I'm replaying through the Bioshock series (played 1 and Infinite again recently back to back because of spoiler reasons, now going back through Bioshock 2), and Infinite, the Burial at Sea DLCs, and the first game all made me stop and think about the overarching meta plot, and the themes contained in each game, and the series at-large. I will mark spoilers appropriately for people who have not yet played these games.
As far as the series goes thematically, all 3 games are mired in politics and philosophy. The city of Rapture is what happens when you take Ayn Rand, turn her into a man, and give her millions of dollars to found her own city and build it at the bottom of the ocean. Rapture is an Objectivists wet dream, where literally everything has a price tag and personal liberty is the sole rule of law. Contrast this to its appearance in Bioshock 2, where Sofia Lamb takes over and converts the remaining populace to Collectivism. Essentially, the city prior to its downfall was a hyper-capitalist faux-utopia, while in 2 it becomes a hyper-socialist not-even-pretending-to-be-good dystopia. Columbia, from Bioshock Infinite, is a little bit of both, served with a heavy helping of religious fanaticism and the fantastical racism that was prevalent in late 19th/early 20th century America. Liberty and industry (a la the original vision of Rapture) are 2 of the 3 core tenets of the city via the city's worship of the founding fathers (George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in these regards, respectively), while Comstock, Columbia's founder and local prophet, emphasizes the importance of the group and community over that of the self, what with the city essentially being one big fat racist church congregation for everyone who isn't a part of the poorer working class and who isn't a minority.
Now, that isn't actually all that important to the main point I was getting at, I just thought it an interesting little tidbit that I'd never heard or seen anyone mention before. Anyway--
All 3 games are very heavily slanted towards their single-player components and their respective narratives. Bioshock 2 has competitive multiplayer, but by all accounts it is pretty half-baked and obviously tacked on with not nearly as much thought or care as that which went into the campaign. Incidentally, the original Bioshock has been called one of, if not the best shooters of the last console generation, and one of the best of the last 10 years (for a game released in 2007), with a ton of praise being given to its plot, setting, characters, and thematic examinations of morality (particularly emphasizing the importance of choice and free will on the part of the player and Jack, the player character). The second game received similar praise (though not to the same level of the runaway success of the first), and Infinite likewise received much love from the media.
Long story short:
Bioshock 1:
Spoiler
In the first game you play a man named Jack, who was born in Rapture, a city built at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 1946 by another man named Andrew Ryan. Jack is Ryan's illegitimate son and is essentially turned into an assassin sleeper agent to be activated via a spoken code phrase. One night in 1960, Jack is on a trans-Atlantic flight when the plane crashes over the ocean, leaving him the sole survivor. Jack swims to a lighthouse and enters inside, leading him to a bathysphere station. Jack activates the bathysphere, which descends into the water and leads him to Rapture. Rapture is on the tail-end of a civil war between Andrew Ryan's men and those of Frank Fontaine, a business mogul and smuggler who aspires to take Rapture for himself. Jack arrives in Rapture and is greeted by Atlas, a man who claims to be a freedom fighter wanting to end Ryan's oppression. Over the course of the game, Jack makes his way to Ryan's office and confronts him. Ryan gives a speech to Jack outlining his principles and personal beliefs, and stating his choice to die with his city rather than see it be taken by the "parasites". Thus, he commands Jack (via the aforementioned code phrase) to kill him. With Ryan dead, Atlas reveals himself to be Frank Fontaine and betrays Jack, using another code word in an attempt to kill Jack. Jack, with the aid of a woman named Brigid Tenenbaum, makes his way to where Fontaine is hiding out at and engages him in a battle for what appears to be the fate of Rapture. The ending of the game is dependent on whether or not Jack chooses to save the Little Sisters that he encounters, who are young prepubescent girls who have been implanted with a kind of sea slug that generates a material known as ADAM. Tenenbaum feels as though she must rescue the Sisters, as she helped to make them into what they are. The good (and presumably canon) ending to the game depicts Jack returning to the surface with the rescued Little Sisters, who grow up to live normal lives, going to school, graduating college, getting married, and eventually being beside Jack on his deathbed.
It's a pretty poignant plot that I cannot do justice in only 1 or 2 paragraphs, I highly recommend the game.
Bioshock 2:
Spoiler
You play as a Big Daddy known as Subject Delta, a member of the Alpha series of Big Daddies and the first to be successfully pair-bonded with a Little Sister (and fourth overall Big Daddy to be created). In the prologue sequence, Delta is going about his usual business with Eleanor, his bonded Little Sister when they both come under attack by Splicers. Delta fights off the Splicers but is mind controlled by one of them. Sofia Lamb enters the picture and hands Delta a pistol. Under Lamb's influence, Delta is forced to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head with said pistol. This was done, at least in part, because Sofia Lamb wished to keep Eleanor for herself, as Eleanor is Sofia's daughter. 10 years later (and 8 years after the events of the first game), Delta awakens after being revived by a group of Little Sisters. Delta is contacted by Tenenbaum, who wishes to rescue this new group of girls as well. Delta is also contacted by Eleanor, now a teenager, who directs him to her over the course of the game. At the end of the game, Delta is mortally wounded and returns to the surface with Eleanor. Depending on which actions the player has taken over the course of the game, the ending differs, as in the first game. The good (and again, presumably canon) ending involves Delta lying next to Eleanor in one of the evacuation boats. Eleanor, formerly being a Little Sister, is able to extract the ADAM from Delta's body. The ADAM within Delta contains fragments of his memories and past experiences, which Eleanor will be influenced by, should she absorb the ADAM. If Delta has been morally upright and good throughout the game, Eleanor will take in his ADAM as he dies, allowing him to "live on" in Eleanor (figuratively speaking). Likewise, Eleanor will be influenced by Delta's actions and live a *good* life, and it is implied that she will lead the other Little Sisters in a similar fashion that Jack did after the events of the first game.
Another very good plot that I highly recommend. Personally, I prefer 2 to 1, and the ending monologue and cutscene to 2 is much more engaging and emotionally gripping than 1's, IMO.
Bioshock Infinite (this one may get a tad confusing, I will try to be as clear and as concise as I can):
Spoiler
You play as Booker DeWitt, a private investigator and former Pinkerton who served in the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. In 1912 off the coast of Maine, Booker is in a rowboat with a man and a woman who are rowing him out to a lighthouse. Booker ascends the lighthouse and interacts with a series of bells, which cause strange sounds and lights to ring and flare. In the center of the lightbulb component, a chair appears. Booker sits in the chair, which straps him in and reveals itself to be a launch pad for a flying device. After the device takes off, Booker finds himself in the city of Columbia, founded in 1893 by a man named Zachary Hale Comstock, who also serves as the city's leader in both civil issues and as a religious figurehead. In Columbia, Booker's mission is to find a young woman and bring her back to New York, in exchange for wiping away his own personal debts. The 1912 raffle is underway in Columbia, and Booker makes his way through the festivities before he is outed as the "false shepherd", a figure from Columbian lore who is prophesied to bring the city to ruin. After the city turns on him, Booker is forced to fight his way to the tower that the young woman is being held in. In the tower, Booker finds the woman, named Elizabeth, and notices that she is able to to alter the world around her by manipulating holes in space/time known as Tears, which act as windows to other universes. Elizabeth is eager to leave her tower, having been locked up her entire life, and leaves with Booker. Booker promises to take Elizabeth to Paris after she tells him that she wishes to see the city, and takes Elizabeth to a zeppelin airship to leave the city. On the airship, Booker punches in the coordinates to leave, but enters the coordinates for New York, not Paris. Elizabeth notices this and knocks him out with a wrench, leaving him unconscious as Elizabeth escapes. When Booker comes to, he sees local resistance fighters who call themselves the Vox Populi who have taken over the airship. The Vox offer Booker the airship if he agrees to get weapons for them from a gunsmith, to which Booker agrees. Booker chases Elizabeth through another segment of the city and rescues her from some of the city police, and she reluctantly agrees to join back with him so that she can leave the city. Booker and Elizabeth locate the gunsmith's shop, but the gunsmith is being held at a nearby prison complex, forcing the two to go there and find him. At the prison, they find that the gunsmith is dead, and Elizabeth opens a Tear to an alternate universe where the gunsmith was never killed. In this new universe, Booker and Elizabeth return to the gunsmith's shop to see that he has no tools, and that the gunsmith himself is in some kind of pseudo-demented state, having inhabited separate realities where he was both alive and dead at the same time. After locating the smith's tools, Elizabeth opens another Tear that takes them into a third universe where the Vox have their weapons, and where another version of Booker was killed in action, acting as a martyr for the Vox cause of rebellion. The otherwise friendly Vox turn on Booker and Elizabeth through the power of plot and begin a hostile takeover of the city, killing or effectively enslaving the remaining populace who do not evacuate. Later, after killing the Vox's leader, Booker and Elizabeth make their way to Comstock House to confront Comstock himself. Elizabeth is separated form Booker once again and Booker makes his way inside Comstock House by himself. Making his way through Comstock House, Booker learns that he has traveled into a Tear, into a universe where he never came for Elizabeth. Later, in the deepest depths of Comstock House, Booker meets an elderly Elizabeth who shows him a vision of New York City under fire by the Columbian military in 1984, under elderly!Elizabeth's control, after she had been subject to brainwashing and torture to take over after that universe's version of Comstock had passed away. Elderly!Elizabeth helps Booker to reach his version of Elizabeth and gives him a note to give to her. Freeing his Elizabeth, the two of them make their way to Comstock's personal zeppelin. Booker and Elizabeth destroy the remnants of Elizabeth's tower, which served as an inhibitor on her powers. With the tower's destruction, Elizabeth has full reign over her abilities and is able to freely manipulate Tears and can even create Tears of her own, effectively allowing her to see into all universes at once and making her virtually omniscient. The two of them make their way to Comstock, where Booker kills him by smashing his head against a birdbath and drowning him in the same birdbath. Booker claims that since Comstock is now dead, that the two of them can leave the city to burn and that he can now take Elizabeth to Paris (having earlier rescinded his decision to take her to New York, now refusing to use her to eliminate his debt). Elizabeth says that their work is not over, as Comstock is not fully destroyed, as Comstock exists in other realities. Booker rationalizes that the best way to eliminate Comstock entirely would be to, in his own words, "smother the son of a ***** in his crib". Elizabeth, on Booker's suggestion, takes him to the moment of Comstock's "birth", a river during which a baptism is underway. It is revealed that Booker DeWitt and Zachary Comstock are the same person. Following a series of events that would make this already-massive paragraph even longer, Pre-baptism!Booker DeWitt has a crisis of conscience that prompts him to seek our a priest to absolve himself of sin. In some universes, Booker rejects the baptism at the last second, retaining his identity as Booker. In others, he goes through with it, being reborn as Zachary Comstock. Elizabeth tells Player!Booker that the only way to truly kill Comstock and prevent him from existing would be to kill Pre-baptism!Booker, thus preventing him from every making the choice to undergo the baptism. Elizabeth (with a group of Elizabeth's from other realities) thus drowns Booker in the river, eliminating Comstock from the timeline.
The plot to Infinite begins to fall apart during the second half, and I did have to leave a few details out (otherwise the already tremendous wall of text would be at least twice or 3 times as long). I still recommend Infinite to anyone who is a fan of the series as it is still fun to play and Columbia is a marvel to look at and explore, but the ending is largely nonsensical (even by the game's logic and rules) and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, leaving a ton of question unanswered and posing new questions entirely by the time the credits roll, including a forced tying-in of Infinite and the original Bioshock.
My point to all of this is, with video games becoming larger and more complex pieces of digital media, their respective plots and storylines are becoming bigger and more involved, both on the end of the player, and through traditional storytelling. Simply put: story is here, and it's here to stay.
Anyway, what is everybody else's thoughts on story in video games? I know several people personally (and I count myself among them) who hold great value in the story of the games they play. To them, the lore and the universe is what keep them invested in playing. Of course, there are some games that don't bother much with a plot or justification for its characters' actions, but through sheer force of having good gameplay still retain high playerbases and score good marks from critics. I've seen some legitimate debate supporting both the "story is a necessary ingredient" and the "story doesn't really matter in the long run" camps, but I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say.
My point to all of this is, with video games becoming larger and more complex pieces of digital media, their respective plots and storylines are becoming bigger and more involved, both on the end of the player, and through traditional storytelling. Simply put: story is here, and it's here to stay.
I don't think that was ever in doubt.
But yes, I am enjoying this trend of storytelling becoming more "organic" if you will.
video games becoming larger and more complex pieces of digital media, their respective plots and storylines are becoming bigger and more involved, both on the end of the player, and through traditional storytelling. Simply put: story is here, and it's here to stay.
Anyway, what is everybody else's thoughts on story in video games? I know several people personally (and I count myself among them) who hold great value in the story of the games they play. To them, the lore and the universe is what keep them invested in playing. Of course, there are some games that don't bother much with a plot or justification for its characters' actions, but through sheer force of having good gameplay still retain high playerbases and score good marks from critics. I've seen some legitimate debate supporting both the "story is a necessary ingredient" and the "story doesn't really matter in the long run" camps, but I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say.
Of course story in games is here to stay. But it should never take such precedence over crafting great gameplay experience that you end up with BS like Beyond: Two Souls and The Order 1886 that's so hung up on being pseudo movies that the part that's supposed to make video games what they are is severely, insultingly bad.
mybudgee, Drone223, Cainhurst Crow et 1 autre aiment ceci
It's always been important to me. Or at least, since I became an adult/young adult. When I was young, I was just fascinated by the controls and graphics.. I hung out in arcades a lot. I didn't play games much during my teens. Picked them up again later after highschool, and at the time, there was a ton of adventure titles on the market. So I delved into those. And the actions games that I did love still were story heavy (Wing Commander series).
I have absolutely no idea what is going on Bayonetta, but the gameplay is balls-on-the-walls fun in best Platinum-fashion. As much as narrative is taking precedence, I don't think it should take charge while the gameplay takes a backseat. They need to complement each other, but I'd there's definitely been a large evolvement of how games have conveyed storytelling as of late. It's appreciated all the same, really.
I have to agree about Bioshock. Easily my favorite FPS franchise, and Bioshock 1 and Infinite both hold places in my top five games. Perhaps my favorite thing about the series is that it manages to avoid simply bashing the ideas used by the antagonist, and it, unlike some pieces of fiction, makes it clear that there is no One True Ideology that will lead to a utopia.
It's also interesting to see how the signature villains are each hypocrites in their own way. Ryan betrays his objectivist ideals by essentially becoming the same sort of big government he hated, Lamb is extremely possessive despite claiming to be a collectivist, and Comstock, who is racist and xenophobic, is part Native American, as well as being a charlatan of a prophet. Not to mention he completely misinterpreted the point of baptism. All of that adds an extra layer to the storytelling.
I have to agree about Bioshock. Easily my favorite FPS franchise, and Bioshock 1 and Infinite both hold places in my top five games. Perhaps my favorite thing about the series is that it manages to avoid simply bashing the ideas used by the antagonist, and it, unlike some pieces of fiction, makes it clear that there is no One True Ideology that will lead to a utopia.
It's also interesting to see how the signature villains are each hypocrites in their own way. Ryan betrays his objectivist ideals by essentially becoming the same sort of big government he hated, Lamb is extremely possessive despite claiming to be a collectivist, and Comstock, who is racist and xenophobic, is part Native American, as well as being a charlatan of a prophet. Not to mention he completely misinterpreted the point of baptism. All of that adds an extra layer to the storytelling.
Specifically in regards to Comstock, what about his baptism turned him into a raging racist and xenophobe? From what can be gathered from Player!Booker (who would be closer to his pre-baptism personality and mindset), he isn't exactly a racist. The version of Booker/Comstock from Burial at Sea isn't a xenophobe either, despite actually being another Comstock who had been baptized.
There must have been something in the river water if it made him go from being an otherwise normal (if violent and alcoholic) guy and become a hard-right nutcase.
But then that's another one of those questions posed by the ending that the game never bothers to address, and Burial at Sea opens up an entirely new can of worms altogether. Bioshock 1 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I adore what Ken Levine wrote, but I feel that for Infinite, nobody really stopped him and said "hey, this seems like it's kind of stupid" when he wrote something that turned out to be total nonsense.
Specifically in regards to Comstock, what about his baptism turned him into a raging racist and xenophobe? From what can be gathered from Player!Booker (who would be closer to his pre-baptism personality and mindset), he isn't exactly a racist. The version of Booker/Comstock from Burial at Sea isn't a xenophobe either, despite actually being another Comstock who had been baptized.
I wasn't saying it did. The misinterpretation of baptism is major part of Comstock's character, in that Comstock always refuses to own up to his mistakes, in both continuities. Over time, he came to see it as having made his sins into, for lack of a better word, not-sins, or even virtues. Which misses the point of baptism: to recognize your wrongs and not repeat them.
I wasn't saying it did. The misinterpretation of baptism is major part of Comstock's character, in that Comstock always refuses to own up to his mistakes, in both continuities. Over time, he came to see it as having made his sins into, for lack of a better word, not-sins, or even virtues. Which misses the point of baptism: to recognize your wrongs and not repeat them.
I know you didn't, I was just making an observation and asking a question based on that observation.
However, we do know that Comstock is self-aware of his mistakes and is fully capable of comprehending what he does, because of his appearance in Burial at Sea, where he tries to repent for what he does. So, with that in mind, why is one Comstock so different from the others? The game (and the DLC) never touch upon what makes Comstock A different from Comstock B, it more or less just says "he's different, roll with it" and presents Comstock B (the player character from Burial at Sea episode 1) as a sympathetic character, despite Elizabeth (who is supposed to be an omniscient, all-knowing goddess at this point) REALLY pressing the case that he's as bad as all the other Comstocks.
I know you didn't, I was just making an observation and asking a question based on that observation.
However, we do know that Comstock is self-aware of his mistakes and is fully capable of comprehending what he does, because of his appearance in Burial at Sea, where he tries to repent for what he does. So, with that in mind, why is one Comstock so different from the others? The game (and the DLC) never touch upon what makes Comstock A different from Comstock B, it more or less just says "he's different, roll with it" and presents Comstock B (the player character from Burial at Sea episode 1) as a sympathetic character, despite Elizabeth (who is supposed to be an omniscient, all-knowing goddess at this point) REALLY pressing the case that he's as bad as all the other Comstocks.
It might be that having his memory erased and reverting to the identity of Booker DeWitt is what makes him different from Comstock A. And it's the only reason I can think of that his existence isn't erased like every other incarnation of Comstock at the end of Infinite.
A game without a proper story is unplayable to me. A game without proper gameplay is playable to me. The gameplay is there to serve the storyline, If it's strong it can bolster the experience. But if it's there without a proper story, concept or thematic atmosphere, Then it's practically useless.
A game without a proper story is unplayable to me. A game without proper gameplay is playable to me. The gameplay is there to serve the storyline, If it's strong it can bolster the experience. But if it's there without a proper story, concept or thematic atmosphere, Then it's practically useless.
It might be that having his memory erased and reverting to the identity of Booker DeWitt is what makes him different from Comstock A. And it's the only reason I can think of that his existence isn't erased like every other incarnation of Comstock at the end of Infinite.
But player!Comstock's entire reason for having his memory wiped was to repent for his actions, meaning he knew what he was doing before the mind wipe itself.
I prefer to think as little of Burial at Sea as I can. It eliminates any remaining logic that the ending to BSI may have ever held, and cleans the slate of any emotional heft it once had as well. It exists solely to tie in Infinite to the first game, with no regard for continuity or basic logic.
I mean story driven games are still in a way kind of new. That isn't to say there hasn't been any, but I mean where was the strong story in Pong, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong?
Used to games were all about the game play. And even if they had a story, it was generic AF.
Bioshock is easily my favorite shooter series of all time, and my feelings about all three mirror OP's to a degree.
Bioshock 2 was my favorite, and a part of that was how interesting I found the narrative and how much I sympathized with some of the characters (I absolutely adore Sinclair), but it was also that I found the gameplay to be more functional.
I was so excited about Bioshock Infinite, I preordered it about a year in advance and I immediately purchased the season pass as soon as I played. I think the highest praise could be how beautifully its visuals are and how engaging some of the dialogue is. The ending was a disappointment to me, because I thought it was generally heavy handed. It was a bit of case of darkness induced apathy for me.
I still love the Lutece "twins" to death.
I've reached a point where story is pretty integral to my gaming experience. I don't think that a game's story needs to be perfect, but I need to find the plot engaging in order to think highly of that game.
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