GotG Round 3: Dark Souls vs. BioShock

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mracoon

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Poll GotG Round 3: Dark Souls vs. BioShock (1132 votes)

Dark Souls 56%
BioShock 44%

Main thread

Full bracket

There were a few walkovers in the last round but from now on it's only deep cuts. Someone's favourite game from this is going to be knocked out in this round (if it hasn't already).

Dark Souls (2011)

BioShock (2007)

Voting closes at 12pm GMT / 4am PST Monday.

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Video_Game_King

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Broomhitches

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#102  Edited By Broomhitches

I haven't played Dark Souls, but Demon Souls frustrated me to the ends of the Earth. It was fun playing through Bioshock.

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striderno9

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Bioshock, as good as Dark Souls is, Bioshock was sort of life changing for me.

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golguin

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@you_died said:

@cptbedlam said:

@mcgray90 said:

I don't understand the ruckus behind Dark Souls, it's good, brilliant at times, but it doesn't have much in terms of story and just seems to play on peoples nostalgia for hard games, it is hard but I think it wouldn't be quite so if it wasn't for it's clunky attack animations which other games would be chastised for.

Also it's frame rate on the console versions is BAAAAAAAAAAD, but again seems exempt from criticism. Most people can't 'just play it on the PC'.

Bioshock's combat isn't great but the pay off was incredible, some of those characters. Sure the last quarter, if that was underwhelming but I think that's only in comparison to the rest of the game which set a very high bar.

1. Dark Souls has a much deeper narrative than Bioshock. It's just not spoon-fed to the player.

2. The love for the game has less to do with nostalgia but rather with the aversion towards modern games that have devolved into mindless content tourism. I was getting bored of gaming in general, even of games like Bioshock... then Dark Souls arrived and I put over 400 hours into it. And I didn't do it because of nostalgia but because it is so incredibly motivating and satisfying to play. I just couldn't stop and I will continue to play it for hundreds of hours to come. Hell, even Demon's Souls' community is still very active and I will play that game again as well.

3. Dark Souls' combat is anything but clunky. It's deliberate and tactical, accounting for the weight of the weapons and armor which most other games completely fail to do. Just because it's not your cookie-cutter hack n slay material doesn't mean it's bad. You're of course always free to play boring shit like Kingdoms of Amalur or whatever.

4. "Incredible pay-off" is a pro for Dark Souls, not Bioshock. Every bit of progress is incredibly satisfying in Dark Souls. Also, I found the supposed pay-off section in Bioshock rather disappointing. The gameplay didn't even change like you'd expect it would; you didn't become that big, hulking thing that you saw slowly stomping through the halls of Rapture before.

5. The fact that the framerate problems in certain areas didn't stop people from absolutely loving Dark Souls is a testament of its quality.

You're correct about the Dark Souls narrative. I would almost go as far as to call it a 'mythology' instead of a story.

Loading Video...

That's a good way to put it. There are various pieces of spoken dialogue, environmental clues, and items descriptions that hint at a much greater lore/mythology. When you read the developer interviews you can see that their goal was for the player to feel like they're discovering the world and it's secrets by piecing together various elements to arrive at the story.

People who are just watching the LoLS videos probably think that the story is just the opening video. They couldn't be more wrong. Even the NPCs and bosses have their own little arcs.


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UitDeToekomst

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I'm not a huge Bioshock fan, but I'll take any of the 3 games in that series over Dark Souls any day of the week. this poll saddens me.

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Dalai

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#106  Edited By Dalai

I only voted just to see how much Dark Souls was winning by.

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Little_Socrates

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Wow, this is a big win for Dark Souls. Not for, uh, me, but for Dark Souls.

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Hayt

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I like how all the winners for game of the gen have come out in the last 3 years

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Killerfridge

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#109  Edited By Killerfridge

I really like Dark Souls, but I voted Bioshock. Just because Dark Souls has a "deeper" story than Bioshocks does not make it better. Sure Dark Souls has a deep mythology if I care to look into it, but nothing about the story in that game is as good as meeting Andrew Ryan.

For the record, I do think DS is a better playing game that Bioshock, but Bioshock just made more of an impact on me overall

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Fitzgerald

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Dark Souls. Easily.

Forced binary morality systems are tired as hell. And just bad design.

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Turambar

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#111  Edited By Turambar

@hayt said:

I like how all the winners for game of the gen have come out in the last 3 years

Recency bias certainly feeds into some of these polls. This isn't one of them.

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TheManWithNoPlan

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Dark souls barely edges over Bioshock with my vote.

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deactivated-629fb02f57a5a

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Dark Souls is the most game, but things are definitely going to get really ugly next bracket.

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#114  Edited By BisonHero

@golguin said:

@you_died said:

@cptbedlam said:

@mcgray90 said:

I don't understand the ruckus behind Dark Souls, it's good, brilliant at times, but it doesn't have much in terms of story and just seems to play on peoples nostalgia for hard games, it is hard but I think it wouldn't be quite so if it wasn't for it's clunky attack animations which other games would be chastised for.

Also it's frame rate on the console versions is BAAAAAAAAAAD, but again seems exempt from criticism. Most people can't 'just play it on the PC'.

Bioshock's combat isn't great but the pay off was incredible, some of those characters. Sure the last quarter, if that was underwhelming but I think that's only in comparison to the rest of the game which set a very high bar.

1. Dark Souls has a much deeper narrative than Bioshock. It's just not spoon-fed to the player.

2. The love for the game has less to do with nostalgia but rather with the aversion towards modern games that have devolved into mindless content tourism. I was getting bored of gaming in general, even of games like Bioshock... then Dark Souls arrived and I put over 400 hours into it. And I didn't do it because of nostalgia but because it is so incredibly motivating and satisfying to play. I just couldn't stop and I will continue to play it for hundreds of hours to come. Hell, even Demon's Souls' community is still very active and I will play that game again as well.

3. Dark Souls' combat is anything but clunky. It's deliberate and tactical, accounting for the weight of the weapons and armor which most other games completely fail to do. Just because it's not your cookie-cutter hack n slay material doesn't mean it's bad. You're of course always free to play boring shit like Kingdoms of Amalur or whatever.

4. "Incredible pay-off" is a pro for Dark Souls, not Bioshock. Every bit of progress is incredibly satisfying in Dark Souls. Also, I found the supposed pay-off section in Bioshock rather disappointing. The gameplay didn't even change like you'd expect it would; you didn't become that big, hulking thing that you saw slowly stomping through the halls of Rapture before.

5. The fact that the framerate problems in certain areas didn't stop people from absolutely loving Dark Souls is a testament of its quality.

You're correct about the Dark Souls narrative. I would almost go as far as to call it a 'mythology' instead of a story.

Loading Video...

That's a good way to put it. There are various pieces of spoken dialogue, environmental clues, and items descriptions that hint at a much greater lore/mythology. When you read the developer interviews you can see that their goal was for the player to feel like they're discovering the world and it's secrets by piecing together various elements to arrive at the story.

People who are just watching the LoLS videos probably think that the story is just the opening video. They couldn't be more wrong. Even the NPCs and bosses have their own little arcs.

Let's keep this quote tree rollin'! Agreed on Dark Souls being more of a mythology, given that no real story is told throughout the course of you playing it.

I still think the comparison of Dark Souls to NES Zelda is very apt, in terms of being dropped into the world with no direction, and you can tackle dungeons in a variety of orders, and there isn't much story. I wish people would accept that Zelda isn't much more than a loose mythology and the story of each game barely matters. In reality, if Zelda were actually to add a more detailed plot and voice acting and everything, it would probably feel so unlike Zelda that it would turn people off, in the way that once Sonic Adventure happened on the Dreamcast, Sonic felt different and weird.

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#115  Edited By Sackmanjones

This one was tough but man, in my mind this list is a 3 way battle between ME2 Dark Souls and RDR.

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#116  Edited By ScrambledGregs

I understand voting based on the game you, personally, like more, but when we're talking "best game of the generation", you have to take a step back and think about more than just what entertained you the most. You have to factor in the industry as a whole: where it was before this generation and where it's headed; the influence the games had, the ways they pushed the medium as art form AND entertainment.

Really, there's no point in me trying to convince anyone that voting for BioShock is the right answer here, because this is all just for fun. Yet...voting for Dark Souls over BioShock as "best game of the generation" is sort of like saying you think The Empire Strikes Back was the best movie of 1980 over The Shining.

Don't get me wrong. I fucking love me some Dark Souls and Star Wars, and I would much rather play Dark Souls or watch Empire on the average day. But...it'd be hard for me to argue that, say, Empire is the more "artistic" or "important" movie of the two, however one defines those things in relation to films. Empire is more ubiquitous and enshrined in popular culture, no doubt, but would you show it to someone to justify film as an artistic medium? The Shining and BioShock are experiences that, whether you liked them or not, stick with you and make you think about them when they're over.

Maybe a better way to say it is that Empire/Dark Souls iare art but not art-with-a-capital-A.

Eh, I probably should just go to bed and stop before I get in another situation on the Internet where someone thinks I'm trying to sound pretentious.

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laserbolts

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#117  Edited By laserbolts

Dark Souls is the game of the generation.

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golguin

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This one was tough but man, in my mind this list is a 3 way battle between ME2 Dark Souls and RDR.

I agree with ME2, Dark Souls, and RDR, but I would add Mario Galaxy 1/2. If you would play those 4 games you can figure out what the generation was all about.

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Shishkabob

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#119  Edited By Shishkabob

@golguin said:

@sackmanjones said:

This one was tough but man, in my mind this list is a 3 way battle between ME2 Dark Souls and RDR.

I agree with ME2, Dark Souls, and RDR, but I would add Mario Galaxy 1/2. If you would play those 4 games you can figure out what the generation was all about.

I thought this generation was all about the FPS?

EDIT: The shooter kind, not the frame kind. Why did we choose to use the same acronym for two terms so often associated with gaming?

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mems1224

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#120  Edited By mems1224

probably the two most overrated games this gen. i voted for bioshock

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Slag

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This is a mismatch, Dark Souls easily. The level design is superb in a great old school way.

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DarthOrange

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Dark Souls is alright.

Bioshock is fantastic.

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Dark Souls is without a doubt my game of the generation, amazingly deep mechanics, never afraid to be different and an online structure which is now being copied by some of the biggest games in the business, it deserves to win.

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#124  Edited By NTM

Noooooo. How could Bioshock be losing. Oh well. I think the original is near perfect, so it's what would carry this game to the end. The Dark Souls is a superbly made game though, but I wouldn't choose it myself.

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Mezmero

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This is a real travesty. Apparently the best parts of this generation are when games made everyone angry and/or confused. Sort of fits in with the prevailing theme of internet rage in this era. Now it seems like Dark Souls is going to win the entire bracket. That doesn't make me angry as much as it makes me profoundly depressed.

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@mezmero said:

This is a real travesty. Apparently the best parts of this generation are when games made everyone angry and/or confused. Sort of fits in with the prevailing theme of internet rage in this era. Now it seems like Dark Souls is going to win the entire bracket. That doesn't make me angry as much as it makes me profoundly depressed.

Quite to the contrary, DS made me a very happy gamer.

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CaLe

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#127  Edited By CaLe

@cptbedlam said:

@mezmero said:

This is a real travesty. Apparently the best parts of this generation are when games made everyone angry and/or confused. Sort of fits in with the prevailing theme of internet rage in this era. Now it seems like Dark Souls is going to win the entire bracket. That doesn't make me angry as much as it makes me profoundly depressed.

Quite to the contrary, DS made me a very happy gamer.

I'd describe the feelings it gave me as wonder, triumph, and elation. BioShock, at best, gave me a few 'oh, that's interesting' moments.

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Cold_Wolven

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Bioshock, I have zero interest in frustrating myself with Dark Souls though it is fun to watch Vinny play it.

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00_amon

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#129  Edited By 00_amon

Praise the Sun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skV-q5KjrUA

If you guys are interested in the lore of dark soul check this guy videos:

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Mezmero

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#130  Edited By Mezmero

@cale said:

I'd describe the feelings it gave me as wonder, triumph, and elation. BioShock, at best, gave me a few 'oh, that's interesting' moments.

Triumph is one thing I just don't see the sense of wonder you could get from such a generic fantasy setting. The art design is good for the most part but almost every enemy in that game is something I've seen in a monster manual or other standard video game bestiary. This extends to the setting as well. The environment is well realized and quite cohesive but it's like, now I'm in a forest, now I'm on some battlements, now I'm in another forest, now I'm in a poorly lit fortress. There was nothing quite like the setting in Bioshock other than the sequels. An entire hidden society gnarled and twisted by the ideals of madmen. The variety of enemy types may not have been as vast as DS but at least they felt like they belonged in that world as opposed to, "Yo you have to fight a hydra now, because it's fantasy and you always fight hydras at some point. Congrats. Now fight a dragon." At least the poll results will be close but it's hard to say how many votes were made out of spite for one game or the other.

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mracoon

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#131  Edited By mracoon

Dark Souls continues its unstoppable march to victory with 55% of the vote and a whopping 1105 votes cast.