Twig

They must be if they're 60% of the game.

My favorite experience with people leaving was, I played with a group of four and did versus, and we were so bad that two people ON THE OPPOSITE TEAM immediately left. One if the remaining guys explained that we are the worst before also leaving. The last guy stuck around for one more round before leaving.

Uh huh.

Because Magical Elizabeth Powers. They pretty much exactly explain it in the game like malkav does, here.

Well, I'm glad you got the completely wrong impression because I very much never said that. I'm speaking about my own personal goddamn experience and very explicitly avoided ever speaking for anyone else, it was all about me, me, me. Your response is why I almost just didn't post and now I regret posting.

Haha that was pretty good.

I'm not sure I agree that it's a "superficial" thing, although it's definitely rarely an important thing to the story. Probably because it's the norm. However, the last bit is probably the most important bit of this thing I have quoted from you. I'm a straight, middle-class, white male, but I don't feel like any video game characters ever really represent me beyond being white dudes, which is almost never even the point of whatever story they're a part of. I'm not sure I've ever played a game where the point of playing a white dude was... playing a white dude. (Obviously it matters in context, like, say, Bioshock Infinite(!), but I'm not a dude who slaughtered Native Americans, either, in that case. Maybe if video games existed in the early 1900s, and I was alive then, and I was a mass-murderer... etc.) Not saying there shouldn't be more diversity, but, well, the straight white dudes that exist everywhere are never representative of me, personally, just like they're not representative of non-whites or non-straights or non-dudes. I'm sure there are white dudes out there who feel differently, but I'm not one of them. When I step into the shoes of any video game character, I'm stepping into the shoes of someone who isn't me, and I like it that way. I can appreciate the desire to step into the shoes of someone who is more like you, though. NOT SAYING THERE SHOULDN'T BE MORE DIVERSITY - NOT SAYING THAT IT'S OKAY LIKE IT IS - NOT NOT NOT

Having never played Flashback, it looks okay to me.

There are no vocals. The premise is that... It completely works within the context of the game. There, now it doesn't bug you!

OH YOU GUYS

Well you have to get her out of the city because you've been asked/hired to get her out of the city. There's no magical property about her that I'm aware of. Yet.

i will never agree with you !!! (also i never said it was irrelevant stop putting words in my mouth ): )

I'm absolutely not saying you're wrong for feeling that the story is weak. I'm only saying that an ending like the one proposed would be even worse. oh my god I hate spoiler tags By all means, dislike the way they used the themes presented in the beginning of the game. I'm not bothered by it but I can totally understand the lack of enthusiasm you and others have. Just saying: the ending proposed would've been really out of place with, well, almost all of the game - especially the second half. Also, all of it is self-centered. That's kind of the point. From minute one to minute end. It's all about Booker wiping away the debt, as it were. Bleh. Anyway I've said enough on this and it's clear literally no one in the universe agrees with me. OUT. EDIT: I've analyzed this game's story more than I think any other video game I've ever played. Weird feeling. Makes me wish I had the time to keep up with the bookcast so I could do it with some real fiction that probably deserves it a million times more. I'm like twenty thousand books behind at this point. TOO BAD, SO SAD.

Zederick: That's all fine and dandy, but you're arguing with me about something unmentioned in my post. STOP!!! I'm only addressing the idea of changing the ending to something that had no relevance to the core story presented in Bioshock Infinite. And that core story is absolutely not about racism.

'Cause they're ugly and take up space unnecessarily! Also, money! Also, lugging them around when you move is the worst! (The last one was actually the only reason I sold mine.)

It really is fantastic.

That would have been absurd and outside the scope of the story.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1376061185/bloom-memories-one-of-a-kind-action-adventure-rpg The concept art is so nice in so many ways. Unfortunately, the only video of gameplay (or at least the only one I can find) looks... less than nice. Animation-wise, at least. It's sad. However, skimming through the updates makes the story seem at the very least interesting. Will it be good? I don't know. I can't decide if I want to back this or not. Someone tell me it sucks so I can stop thinking about it. Or tell me it's awesome so I can stop thinking about it.

Completely disagree! I don't really have anything else to say; I just... I just don't agree with this at all. (Speaking completely outside the context of Bioshock Infinite.) If nothing else, it sets a context for the world. Maybe it's too overzealous about it, maybe it's not zealous enough, maybe maybe whatever. There are always flaws to find in everything. That's a separate argument, though. I just really, really disagree with what you are saying here. The Emily Short quote is true, though. You should definitely think about what you're doing. But that doesn't mean you should get rid of something just because you don't want to address it. Maybe after thinking about it you dial it back or present it in a different way. Back in the context of Bioshock Infinite, I can totally empathize with the argument that Infinite faked people out with its presentation of products, and maybe it shouldn't have been so crazy about it in the beginning. Buuut well.

Haha yeah I was kind of expecting that too. WHOA I ALMOST LEFT THAT UNSPOILERED

I just realized I missed like an entire page of posts, sorryyyy. Yeah, no, I get it. I sorta addressed this in my above post. I feel like that asshole what goes "you're dumb for thinking about it like that". I just... I didn't feel like the game was trying to Say Something. I felt like it COULD have been that game, but it actively chose not to be. Presenting racism as an evil thing isn't really Saying Something, in my book. It's just kind of an obvious fact? The whole Fitzroy arc of Revolutionary to Tyrant is such a typical thing in genre fiction that, again, I'm left feeling like it's just a story element, and not a Something. None of the presented topics are ever addressed. They're just presented. Which is basically the core of your criticisms, if I'm not misunderstanding, where for me, it's the core of my apathy? Apathy's a strong word, but probably the most accurate. I recognize (or, at least, believe) that the game isn't trying to be something special*, and so I accept that and move on. To sum: Yeah, I guess we do fundamentally disagree. Hah. ): Also, just to specifically address this bit: "To me, it's not a matter of 'fighting the battle.'" I didn't mean to accuse anyone specific with that, or even anyone on these forums. It's just kind of a general sentiment on The Internet, and I let my response bleed over into that post. A lot of the complaints I've read seem to be about video games failing to be Better than This, rather than about Bioshock Infinite failing to be better than this. In essence, you are doing the thing that I was asking for: criticizing the game for the game, rather than for video games. Mmm, yep. *I totally expect to be proven wrong in any post-mortem interviews involving anyone who helped design the game!

I think there's more than enough to talk about outside the context of "I wish this game was what it wasn't", although I am aware that stuff doesn't interest you, for various reasons you expressed in the episode. Also, that's not really what I meant! Your guys' discussion was great and I loved it, even if I didn't completely agree. Talking, discussing, fantastic. But the final judgment, in my opinion, shouldn't be about what the game wasn't trying to do. Judge it for its failures to do what it wanted to do. I uhhh am just repeating myself a lot here. Sorry. Also I realize that obviously we don't all agree on what the game was actually trying to do. So there's that, too. That kind of discussion probably isn't as interesting, anyway. "Hey, no but here's what I think it was trying to do so your whole stance is dumb." That's probably how I sound, isn't it. I'll just stop now. I hate everything. See above! EDIT: Why is it attributing the second quote to Sean! It won't let me change it! I hate this post editor. D: What am I doing. How computerrrr EDIT AGAIN: Oh now it works? What well okay.

I understand expecting and wanting more from the game, because Bioshock 1/2 did such a good job of presenting a story in a way that the combat at the very least wasn't nearly as UGH LUDONARRATIVELY DISSONANT UGH as Infinite. I also understand expecting and wanting more from the game because we all want gaming to be SOMETHING MORE. But Infinite, to me, never pretended to be anything BUT a bombastic IN YOUR FACE BLOW YOU AWAY kind of experience. It's totally just a dumb, fun comic book in video game form. Comic books and fantasy and sci-fi novels and all kinds of Fiction Like That frequently toss in gross-facts-of-society just for the sake of doing it, and I don't really fault them for it, because they're not trying to be anything more. I said this in the Infinite thread, but I still believe it, so I'll say it again: give it time. It'll happen eventually! Also, I want to emphasize that I am absolutely not trying to be dismissive of people's complaints about the game presenting a rough topic and then throwing it to the wind. I just feel like... this isn't the right game to fight that battle? It never even seemed like it WOULD be, to me, even just from the previews. My number one complaint about the game, of course, runs almost completely contradictory to everything I said above! The first few hours of the game are far and away my favorite moments, and I want want want more than most things in Video Games a fully-realized triple-ayyyyy world that isn't full of combat for combat's sake. A world that does try to address Things. I'm completely with Chris on the beginning of this game (just like Mass Effect) being the best part. And, well, I still super love SKYLINE ZIPPIN, JUMPIN ON DUDES, BASHIN FACES, ETC, and that game absolutely works for me, even with the first couple hours, but. But. I don't think the game was ever trying to be anything different. Of course what do I know I wasn't a developer on the game. Oh. I accidentally got absorbed in typing and lost all the time. Since I'm already here: completely hate the way audio logs work in Infinite. They're awkward and out of place. In Bio1 you'd find them in a context that made at least some sense. On a lab table. In some overturned property. Whatever. Not all the time, but definitely a good deal of the time. And the important ones would be in your face. And, like Jake said, they wouldn't be given to you at the same time someone decided to talk to you. ELIZABETH. In Infinite, you find them in seemingly random places at awkward times and gyruuugh. It's unfortunate, too, because so much of the plot is found in them. Much of the sub-plot and even plain-plot doesn't really make sense unless you find all the logs. EDIT: Also a final thought summary: I think it's totally fair to say "I wish Bioshock Infinite was more", but just say that and accept that it's not and move on. Judge the game for what it's actually trying to be, rather than what you wish it was trying to be? I hope this isn't coming off too mean-like. ):

Huh. That's a lot of things I already realized, but a few I didn't. The 122 thing in particular is a nice touch. As an aside: it kind of amazes me that the cast's favorite fight in Infinite was the . That was by far the most boring fight in the game for me. It takes so goddamn long. Even the first time, I was just annoyed, and not really enjoying it. In contrast, I loved the Handyman fights. Speaking purely from a mechanical perspective, anyway. They weren't as personal, story-wise, sure, but they were a lot more dynamic and mobile and fun and SKYLINES. Although I think the first one doesn't have any skylines, which was annoying. It did have hooks, though! I have a lot of things to say about Bioshock Infinite in response to the 'cast but I'm at work so I wonder if I'll ever remember to actually type any of it up. X:

All of those things are fair. As I said, not liking the story is fine. I disagree, and think you're insane, but whatever it's your opinion. But that doesn't necessitate some mysterious lack of foreshadowing... It's kind of an undeniable FACT that foreshadowing exists.