Five BioShock sequels

[Thrik]

"If we spin [bioShock] the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did," 2K president Christoph Hartmann told MCV. "Look at Star Wars. It's a fight between good and evil, just like BioShock."

Haaaahahaha. If ever there were a need to resurrect the quote of the moment, this is it.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/56633

[Wrestlevania]

Jesus H. Bronstring, the shitfest Star Wars became is absolutely nothing to aspire to.

Unless you're a money-grubbing marketing bottom-feeder of course...

[Garple]

It's good vs. evil...just like Star Wars, and 70 percent of all the stories ever created.

[brkl]

:(:(:(

[ThunderPeel2001]

You missed the last bit of his comment: "And just LOOK how successful Star Wars was!!! I think we've cracked it this time!"

"Look at Star Wars. It's a fight between good and evil, just like BioShock."

I can't wait to see the half-built Rapture II! (*thud*)

Anyway, I thought Bioshock was designed to be more middling than just "good versus evil"? This is the game that gave you the option of harvesting children, afterall.

[Wrestlevania]

My personal interpretation of the original BioShock story was about exploring the many shades of grey in a personality--not merely black or white. This particular "good vs. evil" analogy is a somewhat wide of the mark, IMO.

[Marek]

The full quote:

“For Bioshock, because it’s so story driven, the question obviously arises: how long can you do it without turning into The Matrix?” said Hartmann.

“The first Matrix was great, the second one was weird and the third one, you thought: ‘Who [making this] is on crack and who isn’t?’.

“But, then again, look at Star Wars. It’s a fight between good and evil, just like Bioshock. If we spin it the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did,” he went on.

“But we have to be careful not to cash in. I won’t name the company, but there was a great racing game years ago. They brought it back year-on-year. If you look at the scores, it’s hard to believe what they’ve done to it. It’s upsetting, actually.”

What a shame. He starts off so well, sounding almost like he knows what he's talking about. But... Star Wars? Really?

[DanJW]

Steve! Where's Steve? We need an man on the inside. A man on the inside with a sock filled with gravel.

[Nachimir]

I like this bit the best:

"But we have to be careful not to cash in," he added. "Because [bioShock] is so story driven, the question obviously arises: how long can you do it without turning into The Matrix? The first Matrix was great, the second one was weird and the third one, you thought: 'Who [making this] is on crack and who isn't?'"

Because what would we be if we spun something out into a six part series, yet lost our integrity along the way?

[Thyroid]

Well that kills any point in getting the first one. No way in hell am I getting involved in another endless series.

[toblix]

Well that kills any point in getting the first one. No way in hell am I getting involved in another endless series.

Well that doesn't make any sense.

[gdf]

BioShock is already a third part. System Shock 2 is apparently amazing, but I dispute shelling out twenty five pounds for it on eBay when it's in a crappy CD case

Every post I've written about games so far has been a , so I won't bother soliloquising about how BioShock has no replay value, weak core gameplay, the illusion of consequence and overrated story elements.

[SignorSuperdouche]

Well that doesn't make any sense.

No I totally agree, I refuse to watch Lost for the same reason. If, when the series is over, people say it was awesome from start to end then that's cool but I'm not going to invest my time or emotions on something that I suspect will turn to shit by the end.

[toblix]

Okay, so you only play, watch, read or listen to shit that's already been completed and approved by others? Regardless, these last comments about making a hojillion Bioshock games weren't even a part of it when the game was made. Did this suit's ideas retroactively make Bioshock suck or something? I don't get it.

[gdf]

Okay, so you only play, watch, read or listen to shit that's already been completed and approved by others? Regardless, these last comments about making a hojillion Bioshock games weren't even a part of it when the game was made. Did this suit's ideas retroactively make Bioshock suck or something? I don't get it.

I can see where he's coming from though. If I'm emotionally invested in something and it becomes stale, I would perhaps feel it would have been better not to get involved in the first place. Lost is a great example, I didn't start watching it because I knew that even just one series of that many episodes wouldn't be able to sustain itself, and by the time series two aired, everyone I knew that had been following it gave up and the older episodes were ruined for them because of that. So they became engrossed in something and were eager to see what happened, but there was so much padding and bloated filler that they got sick of it and were left to wonder what would have happened had they been able to stomach more of the same shit.

I see your point also, BioShock won't become an awful game just because a load of sequels are produced. Just look at Guitar Hero. I still have great memories of that franchise in the early days which can't be erased just because Activision bought it and are whoring it out something awful.

[SignorSuperdouche]

Okay, so you only play, watch, read or listen to shit that's already been completed and approved by others?

With something that will take up a huge amount of time to get through and is probably being made up as it goes along? Yeah definitely. I'm happy to give a chance to a one off book or film or something that I know nothing about though.

Regardless, these last comments about making a hojillion Bioshock games weren't even a part of it when the game was made.

True enough, if the story stands on its own as a one off then I'm happy to give it a go. Is this the case?

[eljay]

It's definitely the case, so much so that I was baffled at the original announcement that ONE sequel was being made, it seemed like such a stand alone game.

[Horticulture Tycoon]

This is the Video game industry we're talking about here. I can't believe anyone would be shocked about a hit game getting an endless stream of sequels. It's far more shocking when a hit game doesn't get one.

I thought Bioshock was designed to be more middling than just "good versus evil"? This is the game that gave you the option of harvesting children, afterall.

Harvesting children = evil; not harvesting children = good. Seems pretty black and white to me.

[eljay]

Didn't say I was shocked, just confused about the premise

[Thrik]

Lost is a great example, I didn't start watching it because I knew that even just one series of that many episodes wouldn't be able to sustain itself, and by the time series two aired, everyone I knew that had been following it gave up and the older episodes were ruined for them because of that. So they became engrossed in something and were eager to see what happened, but there was so much padding and bloated filler that they got sick of it and were left to wonder what would have happened had they been able to stomach more of the same shit.

To be fair, Lost is an example of a programme that recovered from this. The second series did drag things out for far too long and even the writers have repeatedly acknowledged this, but the subsequent two series have been fantastic and very much recaptured the magic of the first series. They've also committed to stopping it after a couple more series, and supposedly have a definitive end planned — something a lot of shows don't do, especially ones as successful as Lost.

Anyway, I agree to an extent that it is lame when something you love is basically bled dry. I've seen this happen to a good few things, but then I've also seen things start off good, go a bit poor, and then become superb — I've also seen things go on and on, maintaining their quality consistently. I find it's best to just fuck off what other people are saying, discard your presumptions, and just rate it for yourself.

Don't allow yourself to think that because something might go sour, it's not worth investing time in. Who cares if Monkey Island 4 is shit when its predecessors are so brilliant? Would you recommend someone not play them because MI4 basically reduces the fate of the characters and universe to a joke? Is it not worth falling in love with them for the first three games, even if you know a collapse is coming?

Yeah it's a bit lame that they might go for five BioShock sequels, but who's to say they can't actually deliver five amazing titles which completely surpass themselves and shatter all expectations? Or that at least the first two sequels will? We're all just making presumptions.

I still think the quote is hilarious, though.

[gdf]

To be fair, Lost is an example of a programme that recovered from this. The second series did drag things out for far too long and even the writers have repeatedly acknowledged this, but the subsequent two series have been fantastic and very much recaptured the magic of the first series. They've also committed to stopping it after a couple more series, and supposedly have a definitive end planned — something a lot of shows don't do, especially ones as successful as Lost.

Anyway, I agree to an extent that it is lame when something you love is basically bled dry. I've seen this happen to a good few things, but then I've also seen things start off good, go a bit poor, and then become superb — I've also seen things go on and on, maintaining their quality consistently. I find it's best to just fuck off what other people are saying, discard your presumptions, and just rate it for yourself.

Don't allow yourself to think that because something might go sour, it's not worth investing time in. Who cares if Monkey Island 4 is shit when its predecessors are so brilliant? Would you recommend someone not play them because MI4 basically reduces the fate of the characters and universe to a joke? Is it not worth falling in love with them for the first three games, even if you know a collapse is coming?

Yeah it's a bit lame that they might go for five BioShock sequels, but who's to say they can't actually deliver five amazing titles which completely surpass themselves and shatter all expectations? Or that at least the first two sequels will? We're all just making presumptions.

I still think the quote is hilarious, though.

I'm sort of agreeing with the second paragraph of that post, though. I think it just generally depends on the quality of the original. Timesplitters 2 remains an incredible shooter despite Timesplitters 3 basically throwing it all out the window. That was a case to the contrary I suppose, it wasn't that it remained essentially the same and became stale through repetition, it was that FRD tried to change things up a bit and strayed so far from the formula they missed the mark entirely.

[MrChaz]

Ah man, I have enough trouble trying to work how they're going to do justice to number 2 let alone anything after that.

[Jake]

The first game was built to stand on its own. Bioshock 2 and however many other sequels 2K decides to make may be brilliant, causing you to not just reassess the events of the first Bioshock, but shedding new light on humanity itself... or they could be something significantly less than that. Either way, the first game will continue to stand on its own.

Bioshock was built completely outside the context of being a franchise-starter.* It was built to be its own thing. Lost, on the other hand, was obviously built to be an ongoing television series. The first episode of Lost wasn't simply called "Lost," it was called "Pilot," because, um, it was a pilot for a serialized TV program.**

Saying that the proposed existence of sequels means one shouldn't bother investing in the first, stand-alone, game is ridiculous. The less goofy solution would be to not play the sequels. Are we gamers really that obsessive and that big of "completionists" that a solid first entry in a series -- which doesn't dangerously cliffhang or other narrative bullshit -- can't be played on its own? Do we for some reason have to drown ourselves in franchise cruft simply because they have the same logo on the box? What the fuck.

The games could be good, they could be bad, but holy shit you're not obligated to play any of them besides the ones you want, and in the case of BioShock 1 there's even less OCD crack-addled necessity to play the later ones, because it's self contained. I'm apparently weirded out by this.

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* I don't know if this is a fact -- for all I know some people at 2K may have always been hoping to make sequels -- but the general feeling after Bioshock came out was that people were perfectly happy with that being the only story told in that world. The game wasn't built in a way to incite clamoring for more.

In the case of Lost, however, inciting a clamoring for more is all it is built to do.

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** Yes, I realize that the title of Lost's pilot happens to be a double meaning because it's also a bit about the pilot of the plane. Like 90% of TV pilots are called "pilot" though, so silence.

Edited January 10, 2009 by Jake

[Chris]

Harvesting children = evil; not harvesting children = good. Seems pretty black and white to me.

That's an internal conflict, though, not overt warfare, which is what Star Wars is. BioShock is less of the Star Wars good vs. evil, and more just a dude who is in a baffling situation trying to survive and sometimes being forced to do things he probably finds morally questionable. I don't know how the sequels will play out, of course.

[Horticulture Tycoon]

You could argue that the whole story of Star Wars from Episode I to Episode VI is about the internal conflict of Darth Vader, but I've been talking about Star Wars on the internet for so long I don't even want to get into it anymore.

Regardless, just because it's an internal conflict doesn't mean it isn't good vs. evil. I didn't see a lot of moral ambiguity in BioShock, there's a right thing to do with regards to the Little Sisters, and a wrong thing to do. This is pretty much obvious right from the word go. And besides, the reveal that you were basically a puppet the entire time without any free will makes the character's whole moral dilemma kind of moot, anyway.