BioShock
BioShock
Film
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Based on the first BioShock game.
1 negative7 neutralfrom 8 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
Hacker Cinema Hacker CinemaFilm
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Based on the first BioShock game.
1 negative7 neutralfrom 8 commenters
No streaming data for this title.
8 comments on Hacker News
There's definitely noise, but we also get some "fine wine" products that wouldn't exist otherwise. Examples include Bioshock, Arkham series (at least the first two), Prey, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc. I think it's the same for movies, most blockbusters are dreck, but without the dreck, we wouldn't get any funding whatsoever for the gold.
You can probably make a pretty good movie adaptation of Bioshock. It's setting, music, world and character designs, even it's action would translate quite nicely. But can you keep it's "would you kindly" aspect without it sticking out right away? And would it be worth it making a movie without it?
I still have hope. It took many decades before we entered the golden age of comic book movies, and while I don't think the wait will be as long, I think we're still not quite there yet with video games. What makes a good video game movie is what makes any movie good: when the creative team behind the endeavor believes in it and is tied to the source material. Read some of Nolan's early interviews before Batman Begins comes out and you'll get a sense of that.
I would love to see a Bioshock movie done right, or honestly a proper Metal Gear film. But if the filmmakers don't relate to the material or see it as more than just another narrative engine, we'll get the dime-a-dozen action flicks that try to hype up a few moments without capturing what makes so many VG experiences special.
I remember back in the day the Final Fantasy 7 trailers had a voiceover that went something like: "Dozens of characters, hundreds of locations, a plot spanning 40 hours, they said it couldn't be done in a movie, they were right."
Lots of games tell stories these days. There's no fundamental reason those stories couldn't be adopted to the silver screen. Of course many of these stories aren't really very good, but the same can also be said of any medium. There are elements that might not translate, but that's true of any adaptation. For instance Bioshock's infamous "Would you kindly" plot point won't come though the same way in a movie.
Honestly I think part of it might be that Musk, in a way, represents an (almost) naive hope ("let's go to mars!"), and as far as I can tell the alt-right mostly runs on cynicism and criticism.
I find it hard to properly argue this, because it's based on mostly a feeling I get from following /r/the_donald and various other alt-right(-ish) sources.
But the best way I can explain it is how I feel when I watch Fight Club, in particular the scene where Jared Leto gets beaten to a bloody pulp, and the main character says that he just 'wanted to destroy something beautiful'. I remember that the first time I watched the movie as an angsty teenager, this scene gave me a (thankfully) fleeting feeling of power, anger, mixed with disgust and self-loathing.
Interestingly enough, a game like Bioshock had a similar effect. The message is clearly that the 'Randian' approach leads to all sorts of horror, but for some reason there's also something appealing about the situation, at least to the person that I am (and I can easily see a version of myself in a parallel universe being part of the alt-right).
Anyways, my point is that anything that has a whiff of naiveté, grand hopes, and the kind of 'moonshot' idea that could possibly lead to utter failure, all of that is antithetical to the general alt-right perspective.
At the risk of shoe-horning an author I like into this, I nonetheless feel that David Foster Wallace somehow is able to capture some of this.
> “So far it seems as if people think it really is sort of a book about drug addiction and recovery and, you know, intentional fallacies notwithstanding, what was really going on in my head was something more general like what you were talking about before, that there is a kind — that some of the sadness that it seems to me kind of infuses the culture right now has to do with this loss of purpose or organizing principles, something you’re willing to give yourself away to, basically. And that the addictive impulse, which is very much kind of in the cultural air right now, is interesting and powerful only because it’s a kind of obvious distortion of kind of a religious impulse or an impulse to be part of something bigger. And, you know, the stuff at the academy is kind of weird because, yeah, it’s very high-tech and it’s very “become technically better so you can achieve x, y, and z,” but also the guy who essentially runs the academy now is a fascist, and, whether it comes out or not, he’s really the only one there who to me is saying anything that’s even remotely non-horrifying, except it is horrifying because he’s a fascist. And part of the whole — part of the stuff that was rattling around in my head when I was doing this is that it seems to me that one of the scary things about sort of the nihilism of contemporary culture is that we’re really setting ourselves up for fascism. Because as we empty more and more kind of values, motivating principles, spiritual principles, almost, out of the culture, we’re creating a hunger that eventually is going to drive us to the sort of state where we may accept fascism just because — you know, the nice thing about fascists is they’ll tell you what to think, they’ll tell you what to do–they’ll tell you what’s important.”
My apologies if this doesn't really add up to anything. The topic just hits a nerve and I'm trying to find a way to properly put it into words.
EDIT: found the full quote
I don't think the title "Video Games Are Better Without Stories" is true.
The premise of the article seems to be slightly different than the title: that traditional mediums can tell stories better than video games. Which seems true, or at least.. has been true so far.
Personally I think video games can tell stories differently (not better or worse) than movies/books. They can do a much better job of putting you in the story and actually feeling something. The author uses the example of Bioshock, but really that's a poor choice for his thesis. Bioshock wasn't using the gaming medium to tell a story, they were using a story to add to a video game. Which was great, it worked very well to add to the action and became critically acclaimed (which seems to me to prove the title of the article wrong). But the story was just tacked on to the game, the game wasn't there to tell that story.
There are a few good "games" that are really just a story in a game setting. Here's a couple that I've seen:
Firewatch - http://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/ - Uses a mystery setting to tell a story. It seems like video games (at least first person ones) are constrained in a lot of ways to use mystery settings to tell stories. I've played this one and can attest it is pretty good and you actually feel involved.
Emily is Away - http://steamcommunity.com/app/417860 - This one is an interactive instant messaging story, so very nostalgic for our crowd. However, it's not as interactive as it necessarily seems. Which is why I consider it a story in a game setting. I haven't actually played this one yet, but I've had it in my "wish list" on steam for a while until I'm in the right mood for it. However, it's free to play so you can try this one yourself without anything but a time committment.
I hear the argument and it is sound.
I believe it isn't. I appreciate Michael's summary because it shows where Ebert's blind spot is. (I think you get it though.) Games allow you to be pulled into stories better, or at least differently, than movies. More like novels than movies as you find yourself putting more into the story than you're given, or as in Bioshock you adopt the character as yourself and wonder what do I really think about Ryan? He seems okay to me, but I'm not sure about Atlas. The story is about as artistic as a sequel to Atlas Shrugged could be.
Then there is the idea some games contain art. Donkey Kong 2 isn't a game I would claim to be art, but Stickerbrush Symphony is one of the finest levels in any game I've played. The experience of bouncing from barrel to barrel with this beautiful music and environment... I'm not talented enough a writer to explain. The music and scene are the lines in those cave paintings.
Ebert's hung up on the word game and can't see those moments frozen in time. And without playing the games and giving himself over to them he won't be able to. The over riding purpose isn't the game play, it's those moments in time where you don't just understand the story, but you believe it.
"It's not every gamer, it's a specific sort of gamer, but it's a prevalent sort of gamer. The kind that argues that Bioshock is as valuable a contribution to society as the works of Joyce or the movies of Hitchcock."
Oh, I know you! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=304895
You're still wrong about Bioshock, though I've changed my tune about Portal since that thread. Still, thanks for painting me (and I suspect barrkel) with a broad and inaccurate brush stroke.
The funny thing is, we probably agree on more than we disagree. I think the drive for longer games is ridiculous. I roll my eyes when people are upset at the idea of paying $20 for a 6 hour game on the principle that the game should be longer. Also, I got a college degree basically studying the aesthetics of games and have worked in the industry since then, so you could say that making good, interesting, beautiful games is important to me in that I've put my money (and life) where my mouth is.
I probably think a game you like is crap, and I know I like a game you think is crap, but the big difference is, I don't think that makes you "obnoxious and tasteless," I just think it means we have different tastes, or at worst, I think you're wrong.