed by soulless exsecutives who think a step forward is to have 3 more guns then last time.

Bioshock really didn't do anything amazing for having story in an fps, It has been done before. And the rpg elements aren't really a huge step ahead either. While it was a really great game it didn't do anything special.

Other than that Watchmen was really well developed plot wise and had really great art. I don't think it brought anything really new to graphic novels but it certainly brought a lot more people into graphic novels. And most of the reason it became "accepted" was that it was made into a movie, and even that did shied away some people because of the fear of blue penis.

On a more basic expression, most of the younger generation are gamers, and have already been exposed to Bioshock, so no change there. The outside and older population generally views all video games a as waste of time. Now one really great game might have the potential to change that, but first the person has to invest in either a computer or a game console that would allow them that experience. With Watchmen, they can pay 20 bucks or so to see the movie on dvd now, or 10-15 when it was in theater, or pick up the graphic novel for what...20 bucks? Which is very different than what was a $60 game +$300 or more console, or a $500+ pc. And then they actually have to get past the first minute or so of playing the game without being frustrated because they don't know how to play games, but most people can look at pretty pictures and read.

Good points though here.

 

[Kenami]

I love the game but the only form of writing I could say impressed me was the symbolism and metaphors integrated into the story. But the main reason why the game didn't revolutionize anything is because nobody had characterization. You had no one to care or root for through the story. Sure the devastation around you was sad but I doubt anyone would say they could connect with Atlas and Andrew Ryan.

also I don't know if it's me or the story but I had to reference the games wikipedia page to understand how the Big Daddy's came into play into the story.

 

[Continuity]

Besides the Wii, the biggest change in the industry that came out of 2007 was CoD 4. Bioshock in comparison was barely a blip on the radar. So, I ask you my fellow Escapists, why wasn't Bioshock our Watchman?

Simply because people outside the gaming community, i.e. those that need convincing, don't game. So it doesn't matter if a game ticks all these boxes, if the non-gaming critics don't play the game and don't have anything to compare it to even if they do (because they don't game) then they're not going to latch on to the importance of a title like this.

Put simply, computer games are not at all accessible to those outside the gaming community.

 

[Vonnis]

Because Bioshock's story, whilst interesting, wasn't that deep, and it didn't do dick to the FPS genre. We must not have played the same game or something.

 

[Thespian]

Possibly because Watchmen was as good as it was only in it's comic form, whereas, to be honest, Bioshock would have made as good a movie or book as it did a game.

If anything could be "Our Watchmen" it should be Minecraft - something hugely successful that only works as a game. Try to make a movie about Minecraft. It would suck. Balls.

The difference between Bioshock and Watchmen is that Watchmen took a good comic and transformed it into a more accepted form, while Bioshock was a game that remained a game. The people who didn't like comics saw the movies and said "huh, maybe comics aren't so bad", while the people who don't like video games didn't even give Bioshock a second look because it was still a video game.

I think that this could be proven by saying that Watchmen only became popular after it was turned into a movie (a more accepted form of media).

I believe he is talking about the comic watchmen, not the movie, and the comic was hugely popular before the movie Where did you get that idea? The movie was made like, twenty years after the popular comic. Are you saying it wasn't popular for those twenty years?

 

[V8 Ninja]

Because Bioshock really played it safe the whole way through. It didn't add anything new to the genre or video games as a whole except for giving the player some neat-o powers that probably could have been done four years earlier. True, everything was above par and done quite well, but just being good at something won't change the entire playing field.

 

[Akirai]

Watchman (and to a lesser degree the Dark Night Returns) was the turning point for comics, finally they were accepted as an ART FORM by the general public.

Comics aren't accepted as an art form by the general public.

 

[thenoblitt]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAHAHA, because it was good, but it did by no means change the world, or a whole medium, or even a genre

 

[Thaius]

This is a perfect example of why it is important for video games to be culturally recognized as an art form. Bioshock could have had a huge, awesome cultural impact, but it did not because of the exclusivity of those who enjoyed it and appreciated its depth. Because video games are seen as nothing more than a pastime for the select few who enjoy it.

People say the "games as art" movement and argument is useless, but things like this are the reasons they are absolutely wrong.

 

[Nomanslander]

I don't know if comics are now accepted as mainstream/ an art form yet but hey I'll bite.

I think it's because Bioshock did not get a large amount of publicity outside the gaming world.

I don't think Watchmen did either until the movie came out. I mean in the 90s I was a comic book geek, and I never heard of it until the movie.

Of course I also sorta lived under a rock at the times.

 

[Woodsey]

I very much doubt anyone in the "general public" knew about the Watchmen. I don't read comics, but obviously I'm a part of the whole comics-films-games circle, and I didn't have a clue about what it was until the film was announced.

Also, BioShock has some gaping flaws (bad pacing, weak shooting, lacklustre story - man cannot survive on audio tapes and visual cues alone) that don't put it at the top of its own genre, let alone gaming as a whole.

Discussing politic themes doesn't grant you an instawin. Even then, you could argue the only real point it makes is an ironic one about the player's role in a game.

 

[RastaBadger]

If I can be blunt, because System Shock 2 did it all better.
It was a great game yeh but it wasn't really world changing and so (for reasons previously mentioned) it didn't change the world.

 

[YawningAngel]

Planescape: Torment was atmospheric and well-told. Deus Ex was insightful and intelligent on a level a lot of genuine 'art' never achieves. Heavy Rain is basically an interactive film. Minecraft and Little Big Planet aren't just showcases of creativity in and of themselves: they also provide the people using them the same opportunity. There are myriad examples of artistic games, they just happen to go unnoticed because people refuse to consider them.