Willkiller
Banned
Reading this post-Infinite is giving me the giggles.
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SPOILER Bioshock Infinite SPOILER discussion
- Thread starter thomasmahler
- Start date
Reading this post-Infinite is giving me the giggles.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Does anyone else have a hard time believing that Comstalk (Coleslaw, Comcast), or the players "inter dimensional Booker" would REALLY go forth with taking Bookers daughter, and seeing all of the fucked up shit he did, just because of the baptism?
I mean I get that the story has to be told to us somehow, but I would think that right after the Elizabeths help him finally understand, he would do something along the lines of never interacting with anyone from the events of Bioshock Infinite again.
We have discussed this before, so no problem if you guys are tired of it, but I have developed this goal of understanding the ending in the best way possible, and I can't accept many questions.
I mean I get that the story has to be told to us somehow, but I would think that right after the Elizabeths help him finally understand, he would do something along the lines of never interacting with anyone from the events of Bioshock Infinite again.
We have discussed this before, so no problem if you guys are tired of it, but I have developed this goal of understanding the ending in the best way possible, and I can't accept many questions.
The Elite
BOSS
I believe it. Faith can be a very powerful catalyst. The glimpses he had of potential futures probably fueled his need to have a child so they could be fulfilled. When he discovered he couldn't then he asked the Luteces to bring him one from Booker's world.
I find it funny that at no point in the game did I click that Liz could be Booker's daughter.
I mean, you have propaganda about Comstock gaining a daughter overnight, even though he is sterile. Then you have random flashbacks and mentions of Booker having a daughter. He even mentions his wife dies during childbirth, and when asked he says he has no child.
Yet I STILL didn't put two and two together. I cannot wait for a second playthrough!
I mean, you have propaganda about Comstock gaining a daughter overnight, even though he is sterile. Then you have random flashbacks and mentions of Booker having a daughter. He even mentions his wife dies during childbirth, and when asked he says he has no child.
Yet I STILL didn't put two and two together. I cannot wait for a second playthrough!
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
But all the scenes of torturing Elizabeth, there is no way a shred of him could sympathize with these people he hurts? After everything he has seen, more than a hundred times?
Or has his dimensional travels rendered his opinion of all these people as expendable, since seeing the lighthouse multiverse makes everything look insignificant next to him?
The Elite
BOSS
He thinks everything he is doing is for the greater good and in service of God/Columbia. There's one recording/announcement that discusses the necessity for cruelty. He believes cruelty can be used as a tool.
I don't believe Comstock ever saw the multiverse stuff. That was just plain old Booker.
Variables and Constants! It's something that the Lutece twins are emphasizing throughout the entire game. A lot of the choices you make in the game during your encounter with the twins have to do with that theme. For example:
Variable: Liz's Pendent. Bird or Cage?
Constant: Coin flip result. Always Heads.
This later ties into later themes of the story:
Variable: Booker OR Comstock
Constant: Booker AND Comstock
Circle Jerk
Member
So I guess Bioshock 1 and 2 almost mirror those of Infinite. Andrew Ryan and Jack as Comstock and Booker, one person leading two different lives. Sophie Lamb and Fitzroy as the female champions of the poor. Elenaor Lamb as Elizabeth, with the multiple endings of Bioshock 2 echoing the paths Elizabeth can/does go down- embracing her father and becoming evil or good. Kinda amazing how deep Levine went, even incorporating a game he didn't really have anything to do with. Or I'm reading too deep.
Just finished it, head frazzled, tempted to write long post about it but not sure. Initial thought is that tears allow the story to be as silly as possible and it somewhat jumped off the deep end when it didnt have to.
Had a huge fucking smile on my face when we went back to rapture though.
Had a huge fucking smile on my face when we went back to rapture though.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
I think you are reading into it fine.
If he didn't want a connection, he wouldn't have bothered putting Rapture in the end. I honestly can't imagine him sitting there, writing this scene thinking, "Well, the fans are going to come to all of THESE conclusions that are wrong, but i'll just write this in, just as something special and pointless for them."
That doesn't make any sense.
"There will always be a lighthouse. There will always be a city."
feel free to post your thoughts about the ending, and if you have any questions many of us experts would be glad to help out
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
feel free to post your thoughts about the ending, and if you have any questions many of us experts would be glad to help out
Thank you for that video link you posted earlier, I enjoyed the hell out of that.
feel free to post your thoughts about the ending, and if you have any questions many of us experts would be glad to help out
I believe I understand the ending, I think I understand 90% of what went on, im not sure I like it though, I am slightly paused to post my thoughts because people may think it baiting.
So. I watched the video that was linked in this thread couple of times.
Apart from being of a bit low production quality and a tad too long, it actually presents the best explanation/version of events in terms of timeline that is actually explains the bit after the credits just fine. And provides more of a comprehensive look at how he became Comstock and how it all loops onto itself. The fact that we are playing the final version (in terms that it finally worked - i.e. variables provided the desired result) of Lutece's experiment (coin flip e.t.c.) in the same universe eluded me for a while...
Apart from being of a bit low production quality and a tad too long, it actually presents the best explanation/version of events in terms of timeline that is actually explains the bit after the credits just fine. And provides more of a comprehensive look at how he became Comstock and how it all loops onto itself. The fact that we are playing the final version (in terms that it finally worked - i.e. variables provided the desired result) of Lutece's experiment (coin flip e.t.c.) in the same universe eluded me for a while...
CHALLENGE ROOMS!
Willkiller
Banned
Post, there's pretty great discussion in here from both sides.
Personally, I thought it was really special.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Booker and baby Anna go through all these adventures in the slums of NY.
Hardly dude. It's just your opinion and thoughts. Your free to voice your own opinion, don't worry.
What didn't you like about it though?
Most of the perspectives have been purely positive ones, so it would be kind of refreshing to hear the "yin" to our "yang".
Just read it early in the thread and saw it again. Just a nitpick but DeWitt (as far as I can tell) did not fight in China during the Boxer Rebellion. The game though, does explicitly state that Comstock flew Columbia over to China and fired on them, which is how Columbia seceded from the US.
NOOOOOOO
and you'll probably end up enjoying the game even more, knowing you don't have to die every second lol.
Btw, be on the look out for clues. The foreshadowing in this game is insane and could no doubt enhance one's understanding of the ending.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Honestly didn't think it was too bad, I definitely had more problems with Halo 4 on Legendary. Had to cheese some of the mommy ghost fights though.
Credits were great as well.
Wow, the lyrics...perfect. Haha.
Hardly dude. It's just your opinion and thoughts. Your free to voice your own opinion, don't worry.
What didn't you like about it though?
Most of the perspectives have been purely positive ones, so it would be kind of refreshing to hear the "yin" to our "yang".
Okey Dokey, but this will likely be very long
So little backstory, Bioshock 1 is my 2nd favourite game of all time, closely behind Half Life 2, which exceeds it only because the combat in the half life universe is far superior. Bioshock being up there, towering over other games with better mechanics, better set pieces is because it was the first game I remember (other than hl2) where I was introduced to a world that felt real, plausible, yet fantastical at the same time. There was something wonderfully romantic about Rapture, beautifully coloured and lighted, one of the few games where, when you saw a door you couldn't go through you never thought it was painted on, just another part of the city. On weekend confirmed, a video games podcast, a few weeks ago Garnett Lee talked about his work as a landscape architect and specifically how people design zoos, the good ones, to let you feel like you are among the animals, because you are never exposed to artificial walls, the area flows so well. Bioshock 1 did this for me, it was glorious and for all its faults Bioshock 2 similarly was wonderful, if only for letting me explore more rapture.
So suffice to say, I am a huge Bioshock fan. I am not however a fan of Bioshock infinite. So lets start at the beginning.
The beginning of Infinite is fantastic, leading up to the game I was completely underwhelmed by what I had seen, I am not going to make any bones about it, I wanted Rapture, in fact what I really wanted was Rapture in its prime, I disliked the aesthetic of this new city, the colour pallet especially. I literally bought the game because the price was too good not to (Thanks GMG!).
Having loaded up the game I was pleased with some of the initial nods to the opening of Bioshock, it was a good looking game and the first half hour, where you emerge into the cathedral and out into the open, I thought the game was stunning. I had just come off a play of Dishonored, which is a game I hate more than any other game in existence, to a world which was wonderful and vibrant, humming birds and great use of lighting. I was in love with this game, the tutorials were great and Columbia felt like an absolutely awesome place to be. The game nodded on and eventually you turn into shoot-em-up mode, which is fine, I was having fun with collectibles and radio logs and, although it didnt feel much like a Bioshock game I was having legitimate fun with the mechanics. The Vigors were good, the combat was better than Bioshock and the side missions proved their worth, all in all the game was plodding along well.
Then we meet Elizabeth, now a little more backstory there was one, singular thing which gave me hope for this game. An E3 Demo some time ago showed footage of Elizabeth (Hence for known as liz) reviving a dead horse and suddenly WOOSH Paris, 1980's and my jaw was on the floor. I thought, holy shit, time travel :O id love to see what these folks do in different time periods. Considering my initial distaste for Columbia I hoped you could have levels in 1984, travel forward to the future, then back again, what a wonderful escape. We meet liz and one of the first things you see her do is open up a "tear" and I was like, fuck yeah lets do this. And for the rest of the goddamn game all it does is tease you with these possibilities. Perhaps my biggest and most heart wrenching dissapointment in this game is that it only ever nods to these moments, the odd song from the future, and never explores them.
This is the crux of the issue for me, I wanted this game to go in one direction and it went in another, and the direction it went in felt so anti climactic that I stopped caring about the story, once I came to realise that instead of exploring time, opening up areas with new pallets and mechanics, all we did was do the same damn thing just in a slightly altered timeline. Several times you go through one area, open a tear then retread that area because something has been altered that pushes the story forward, and honestly it got repetitive and boring. It feels like such a wasted opportunity, who wouldnt have loved to step into that Paris backdrop and have to find a tear back to the present, rather than use a tear as a convenient way to not have to design new levels, but instead force you back from whence you came.
Onto characters, in Bioshock your character isnt given a huge backstory, one can interpret things but you feel as if you are you, plodding into this world, very much like half life they remove as much as possible from your character to allow you to step into his shoes. Booker is a dick, I dont want to be Booker, I find nothing likeable about him, his interactions, his voice actor does well but I dont want to play Booker. At no point in the game did I feel sorry for him, care for him, want him to "win", I think its a fundamental flaw in a Bioshock game to remove the user from the character he is playing.
Elizabeth is complicated, its hard to feel for her because all of her interactions revolve around this character I hate, I dont believe her voice actress is nearly as good as Bookers voice actor. Comstock is an intriguing character and provides a very nice coupling to Andrew Ryan, the "evil" guy who prods you along, giving you pieces of information, enough to keep you eager to find logs and messages. Daisy is kind of nothing, I understand the route they were going down, that sort of absolute power corrupts absolutely, one is a mirror of the other kind of thing, but they dont give you much of anything to tie to the character in regards to emotional connection. Her character was kind of nothing, there as an example of how tears change things but still, no care for her. The Lucetes (sp?) were mostly annoying.
Onto the ending, Booker is Comstock, different worlds, stole Anna from one tear to another, different tears, stars, doors, rapture, always lighthouse alwasy a city. Now here is where I take offence on a larger scale, and that is because they introduce Rapture into this nonsense. If Infinite had ended without a trip to rapture, I would have gladly just ignored thsi game as a terrible misunderstanding and forgiven Irrational. You want to create a game where tears exist, fine, you want a floating city, fine, you want to have a stupidly convoluted ending to a game where none of the characters are likeable, go ahead, dont call it Bioshock. This game, to me, is not a Bioshock game, how dare you introduce this huge, huge thing, into a Universe when it has no right to be there. Im not saying Irrational has to play by all the rules set out in Bioshock, but I am saying dont slap the Bioshock name on a product that bears so very little to what I consider a Bioshock game to be.
Badly formatted, rambling in places, best I could do having just finished the game.
EVERYWHERE
But really I have no idea where they could go now, though I can say I'm intensely interested to see if they plan on continuing it.
Comstock was the version of Booker that didn't accept the baptism. He went on to become Comstock and create Columbia, but found out he was sterile and went back to buy Anna from the Booker that rejected the baptism.
Baconsaurus Rex
Member
Alright
What in the name of fuck
What in the name of fuck
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Well, personally, I hope it's either done with or they jump to another storyline in a different locale. Let DLC flesh out Columbia. Don't Bioshock 2/Assassin's Creed II this series.
Different locale is needed definitely, if they plan to continue. Though if they didn't, this is definitely a fitting end chapter.
Jesus fuck my mind is so screwed with this mindfuck of an ending. But I fucking love it so much. So, so perfect to me.
Well worth the wait. Congrats Levine.
EDIT: So what I'm taking away from that, is that if Booker did go through with the baptism he wouldn't have lived past that? Or is it just that he wouldn't go on to become Comstock.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
One major question that is likely only answered by "shut up and enjoy the fictional game" - how did a drunk, in debt, private eye afford the capital to even begin to pay for the Lucete's work? And the city building itself?
Do you mean the baptism at the end? Elizabeth drowns him to finally end the cycle. If he continues to either reject or accept the baptism, a reality in which Comstock exists will always happen. So the only way to end it for sure is to kill himself before the baptism.
The post credits scene suggests that this allows a reality where he starts over with his life in peace.
He only became a gambling drunk in the reality where he sells Anna/Elizabeth to Comstock.
The drinking and gambling happened to the Booker who refused the baptism, not to Comstock.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Question...
What factor broke the cycle?
If Comstock is the players Booker with a different ending, what stopped Elizabeth from drowning him?
What factor broke the cycle?
If Comstock is the players Booker with a different ending, what stopped Elizabeth from drowning him?
I beat the game this morning and what happened just kept running through my mind, couldn't make sense of it. I've read Chandoog's write-up on the first page and that clarifies things a bit, but I still have to read more. What I still don't understand is how Liz got her powers... She was the first one to be able to see and interact with tears right? Was she born with those powers or were these results of the Lucete twins (or other scientists) experimenting on her?
So the Lucete twins, during their research on tears got sabotaged by Comstock (why? wasn't he paying for their research?), and as a result were scattered over space/time.
A lot of pieces still have to fall in place for me. But in the first place I'd like to know where Liz' powers come from, since she was just a 'normal' kid who happened to be sent to a different reality.
Both BioShock and Infinite leave you thinking after you've finished, but in different ways. In the former the plot was pretty straightforward, but the themes and content stick with you. Infinite runs around in your head as well, but more because you want to piece everything together and try to make sense of it all. Tbh I like the former better.
I might scroll through some of the diaries tonight to see if they make more sense now.
So the Lucete twins, during their research on tears got sabotaged by Comstock (why? wasn't he paying for their research?), and as a result were scattered over space/time.
A lot of pieces still have to fall in place for me. But in the first place I'd like to know where Liz' powers come from, since she was just a 'normal' kid who happened to be sent to a different reality.
Both BioShock and Infinite leave you thinking after you've finished, but in different ways. In the former the plot was pretty straightforward, but the themes and content stick with you. Infinite runs around in your head as well, but more because you want to piece everything together and try to make sense of it all. Tbh I like the former better.
I might scroll through some of the diaries tonight to see if they make more sense now.
But wasn't Comstock's ideology, while religious, against an actual God and more towards just worshiping men like the founding fathers? How would he still exist if he was baptised?
Now that I think about it, how would he exist if he wasn't baptised? Wouldn't that in turn show him rejecting religion all together and therefore defeating his religious viewpoints?
Maybe I'm delving too far into this :lol.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
I thought her pinky existing in another universe was the explanation...
ThaiGrocer
Member
Booker made the choice right before to smother smother smother smother Comcast. On the Lettuce boat and confirmation before opening to the door to the drowning.
Horse Detective
Why the long case?
Yeah, but why? What changed from the other 121 times?
ThaiGrocer
Member
Remember old granny Elizabeth? She's the near-final outcome of the looping. End of spiral? This quantum stuff, god damn.