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BioShock Infinite

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Booker and Comstock

 

I don't think the whole Booker/Comstock thing works AT ALL. They don't look anything alike, they aren't even the same damned age. If you look at Booker's ID it shows that he's about 38-40 during the game, while Comstock is 50+. Comstock doesn't even have a real motivation, they COULD have gone all "end of days/revalations" with him, but didn't. There's little way to square Booker's internalization with what Comstock is, or visualize him taking a different path toe be Comstock.

 

The whole Tyler Durden is the narrator reveal works so well in Fight Club because it's foreshadowed so well without ever giving it away (to most people). Here it doesn't even add up. "Comstock is sterile, but Elizabeth's his daughter, but she's not, but!" It's all incoherent BS that seems like it was thought of last minute without any buildup to make it work.

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They try and explain away the "old and sterile" thing by saying that its due to rift exposure, but weirdly none of the other characters seem to experience any ill-effect from the rifts. It seems particular odd with respect to Letuce, who would presumably have been suffering the worst. It's pretty much just a hand-wave.

 

I really think the game would have been way, way better off focusing on the dynamics in Columbia rather than going down the sci-fi time-travel rabbit hole. That never really works that well. Why not just genuinely tell a story about racism, oppression, and violence? It kind of reminds me of Assassin's Creed: lose the sci-fi bullshit and it's a way better series, IMO. 

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There's a ton of foreshadowing; it's just all done in the voxaphones. I guess if you don't bother to look for those, I can see why you'd be confused.

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There's a ton of foreshadowing; it's just all done in the voxaphones. I guess if you don't bother to look for those, I can see why you'd be confused.

Or miss some, I know I picked up a few I missed that filled in small bits on a second playthrough

Unrelated, upgraded charge with pants that make melee targets take 2x damage made the siren fight the easiest thing in the world. Same with the silence boys

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Yeah, or missed some! I didn't mean to sound so snarky in that post. My bad.

 

I think most of the important ones are pretty in your face, though.

 

I think it's Slate who talks about how they called Booker The White Injun because he did some gruesome shit to his victims at Wounded Knee. Later on, there's a voxaphone (I think during or just before the whole siren section) where Comstock rants about how he was sick of people claiming he had "Teepee in his blood", or something like that, so he razed the teepees to the ground to prove that he was a true American.

 

That's not the only example, but it's probably one of the strongest? I mean, besides the whole

Elizabeth/Anna

thing, of course! Though you could argue that's a whole separate category of foreshadowing. They're pretty tightly linked.

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Y'know what this game could've done with? Some regular old conversation. I was playing MGS3 right before this and there's hours of codec chat in there about old movies and what life's like for these guys outside of the mission, and everyone just gettin to know each other.

For someone locked up in a tower for 20 years; she doesn't say much. I remember walking into Chen Li's shop and thinking "Wow I bet that giant furnace makes this whole house unbareably hot!" and I'm not even a tower princess. Come on Liz, d'you just not like small-talk or something?

 

Also it could've done with less scrounging hotdogs from every cupboard, but like how much of that was my fault?

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I don't think the voxophones make any sense as a plot delivery device in this game. There's the obvious problem (who is leaving this giant recording devices all around Columbia?), but it also forces you to scour every inch of each level to ferret out the story. That's a problem in my view, because in the context of the overall narrative, Booker and Elizabeth are usually fleeing for their lives, and so it makes no sense for them to spend all this time and effort traipsing around Columbia scrounging up audio recordings. 

 

In any event, I missed a bunch of the recordings, probably because I turned off the graphical effect that makes interactive objects glow. So that's partially my fault, but I really hate glowing items!

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There's a ton of foreshadowing; it's just all done in the voxaphones. I guess if you don't bother to look for those, I can see why you'd be confused.

 

Got all of them, every last one I think (will have to check). Still doesn't make shit for sense and doesn't foreshadow a damned thing. There's no way it works and there's no mention of it, it's all vague blah blah bah you might have interpreted as somehow foreshadowing it after the fact, but having just completed it I can guarantee you none of the voxophones hint at it.

 

At most the foreshadowing is non existent recurring themes that seem to be shoehorned in as foreshadowing at the end, along with everything else about the end, like the end wasn't even in mind until it was being written and everything was just thrown in there to try and make it look like it was being lead up too.

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Still doesn't make shit for sense and doesn't foreshadow a damned thing.

I don't know how to respond to this. I just gave you a very real example.

 

 

 

I don't think the voxophones make any sense as a plot delivery device in this game.

That's absolutely a fair complaint, and I completely agree. The audio logs made slightly more sense in Bio1 (mostly because the city was already in ruins), but even then it was weird. However, they are there, and when discussing the plot, we can't just ignore the content found within.

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Actually that's a really good point about the voxophones. In Bishock 1 you were silent, alone, and digging through rubble in an upturned mess already.

Listening to audio diaries isn't the same when there are people hanging out and talking to you, as demonstrated by me pausing them so much. It's like walking around listening to a podcast in real life!

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I guess Slate foreshadowing it COULD work, if

You accept that when he's talking about you and Comstock as two different people that did two different things at Wounded Knee then he's speaking metaphorically as if Comstock isn't worthy of his past as Booker DeWitt, and that he's not bleeding at this nose which is some sort of multi memory thing because clearly you aren't Comstock there, and that he realizes you are alternate dimension Booker and isn't phased in the least by this, and that he then gets confused when he starts spewing about wiping away your past, and..

And really that's a hell of a lot of "if's". I'm not saying the story didn't TRY, I'm saying it just didn't do very well at all in it's goal, and it doesn't really seem like anyone took the ending in mind and went back to make sure everything actually lead up too it logically.

 

The ending doesn't add up really, no matter how many things you add

 

It all ends up being a hand wavey "Wibbly Wobbly TImey Wimey" kind of thing. Or as Yahtzee put it "so far up it's own butt it couldn't see where it's going." Which while discussing it might be interesting, it feels like discussing Inception's ending, talking about how it's kinda bull and doesn't work instead of being an interesting discussion.

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There a voxaphone where Lutece specifically talks about how the tumors from the fields aged Comstock. There is also a date of birth on one of the Comstock statues in the hall of Heroes that matches Bookers birth date. It's totally "baked in" to the earlier parts of the game. 

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I guess Slate foreshadowing it COULD work

You're a very angry person. It worked for me and other people! I feel like you less hate the lack of foreshadowing than you just hate the fact that the story went in that direction. The latter is a fair complaint, as it's subjective. But the foreshadowing IS there and IS real and DOES allow people to come to the correct conclusion, should they choose to think about it. Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it failed.

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You're a very angry person. It worked for me and other people! I feel like you less hate the lack of foreshadowing than you just hate the fact that the story went in that direction. The latter is a fair complaint, as it's subjective. But the foreshadowing IS there and IS real and DOES allow people to come to the correct conclusion, should they choose to think about it. Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it failed.

 

I like being angry when arguing! It's just how I come off, I'm not actually angry, just convictual. I also think it worked, sorta, in a nonexistent way, and not nearly as well as it could have and if you think about it more the less it works. I mean, like I wasn't SUPRISED really, but I did think it didn't work and was stupid. Now the portals cause aging and tumors, only for Comstock though obviously! Not to mention Booker seems to have a big motivation

while Comstock seems to have none but "I kinda hate things"

You also don't know

you're the same, but then suddenly at the end Comstock DOES know, which he's never mentioned

because plot convenience!

 

I'm just disappointed in all the "super convenient plot point that works less and less the more you think about it" is all.

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I like being angry when arguing! It's just how I come off, I'm not actually angry, just convictual. I also think it worked, sorta, in a nonexistent way, and not nearly as well as it could have and if you think about it more the less it works. I mean, like I wasn't SUPRISED really, but I did think it didn't work and was stupid. Now the portals cause aging and tumors, only for Comstock though obviously! Not to mention Booker seems to have a big motivation

while Comstock seems to have none but "I kinda hate things"

You also don't know

you're the same, but then suddenly at the end Comstock DOES know, which he's never mentioned

because plot convenience!

 

I'm just disappointed in all the "super convenient plot point that works less and less the more you think about it" is all.

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.

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This shirt just went up on a popular 24-hour t-shirt website.  Thought it was relevant and amusing.

 

April-11-SongBird_MensMainMockup1_b67.jp

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Speaking of blogs, I'm finding a lot of posts from black people who're PRETTY ANNOYED that racial segregation, and a civil rights uprising, was used to draw people into a sci-fi plot. Also usually upset that everyone just likes it.
I was pretty underwhelmed with the direction the game ended up taking in the end as well, but yea I imagine if I was seriously invested in this stuff I'd have been a lot more offended.

 

EDIT-- Should probably say that I don't think attacking some individual at Kotaku is a very noble thing to do, but ya get where I'm comin from!

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I think they are really really angry, maybe too much so, but it does just return to what Chris says on the past page. If you're going to use historical atrocities as window dressing you better earn it. And in this case, many people feel Bioshock did not.

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This blog post says it pretty well, I think.

 

Racism, and America’s history of it, is as valid a topic as any – but because of its seriousness, it demands to be handled with appropriately critical thought, not used as a coat of paint.  As a result, while I have no doubt that its creators intended otherwise, the presentation comes off to me as irresponsibly careless.

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Did anyone already mention the possible symbolism in the names of several characters besides the Luteces?

 

DeWitt means 'the white' in Dutch.

 

FitzRoy is a surname commonly given to illegitimate royal offspring.

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I haven't read anything in this thread post-release on account of the fact that I don't want to be spoilt, but I've played to the part where I was just pushed off an airship, and god damn it, I wish there was less combat in this game. Every time I come to a new place, I'm both amazed by the beautiful stuff everywhere, and saddened by the fact that it always has to be this fucking combat arena, and it's never any fun. The enemies have too much health, and I have too little ammo.

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I haven't read anything in this thread post-release on account of the fact that I don't want to be spoilt, but I've played to the part where I was just pushed off an airship, and god damn it, I wish there was less combat in this game. Every time I come to a new place, I'm both amazed by the beautiful stuff everywhere, and saddened by the fact that it always has to be this fucking combat arena, and it's never any fun. The enemies have too much health, and I have too little ammo.

 

Brace yourself. Pace yourself.

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