Bioshock Infinite **SPOILERS**

[The Count]

First off, to save me from putting the whole thread in a spoiler tag I am going to state straight off, I hope to discuss the story and impressions of the game so this post will contain spoilers for the whole story (including the final twist at the very very end). So if you have not played it, please be wary of reading this thread.

 

 

 

 

So I just spent a very happy weekend playing this game and confess that I was quite affected by the narrative (despite its quite enormous plot holes and logical inconsistencies).

 

First off the good points:

 

The art design and atmospheric feel of Columbia is a tour-de-force in my opinion. The city is beautiful well realised and the culture feels quite realistic (as far as games go anyway).

 

The sound and music are also great and I did not really appreciate until the end, how well the music was used to foreshadow the multi-worlds / tears storyline. 

 

The game also had some real emotional impact for me as well. I came, quite quickly to feel a significant amount of connection to the relationship between Elizabeth and Booker and culmination of this in the final scene left me starting at the screen for a good 5 minutes in shock and no small amount of emotional turmoil.

 

In particular I found the section climbing through the 're-education' centre listening to Elizabeth's audio journals very affecting. I was properly terrified for what she was going though and whether I would be too late to save her soul.

 

Now, the not so good:

 

The story is, unfortunately, more grand in ambition than in execution. When I though about it outside of the emotional investiture I had placed in it, I quickly realised that the narrative made no logical sense and the ultimate conclusion did not actually resolve anything (and is thus pretty meaningless).

 

At the end of the day, the death of Booker at the Baptism is intended to stop the rise of Comstock in the alternative timeline. However, in an infinite multiverse, such an attempt is meaningless as only the Comstock / Booker from that particular paired timeline will be eliminated. You can always go back to another branch (previous to the baptism) and follow of forward to baptism again and have the same fork. Therefore the death of Booker doesn't really solve anything in that respect.

 

Another issue I had was the gameplay, particularly the combat. It is pretty generic FSP stuff for the most part but has some annoying bullet management and really clunky 'upgrade' mechanics, these made the game needlessly annoying in some sections.

 

The Vigours I found fun to play with but felt that they were not really integrated into either the environment or the populous very well.

 

The Shock Jockey Vigour is a good example of this; the game spends a significant amount of time making you search for this so that you can power the gondola.. fine. But then this mechanic of powering stuff by using the Vigour is completely ignored for the rest of the game. The potential here would have been to use this power to provide innovative solutions to combat or power lifts or... whatever.

 

As a consequence the actual combat in the game is only really interesting during the big set pieces with the skyrails.

 

Also bad... Handymen... they are not a fun addition to the game.. at all!

 

Despite all of these drawbacks though, I thoroughly enjoyed playing. The dynamic between Booker and Elizabeth and the ultimate conclusion of this had real emotional weight (which is rare for me). The logical inconsistencies  and  less than impressive use of game mechanics in combat did not seem significant while I was playing and only dawned on me after the fact.

 

Anyone else played this game (which I still consider an artistic and emotional masterpiece if not a particularly ground braking one)?

 

If so what did you think?

Edited February 10, 2014 by The Count

[Caldain]

Good post, upvote for you, sir!

 

Now, Bioshock Infinite was heralded as a potential game of the year  (though my personal favorite for 2013 would be Tomb Raider) and I think it definitely deserved to be in the discussion.  Columbia was beautifully made as was Elizabeth, finally there was a companion character outside of a Bioware game that I actually cared about. Liz didn't get in the way and she didn't take forever to get some place which has always been a pet peeve of mine in escort quests in MMO where the NPCs wander lazily around whilst you're fighting for your life.

 

I play video games primarily for story and Infinite had a very interesting if tad confusing storyline.  I enjoyed how it tied together to the previous Bioshock title and after I finished the game it left me feeling very introspective.  I haven't had a game do that to me perhaps ever.

 

As far as the gameplay mechanics, I'd have to agree with you on them.  They were very mediocre and outdated.  It felt like they spent more time on Liz's AI mechanics than they did on shooter aspects.  It was enjoyable but nothing to write home about.  Though for me personally, I'm much more of a third person shooter gamer than FPS, I love me a cover system. 

 

Songbird as an end boss was pretty bad and pretty underdeveloped as a "character".  I would have liked more info on the Songbird and a greater weight to his apperances.  He was more like a boogeyman than an actual villain.

 

As a gamer with only so much money to throw around at video games, I prefer games with replayability.  I want to get my money's worth.  Games like Diablo 3 or a Mass Effect / Dragon Age have a lot of replaybility and I can justify the $60 purchase.  However even with the great story, I wish I had waited awhile instead of getting it at release.  If anyone hasn't played it yet, you can probably get it pretty cheap on Steam or wait for the inevitable Spring Steam sale and pick it up for like six bucks.

[The Count]

Totally agree with you on Songbird. The set up from the start was to have him as a potential 'final boss' but then not used

 

I think there was a great potential here with the voice recordings. We could've learnt about the man who eventually became Songbird and his relationship (obsession even) with Elizabeth and his ultimate decision to let Fink experiment on him. These are hinted at but not explored.

 

Through the voice recordings this character could have had a real impact and his death could have been actually tragic for the player (even without the need for a boss fight). Instead his demise is rather limp and we only get the vicarious resolution of Elizabeth's grief.

 

I thank I agree with your. It is like the Devs put all their effort into the Elizabeth / Booker / Comstock relationship (and Elizabeth's play mechanics and forgot to flesh out the rest of the supporting cast.

 

EDIT: Not played Tomb Raider yet, it is on my steam account for whenever I am ready.

Edited February 10, 2014 by The Count

[Quiver]

Some background.

I've said that I'm more of an RPG gamer when it comes to games, and I dislike FPS particularly. I've also never played the original Bioshock games, besides knowing they take place underwater, have scar girls and some sort of drill... thing.

That means I picked up Infinite because I'd heard about the atmosphere, the world and the story.

And those parts of it, I liked. I liked Elizabeth, and I enjoyed seeing her revel in and use her powers. I wasn't as connected to Booker -I often felt confused by his past and story, but then, that was part of the point- though the flashback/re spawn sequences in his office, with the voices chanting "Give us the girl and wipe away the debt" were suitably disorienting and horrific. I haven't felt that uneasy since Scarecrow sections in Arkham Asylum.

The ending baptism, with all the Elizabeth's saying "Water" was similarly chilling. I replayed that last sequence a few times, partly because I was confused, partly because the sight of that girl- the one I was protecting- turning on me was so powerful and chilling.

But the middle-stretch of it dragged. I kind if felt, at times, as if some of it, and some of the missions, were filler to pad out the game. I also disliked how railroaded it was. Cal drain mentioned the replay ability of Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Infinite doesn't have that, when it especially should. This is the story of a girl who can jump into different worlds! I wish there were more ways to implement that power, and my choices, into the game and the narrative. As it was, it seemed like the choices I did make (which I now recall as few and far between) had little or no impact on the story.

Which may have been the point. All paths lead to the lighthouse and the baptism. Choice is irrelevant. Predestination and such. But I didn't really get that, and it kills my desire to replay it, except to try and unravel the plot.

[Caldain]

Not to derail the thread but Tomb Raider is definitely worth playing.  I had never picked up a Tomb Raider game before because I had no interest (silicon breasts notwithstanding) in those types of games.  However, the latest Tomb Raider had a human element to the game that I found appealing.  This isn't the badass Lara Croft but rather a fresh out of college girl whose thrust into a world where its either survive or die.  Now, it doesn't exactly have replaybility but the production values are top notch and it offers a cinematic experience.  There is a Multiplayer element but from what I understand its rather shoehorned in.

 

But back on Infinite, I have always been a fan of the voice recordings.  It offers you a glimpse into the world and helps flesh things out.  It also offers you a number of clues to the main story.  Though Comstock was never a very appealing villain in my opinion.  Andrew Ryan was well written and Armin Shimmerman's voice acting was amazing.  I mean its Quark/Principal Snyder!

 

It hasn't been mentioned yet but I do applaud the developers for addressing racism though I wish there had been more to that.  The fact that the Vox Populi turned out to be just as violent as Comstock if not more so was dissapointing but I guess that's more of a statement on humanity then anything else.  The scene with the interracial couple at the beginning was very interesting to see, I had not been expecting that.  It was one of the few times or maybe the only time where you as Booker had a choice of what you did.  Now, I could never actually throw at the couple but I imagined the result was the same.

 

The whole concept of Liz being able to open tears to other worlds should have been played up other than "Booker do you want a turret over here or an ammo box?".  I enjoyed seeing the "Revenge of the Jedi" bit when she opens a tear to Paris but it could have offered the player any number of different environments.

 

Quiver - the Scarecrow scenes in Arkham had to be some of the most intense scenes in any game I've ever played.  I both enjoyed those parts and hated them.  It kind of reminds me of the haunted hotel in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which still gives me chills whenever I replay it.

[Argent]

I liked the game a lot. The gameplay was nothing too exciting, but I don't think that was the goal - in fact, I've recommended Bioshock: Infinite to a few of my friends, and I told every one of them to play the game on the easiest difficulty, so they can spend less time bothering with gameplay, and more with characters, environment, and story. 

 

Oh, but there is so much to tell... Let's condense it a little.

 

Elizabeth

Elizabeth was, of course, positively wonderful. Even without her pushing all my "save the damsel in distress" buttons - and let me tell you, she pushed all of them - Elizabeth was an interesting character. Intelligent, skilled, feminine, independent - but obviously sheltered and, if not innocent, then at least naive in some ways. I think Bioware did a pretty solid job at showing her different sides. Towards the end, when you lose some time and Elizabeth gets captured, I very quickly acquired a "f@#k it, let me get to her in time to save her, even if it kills me" kind of attitude.

 

Story

I was very very confused for a lot of the game. The whole idea about... going to some place to get a girl I know nothing about in order to settle gambling debts that are not mentioned in any other context? It felt weird. I knew I wasn't getting the whole story, but I thought that was Bioware being all clever, deciding to show the story rather than tell it. The twins were not helping either.

 

Environment

Colombia was pretty amazing. It also screamed "dystopian utopia" from the get go. It was creepy how ideal things seemed. I think the scene where you choose whom to throw the lottery ball #77 at was done spectacularly - one moment you are in this perfect world (that you've been in for a little while - not enough to get used to it, but enough to get an idea how wonderfully peaceful it is), and the next you are mashing some guy's face with a hand-blender. 

 

Multiverse

I can honestly say, I lost track of the universes at one point. I was okay pretty much all the way until the Big Reveal. Then, with the number of possible paths doubling, I lost track. I had to Internet it. Still, it's rare for a game to go down this route - and I must admit, I liked it when my brain hurt. 

 

Ending

Boy, did this blow me to outer space. This video came to mind. I too was not happy with the explanation that Booker's death could somehow eliminate Comstock from the equation (though I can kind of maybe a little bit rationalize it), but honestly - I don't care. The drowning was still powerful. The realization that Booker and Comstock are (pretty much) the same person was... enlightening. I remember the scene when you kill Comstock, how he taunts you to tell Elizabeth what happened to her finger - and Booker legitimately has no idea, and Comstock is confused about why Booker is confused (because he obviously knows, and believes Booker should know/remember too), and Elizabeth is confused about how Booker could know anything about why her finger is missing... I remember thinking that Booker was hiding something big. The idea that he just built over those memories, it never crossed my mind. That's probably the first thing I thought of when Elizabeth went all Morpheus. Then I thought about those battle reenactments in the theater (Wounded Knee and the other one), before you get the Shock Jockey, where what's-his-face complains about how it was you, Booker, who performed all those feats of strength, and then Comstock just stole your glory - except he didn't, because it was you all along! That was kind of awesome.

 

And so on... 

 

Bottom line, I liked the game. It was worth it.

[Claincy]

I'll preface this with some context. I play a fair number of games, particularly arpg's but some fps's too (just not modern military ones) and I played both of the original bioshock games some time back. I am also doing a computer science course with a focus in games development so I tend to think a lot as a designer when I am looking at games.

 

That said, I think Bioshock Infinite was a very good game. However, I also think that it is seriously overrated. Sure it is very good, but it has plenty of flaws, some of which have already been mentioned here. The biggest problem that stands out to me is wasted potential, so much wasted potential and stupid decisions.

 

Before I go into that though, regarding the drowning at the end. It does sort of make sense. The trouble with infinite realities is that there are a lot of different theories regarding it. Some theories say that every decision, no matter how minor, splits off a new reality. With that theory then yeah, the drowning wouldn't work. Some other theories revolve more around lynchpin moments, moments that happen regardless of any other decisions. Variables, and constants like the Lutece twins keep going on about. If they are using a theory of this type, then yes it can make sense. It has been a while since I played it and read up on the theories behind it but I'm pretty sure it was internally consistent on this point. My basic point is that there is no "right" theory on alternate realities like this, so while it may not fit the most popularly accepted theories it does fit its own.

 

Anyway, some of the things that were disappointing:

-songbird (as already mentioned)

-vigors

-columbia

-skyrails

 

1) Vigors. "Oh we pulled them in from another reality". They don't stick out as bad, but they feel a bit like a gameplay mechanic that was shoehorned into the game because it's a bioshock game, so it has to have vigors/plasmids. They did a decent job of placing them so they don't stick out like a sore thumb or anything. But compare it to plasmids in rapture. They were a huge part of the world and story. The vigors in infinite are just kind of....there. There is an in-game explanation for how they got there, but they don't really effect Columbia.

2)Columbia itself. Ok, Columbia is cool, the setting is great. A floating city in the sky, skyrails, everything. Excellent setting. So WHY do we spend three quarters of the game INSIDE. It's a fantastic setting, so why didn't they use it! All those amazing views and vistas that we see on occasion. For contrast, in the original bioshock games the sea was ever present. Flooded tunnels, leaks, views of the ocean. You could never forget that you were in Rapture, an incredible city at the bottom of the sea. In Infinite much of the time you could be anywhere, well, anywhere with a culture remotely similar to Columbia.

A more specific example is the skyrails. They must have spent a very long time working on the skyrails to get them right, and they feel good. (Except that you can slam right into a carriage and nothing happens, that's stupid and turns riding the rails from exciting and dangerous to something far more routine I guess they decided that running into the carriages killing you would just be too frustrating, exactly what market were they making this game for again? I'm pretty sure it isn't targetted at younger audiences or more casual players.). So why do we rarely get to use them?! The vast majority of the times we do get to use them it is very linear. Which is another point against the game, it is very linear. It gives you a giant, amazing floating city to explore then DOESNT LET YOU explore it. That is such a huge waste. I get that the linearity could be considered to be supporting the narrative, with all your choices leading to the same conclusion. But that would actually work better if it felt like you actually had some choices to start with and frankly, the choices of any even perceived consequences are very few and far between.

There were maybe 3 battles that took place in a nice open area with multiple skyrails and different areas of the zone you could reach, and with good verticality. They were a lot of fun, they made good use of the setting and mechanics and achieved the potential of the game and setting. But they were very rare and fairly short. It's just hugely disappointing.

 

So the bottom-line is that the story was very good, Elizabeth both as a character and in terms of her implementation in the game, was very good and there were a lot of other mechanics, set-pieces, etc that were good and had huge potential that was never used.  As a result it is simultaneously a very good game and a very disappointing one.

 

Edit: Also yes, as others have mentioned, the multiple realities and tears are also badly underutilized outside of the main story.

Edited February 10, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[name_here]

I liked the story and gameplay up until the ending. However, the ending gave me the distinct impression that the writers had decided to put all the exposition at the end in the hopes of confusing players into ignoring the bit where the final resolution makes absolutely no sense.

 

The thing is, you can have a model of time travel where the timeline splits into new universes or a model where it doesn't. However, if the ending runs under the first type of model then retroactively killing Booker would simply create new universes without altering existing ones and if it's the second type where do all the alternate universes come from? Even if you have timelines diverge only absent time travel, there's the question of whether time travel will alter divergences later on the tree, because if not there shouldn't have been multiple copies of Elizabeth for one copy of Booker. And even disregarding that, I don't see a convincing reason to kill Booker prior to the point where he first split from Comstock instead of killing Comstock afterwards. And I don't see why killing the guy who got sent back in time actually accomplishes anything, because his past self should still be alive, and we're clearly not doing mental time travel because there's more than one Elizabeth.

[Quiver]

Actually, funny story about this game guys. Whenever I first played through it, I took the ending as something completely different, and totally at odds with how things actually played out.

 

Whenever they started talking about how baptism washed your sins away... I don't know why, but I got the impression that Comstock was meant to be those sins, that Booker was baptised, his past was literally washed away, and it -somehow- became Comstock. Because of Quantum.

 

It's a mystical explanation, and I'm sure it doesn't hold up at all, but I could have sworn there was a line in there that supported it somehow. 

 

Anyway, yeah, to reiterate things- great ideas, too much railroading. It might have made a better novel, actually. In video games, I dislike feeling that what I do has no influence, even though (in the case of this) that was probably the intent.

[name_here]

No, Booker did not get baptized in his origin timeline. Him getting cold feet and backing out of the ceremony at the last second was the original Booker/Comstock point of divergence, actually. See, Booker felt that the sins he'd committed could not be washed away with mere water, and given that he got fired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency (famous for their extremely brutal suppression of labor strikes) for conduct unbecoming an officer and was exceptionally brutal by the standards of his unit in the Indian Wars, that's a fairly understandable thing to think.

 

Comstock, however, did get baptized. And he kind of missed the point, because instead of renouncing and repenting for his past actions he decided that the baptism made them no longer sinful and gloried in them. So all the commentary about baptism washing away sins is what Comstock believed.

 

It hasn't been mentioned yet but I do applaud the developers for addressing racism though I wish there had been more to that.  The fact that the Vox Populi turned out to be just as violent as Comstock if not more so was dissapointing but I guess that's more of a statement on humanity then anything else. 

 

 

I actually really liked the Vox Populi turning out to be just as violent as Comstock. In a horrifically ironic way, it shows that people are the same no matter their skin color. See, the ideology of the Vox is itself racist, just in the other direction. Sure, they're legitimately oppressed, but they generalize hatred of their oppressors to hatred of everyone with the skin color of their oppressors. Once they're in power, their actions are really no different, because they're really no different.

 

Now, I did feel them turning on Booker was poorly handled. I understand why their leader did it, because she's as power-hungry as Comstock, but I'm not sure why the rank-and-file went along with it. Booker just got done coming back from dying as a martyr for the cause and leading them to a crushing victory. I would expect most of them to react with stunned confusion and likely fall to infighting as some tried to kill him and others protected him.
 

 

The scene with the interracial couple at the beginning was very interesting to see, I had not been expecting that.  It was one of the few times or maybe the only time where you as Booker had a choice of what you did.  Now, I could never actually throw at the couple but I imagined the result was the same.

 

Yeah, this gets confusingly alluded to by the twins in their rambling explanations. Whenever those choices pop up onscreen, it's an event which can alter the timeline. But certain patterns reoccur whatever happens. The choices have consequences but cannot alter the fate of Columbia. Even if Columbia weren't built, there would be a city, a lighthouse, and a civil war. Only the details would change.

 

How this works in practice is that the choices have a cosmetic effect that lasts for the entire game, but the end result of the encounter is the same. I think if you throw at the couple, someone notices the brand on Booker's hand that identifies him as the False Shepard.

 

----

 

I think one of my main problems with the ending is that it sort of negates everything that came before it, and in a particularly nasty manner. Everything that happened in Columbia is rendered pointless because, assuming that Elizabeth is correctly interpreting local time-travel physics, it no longer ever existed. So at the resolution, none of the events happened. Now, usually that's the point to time travel, but this one didn't sell me on it.

 

First, the motive for doing it felt pretty shaky. At the point where Elizabeth gains unbounded time-travel powers, Columbia has fallen and the Vox Populi have a new leader who is likely more moderate. So in the timeline you occupy, you don't need to change history to win. Supposedly you're doing it for other timelines, but that is a pretty questionable motive because you're blindly undoing a lot of timelines that could be good or bad. Probably the most solid motive is preventing an alternate Comstock from attacking other timelines, but if one were powerful enough to do that then he could block the plan.

 

Second, resolving it by retroactively killing Booker lends the whole affair an almost spiteful air. It says that things would have been better if the main character were never born.

 

Then there's the logic problems; I'm not convinced that you can construct a theory of time travel where the ending is both possible and a good solution. If events have set outcomes, then it should be impossible to kill Booker at the baptism. If they don't, then Comstock could be killed after the divergence. Even if only certain events can be altered, Comstock could be killed at the next branch. Plus, why bring Booker back in time and kill him? Since he and Comstock were both in Columbia, clearly you can have physical duplicates by rift travel, so I don't see why killing the Booker who got sent back would kill the one already present.

 

On a semi-related note, there's one aspect that confused me with Booker's relation to Elizabeth. When we get to the revelation that Booker sold Elizabeth, it's accompanied by disorientation and a nosebleed. That's the sign of dimensional integration, so it seems to imply that the viewpoint Booker didn't do it but went to a reality where the local Booker did. But that's never brought up.

[pbalazs]

Hey Guys,

 

I think it was an outstanding game, just not necessarily because of the gameplay element. By the end, if it wasn't for the story, it would have been boring.

There are a couple of times in the game when you have the chance to make some choices, to my knowledge however, these don't really change the ending, which I think is a HUGE missed opportunity.

I made a review of the game, check it out here.