Idle Thumbs 100: King Chromin' For A Day

[Claire Hosking]

Just on why Over-the-top Columbia seems so much less offensive than the Over-the-top of Baz Lurhmann films. I agree that the free camera makes a huge difference, since certain cinematography seems to presume certain reactions and that's insulting. I think it's also that the over-the-topness (glowing letters etc) is in character for Columbia whereas in a Baz Luhrmann film over-the-top is a function of Baz's manipulativeness, not his characters'. 

Two, I think it's also the style. Columbia's art direction, even when it was laying it on most thickly, had a kind of fineness about it, a delicacy. Baz's chunkiness to it, an aggressive flashiness.

 

Maybe it's the interactivity of video games that make it this way, it might also be the way that art directors have a more direct hand in the construction of assets than in film. 

[Chris]

yeah, i think there are a lot of things that can be predicted by trends, but any time a game has any kind of freedom of choice (including basic things like where you are looking) you can't rely on a trend to predict what people are going to do, you either have to accommodate for everything or force the player to do something, which i guess is why the coin toss isn't the players choice

Well, they still have to accommodate for everything--there are two possible choices, and the game has account for both of them. They could have made it be always heads or always tails, but they didn't. They still made the possibility of either outcome, it's just up to the game and not the player to determine which. So my best guess is still that they just wanted to enforce variety within the player base as a whole.

 

Jake: I think that reading would make more sense if there were other moments in the game like this, but it doesn't seem like there are. (The rest of the moments where Booker does his own thing are just standard cutsceney bits, whereas this scene has direct analogues throughout the game that are player-driven.) If that was indeed the intention, it seems like a really soft way to make the point to me. But hey who knows. (I don't!)

[melmer]

Has anyone mentioned the new music? I'm going to mention the new music. Chris i noticed the new music. I''m not a big lover of change

 

 

No but seriously the music was different

[Jake]

Jake: I think that reading would make more sense if there were other moments in the game like this, but it doesn't seem like there are. (The rest of the moments where Booker does his own thing are just standard cutsceney bits, whereas this scene has direct analogues throughout the game that are player-driven.) If that was indeed the intention, it seems like a really soft way to make the point to me. But hey who knows. (I don't!)

That's a good point. What I wrote up there was my impression when I started playing the game, and it stuck and was never reassessed as I got further in.

[sclpls]

The talk about how Comstock isn't so in the player's face the same way Andrew Ryan was in the original Bioshock was a good point, but I also think once you finish the game you will find that there was a pretty solid reason for making Comstock a more distant character.

[BigJKO]

Was the intro music a mix of the various different versions of the past or was I imagining things?

 

Also, iPhone's podcast app has been updated to something slightly more usable (no skeumorphism). Although I already kinda miss the big ol' useless tape player..

[pabosher]

Downcast is pretty great as far as Podcast apps on iPhones go.

[Badfinger]

That's a good point. What I wrote up there was my impression when I started playing the game, and it stuck and was never reassessed as I got further in.

 

I think I can safely say without spoiling anything that by the time you reach the end of the game, there will be a few moments that very likely reinforce your position that Booker is Booker and not you.

[Jake]

I think I can safely say without spoiling anything that by the time you reach the end of the game, there will be a few moments that very likely reinforce your position that Booker is Booker and not you.

Sure, but not measurably differently than BioShock 1 guy is BioShock 1 guy and not you.

[Chris]

The talk about how Comstock isn't so in the player's face the same way Andrew Ryan was in the original Bioshock was a good point, but I also think once you finish the game you will find that there was a pretty solid reason for making Comstock a more distant character.

I don't think that's it for me. Having worked on the game for a while I'm already familiar with the plot stuff you're talking about; but just on his own merits he's still not as compelling a character as Ryan to me.

[darthbator]

I think that's because Ryan was the character basically driving the philosophical angle of Bioshock 1. He was the character that most personified the idea of objectivism.  I do not feel Comstock is the character exemplifying the core idea of Infinite. He's just "the bad guy" in many many respects. I'm dancing around spoilers here but since you know what's coming maybe you get where I'm coming from?

 

 

Sure, but not measurably differently than BioShock 1 guy is BioShock 1 guy and not you.

 

I'm not so sure about that. Maybe I just read to deeply into these sort of things but in games with those silent protagonists I always feel the developer is going to extra mile to try and really tie "me" into that character. Aside from any story line mumbojumbo Booker espouses a perspective on this world. He's a present character that is contesting for my attention. Bioshcok 1 dude doesn't have any perspective on anything. I'm assigning all of that to him. I can't even remember Bioshock guys name... 

 

So I guess in the stream of the story both of those dudes are those dudes (Booker and Bioshock man). However experentially I feel that Bioshock man was more me. It's one of the reasons I feel that game worked better for me. My avatar was never telling me how to interpret anything. 

[I Saw Dasein]

I think Comstock is seriously underwritten. I didn't understand his motivations at all. 

 

What does have against Sodom, anyway? Sodom rules!

 

I wonder what, if anything, the name Comstock is referencing. I think it might be a reference the Comstock Lode, a deposit of silver ore in Nevada where a bunch of people (including George Hearst) made their fortunes. So maybe Comstock took his name after the mine? AFAIK the game never explains how Comstock struck it rich. There is also a lot of silver lying around Columbia. 

[melmer]

?

[osmosisch]

My first thought re: Comstock is to think of Cryptonomicon honestly.

[Badfinger]

Sure, but not measurably differently than BioShock 1 guy is BioShock 1 guy and not you.

I was generally just responding to your comment up the page, that I agree with you there could be motivations to establish Booker as his own character.

 

I'm also not sure I agree with you about that. I never finished Bioshock 1, so I started it up a day or so after I finished Infinite.  Just the difference of the player-character being addressed as "Booker/Mr. DeWitt" rather than just YOU is a noticeable change to me. I also think the plot helps reinforce that. You enter Infinite with Booker already embarking on his journey, and with his motivations clearly established. Bioshock The First begins with a plane crash, where the only internal character motivation is to not die.

[thainatos]

The Errant Signal guy nailed it. The previous Shocks created a ludic language that Infinite blithely ignores, seemingly for the sake of a dog and pony show. That dog and pony and the Shyamalan-esque plot remind me particularly of Spec Ops The Line, which I think we all quietly agreed was only just barely worth a discussion.

 

Top of page edit: I'm really glad Nick is back. Sucks he couldn't make it to episode 100.

[I Saw Dasein]

Here's a link to the Errant Signal transcript. It came up in the Bioshock:Infinite thread. He or she has some interesting points, although I disagree with a lot of them. The phrase "ludic language" should not be a thing though, because Ludic is an actual literal language, and so I was very confused for a second there. 

[mikemariano]

Finally listened to this episode.  There aren't enough vomiting spiral smileys to show my reaction to Jake saying "When that skyhook goes into the police officer's head for the first time..." and I'm glad you all were able to talk about both the good and the gross of Bioshock Infinite because I would never get past that sentence as a player.

 

And Chris, Cave of Forgotten Dreams was the only film I saw where the 3D was necessary.  There were mind-blowing shots of cave paintings where I realized that some of these images were painted directly onto curved rock, and I would have no idea about that without the 3D. It makes you appreciate how complicated these paintings are.

 

On Herzog's first trip into the cave, he was only permitted to bring a 2D camera, and for some reason they post-processed that footage with fake 3D. It's hilarious how bad post-processed looks when compared to actual, filmed 3D footage.

 

And PS, if there's any crowd to ask, it's this one: is the post-processing of Jurassic Park 3D any good?  If I have never enjoyed a post-processed 3D movie, did they spare no expense for this release?

[Twig]

The skyhook kills are so cartoonish that I can't even begin to feel disgusted by them. Fair enough if it bothers you, but I am just laughing at it when it happens. Literally, if I recall correctly!

[darthbator]

Did Bioshcok really create some "ludic language?". That game was famous for coining the term ludonarrative dissonance. Bioshock's 1 mechanical narrative is totally divergent from it's explicit story narrative. There are other reasons why it's great, but I don't think establishing some kind of "gameplay narration language" was one of them.

[osmosisch]

Spec Ops The Line, which I think we all quietly agreed was only just barely worth a discussion.

The thread here got some pretty interesting discussion as I recall. I think you're selling it short.

[Badfinger]

The thread here got some pretty interesting discussion as I recall. I think you're selling it short.

 

I agree. The reason Spec Ops WAS worth discussing was the plot and story. As a game, it was basically functional enough to propel you through the story parts.

[Corelli]

Did Bioshcok really create some "ludic language?". That game was famous for coining the term ludonarrative dissonance. Bioshock's 1 mechanical narrative is totally divergent from it's explicit story narrative. There are other reasons why it's great, but I don't think establishing some kind of "gameplay narration language" was one of them.

"Ludic language" is an umbrella term that applies to anything with mechanics, really. Bioshock didn't "coin" ludonarrativic dissonance; that term was around for a long time before that and can apply to any number of games.

Any game creates its own ludic language (or ludology) in the sense that its ludology is derived from the combination of mechanics the game employs; it's not something that's specific to any one game.

Edit: clarity

[malkav11]

I just wanted to say that as far as I'm concerned Bioshock Infinite is every bit as much a a horror game as Bioshock 1, honestly a tad more so. Which is to say, it isn't really -about- horror the way, say, Dead Space is, but it replaces the overt wrongness and unease of Bioshock's fallen utopia inhabited by rabid mutants and maniacs with subtler hints that things are very wrong in and around Columbia. More so the tear-related phenomena, but also the casual racism and cultish fundamentalism made my skin crawl. And a certain near-final area was far creepier to me than anything in the first Bioshock.

[elmuerte]

Mass Effect is more horror than Bioshock Infinite (BI). BI is more like Lethal Weapon, where Bioshock 1 is more like Aliens. (i.e. action vs horrory) Sure, BI has gore, but except for the asylum part there is nothing in BI that gives a horror like vibe¹.

 

 

¹Jeff Goldbum fact: He stared in a movie called "vibes"