BioShock Infinite

[Nappi]

Just finished the game. Seems like everything I was about to say has been mentioned already. Oh well..

 

First of all, I really enjoyed all the AAA+ polish: the superb visuals, the beautiful music, the gorgeous signs and posters - even stupid little things like the creepy twins, the super crisp UI and the sound that marked the end of each gunfight. The areas and encounters were generally well designed, expect for the Comstock house and the Boys of Silence which felt really out of place, in my opinion.

 

The gameplay wasn't nearly as frustrating as I had feared - I actually liked most of the gunfights. I can see how some people may find normal difficulty way too easy, but I enjoyed the relatively smooth sailing and the lack of huge difficulty spikes it provided. I only died a couple of times and always because I wasn't paying enough attention to my surroundings in a regular gunfight. The first Siren encounter, for example, lasted me approximately 20 seconds, thanks to the fully upgraded Devils Kiss and Repeater. That was perfectly fine by me, because a proper Siren fight seems quite dull and frustrating.

 

Early on I found a delightfully racist Voxaphone recording and thought the story might be getting somewhere interesting. It soon turned out that this wasn't going to happen. I started wondering why I was expecting that much from the game. Then I realized I would expect more from a fucking high school play, and felt really sad for a while. After that, the story didn't really hold my interest and I wasn't actively seeking answer to all the questions that I should have had.

 

The city was pretty wonderful though. I'm really looking forward to the DLC!

[I_smell]

Errant Signal is a video show where some clever fella talks about video games. I reccomend it!

 

Bioshock Infinite episode

 

Basically a lot of the same conversation we just had over this thread.

[youmeyou]

Yup. I posted it a few pages back.

[melmer]

I came across a funny little bug

Those two guys that try and mug you in the shanty town. Well, I fucked them up with crows, leaving a bloated crows nest corpse trap.

Jump to alternate dimension, heralded as hero to the vox populi, returning to the bar area there's a group of people watching fitzroy on a blip, someone triggers my inter dimensional crow trap and I end up having to murder everyone... Again!

It's a bit silly that your traps are still lying around when you've traveled across space and time

[Frenetic Pony]

Just came up with a better ending:

 

First you'd have to have Comstock look more like DeWitt, no copping out and making him older and not even look like an older DeWitt.

 

Second, you'd have to have Comstock have an actual motivation. "I have been sent by god to judge the wartorn sinners below, the world will end in flame to be reborn anew!" Something like that, actually define the plan and goals more than vague stuff, and... there's needs to be some explanation for why he becomes the 1912 version of Hitler, have him wronged by... a black irishman or something. DeWitt isn't racist, so there needs to be some explanation for why Comstock is.

 

Third, where it gets important. When fighting Slate, Slate should have been totally out of it. "What, DeWitt, but... how are YOU here?" He should have thought he was going totally mad "They, called me mad? Maybe they are right... you are just as I remember you, here to give me a soldier's death!"

 

It could have worked to sell Slate as seeing you as some alternate, not Comstock DeWitt, instead of what was in there. After all, he knows you as Comstock in this universe, there should be some acknowledgement of how weird that is rather than none at all, or rather worse that he somehow acknowledges you as Comstock "you can't erase your past" despite you not being Comstock at all. It was as bad as the Star Wars prequels, like he read the entire script and decided to say something dramatic rather than believable and coherent.

 

Fourth, when it comes to the ending.

 

Sitting on the boat again, for the first time. The twins "Odd, she's trying to find the breaking point." "Can she do it? I didn't think it could be done." "The more important question is, if she can would we know?" "I guess we'll find out" "Or not, as it were." You get up and go to the baptism scene, but DeWitt doen't remember it at all. When offered the baptism he asks "What, why would I be here? I can't just, dip myself in some water and get rid of what I did. No one can forgive me for that!" Elizabeth "Huh, you refused... We're almost there though."

You go onto the boat again, but this time DeWitt says something "What, where... why am I here? I..." his nose starts to bleed, and you can see it on his hands "Why are you... I know this but..." The twins "Is it working?" "If so how?" "I think it works like this, toss a marble into a box, there's an infinite number of ways it could go, each bump, each tiny cranny, each little spin." "Well obviously." "But toss it into a smaller box..." "There's still an infinite number of ways to bump and spin and what have you." "Yes, but it's a smaller box. The infinite number of ways has still become less."

 

You enter the baptism scene, and react differently this time. "I... remember, this?" You are offered the baptism, and upon accepting "Yes, yes god could forgive me." And the multiple Elizabeth's appear, and so does a zappy DeWitt. The same DeWitt that refused the baptism. "-What, why should I be here- wait, is that... me?" as he's looking down. Elizabeth "It was" "It wasn't." "It isn't." "It's what could have been you." "It was Booker DeWitt" "And now is Comstock." Other Booker "And I, am not?"

 

Fade to Credits.

 

It would have made a lot more sense. From a physics perspective (I'd explain if anyone really wanted me to) and from a story perspective. Having Slate realize some fuckery is going on. Having Comstock and DeWitt seem more like two people that could have been, rather than two completely different people, one non religious and not racist and only approaching middle age and not proud of what he's done, the other the complete opposite of all that.

 

Anyway, that's my take on all that.

[melmer]

Irrational could have made an easy buck with DLC...

alternate reality clothes and hair DLC for Elizabeth, so each time you played through the game she could look a little different and you can imagine you're playing another one of the alternate realities

Some people would definitely spend 100 Microsoft bucks to get 2010 Elizabeth with straight fringe

[I_smell]

Yup. I posted it a few pages back.

Oh, duh, that's why I had it bookmarked then.

 

For DLC I genuinely wanted the most unrealistic thing to happen:

SHOW A DIFFERENT LIGHTHOUSE WITH A DIFFERENT CITY!

In that ending I was waiting for quick glimpses of like-- Bioshock on the moon, and Bioshock underground, and Bioshock 3000. At least for them to show different light-houses. I thought that's where all that talk was going!

but of course that's a billion dollars-worth of work.

[Laxan]

I disagree with your first point Frenetic.

I could totally see Booker in Comstock. I was able to call the ending by the scene where Anna's being taken through the portal just based on how much Comstock was Booker with a beard. Maybe elderly Comstock was a new model entirely, but middle-age Comstock was definitely built from Booker.

If they made it any more obvious then they'd risk ruining the surprise earlier. It's probably better to fall on the "too hard to spot" side than the "too easy".

[Twig]

Oh, duh, that's why I had it bookmarked then.

 

For DLC I genuinely wanted the most unrealistic thing to happen:

SHOW A DIFFERENT LIGHTHOUSE WITH A DIFFERENT CITY!

In that ending I was waiting for quick glimpses of like-- Bioshock on the moon, and Bioshock underground, and Bioshock 3000. At least for them to show different light-houses. I thought that's where all that talk was going!

but of course that's a billion dollars-worth of work.

Haha yeah I was kind of expecting that too.

 

I'm curious to see if they'll do another lighthouse game after this or if they'll just move away from it entirely. As much as I do like Infinite, I feel like the lighthouse aspect would cheapen any future games that would take place in that fiction. At least, if they continue to make manshooters.

 

WHOA I ALMOST LEFT THAT UNSPOILERED

[melmer]

How your meeting with Comstock should have gone

[I_smell]

lol that's amazing, whatever the hell that is.

 

Y'know what tripped me up in this game? Hummingbirds. When you first get baptised, there are hummingbirds flying around you in the garden, and they're also in Comstock House at the end for some reason. There's a bunch of signs that point towards "The Atrium", and also there's a Kinetiscope called "Hummingbirds" that's just a video of them... I think they show up just enough for it to be significant.

I read that hummingbirds can't actually fly that high, so they must be bred on the city somewhere... or something.

It feels like a twist or some piece of exposition that got cut, but these assets are still around.

 

EDIT-- Y'know what I just realised that they're really good at hovering in mid-air. I bet it was something to do with that.

[melmer]

When I saw that hummingbird I thought it was a glitch until I realised it was a hummingbird.

I think hummingbirds can fly upside down - possibly fact (maybe)

[Corelli]

I just went back to this stuff and really remembered that Columbia is a great, original, weird, fun city and the first half of the game is actually amazing.

 

 

It's a shame they didn't "blow you away" with where the game eventually goes, but all credit to em; where it starts off totally did, and is one of the best game settings around.

That arrangement is so great.

[Twig]

It really is fantastic.

[Chris]

Yep. Possibly my favorite single asset in the entire game?? God it's so good.

[Joewintergreen]

This is weird, but hearing that song in the Levine talk from GDC was the thing that took me from "no care" to "I will buy this".

[osmosisch]

My favourite is the vocal rendition of Fortunate Son.

[Merus]

The thing that bugs me is that they're hearing a song from 1979 in 1912, on the other side of feminism. Hell, they haven't even had flappers yet. Wouldn't it be sort of weird for them?

 

I mean, it can be easily rationalised away, but still. Kind of bugs me.

[Nappi]

Lack of lyrics helps, I guess.

 

Anyway, the soundtrack is fantastic.

[Twig]

There are no vocals. The premise is that...

Fink(?) is hearing songs from the future through a tear in his apartment, and converting them to his-time style. He's greedy, and doesn't care one way or the other what the actual song is about. He's just making money.

It completely works within the context of the game. There, now it doesn't bug you!

[squagle]

Finished this last night and finally listened to the last cast, agree with just about everything. The Leigh Alexander piece linked previously was spot on too. I kept wishing I could holster my gun in the parts where I'm wandering around just soaking in the ambiance and don't want to feel like a thug/mass murderer.

[youmeyou]

The thing that bugs me is that they're hearing a song from 1979 in 1912, on the other side of feminism. Hell, they haven't even had flappers yet. Wouldn't it be sort of weird for them?

 

I mean, it can be easily rationalised away, but still. Kind of bugs me.

 

Well you do murder a lot of female cops, so the music isn't the only forward-thinking element of an otherwise puritanical society.

[darthbator]

I never thought about that at all until you made that post...

 

Also I found these this morning! This totally cements the audio design brilliance of this game to me.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xVv19TCBifQ

 

 

I can't figure out how youtube embedding works here... I have failed...

[I_smell]

I think Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is actually turning out to be my favourite one, cos it best represents the idea of being COMPLETELY unaware of who wrote the song, or why, or what it's about, but also being quite pleased with how it sounds.

You can still hear that the music has ups and downs, but through this context it just sounds blindly nice from start to finish. It perfectly feels like being on the beach in Columbia.

 

This really grew on me, cos I didn't even notice it in the game.

[osmosisch]

This made me laugh:

http://www.cracked.com/video_18568_why-explaining-new-bioshock-isnt-worth-it.html