Without a doubt in anyones mind, the 2 top games of 2007 has to be Bioshock and Halo 3. Now there have been some others like Mass Effect, but my personal opinion, these 2 games are hands down competing for the top prize of "Game of the Year".

These articles will come in 5 Part Article and will be released over the next couple days. The Parts will be Story, Presentation, Gameplay, Replay Value, and Overall. What im about to write about is which one I personally feel is the better game. I also know that if you put these two games aside, they are supposed to be totally different. One is built on a unique RPGFPS, while another is based upon the traditional FPS. Another is built on story telling, while the other is built more for 16 player PWNING fest. In the end, these 2 games are different, but since they are both lobbying for "Game of the Year", I think this is long over due. I will take these five different points, and based on all of those I will come up with a conclusion.These articles WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, so please only read them if you have beaten both games, or just want to know about the games.

The Plots 

The Story for Bioshock
Jack is a passenger on a plane that crashes over the Atlantic Ocean in 1960, after ordered society in Rapture has collapsed. After surfacing, Jack swims to a nearby lighthouse, where he finds a bathysphere in which descends into the ocean and enters the failed "paradise" of Rapture. Atlas assists Jack via radio in making his way to safety.

The Story for Halo 3
The game begins with the Master Chief entering Earth's atmosphere and falling to the ground. Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and his squad discover him and, along with the Arbiter, make their way to a UNSC outpost, which falls under attack soon after. The Master Chief receives orders from Commander Keyes and Lord Hood to clear a way into the African city of Voi, and destroy all anti-air Covenant defenses in preparation for an all-out assault on the Prophet of Truth and the Forerunner artifact he is uncovering.

Both games are completely different, and both serve as different ways of telling their story. With Bioshock, you are told of the story of Rapture through your progression through the game. But the best tidbits of the story are told through recordings which serve as mini-diaries of the residents of Rapture. These Audio Diaries can be found all over Rapture either out in the open, or hidden from plain view. They are not necessary to be found, but it makes the over-all story of Bioshock so much deeper and satisfying when you beat the game.

With Halo 3, its straight story telling. There are several “Terminals” scattered throughout the levels that hold information about the Forerunners and their battle to survive before firing the Halo rings for the first time, but they are not the main point to the story of Halo 3. The Halo series has a lot of depth, but in order to get the full experience of Halo, you will need to either look it all up on the internet, or read all of the books that have come out. Example: Halo 3 doesnt happen right after Halo 2. There was a series of comics called Halo: Uprising and it bridges the story gap between the ending of Halo 2 and the beginning of Halo 3.

The one MAJOR difference thats makes these two games hard to compare is the fact that Halo 3 is a sequal, while Bioshock isnt. There is talk of making Bioshock a Franchise, but with 2 possible endings for Bioshock, I think it would be very hard to make a direct sequal. If they do make a sequal, I would hope they would use the story line of harvesting all of the little sisters, and Jack sending up the Splicers to attack the Sub and gaining control of it would serve as a cool way to continue the story. With Halo 3, your finishing the fight. Some believe that with the ending of Halo 3, the fight isnt over, but I beg to differ. Master Chief finished the fight. The Halo's are destroyed. End of story. Is Master Chief's story over? Obviously not, because Master Chief is floating towards what appears to be an Onyx. So i think this where where the Marathon series could possibly start. But the war is over.

For me at least, I never played the Halo games for the story. It just didnt peak my interest. Thats the honest truth. Now when I finished Halo 3, I got more interested in what all was going on, but it was more about its ending than anything. Which I believe leads up to the Marathon series, Bungie's first game.

Bioshock on the other hand, that is what drove the game. The story telling in the game is the game. It starts out with a bang, and ends with a bang. I was engaged in the story all the way through. I would spend extra time after fighting off Splicers to find tape recordings and find out more about the residents of Rapture, and the Hell it turned out to be. Everything you do is a story told element. When your playing Halo 3, what you do is a result of the story's progression, when in Bioshock, what your doing is the story, if that makes sence.

In order to compare these two games fairly when it comes to the story elements you have to take the 3 games of Halo and Bioshock and put them together. Some people enjoy the simpler, straight forward story lines like Halo. Some people enjoy a deep enriched story like Bioshock. But one thing is certain. Both games have great story telling no matter what I put down, but I give Bioshock the upper hand here with its unique, engaging story telling.

An example of this is once you start in the game, you will find a tape recording of a Mother and Father who lost their little girl. After a couple recordings later, and a hack to a locked door, you end up finding the couple lying together, dead, on there bed, with a recording. You find out they found there little girl, and she had become a Little Sister. They were so overwelmed with grief they locked themselves in there room to die together. Its these little story elements, that for me, puts Bioshock ahead of Master Chief. The whole Alien Vs. Human story has been done a lot and rehashed, but with Bioshock, they took the premise of someone wanting to build an empire their way, and takes it on a roller coaster in different ways.

So for the Story Element of Bioshock Vs. Halo 3, Bioshock wins.