Poll: Half-Life 2 vs. Bioshock Infinite

[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]

-CAPTCHA hates me, double post-

 

[BlackBark]

I actually found Bioshock: Infinite to be quite a disappointment, compared with the original. The whole game feels very lazy to me, both in terms of story telling and gameplay. I don't even see why they bothered to set it in a city in the sky when most of the levels are set indoors. At least the original merged the world with the story, creating a unique atmosphere. I feel that BI really is a failure in this regard.

Also, I don't really see why people are praising voice recordings so much. That is just a very lazy way to tell parts of the story, without having to work the characters into the actual gameplay. You just happen to find recordings detailing their past actions and thoughts.

Aside from this, I just didn't like BI's story. The way the game presented the idea of multiple worlds just didn't work very well. It's full of paradoxes and kind of makes everything that you do feel like a complete waste of time, considering Elizabeth basically controls the fabrics of existence.

Anyway, for the record, I don't dislike the method of storytelling BI uses, I just think it is inferior to that which HL2 uses.

After playing through both Bioshock and Half Life 2 (including it's episodes) I have to say... (puts on flame retardant shield)

I just don't see any appeal in Half-Life 2's story. It's mostly because, well, it barely even has a story. It has a plot, but even that is minimal. All I know about the story of Half-Life 2 is "Gordon Freeman fights combine because of reasons."

Seriously, I have never seen a rhyme or reason for almost anything in the game. "Why are we trying to kill Breen?" "Because reasons." "Why do people see me as some kind of chosen one?" "Because reasons." "Why did Gordon agree to any of this?" "Because reasons."

Half-Life 2's "plot" is heavily reactant and dependent on circumstance. Freeman doesn't seem to go anywhere for a reason, but simply because he fell into the place. You're told, essentially, to go kill Breen and given a suit, and from then on you're just running from place to place and later you go "Oh what a coincidence, I ended up in Breen's tower."

A lot of people like to say Half-Life 2 had a good story, when in reality all it really had was good character interaction. You will rarely hear people talk about any aspects of the story they like when commenting on it's story, but you'll sure as hell hear people talk about how much they enjoyed Alyx and Dog. The plot itself doesn't seem to matter at all, it could have been anything, even a Romero style Zombie Apocalypse, and as long as the character interaction was good that is what would be mentioned. I didn't hate Breen, I didn't even see him as a villain, I just had a "meh" attitude towards him. I felt there was absolutely no motivation for anything in the game; I barely sympathized with the rebels simply because they seemed more like rebels without a cause than anything else.

At least Bioshock Infinite gave it's character, and the player, a motivation. There was a purpose to go from place to place (first it's to get Elizabeth, then it's to escape with Elizabeth) and there was a very clear reason to work with Elizabeth. I just don't see any kind of story in Half-Life 2, at all.

I agree with some of what you are saying but I find it strange that you say BI has motivation, while HL2 doesn't. In HL2, the world has been invaded by an evil alien race. Even right at the start, you can see the effect the invasion has on ordinary people and this gives a motivation to fight back. However, in BI, you are the evil invader. It is Booker that goes to a new city and starts tearing it apart and the only motivation he has to kill so many people is to clear a debt.

Secondly, you say that HL2 only really has good character interaction and not a story. However, in a first person game, character interaction is one of the main ways to tell a story, since you can only see from the perspective of the main character. In addition, BI also relies heavily on it. Without interaction with Elizabeth, there would be no story and no progression. She essentially is the story teller and in my opinion, is probably the only really good thing in the game.

 

[Dizeazedkiller]

I sort of don't get what the complaint is here. Hi, here's a story, why are you doing this stuff? Okay here, here is your motivation.

It wasn't the best story, and it wasn't particularly complicated, but it covered the main bases. Having a decent enough story with great characters with actual motivation and reasoning to do something.

I wasn't using the word "reasons" because there were actual reasons to do what Gordon did, I was using that the same way we'd use the word "Just 'cause"

Perhaps a better way of saying this is "Why do I have to kill Dr. Breen?" "I dunno, just because?" All that seems to happen is Gordon gets his suit back, then has to run from the combine who would, honestly, have a reason to chase him if he ran from a police interrogation. Instead of it seeming like "Hi, here's a story, here's your motivation" it seems more like "Hi, go here, okay here, now here, alright this guy wants you to kill Dr. Breen... You've been found, run! Alright now go here, and here, and here, oh you fell through here, go there to find a way out... What do you know? You're at the tower! Now blow it up!" It just seems like a series of totally unrelated events that eventually leads you to Breen's tower, where you fight to kill a man for no other reason then the fact that your friend Dr. Steiner told you to do it.

Been a while since my last play through so my idea of how the game plays out is fuzzy buuuut...

This is what the first segment of the game was all about. Going through the train station, seeing how they operate, seeing how this "Combine" has so much control and how they enforce it (with brutality) gave me a clear indication that they were a bunch of twats, to put it bluntly. Then Alex helps you, you meet up with Breen, sup kiddo we need your help but first lets get you somewhere safer. From that point, i can see your point of how you might lose focus, considering all the sidetracking. The main reason for you being there, i felt, was always to stop the combine eventually. For the most part that stays in the background, and different "arcs", i guess you could say, play out in the foreground (saving Alex's father, escaping the Combine at blackwater(?) through Ravenholm). Plus if memory serves the point of going to the tower wasn't specifically to kill Breen but to cause some damage at the core of operations.

tl;dr There is a lot of stuff to distract you from the main focus but it's there and, for me at least, it was pretty obvious and i need to go have another playthrough to make a better point but i have not the time.

 

[gunny1993]

HL:2 uses the gameplay to define the story better than Bioshock. For example the part in HL:2 where you are running from the combine with no weapons, it creates great atmosphere in a way that bioshock doesn't.

(not that i don't love the shit out of Bioshock)

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Really, as Booker and Elizabeth are both actually characters and care for what's going on, i'd have to say this is better.

Someone like Gordon Freeman has no more place or importance then say Roach or Frost in the Modern Warfare series. Quiet and replaceable with anyone else.

Gameplay wise, HL2 is probably a bit better then B:I, but characters and story take priority many a time for me, and this is such a case.

 

[zumbledum]

I went with HL 2 because its a great game with a good story well told. and BI is a poor story in an average game very well told.

 

[Vale]

Half Life 2 is an incredibly well crafted FPS. One of the best, to the point that it is a standard we compare other FPS to even though it's 8 years old. Great worldbuilding, interesting and likeable characters, a story that is on the surface dime-a-dozen (if enjoyable) but touches on much the same themes as the first Bioshock did with extremely efficient symbolism (especially in the environment)- it's unsubtle but as far as anvils go, it's a very good one. It also has very solid gunplay and gameplay even beyond that.
Also, gravity gun.
And Dog.

Infinite, imo, is definitely inferior from a gameplay perspective: gunplay is a bit dull and the weapons don't feel very good, the powers are cool but perhaps a bit perfunctory (like they were in Bioshock 1), the world design is amazing but has no substance and no life (the exact opposite of Half-Life 2), etc. Story's better in my opinion, even if I feel that it's central themes are... lacking in how they are executed (Half-Life always returns to railroads, Black Mesa and the fact that nobody in the entire game's universe ever really has valid alternatives to the choices they ultimately make, without ever stating the purpose of all this outright, Infinite kinda forgets about who and what it wants to make you care about, other than Elizabeth of course... which is fair enough, she is the most important thing in the game, but the fact that nothing else is relevant is kinda jarring). Songbird was basically not even a character, just a force of nature. Impressive, but not very interesting, not even with Elizabeth's emotional connection to him.
Still a pretty damn great FPS.

My vote goes to Half-Life 2, but that's just me, I guess.

 

[Kingjackl]

I'm probably going to have to give this one to Half Life 2, but let's stop acting as if it's the only great game of all time. 'Cult classic'? Seriously? If Half Life 2 is the only cult classic, what does that make (say) Earthbound?