An Interesting Game Comparison

[drMightyPotato]

First thing firs: English is not my native language so there are bound to be mistake i appologise. Second i have slight issues with typing as i tend to forget to add some letter or sometimes whole words. And thirdly this thing is LONG! There are conclusions to each and every chaper so read trough them if you are too lazy.

 

I have gotten quite nostalgic and have installed Bioshock 2. I love that game. The atmosphere, the sounds, the npcs, the powers, everything. The game has a rich story that is full of charm and character with npcs that could just as well be real.

And yet i couldn't help myself but to compare our Warframe to Bioshock 2. I mean its insane to compare a mmo of sort with a single player game (the online component of Bioshock 2 is dead) but i just couldn't help it.

With that said here are my comparisons.

Take note tho, i know the games are VASTLY different in many ways, the main one being one is made as a multiplayer and the other a single player with multi adon. So then.

The world:

When i say the word 'world' for a game, to me, its the surroundings, the npcs (ill talk about those later) and of course if it is alive or dead.

Warframe: -Has a rather large world If we actually take the time and start from Mercury to the Void and derelicts. But besides the occasional exploding barrel or a random animal it does not offer anything special. 

                 The rooms you are in are rather bland and devoid of anything that would give them character. Sure you can spot a piece of machinery or faulty wires on the Grineer locations (the newly added shipyards) and sometimes some hazards (the lasers working in shipyards) but thats it. The corpus outposts are so bland that the only time i feel anything is when im in Jupiter and that lasts for five minutes.

                  The world itself is also so well lit that even if you DO destroy the lighting (with Volts overload) the damn rooms still contain enough light apparently that the very walls shine. I don't know anymore. In either case even when you are in the forest tileset on earth during night i still go 'meh i can see just fine -_-''.

                  -The npc's in Warframe are rather abundant. We got 3 races fighting against us and for their own beliefs (cept the infested, they fight for the kicks of it apparently) and each of them have several types of units. With that said i may just as well stop there. Aside from the occasional grunting and chatter (that most of the time has nothing to do with what the npc is doing at the time) in and out of combat the enemies either just stand still or walk around all in all giving a feeling like they are just lambs fresh for slaughter.

                    The npc's do NOTHING to liven up the world they are in. They don't work, they dont interact with anything, unless ofc you tick them off in that case they run twards that alarm even if you pump them full of led in the proces, and they generally look like a waste of our air (whitch in survival it gives a whole new meaning). Hell they don't even interact the with damn computers that are scattered around, especially the Corpus, at least they should look like they are working.

Conclusion: the world of Warframe is bland, uninteresting and uninspireing. It does nothing to prove that there is actual life in those tiles, unless you count a random amount of zombies with guns and strange clothes that drag around.

Bioshock 2: -The world of Bioshock 2 is not as large i think but the feeling you get when you play it is priceless. You feel like the whole damn thing is HUGE and im not even exaggerating. When you are in hallways you dont see that size, that is until you look out the window. You got a chance to run a bit outside in the water and let me tell you its amazing.

                  The 'rooms' in Bioshock 2 (its a damn city i know but humor me for now) are so full of character its overflowing. As you walk trough the game you can see the devastation of a ruined world clearly with each step. The whole of Rapture is so down in the gutter and you can see it. Busted walls, dead bodies, FISH! flopping around after flooding, debris and rubble, run down locales and shops, pipes, wires, blood and much more and its not even cluttering your screen ( :D).

                   You got well lit rooms where you can see how deep the Rapture sank; you got dim and dark rooms that instill dread and despair; and ofc there are the underwater locations that have clear paths you must walk trough so that can take a bit out of the whole atmosphere.

                    - While the variety of npc's in Bioshock 2 is not as large as Warframe the units themselves look splendid. The humans most of the time represent the middle class of society, but mutated to such a degree they can be considered first stage of some insane infection. Bulges, pimples, burns and boiles on their skin can be vomit inducing if you actually take the time to take a good look at them. Their clothes are torn up, old and ragged with different things hanging from them in the form of belts, jewelry or some other wacky addition. On the other side the robotic enemies can make you giggle as they look like something spit out by the junkyard monster (the turrets are guns mounted on chairs, seriously, is funny as hell when look at them XD).

                     All of that wouldnt do squat however if the enemies didnt play the part, and boy do they play it. They walk, they talk, they interact, scream, shriek, mumble and god knows what. Ive played Bioshock 2 so many times i lost count and i STILL get caught up listening to them talking. And thats only the enemies! The npc's you interact with give so much character that you dont even have to see them (and you mostly don't see them). Sure their dialoges get dull after time but one cant deny their insane quality.

                     Speaking of insanity. The enemies you fight with are supposed to be insane according to the games lore. And let me tell you, not only do they sound insane, but you also feel it.

Conclusion: The world of Bioshock 2 is rich with atmosphere and character. You feel like the world around is crumbling before your very eyes and the events around coupled with npc interactions pull you in until you feel as much as part of that world as they are.

 

The Weapons:

Ah the cream of crop in nearly every game. While Warframe has a plethora of weapons Bioshock 2 is rather limited. With only eight weapons to chose from, two of them being non leathal, one would say that you can get bored rather fast. Boy would you be wrong.

Warframe: -Warframe has a large pool of weapons. Well over 100 in fact (i wont get much into numbers, this is not about numbers) and you can find something for everyone here. There are snipers, machine guns, pistols, swords and so on. But the actual feel of those weapons is just as bland as the npc's are. Besides the weapons and one or two shooting effects there is nothing much about them that would say they hurt, sure you can imagine it but to me every game that forces you to think how a weapon feels like to shot failed at weapon designing.

                   However Waframe does something right with weapons: they look smoking hot. PLUS they look race specific. Its actually amazing how well and polished they look. You can take a Corpus gun and immediately tell that its Corpus (besides the Braton, not even lore is sure about that anymore). Some weapons do lack some character but thats about it.

                    The sound of weapons in Warfame is also well made. Nearly every weapon sounds differently, which is my book is a huge plus. My only grief is that some of the sounds make me think of toy guns i used to play with, but what can you do.

                   Warframe also has, sort of, a customization options (call it what you will) in the way of mods. Sure it wont change the way your weapon looks (the little buyable pieces do but ya need real money for it) but it will sure as hell changes its power..... Moving on!

                   The last part about weapons is Warframe i want to touch on is the actual usefulness of the weapons. Like i already mentioned the weapons feel the same EVERY time. Sure Dera wont fire the same thing Grakata fires but unless you look at the bullets you don't feel any different. And ofc there is also the fact that, aside from the regular aim and fire, the weapons don't offer anything else. You aim, you shot, you are done. Unless ofc you put some elements into them then you may see some special effects as either toxic or ice but i never felt anything twards it.

Conclusion: Besides the sheer amount of the weapons the only redeeming quality of them is their looks and occasionaly their sound. Don't expect anything else from them tho.

                   I also didn't mention the 'weird' weapons of the games as they are so few of them its a bit sad. :/

Bioshock 2: -Bioshock 2 has only eight weapons as already mentioned, 2 of them don't deal any damage at all (the DNA camera and the hack tool). But what this game lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. 

                    Now where is the quality you ask. Well for starters each of the 6 damaging weapons offers 3 different ammo pools. For example: The Rivet gun; it fires 3 types of rivets that vary from the good old fashioned projectile, with no effect what so ever, to setting traps. You can either fire a heavy anti personel rounds that hit and feel heavy (the gun fires slower and kicks like a mule, and ofc the sound is different), you can fire a normal round OR you can fire them on the walls and floors as traps. On the other hand you got your regular HMG which can fire either normal, antipersonel or armor piercing rounds. The ammo types the their configurations give you something for each situation and they change the way with each ammo type. You cant get bored cause of all the utility!

                    The looks of the weapons in Bioshock 2 is something else tho. The only weapon that actually looks normal is the shotgun and you can modify the damn thing to look like a tesla coil. The rest of the weapons look just like the world they come from: busted, old, modified to hell and back, and scraped only to make their parts into something else. The granate launcher looks like its built from a old garbage can and the rivet gun looks like a plumbers nightmare and the best part is you can modify them even more! The modifications on the weapons (not including the DNA cam and the hack tool)not only change their looks with amazing addons but it also changes in some cases their effect but also makes them stronger. There are 3 modifications for each weapon and by the time you modded em to the max you practicly have a new weapon to play with.

                     The sound of a weapon in this game is more or less what you expect. The grenade launcher sounds like one as does machine gun and so on. Not much to talk about here.

                     BUT there is something to talk about the feel of the weapon, and i wont dwell on it for long. Each and every weapon that can deal damage feels like it. Heavy, powerful and loud with the modifications and the ammo pushing the feeling even further.

Conclusion: While small in number the weapon pool of Bioshock 2 is rich with utility and character. The weapons feel good, they sound good and im only scraching the surface. Here is some info just for the kicks: if modified to the max and with good passives the very first weapon to start with can also be the strongest and its just a regular old drillarm.

 

The powers: The powers in each and every game are so vastly different and explaining them even without going much into it would make this thread even longer than it should be so ill just cover the basics for both of the games as well as i can without making it too long.

Warframe: -The powers in Warframe differ from frame to frame and no two are alike (effect wise, animations are not so forgiving >_>).  There are only 4 of them and they offer either damage, utility or sometimes a good dose of both.

                   The way these powers are used however is simple: aim and fire. They dont interact with anything in game other than themselves with the only exception being Nova and her ulti and even that is so damn simple to execute its yawn inducing.

                   They look fine, they sound fine but thats about it. Quite honestly even when i first started to play warframe i was not inspired by them only annoyed as most of them fill up the entire screen and sometimes you cant see or aim cause of all the damn effects.

Conclusion: Altho the powers in Waframe are not as abundant as its weapons they get the job done as far as nuking entire rooms. The utility is almost non existant unless you play a utility type frame like Loki or Vauban. They hardly interact with anything and are 90% of the times simple fire and forget. Unless you are into the flashy stuff, i know im not.

Bioshock 2: -Bioshock 2 has, whats called ingame, Plasmids. Its and effect caused by a gennetic mutation induced by injecting yourself with the essence of a sea slug, sounds disguisting i know. The premise of the game is 'if you don't like your body change it'. there are 11 of em and they offer both damage and utility or just utility.

                     You can only have several of them equiped and they range from a generic fireball and lightning bolt to creating a bee swarm or hypnotising. They look their part and thats about all you can say for them.

                      However they interact with almost everything in the game. You want to ignite a group of mobs? Throw a fireball to a nearby canister of oil or ignite the oil on the ground. An angry mob is twards you but are standing in water? Shock them and watch the water do its thing. Shocks for everyone. Decoys, hypnosis, stuns, knockups, knockbacks, combinations counting everything you can do in this game with just the plasmids alone would take a while.

                      And then there is the plasmid vs plasmid interaction. There is a power called 'Cyclone trap' and without going into much detail lets just say you can put nearly ANY plasmid on it to create a neat combination.

                      There are also passive plasmids that either buff your melee damage, make you more resistant, improve your hacking skills and so on and so forth.

Conclusion: Simply put you can play this game without almost ever touching your guns and just using plasmids. Each plasmid is unique, offers utility and the passives give you a whole new set of toys to play with (you even have a passive that allows you to drink alcohol all you want without any damage to either health or mana pool).

 

The protagonist:

One might also call them the center piece in a games puzzle. And dear god is there a puzzle to be solved here.

Warfame: -We got 19 of them. All vastly differ in looks but they all run the same, jump the same, attack the same yadda, yadda, yadda. Their powers are vastly different for each individual and as far as that is concerned not one of them feels the same. They are mobile kickass ninjas (pfffffffffffffft, ninjas, rofl) that look so cool they are, and i cant believe im gonna type this, swagalitious.

                  Aside from the above mentioned stuff there is not much to say about them. They dont feel heavy (even Rhino and he looks like a damn mountain), their running animations get aqward after a while and ofc there is also the fact that they all move like they are hardwired into a single entity. Until the lore of the game explains that im not gonna be impressed by anything other than their looks.

Conclusion: Not much to talk about. The looks are sweet but thats it. They all feel like a carbon copy of one another and its seriously ruins any sense of character. They also apparently are mute.

Bioshock 2: -There is only one protagonist in this game. He is a huge armored beast that can take a beating, dish it out and then some. You dont see him most of the time in the game but when you do all you see is a hulking mass. His name is Delta and he is hardly as mobile as our 'ninjas' and you feel it. Each footstep has a sound and when you jump the thump is quite loud. In short he is a tank.

                     As far as talking goes, well, he doesn't talk much. He grunts but thats about it.

Conclusion: A heavy silent protagonist seemingly devoid of personality. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

 

Finnaly. It was a long write but i got it down.

Basiclly i compared two nearly uncomparable games. One is a mmo (sort of) and the other is focused on single player.

All in all if Warframe was half the game Bioshock 2 is i wouldnt stop playing it. There is also something to say about the fact that Bioshock has 3 games to its name and several addons and insane replayablitiy.

I hope this thread was informative (also i hope it makes sense O_o) and i hope it showed just how, for the lack of better word, shallow our Warframe is. Needless to say tho i still like Warframe and i hope that one day i will be able to acctualy enjoy it rather than play it for a hour or so and be bored to tears.

See ya all ingame.

Peace.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Alinna

[Drunken_Child]

You were right, this was very interesting.

[Tsunero]

I don't know if you are aware of it, but DE did work on BioShock 2, especially the multiplayer. That's why you can find lots of similarities.

 

Edit: It was the only game they worked on from the series though.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Momo93

[arch111]

Interesting read for sure.

And you made me want to play Bioshock :)

[drMightyPotato]

Interesting read for sure.

And you made me want to play Bioshock :)

Enjoy. I firmly suggest you firstly try the first Bioshock THEN Bioshock 2. The story is quite fluid and it will explain alot of the lore.

[Tsunero]

Enjoy. I firmly suggest you firstly try the first Bioshock THEN Bioshock 2. The story is quite fluid and it will explain alot of the lore.

 

The correct order should be:

 

BioShock Infinite

Optional: BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds (DLC) (if you want to fight more, it's just an arena mode without story whatsoever)

BioShock

Optional: BioShock 2 Multiplayer (it has a very minimal story, small prequel to a certain big event from BioShock, it's kind if enough if you just watch the intro)

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode One (DLC)

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode Two (DLC)

BioShock 2

Optional: BioShock 2: Protector's Trial (free DLC) (similar to the Infinite arena mode but with a little bit of story in it, plus if you complete it you get a tonic which is useful if you want to up the challenge in the BioShock 2 story DLC)

BioShock 2: Minerva's Den (DLC)

 

If you play them in this order you will get a nice round picture about the whole series, lore wise as well, you won't lose much if you leave out the arena modes or the BioShock 2 multiplayer. You should totally play them, it's an awesome series and they made my life so much more complete.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Momo93