Last week we began the Xbox 360 odd debate brackets and, well, let's just say that one game is going into round three with a lot of confidence after reading these results:
- Assassin's Creed (11 votes)
- Mass Effect (103 votes) -- Winner!
I expected some readers to respond harshly to the debate; Qraze compared it to picking between a penis and a vagina, and then threatened to "wrath" me. The scare tactics were as effective as they were hilarious, but I was glad that most of the comments took the debate seriously, without letting things turn into Jonathan Ross's next article.
What I was most proud of, though, was that we were all able to revisit the topics of hype and misleading game reviews. I'm sure I don't speak for everyone, but back in November of 2007 both of last week's games were hot on the minds of our readers. Despite being barraged with equally epic extended commercials and glowing game reviews for both of these games, I can always count on Dtoiders to call it like they see it.
However, this week is the exact opposite. Both games received large amounts of hype, but the general consensus is that both titles fully lived up to their anticipation. Even though both are FPS games and both are story intensive, one focuses on linear play while the other explores true nonlinear gameplay. One took you underwater while the other dragged you up from underground. One was the Xbox 360 game of the year in 2007 for most people, and one was the 2008 winner for most of those same gamers.
Which year's titan will win? Which game do you think is better, and why? Give it some serious thought, get some Xbox 360 friends to share their opinions as well, and check back next week for the winner.
Bonus Question: What was one thing you didn't like about the game you voted for?
Contest:
9:55 PM on 02.10.2009
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I need to spend more time with Bioshock, but that's a game built with a console controller in mind.
Bonus question: I didn't like the lack of combat variety. Pretty much everything died the same way. Even robots, that are weak to certain grenades/mines still died just fine to regular ammo.
Fallout 3 has more entertainment value in it, so that's my vote.
Bonus question: The lackluster ending
Bonus question; have to go with the obvious here and say the stability issues but if I ignore that I have to say that the actual main plot wasn't that strong.
Fallout 3 I enjoyed, but it wasn't as enjoyable as Oblivion and it wasn't as enjoyable as Fallout 2.
As breathtaking and in-your-face concerning and dread-inducing as Fallout 3's setting is, I will still fight tooth and nail that BioShock's atmosphere was more imaginative, entertaining, impressive and enjoyable. That being said, you didn't get to explore Rapture like you could explore the world in Fallout 3. BioShock's story did an amazing job of helping you explore that breathtaking underwater city, and the levels involving the bees and trees that oxygenate the populous still fill me with warm thoughts. But no matter how you slice it, that's still very different and less monumental than allowing total free roaming and nonlinear play . . . and having the game still be so damn successful.
On the flip side though, even though I'm a HUGE fan of Fallout 3, I still despise it's gameplay. VATS is a great nostalgia inclusion, and it's great that it's optional, but it's pretty damn stupid and kills the suspension of belief completely. Sadly, even as I went through the game without using it, I also didn't enjoy the alternate gameplay style much either. It's cool that the game is all about brutal survival, but after a few hours I really don't feel like having ANOTHER epic 1v1 battle with some bitch-ass ant or ugly dude with a minigun. BioShock's gameplay decimates Fallout 3 in most areas, even IF you can be a jerk and beat the game with just a wrench.
However, and this is where I'm really torn: the story. I love stories so much. BioShock stood back and reevaluated how and why gaming stories work the way they do, and made you question why players are so willing to follow the game's (or societies) instructions. Against any other game BioShock could swing it's Big Daddy dick more than any other game, but Fallout 3's conversation style still remains to be my absolute favorite dialogue design to this day. Branching conversations started a long long time ago with games like Grim Fandango and probably even way before that, so why the fuck are they not commonplace in any games that could and should benefit from using them?
Quit spending millions on games and not making it as fucking good as possible. Don't settle for less than greatness. Unfortunately, both of these games this week are great in my opinion, and the list of pros and cons are pretty equally stacked in my mind, so this is one of the harder votes I've ever made in this Dtoid game debate history.
Here's how I'm going to decide. While Fallout 3 was very imaginative in what it did, apocalyptic settings are anything but imaginative. Point for BioShock. Even though BioShock's had a lot of fascinating story tools and tricks (the Atlas radio and old-school art style menus), Fallout 3's dialogue system automatically wins, no questions asked. Point Fallout 3. Here comes the deciding factor though: Fun factor. It was way more fun playing BioShock than it was Fallout 3. I feel bad saying that though, since I'm always the one who bitches about there not being more "adventure" games, without the need for them being "action-adventure" games. So I'm sorry to betray you Fallout 3, but BioShock just owns more memories in my mind than you do, so it gets my vote.
VOTE: BioShock. One of the hardest votes I've ever made on Dtoid.
Bonus Question: Thanks for rewarding our several hours of gameplay with a one minute ending... jerks!
Bonus Answer: It felt limited. As an Ex-WoW player, 20 levels in that short of a time wasn't exactly pushing out the boat, and Bethesda have been walking backwards ever since morrowind.
thats a point have you done Morrowind Vs Oblivion ?
What I didn't like? The lack of pathways on the main quest. A few linchpins would have been great. Bioshock had that problem as well, but I think there was more immersion into the story, which made it more believable.
However, I really wish that the game would've had the same diversity as the first two. Regardless, it is a great game.
To put it simply, i felt that Bioshock played like total shit. The guns felt floaty and underpowered. I spent the first part of the game zapping and wrenching everything, and while that was fun to start with, it got tired quickly. Just moving around and aiming felt like a chore. For me, an fps game lives and dies by its gameplay; you have to live with it 90% of the time.
Fallout 3 is not perfect in the same respect by any means, but VATS means that playing it in real time isnt necessary. Ive played a fair bit of the game, and somehow i just dont get tired of blowing peoples limbs off with a nicely placed headshot. The gore is over the top and fantastic. I love the weapon selection; throwing around mini nukes never gets old, although ive blown myself more than a few times (not counting when i do it on purpose - you can get some huge air!).
Also, Dogmeat is awesome. Hes my buddy and will be with me to the end.
Bioshock offered more fun per minute but Fallout 3 offered more minutes of fun...
I'm going to say Bioshock for the same reason I put Braid in my top 5 games of 2008: length shouldn't hurt a game. Besides, Bioshock wasn't short, it's just that Fallout 3 is SO LONG.
Bonus question: one minute ending FTL
One thing I didn't like: your reticule gives you little indication as to where your bullet is actually going to go. This complete lack of accuracy makes combat at ranges much greater than ten feet a hassle.
The one thing I didn't like about it was the story. As with Oblivion, you were playing as someone who knows the main character, rather than being the main character. You were playing Ben Hur, while Liam Neeson was playing Jesus (as was Sean Bean in Oblivion). You were an important accessory to the plot, but you not at the center of it. I think that that might have been part of why the ending was kind of a letdown (other than making it so that Bethesda could sell an Xbox-only patch to fix it, while leaving us PS3 users in the dust).
Oh and the children couldnt die. Good ol' mods, never let me down...
Fallout 3... It's fine. Good game. But Bioshock is REALLY good, and only falls short of perfection due to being massively watered down.
Bonus Question: I didn't like that whether you chose to save or harvest the little sisters had no direct effect on the game.
Both games have shitty, unsatisfying combat, but Fallout 3 edges out Bioshock for atmosphere by a tiny bit.
Bonus: The script and writing for the main quest could have been much tighter.
Bonus Question: Like last week, I have a couple. As I said, BioShock wouldn't let go 'til I was done, but after I was done I didn't feel like replaying it at all, and still don't. I started another playthrough but never finished it. It couldn't hold my interest like it originally had, but that might say more about me than it does about the game itself... Also, the final boss was pretty lame and there wasn't any real consequence for your actions regarding the little sisters, outside of the cg endings. I mean, if you go about "harvesting" the little sisters every chance you get, why in the world would Tennenbaum and the girls care so much about helping you survive later in the game?
Bonus: the lack of vehicles and bad 3rd person animations. I mean, it IS a open world game, I thought vehicles were a requirement, I know there's map teleporting... but its not the same.
I am a sucker for an open world that I can explore. I agree with the statement that both games had very disappointing endings. Bioshock with its generic boss battle and crappy cutscene. Fallout 3 with its lack of continuation and its crappy cutscene.
I have many complaints about Fallout 3. The creepy glowing eyes on people and the same voice actors being used over and over again. However, the worst part was the AI pathfinding. They need to be able to traverse terrain without finding an extremely long detour just so they don't have to hop over a knee high wall.
Both games take place in ruined worlds. What made Bioshock better in my mind was how they told the story of the cities destruction. The audio tapes and characters you met gave you small hints as to what caused the undoing of Rapture. This style of story telling just made me want to continue driving to learn more about the downfall of the city and its inhabitants.
Fallout3 had similar elements to it as well. Yet for some reason I just wasn't as curious to explore those elements like I was in Bioshock. I think the reason for that was, due to Fallout3 being set in a post apocalyptic world. As Fronz pointed out that setting isn't very imaginative and has been done quite a few times before in games. There wasn't really any mystery in how the Fallout3 world got destroyed. Where as Raptures demise was a mystery until you got further along in the game.
All of that and Sander Cohen is one of my favorite characters in a videogame ever. The man was a psychotic lunatic and you could totally understand how he got that way in a place like Rapture.
Bonus question: The ending, as to the reason read Fronz's answer that sums it up nicely.
Bonus: The ending. The collector's edition packaging.
I got more bang for my buck and I still want to go back.
I didn't like the level cap. I was maxed out at 20 by the time I did my 4th main quest mission.
Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but from what I've seen of Fallout 3, it looks impossible to play without using VATs. 3rd person mode is useless and the aiming and movement seem just too clunky for real-time fighting. I just think VATs is lame, I obviously can't really say much about it, but there's just something about it that rubs me the wrong the way.
Bioshock on the other hand, that game is one of my favorites. I never played the System Shock games before, but majority of those who have and played Bioshock still enjoyed it. There are not many games that I actually played 3 times from begining to end in a one year time span, I did that with Bioshock. Yeah the gameplay wasn't as deep as promised, the game was way too easy (even on hard), and the short ending left a slightly bitter taste after slurping the sugary goodness of the campaign... but I still had a blast with it.
Vote: Bioshock
Bonus: how easy Bioshock was even on hard mode. By the time you get to Hephaestus, you'll have enough money to buy anyhting you want until the end. So much anti-personal ammo for the rest of the game to fight splicers. Then you just upgrade the crossbow and get a lot of incindiary bolts for big daddy's... and you're set. 2K, make Bioshock 2 harder, not to the level where it has survival horror levels of ammo-scarcity, no thank you, but don't inundate us with ammunition and cash.
P.S. WOULD YOU KINDLY PLEASE VOTE FOR BIOSHOCK? ;-D
I absolutely LOVED both games. I also played both Fallouts and SystemShock 2 too. So I'm kinda sentimental about them. So its hard to choose.
As I am obsessed with the Fallout worlds cannon, and Bethesda did not disappoint me there. Dropping subtle hints of Fallout history. I had many a nerdgasm.
So, I'm gonna go with Fallout 3!
Bioshock though. Just because it had such epic moments, such as the Nutcracker scene, which is in my top 10 gaming moments OF ALL TIME.
Bonus: The ending.