FARK.com: (7182646) And the FPS videogame with the best backstory is: Bioshock, narrowly beating out Half-Life and presumably Tetris

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		And the FPS videogame with the best backstory is: Bioshock, narrowly beating out Half-Life and presumably Tetris (escapistmagazine.com)		123
		More: Interesting, tetris, FPS, BioShock, Half-life, first-person narrative, Samus, extraterrestrial life, BioShock Infinite

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scalpod		2012-06-26 08:40:48 PM

The Fallout "back-story" has so much depth and continuity with key characters (and offspring/ancestors) and events appearing in or referenced across the various titles that it'll always be one of my favorite worlds to escape into. I know there are haters but I appreciate the care Bethesda put into expanding on and developing the franchise while preserving its humorous heart.

It's like my horribly irradiated, monstrosity infested home away from home.

Dimensio		2012-06-26 08:52:48 PM

Cubicle Jockey: They are better, but still feel out of place.

A summary: the extended endings do not alter the fundamentals of the final in-game reveal of the villain motive or of the options for resolution, and thus cannot address the flaws related to those aspects of the original endings, but they do address most -- if not all -- of the other complaints relating to the endings.

tgambitg		2012-06-26 08:54:38 PM

Cubicle Jockey: The new 4th ending feels like a big FARK YOU to the players complaining about the ending scenario. "Don't like our endings because they were an enormous deviation from the series' narrative structure up to that point and betray the way Shepard has been portrayed in the past 100 hours of gameplay? Fine. Rocks fall, everyone dies."

Short aside:

I was in a gaming group where that phrase was uttered one time and one of our more agile party members decided that he really wanted a saving throw to dodge the rocks. Our illustrious DM told him that it was impossible. The rogue argued that he should at least roll. He rolled a natural 20. He took half damage. Unfortunately for him, the DM then described the falling rocks thusly: "You know how big the moon is right? Well.. that's where you're standing. The Earth is the rock. ROCKS FALL. EVERYONE DIES."

BloodFireDeath		2012-06-26 08:55:52 PM

Got Deus Ex Human Revolution for 20 bucks and I am LOVING it. I think it will probably age better than the first, if that's even possible.

Some people complained about the boss fights, but you can do them fairly well even on a stealthy pacifist character, you just need to think outside the box of "run up to the guy with the giant machine gun arm and shoot him in the face with a rifle"

t3knomanser		2012-06-26 08:55:57 PM

tgambitg: The rogue argued that he should at least roll. He rolled a natural 20. He took half damage.

Wait... if he had Improved Evasion he should have taken no damage. That would have been awesome.

tgambitg		2012-06-26 09:02:15 PM

t3knomanser: tgambitg: The rogue argued that he should at least roll. He rolled a natural 20. He took half damage.

Wait... if he had Improved Evasion he should have taken no damage. That would have been awesome.

Yeah, but half damage is still more than he had HP... and even if he fully evaded, he would have had to roll for ongoing suffocation and cold saves. You know, from SPACE.

rickycal78		2012-06-26 09:07:42 PM

Dimensio: Cubicle Jockey: They are better, but still feel out of place.

A summary: the extended endings do not alter the fundamentals of the final in-game reveal of the villain motive or of the options for resolution, and thus cannot address the flaws related to those aspects of the original endings, but they do address most -- if not all -- of the other complaints relating to the endings.

I just did my first run of the new endings and you're right there. I did find out something interesting though. There is in fact a 4th choice they don't tell you about. Remember how many people shot at the AI before going on to make their selection? Try shooting the AI kid now...

PiffMan420		2012-06-26 09:16:33 PM

BloodFireDeath: Got Deus Ex Human Revolution for 20 bucks and I am LOVING it. I think it will probably age better than the first, if that's even possible.

Some people complained about the boss fights, but you can do them fairly well even on a stealthy pacifist character, you just need to think outside the box of "run up to the guy with the giant machine gun arm and shoot him in the face with a rifle"

Always carry an extra EMP grenade. A revolver modded with explosive rounds or the typhoon augment will do the trick also.

They brought back Deus Ex to all it's dirty, near-future glory. I have to serious tip my hat to the art and graphics department....the city hubs look goddamn GORGEOUS..

/Invisible War is still awful and one of the worst sequels of all time.

Lando Lincoln		2012-06-26 09:33:41 PM

Niveras: (Yeah, I don't remember if you were ordered to do it. As far as atmospheric FPS games go, I liked SS2 and Deus Ex better than Bioshock, so my details of the latter aren't very strong.)

You did not have a choice in the matter. The game would not have continued until you did.

Dimensio		2012-06-26 10:10:57 PM

rickycal78: Dimensio: Cubicle Jockey: They are better, but still feel out of place.

A summary: the extended endings do not alter the fundamentals of the final in-game reveal of the villain motive or of the options for resolution, and thus cannot address the flaws related to those aspects of the original endings, but they do address most -- if not all -- of the other complaints relating to the endings.

I just did my first run of the new endings and you're right there. I did find out something interesting though. There is in fact a 4th choice they don't tell you about. Remember how many people shot at the AI before going on to make their selection? Try shooting the AI kid now...

I am aware of the "Refusal" ending. While many players have disdained this option as a perceived insult against complaints regarding the motive of the Catalyst, I appreciated the call-back to a previous in-game event which transformed a red herring into a Chekhov's Gun.

ApatheticMonkey		2012-06-26 10:23:23 PM

zarberg: While not a FPS, I loved the story:

[www.c64.com image 320x200]

/Possibly obscure

Sorry. EA games are not obscure.

t3knomanser		2012-06-26 11:13:25 PM

tgambitg: and even if he fully evaded, he would have had to roll for ongoing suffocation and cold saves. You know, from SPACE.

That still would have been awesome. "A planet falls on you, destroying both it and the moon you're standing on."

"I nat-20 my reflex save and take no damage."

CSM101		2012-06-26 11:52:42 PM

Stibium		2012-06-27 12:38:46 AM

Dadoo: Does no one remember Unreal, where you go from prisoner to savior of a planet (quite by accident) over the course of the game?

Hells yes. I still play it every now and then.

Clickscope		2012-06-27 02:27:02 AM

Dawnrazor: Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age. Great stories, great anti-hero protagonist, wonderfully twisted antagonists, and good old Benny.

Funny you should mention that because I think I liked the gameplay way more than the story itself. In Thief II you start off with a club, a sword, and water arrows. And I'm like water arrows? Those are so useless!! You can't kill anything with that! Luckily I quickly realized I needed a good 15 to 20 of these puppies if I ever wanted to reach the end of a level. But what gave me a real scare were those farking haunts inside the crypts. Those things even murder the people protecting the church!

Actually the whole game was quite weird because it had a knack for throwing random shiat at you. I thought the last level was going to be a short "kill the boss" level. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Dr. Mojo PhD		2012-06-27 05:27:55 AM

Felgraf: /Because Bioshock is, almost literally, System Shock 2, underwater and watered down.

A million times this.

Play through System Shock 2. Now play through Bioshock. Count the amount of callbacks in plot and characters to System Shock 2. Better yet, I'll save you the trouble -- every single character, plot point, etc., is derived from SS2. For Christ's sake even the character names are derivative. Did System Shock 2 have a character named Prefontaine? Better get a character named Fontaine in Bioshock!

jso2897		2012-06-27 05:45:15 AM

What, no love for American McGee's Alice?

heypete		2012-06-27 06:59:28 AM

Dimensio: rickycal78: Dimensio: Cubicle Jockey: They are better, but still feel out of place.

A summary: the extended endings do not alter the fundamentals of the final in-game reveal of the villain motive or of the options for resolution, and thus cannot address the flaws related to those aspects of the original endings, but they do address most -- if not all -- of the other complaints relating to the endings.

I just did my first run of the new endings and you're right there. I did find out something interesting though. There is in fact a 4th choice they don't tell you about. Remember how many people shot at the AI before going on to make their selection? Try shooting the AI kid now...

I am aware of the "Refusal" ending. While many players have disdained this option as a perceived insult against complaints regarding the motive of the Catalyst, I appreciated the call-back to a previous in-game event which transformed a red herring into a Chekhov's Gun.

Heh. I was actually going for the Synthesis ending (I have a bunch of characters, and usually pick a different ending for each -- this was my Synthesis character) and, while walking to the Crucible beam I decided to look around and (as I occasionally do in games) shoot at stuff randomly. I accidentally winged the Catalyst. My bad. Evidently gun safety is a key component to saving the galaxy. Sorry everyone.

I had a major sad when I saw Liara's capsule again and heard her narration, particularly when she said that the Crucible didn't work -- it would have worked, except for the player's refusal.

/While I'm still a bit disappointed with the endings (I was really hoping for the "little blue children" scenario, but they can't please everyone), I appreciate the clarification and closure in the EC: explaining how one's team got from the beam run in London onto the Normandy, why the ship was warping away, etc. really helped plug the major "WTF?" moments at the end. Still, it's a bit of a Deus Ex Machinima of an ending, and I never really liked those.
//Has a hard time playing Renegade or generally picking the "be a jerk" dialogue choices; I just can't bring myself to be mean to folks in the game, particularly Liara.
///ME3 is just one long goodbye.

Perlin Noise		2012-06-27 08:49:17 AM

Klivian: SYSTEM SHOCK 2

That is all

this, of course... System Shock 2 is easily my favorite FPS ever made ...I love it so much, it hurts.

Cubicle Jockey		2012-06-27 10:25:53 AM

heypete: explaining how one's team got from the beam run in London onto the Normandy

"Excuse me, Harbinger? I know you have been busy shooting the fark out of hammer squad, but would you mind pausing for the next five minutes so I can get these two plot-armored individuals out of the middle of your killzone? I will be using the ship and crew that totally pissed you off at the collectors's base. It will be just sitting there dead in your sights while I have a last heart to heart conversation with my love interest, and I would really appreciate it if you didn't interrupt that. You don't mind? Super! *touching scene occurs* Thanks Harbie, you have been most generous. Ok, you can go back to shooting us now. *BWAAAM*"

One plot hole replaced by another, really.

theurge14		2012-06-27 10:41:22 AM

t3knomanser: I'm not saying that they're bad games. They're excellent games. They don't have a terribly interesting story, but what little story they have is used extremely well. It isn't complex or challenging, which also means it doesn't get in the way of the core experience of the game itself. The best level in the game, for example, and the one that just absolutely blew me away, wasn't a story level. It was the bridge. It's one of my favorite moments in gaming. You're standing there, on that girder, and then the train goes by over head, shaking the entire bridge. You completely forget for a moment that this is a game and there isn't any real danger. And then the rest of that level, which is really just a really drawn out platforming puzzle (usually a terrible thing to do in FPSes) just maintains that level of tension as you cross under the bridge and back.

This, so much this. Years later when I still go back and play HL2 the bridge level still makes me shake and sweat. Somehow the atmosphere in the game, especially the "coast" levels like the bridge draw me in more than nearly any other game I've played. Whatever Valve tapped into there it's magical. Someone else above mentioned Ravenholm, I always thought Ravenholm wasn't long enough. Or Nova Prospekt. HL2 does atmosphere better than anything I've ever seen before or since.

scottydoesntknow		2012-06-27 12:43:30 PM

My thoughts on the ME3 revised-ending

Citadel Run: Glad the gave some clarification regarding how the hell my teammates ending up on the Normandy. They actually did a good job with a touching scene. Now saying that, it made no farking sense why they couldn't get air forces near the Citadel beam (Harbinger and other nasty Reapers surrounding it) but the most recognizable ship in the galaxy can park itself for 5 minutes while a rescue happens? C'mon BioWare. You would've done better having them hop in a Hammer ground transport and rendevous with the Normandy in a later scene.

Walk to Citadel: Loved how they focused on the pistol at his side to show the players where he got it from instead of his "hyperspace arsenal" in the old version. They also made sure to emphasize that Hackett and the forces knew Shepard made it to the citadel.

Inside Citadel: Liked how they showed Shepard being ejected into the hallway instead of just "waking up" and being there. They changed quite a bit of dialogue between Shepard and Anderson to clear stuff up. The comment of "It resembles the collector ship" (made by Anderson, who was never on the Collector ship) was changed to "It looks like how you described the collector ship".

Illusive Man: Don't think they changed anything in this scene. I'm betting it's because Martin Sheen didn't want to/couldn't record any more lines.

Starchild: I appreciate that they clarified some of the motives/origin of the Reapers. But the fact that you still couldn't bring up the Geth truce to show him that synthetics & organics can be cooperative was annoying (like it was the first time). Stuff did make more sense than the first time around, but there were still WTF moments like before (so the only way to get organics and synthetics to combine is to have a "willing" sacrifice?). But hey they said they weren't changing anything, just expanding so what can you do? They did treat the choices as more than just a "pick your favorite color" which is appreciated. I also noticed they retconned the "relays will be destroyed" from all the options because they knew that was a stupid move to begin with. I honestly think they were trying to destroy the galaxy in the original ending so they could say IT'S OVER.

Choices: LOVED the "screw you" option they finally gave us, and I also LOVE that the "screw you" option was basically a screw you to the people who didn't want to use the catalyst at all. Starchild makes a good point that most of the galaxy's resources were poured into creation/defense of the catalyst and they are vastly outnumbered compared to the Reapers. I still wanted the actual outcome to based on war assets, but it's nice they put it in there, and the new alien stargazer scene was funny. The only option I've been able to play was Red (destroy) ending (besides the "screw you" ending). Appreciated that it was more fleshed out and they showed how societies are rebuilding and working together and made sure to emphasize that everything that was damaged/destroyed could be rebuilt. Still had that dumb "Shepard breath" ambiguous clip at the end though.

All in all, it was an improvement. They did listen to the fans for the most part and put a little better taste in my mouth regarding the endings.

Niveras		2012-06-27 08:09:18 PM

Lando Lincoln: Niveras: (Yeah, I don't remember if you were ordered to do it. As far as atmospheric FPS games go, I liked SS2 and Deus Ex better than Bioshock, so my details of the latter aren't very strong.)

You did not have a choice in the matter. The game would not have continued until you did.

That's not what I was getting at. A big part of Bioshock was that your character was compelled to do the things he did because of psychological programming by the big boss, hence the key phrase "would you kindly..." Gameplay-wise, of course you have to take the action (in this case, use the McGuffin to gain superpowers) - it's not much of a game if you decide to just sit around with your keyboard up your ass. What I can't remember is whether, within the context of the story, you were compelled to take that action, or whether you did of your own "volition."

If your "you had no choice" refers not just to the necessities of gameplay mechanics, but to the forces within the story affecting the character - independent of the player's actions - then thank you for clarifying.

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