BioShock Infinite

[Joewintergreen]

Whenever I read people's complex explanation of convoluted plots, like with this game, or movies like Inception, at some point I start thinking "did any of the people making this ever even think of this?" It's always easier to evaluate the whole thing after the fact, and get all the pieces to fit – it seems less likely to me that the actual process of writing the story ever involved the kind of deep analysis you sometimes see fans do, especially knowing that big story pieces are often shifted around until very late in production for weird production reasons. I bet Christopher Nolan reads a lot of Inception forum threads and thinks «oh, I never thought about that!»

 

edit: Oh, except for in that movie «Primer» of course.

 

editer: I guess the question I'm having is: At what point does the fan discussion of plot details go past what anyone responsible for the plot has actually considered, and at that point, is the discussion relevant in any way?

To me, it usually doesn't matter to me whether the creators had thought about it in as much depth as the consumers end up doing; it's exciting when somebody creates a world that can support that level of analysis. A favourite example of mine would be fan analyses of the Half-Life series, especially analysing HL1, with fans finding (or thinking they're finding) all kinds of incidental details that are relevant to the plot of the later games. When clearly that game's story was pretty simple and all relation to the plot of the HL2 series is clever retcon. For instance, last week I constructed some elaborate (and goddamned watertight) reasoning for why it turns out the G-man is, in fact,

Gabe Newell

. 

 

I once wrote to Valve for some thoughts on this kind of stuff and here's some of what I got back from one David Speyrer:

 

Anyway, we’ve found that narrative can serve several purposes in a game: it can serve as a refreshing reward for forward progress, it can make the player’s in-game actions matter in a larger context, and it can artfully tell the player what to do next. Of course it should always entertain and try to evoke an emotional response while doing any of these things.

In your game, if players start to feel like the puzzle solving becomes a monotonous grind, or if they feel like they’re solving puzzles for no particular reason, then maybe some story is in order.

Your idea of creating a completely enigmatic plot from your players’ theories is an interesting one. If you try it I’d love to hear how it turns out. Normally we keep the untold parts of our stories as a “possibility space” – we have a few different ideas for what the real story might be and, when need to, we can pick between them, but there’s no reason to commit until we have to. I think (hope) our players sense that underlying craft and structure beneath what we do tell and appreciate our stories more because of it.

 

so that's interesting

[I_smell]

I had that thought when it came to Mass Effect 3. I thought all the "indoctrination theory" stuff was so cool and fun, even though the people at Bioware clearly never intended any of it. It's just a fan-made yarn, it might as well be a fanfic.

 

But I just accepted it! It was fun to think about, and add on to the fiction. So that's part of it for me now.

 

Similarly with Bioshock 1, how people analysed it as this thought excercise in player agency and interactive storytelling. I think it was pretty well covered in interviews that nobody at Irrational intended it, but they're happy people took it a step further and I was pretty interested in hearing that stuff at the time aswel.

I can't accept it with Bioshock Infinite though, for some reason. This mutli-verse stuff feels like a straight-up denial that the game is about anything more interesting, and for some reason it's making me less enthusiastic about spinnin a yarn into what's already there.

[ChattyWhacker]

I guess I might be out of my league here when just saying, "I really liked this game".  I personally enjoyed the combat and story altogether.  My only little nitpick was when I started to realize that the presence of Vigors seemed to be so odd.  From the introduction of them, they seemed to be like they were possibly recently released.  Also, it seemed that no one in the city really wanted to use them.  Not only that but the congestion of a Vigor seems to be traumatizing as an experience.

[malkav11]

I guess I might be out of my league here when just saying, "I really liked this game".  I personally enjoyed the combat and story altogether.  My only little nitpick was when I started to realize that the presence of Vigors seemed to be so odd.  From the introduction of them, they seemed to be like they were possibly recently released.  Also, it seemed that no one in the city really wanted to use them.  Not only that but the congestion of a Vigor seems to be traumatizing as an experience.

 

It never made sense to me in any of the Bioshocks that these largely combat-oriented (especially in Infinite, where I can conceive of no benign use for basically any of the Vigors) magic powers were supposed to be commercially sold to regular people.

[sclpls]

Whenever I read people's complex explanation of convoluted plots, like with this game, or movies like Inception, at some point I start thinking "did any of the people making this ever even think of this?" It's always easier to evaluate the whole thing after the fact, and get all the pieces to fit – it seems less likely to me that the actual process of writing the story ever involved the kind of deep analysis you sometimes see fans do, especially knowing that big story pieces are often shifted around until very late in production for weird production reasons. I bet Christopher Nolan reads a lot of Inception forum threads and thinks «oh, I never thought about that!»

 

edit: Oh, except for in that movie «Primer» of course.

 

editer: I guess the question I'm having is: At what point does the fan discussion of plot details go past what anyone responsible for the plot has actually considered, and at that point, is the discussion relevant in any way?

Authorial intent is nice and all, but ultimately a particular reading or interpretation is supported by the facts of the narrative or it isn't, or some interpretations are slightly more plausible than others. Authors aren't always the best judges of their own work, although I would tend to agree that some of the hyper-focused readings we sometimes see from super-fans end up sounding like more of a stretch than a more naturalist/less literal approach.

[Dirk Anger]

Whenever I read people's complex explanation of convoluted plots, like with this game, or movies like Inception, at some point I start thinking "did any of the people making this ever even think of this?" It's always easier to evaluate the whole thing after the fact, and get all the pieces to fit – it seems less likely to me that the actual process of writing the story ever involved the kind of deep analysis you sometimes see fans do, especially knowing that big story pieces are often shifted around until very late in production for weird production reasons. I bet Christopher Nolan reads a lot of Inception forum threads and thinks «oh, I never thought about that!»

I'm not sure about "deep analysis", but the plot in Bioshock Infinite is pretty damn consistent, whatever else one might think about it. There are clues right from the start about what's going on. One of the first objects the player encounters in the game is a bowl of water with an attached sign that reads "Wash away your sins", after all.

[Sno]

Having played through Infinite a few times now, i'm quite confident that the game has a consistent internal logic.

I feel like there's enough foreshadowing and detail in the periphery to pretty clearly support a specific reading of its events.

The ending, ultimately, is still ambiguous, but i've never agreed with sentiments about endings needing to spoon feed people answers. (I also felt the ending works as an emotional resolution, and i think that's much more important.)

[Twig]

Having played through Infinite a few times now, i'm quite confident that the game has a consistent internal logic. The only part of the game that feels ambiguous to me is the ending, and that seems by design to me.

I would agree entirely!

[Sno]

Curses, i am never safe when editing a post!

[I Saw Dasein]

Having played through Infinite a few times now, i'm quite confident that the game has a consistent internal logic.

I feel like there's enough foreshadowing and detail in the periphery to pretty clearly support a specific reading of its events.

The ending, ultimately, is still ambiguous, but i've never agreed with sentiments about endings needing to spoon feed people answers. (I also felt the ending works as an emotional resolution, and i think that's much more important.)

I don't need an ending to spoon-feed me an answer, but I don't like it when an ending throws the rest of the story's logic out the window. So, Booker "replacing" Comstock (rather than existing alongside him as happens in every other part of the story) just makes no sense at all. It's a total reversal of the logic the story has presented thus far regarding multiple universes. I know, Elizabeth has magic powers, but that's a classic deus ex machina resolution and therefore pretty annoying in my opinion.

 

I also didn't feel any real emotional resonance. Booker is such a cipher that it was hard for me to feel anything for him at all. Elizabeth is more interesting, but the resolution of the story means that the Elizabeth you come to know is actually voided: the only Elizabeth that remains is Elizabeth as a baby, and I don't care about Elizabeth as a baby. Booker cares about Elizabeth as a baby (I guess), but Booker is barely a character, so who really cares what Booker wants? Not I. 

 

e: also if you think about it, by preventing Comstock from ever coming to be and preventing Columbia from existing in the first place, all of the people you encounter in Columbia ceased to be: all of those memories, consciousnesses, and selves are wiped out forever. That basically amounts to an appalling multiple-dimensional genocide. Way to go, family De Witt!

[Sno]

So we're not worried about spoilers anymore?

I don't need an ending to spoon-feed me an answer, but I don't like it when an ending throws the rest of the story's logic out the window. So, Booker "replacing" Comstock (rather than existing alongside him as happens in every other part of the story) just makes no sense at all. It's a total reversal of the logic the story has presented thus far regarding multiple universes. I know, Elizabeth has magic powers, but that's a classic deus ex machina resolution and therefore pretty annoying in my opinion.

So my interpretation of the ending is... That it is worth asking why Comstock and Booker can coexist instead of replacing eachother when they're the same person, that seems to be inherently breaking the rules of this universe. The leap of logic i've been making is that, in the rules of this universe, they have become sufficiently different enough from eachother that they do not overlap.

In that context, i think the ending is Elizabeth taking Booker back to a point where they do, where Booker can die as Comstock in a universe where Booker was going to accept the baptism.

I also believe that, as shown in the ending, that same series of events is playing out infinitely, simultaneously. Many bookers dying in many universes to change history such that Comstock drowning in his baptism becomes a constant.

 

Leaving a new version of Booker to live out his life with Anna. (Presumably as a drunkard and a terrible father, unless you want to believe he somehow remembers Columbia and changes for the better because of his experiences.)

I mean, but that's just my own interpretation of the ending, i definitely feel that it's far too ambiguous to be sure about what's actually happening. I strongly feel that the rest of the game is consistent in its logic, though.

e: also if you think about it, by preventing Comstock from ever coming to be and preventing Columbia from existing in the first place, all of the people you encounter in Columbia ceased to be: all of those memories, consciousnesses, and selves are wiped out forever. That basically amounts to an appalling multiple-dimensional genocide. Way to go family De Witt!

Well, this is just the inherent problem with any time travel story, that it's fundamentally a profoundly selfish action.

Though Infinite pretty clearly establishes that Columbia is not a place with a positive future in the world.

[ChattyWhacker]

I don't need an ending to spoon-feed me an answer, but I don't like it when an ending throws the rest of the story's logic out the window. So, Booker "replacing" Comstock (rather than existing alongside him as happens in every other part of the story) just makes no sense at all. It's a total reversal of the logic the story has presented thus far regarding multiple universes. I know, Elizabeth has magic powers, but that's a classic deus ex machina resolution and therefore pretty annoying in my opinion.

 

I also didn't feel any real emotional resonance. Booker is such a cipher that it was hard for me to feel anything for him at all. Elizabeth is more interesting, but the resolution of the story means that the Elizabeth you come to know is actually voided: the only Elizabeth that remains is Elizabeth as a baby, and I don't care about Elizabeth as a baby. Booker cares about Elizabeth as a baby (I guess), but Booker is barely a character, so who really cares what Booker wants? Not I. 

 

e: also if you think about it, by preventing Comstock from ever coming to be and preventing Columbia from existing in the first place, all of the people you encounter in Columbia ceased to be: all of those memories, consciousnesses, and selves are wiped out forever. That basically amounts to an appalling multiple-dimensional genocide. Way to go, family De Witt!

Interesting, I never really took the thought that traversal into different realities would replace their alternate selfs.  I did remember hearing that the dissapearance of Elizabeth in the martyr reality was due to her traversal along with you there.  Also, after retrospect, the finale also suggests that as well.  However, I took the notion that alternate forms could coincide different realities with the Lutece twins as a prime example.  Why Elizabeth wasn't in her tower might have been due to something other than reality swapping.  Oh great, now my head is getting numb.

[Dirk Anger]

Relevant to this discussion:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/7124-Shock-Treatment

I think Chipman has a point. All the high-concept stuff? Diversion!

 

[Twig]

Heyyyy that pretty much sums up my entire position. Hurray I don't feel so alone anymore!

[Sno]

That's pretty much how i feel about Infinite's story as well.

I enjoy things that i agree with.

[I_smell]

The part about Booker and Comstock being two different methods of paving over your own hideous mistakes is cool.

 

But all this nonsense about INTENTIONALLY DISTRACTING EVERYONE from this one kind-of interesting interpretation is a fat load o wishful-thinking baloney. That's a hundred million dollars-worth of about 4 years game development- for what? Making sure nobody got it? 99% of the whole game was a red herring for one under-developed commentary on being sad?

That's not the game ya played, buddy. You played the racism-multiverse thing. It was fun, and cool, and very pretty, but analyses it's own lore more than it does any facet of the human condition. Spade's a spade!

[Twig]

It was fun, and cool, and very pretty, but analyses it's own lore more than it does any facet of the human condition.

So it achieved its goal.

[I_smell]

Yeah if you ask me!

[Twig]

What I don't get is "99% of the whole game was a red herring for one under-developed commentary on being sad?".

[Sno]

The part about Booker and Comstock being two different methods of paving over your own hideous mistakes is cool.

 

But all this nonsense about INTENTIONALLY DISTRACTING EVERYONE from this one kind-of interesting interpretation is a fat load o wishful-thinking baloney. That's a hundred million dollars-worth of about 4 years game development- for what? Making sure nobody got it? 99% of the whole game was a red herring for one under-developed commentary on being sad?

That's not the game ya played, buddy. You played the racism-multiverse thing. It was fun, and cool, and very pretty, but analyses it's own lore more than it does any facet of the human condition. Spade's a spade!

To clarify, I don't think the game boring of its sociopolitical themes is some grand sleight of hand on the part of the developers, as is asserted by the video above.

Now, I still think it's actually a valid reading, but it means weird things for the game, because while that's maybe the narrative the game ended up at, it doesn't feel like it's necessarily what it set out to be.

I, however, definitely feel that there is a character story at Infinite's core and that it runs strong and central throughout. (I feel that even Comstock, who seems underdeveloped in a first playthrough, kind of reveals himself in subsequent analysis.)

[toblix]

Dear diary, after six days it's become clear that the best part, by far, of Bioshock Infinite, is the music. I still keep this page open in a tab for when I need another hit of «Will the Circle ...» or «God Only Knows.» Hearing the music instantly brings back my best memories of Columbia and my mind is filled with clear blue sky and giant waving banners, which is a great way to remember this game. I guess I'm one of those people who sort their memories by sound and music.

[Tanukitsune]

OK, I know I'm probably one of the last people hear to play the game, but it wasn't in my price range until the recent sale and...

 

I'm having mixed feelings with the game, the game really wore me down with the most obvious "let's stall for time because gamers are babies that have brainwashed into liking longer games so we'll think of some stupid reason to make the game longer" when 

right before opening the door to Compton's house you have to do a quest where you have to get her wife's arm and she's somehow alive aand you need here memories and you have to fight the most tedious battle ever.

 

And then 

the creepy masked men area where you have to rescue Elizabeth happened, it was pretty amazing, but obviously the game had to become a shooter again. It was also brilliant that the moment you realize that you've changed Elizabeth is when the game shows you how Elizabeth will turn out because of you.

 

The game has so many amazing moment, but so many things that don't make sense, why does Elizabeth even need us if she can open portals? Why does she trust us? She's also the most amazing secondary character ever, she doesn't fight, but she kept saving the day with throwing whatever I need my way, telling when see sees something interesting and telling me in a very obvious way that there is an optional area over there and if we continue we won't be able to see it.

 

But the ending...

 

WHAT?! WHAT?!

I know there are parallel universes but how does the ending even work? They totally pulled a VLR on me! How can Slate know who I am and Compton at the same time? In a way it makes sense that he says Comstock didn't do any of the fighting because Compton was "cleansed of the sins of the war", but how can Slate know who I am and not be completely confused by the situation? Did he know Booker was Comstock for a parallel universe? But still, were in the future aren't we? Should Booker realized Slate was older that he should be? HOW DID BOOKER NOT NOTICE COMSTOCK WAS JUST HIM OLDER! How did nobody else notice he looked like a younger Comstock?!

 

Why did he have to die? Sure it's at the baptism where Comstock is born, but if you stop the baptism he would never be born! I guess this mean Elizabeth is dead since Booker never lived to have her... so who sent him back in time to kill himself? That's a pretty big time paradox.

 

The Bioshock part almost annoyed (and amazed me at the same time), they might as well have SHODAN appear.

 

This is why I called it "pulled a VLR", not only because it's the same ending in a way "I was the bad guy all along, kinda", but because it's trying to blow my mind so hard that when it fails it fails so hard.

 

As a non-American I was aware of America having bathrooms for "colored" people back in those days, but... they were "racist" to the Irish too? I was so baffled to find out it was true. I know this was probably all because they don't want you to feel bad when you start murdering everyone, but still. :|

[melmer]

I'm really looking forward to the Bioshock infinite DLC...

 

SIKE

 

This franchise is so dead to me now

 

Which is weird as when i finished the game, i was looking forward to replaying it again someday. Hopefully on the PS4 as a 'game of the year edition' with shit hot graphical upgrades and all DLC included

 

But since then i've read and listened to so many people shit on this game that its majorly altered my view on it. And another massive factor is that since than i have played the (best) last (game) of (ever) us

 

After the DLC do you think we'll ever see Ken doing anything in video games again?

[Tanukitsune]

I just realized I could finally watch that "Movie Bob" video that was linked, but... I don't get his view.

 

Accepting responsibilities? The time warp messed up his memory so that he thought the time when he gave Anna away was now and he never had Anna, for Booker it's accepting what really happened. I don't why but it seems his brain readjusted himself to justify his presence in the future.

 

Accepting reality and responsibility are not always the same, Comstock did accept the responsibilities of his atrocities at war, he seems more than happy to kill the impure.

 

The thing about "accepting responsibilities" is that different people can have different views on what responsibilities each other person has, so some may view this very differently. Some may say Booker was a drunkard because he couldn't accept what he did and other can say he had accepted it and that's WHY he's a drunken gambler.

[dibs]

I picked it up as well. I figure for twenty quite it will be worth it, but I'm far more looking forward to the dishonours dlc I got for two fifty.