• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SPOILER Bioshock Infinite SPOILER discussion

Okay, let's quickly talk about Bioshock Infinite and why it is or is not an important game for the industry. I didn't want to put this into the Infinite OT cause I think it doesn't fit and people will want to stone me after the following.

Now, let me first state that I did not understand why Bioshock 1 got so much love, so maybe everything I'll bring up here will be bunk for Bioshock fans, but I was going into Infinite, hoping that this game will be the game that makes me understand and love Bioshock.

On a related note: Yes, the game is beautiful and the presentation is quite amazing. But that shouldn't be the point of this thread, cause graphics = decoration, in my opinion. Graphics and presentation can help making the experience better, but amazing presentation alone never makes for a great game.

I remember a year or two ago, there was another thread about overhyped games here on GAF and suddenly a whole bunch of GAF members spoke up, saying that they didn't really like Bio 1 all that much - It'll be interesting to see how those people now react to Bio Infinite. I wondered whether Bio1 was lucky to be part of some hypemachine, but it seems like Bio Infinite is getting a huge amount of love already.

Now, without further ado, let's take a look at Bioshock Infinite:

1) I feel stupid: The main character constantly seems to know things I don't know and it frustrates me:

2 minutes into this world, he knows that he has to 'find the girl' at 'the statue'. What statue? Who the hell are you? Who's the girl? What in the world am I doing here? What's Columbia? None of that is explained. Should I have finished Bio 1 and Bio 2 to get it?

Once I find Elizabeth, her character isn't being explained either. Booker constantly wants to save her, but why? Why should I feel anything for that character? In a recent developer trailer, I saw one developer saying that they watched playtesters finding it very impactful how Elizabeth helps you out during combat. The way this works is simple: She shouts something like: "Booker, you're hurt!", then you press X to catch a medikit that she's throwing at you.

Rinse and Repeat, this'll happen dozens of times in the game. That's not an interaction that makes me feel emotionally connected to the character. She's just a health dispenser now. Reference Clementine from Walking Dead for a character that you feel really emotionally connected to. Elizabeth is a stupid AI robot that sometimes throws things into my face.

2) Buildup: Now, the press complained about Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider becoming a killing machine within minutes. In Bioshock, people find out that I'm the 'false prophet' early on and suddenly the ugliest of all videogame tropes kicks in. You literally just have to KILL EVERYTHING THAT MOVES. That's it. Just kill the whole town. No explanation. How do other characters react to Booker DeWitt being the second coming of Hitler? Here's how:

Elizabeth sees you killing all those people, at which point she reacts shocked and drops a line like: "You killed all these men!", to which Booker replies "Well, what did you expect? They kept you up in your tower, so my logical conclusion was genocide." - That's it! That line settles it for Elizabeth, after that, she's totally fine with Booker murdering hundreds of people that stand in his way.

3) Contextualization: Nothing in this game and within this world really is really being explained or makes any goddamn sense. What is the vigor mechanic? Why can I upgrade vigor at vending machines? Why do I get new pants that let me reload my weapons 25% faster? I'm now wearing a vest that gives me a 40% chance of enemies dropping ammo upon death.

The way I learn about magic is by walking up to a salt machine, then my hands start to burn away and suddenly I can cast magic. Why? What just happened? Why did my hands start burning? None of that is being explained either. But now I can shoot stuff out of my hands, so I guess it's cool.

Following me? No? Good, I wouldn't have expected anything else.

Now, I get the whole "It's a videogame! You can't expect it to be realistic!" thing - Maybe, but I should expect the world to be believable. This stuff to me just takes me out of the experience.

Now, tears are a big feature in this game, so obviously they had to explain what they are. I think the lines were something along the lines of:

"Whoa, what was that!"
"A tear, it's like a portal to another world!"

And that's how it's explained that Elizabeth can open tears to other worlds. Actually, this doesn't explain shit, I don't care what a tear really is at this point, I WONDER WHY IN THE WORLD YOU CAN OPEN PORTALS TO ANOTHER WORLD IN THE FIRST PLACE! Who the hell are you?

4) Narrative: It's basically the same stuff as what they did in Bio1. You constantly hear some audio logs and antagonists speaking to you through telepathy (or invisible speakers that are hanging everywhere in the world) and it's goddamn confusing. I already hated how story worked in Borderlands 2, with the antagonist trying to tell you a story while you're in combat - and it's the absolute same here.

There are various antagonists that throw constant waves of enemies at you and you're just wondering what the hell you're doing. The game is forcing me to kill a dozen enemies after the antagonist just opened the floodgates, you're forced to kill all of them or be killed yourself and then you hear VOs like "See, Booker, you're a murderer, too!". Well, yeah, no shit.

I'm probably halfway through the game now and I have no idea what really is going on. I don't know who Booker is, who Elizabeth is, why I'm killing all of Columbia, what my actual goal is, etc., I'm just walking through pretty environments and killing waves after waves of enemies.

5) Combat: Why am I constantly fighting waves of enemies? Every single area I enter, the first thing I hear is literally "KILL HIM!" - And on it goes again. I never run out of ammo, I never have to be strategic about it, Elizabeth constantly supplies me with health, it's always the same drag. The guns aren't anything to write home about, you have your normal selection of rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, you name it. I am really getting sick and tired of this whole 'do the same thing over and over again!' thing. Think Uncharted gets boring near the end of the game when it's just about killing more and more waves of enemies? Try Bioshock Infinite.

To me, this is like Uncharted as a FPS up in the sky with literal rollercoasters this time around and a story that's so convoluted that I simply can't follow it. I don't get it.

Now, maybe I'm a complete nutjob and maybe I just really don't get Bioshock, but I'd be delighted if someone could explain this to me. How do I have to play Bioshock to see something more than a FPS with a really nice presentation that is being bogged down by a really convoluted, lacking story, lack of character development, mediocre gunplay with magic effects thrown in and gameplay that consists of constant waves of enemies storming in, waiting to be killed.

I'm not trying to be an asshole and I have the utmost respect of everyone at Irrational for delivering such an enormous project - But in terms of what this title means to the games industry, I just don't see the genius in it. But again, I also didn't in Bioshock 1 and that game made tons and tons of people happy. If someone can enlighten me, I'd be forever grateful.
 

Petrichor

Member
Finish the damn game before complaining about the story being disjointed. The ending satisfies a number of your complaints re: Booker not being surprised at certain developments / knowing where to go.
 

miksar

Member
The main character constantly seems to know things I don't know and it frustrates me
Why does everything have to be explained to you? Basically you're asking for a dumbed down script where everything is simple and there's no purpose in story exploration. I can't even begin to think how confused you probably were when you played something like Half-Life 2.
Booker constantly wants to save her, but why?
He owes money. If she doesn't make it, he's screwed.

You're probably right about combat though.
 

JeffGrubb

Member
Um, you're saving Elizabeth so you can save yourself. They'll relieve you of your debt if you get her back to New York. Are you paying attention?
 

IHaveIce

Banned
I didn't play it yet but god your post annoys me, why the fuck do you need everything explained to you? Most movies don't fill you in with the whole universe of the movie first.. is this also a problem to you? Most games overexplain everything.

And even I know without playing the game why you want to save her...


Damn I need the game.
 
I didn't play it yet but god your post annoys me, why the fuck do you need everything explained to you? Most movies don't fill you in with the whole universe of the movie first.. is this also a problem to you? Most games overexplain everything.

And even I know without playing the game why you want to save her...


Damn I need the game.

I used to have a friend like this. It was impossible to watch any movie or TV show with him because he would always ask why this or why that when it was perfectly obvious that it was going to be answered by the story itself.

I'm pretty sure he had some form of high functioning autism.
 
I didn't play it yet but god your post annoys me, why the fuck do you need everything explained to you? Most movies don't fill you in with the whole universe of the movie first.. is this also a problem to you? Most games overexplain everything.

And even I know without playing the game why you want to save her...

Damn I need the game.

This post kinda feels like you want to really dig the game and you hate hearing people not having a good time with it.

I'm absolutely not the kind of person who wants to have everything explained in a game / film / story - But so far, I have too little information about those characters that I feel that there won't be any meaningful character arcs, which means that the story probably won't be meaningful, which means that the only thing that's left is to judge the actual combat mechanics.

I like Ken Levine and I like how he talks about stories in games, etc. - but the result I've been playing so far is little more than a 'kill wave after wave of enemies' experience. There are some little bits and pieces of story that interrupt the combat, but it's clear that they wanted to make Elizabeth a meaningful female character in this game and she's just not. Clementine was - I loved that little girl. Elizabeth is a story tool and a health / ammo dispenser.

About 7 hours in now, combat is getting crazier and crazier.
 
This post kinda feels like you want to really dig the game and you hate hearing people not having a good time with it.

I didn't get that at all from his post. But you seem to be confused by basic concepts.

It's all the more frustrating because you're magically playing the game 2 days before it gets released.
 

Marcel

Member
I didn't get that at all from his post. But you seem to be confused by basic concepts.

It's all the more frustrating because you're magically playing the game 2 days before it gets released.

Wasn't the PS3 version leaked? I'm not judging because moralizing about game piracy enables some really bad discussion.
 

Pezking

Member
Wait. Is there a way for me to play this game so that I may contribute to the conversation?

Many smaller german and austrian video game stores started selling the game on friday.

That's pretty common for tuesday releases around here. Most of the time, the street date is broken even earlier.
 
Okay, now I'm through.

Again, hats off to Irrational for finishing a production like Bioshock Infinite - It's very impressive.

But:

The game itself wasn't all that enjoyable to me.

90% of the game is gunplay, yet that part gets old pretty quick. You constantly fight waves after waves of enemies, constantly the same enemies, too, with usually the same weapons. The people that are proclaiming that Bioshock isn't about gunplay must be completely mental - This game features so many explosions, deaths and special effects that even Michael Bay doesn't hold a candle to the spectacle that's being delivered here.

This is also where tech problems come in: The end runs at a constant 15-20fps and was very, very unenjoyable because of that. I hate non-60fps games, the very least I can bare is a constant 30. This reminded me of Goldeneye or Perfect Dark (Playing this on the 360) back in the olden days.

A note to level design: While the sets were amazing - starting at the middle of the game, you constantly keep triggering Up on the Dpad just to find out where the hell you're supposed to go, cause there is absolutely no way that the player can know that this or that area that Booker has to visit next is in this or that direction. There's no map, the environment constantly changes while staying the same, it's confusing as hell. Leveldesign where the player basically constantly has to ask the game where to go is NOT good level design.

Regarding the story, I'd really like to compare the story being told here to stprytelling in Matrix 2 and 3. I'd challenge ANYONE, even the Irrational employees themselves, to write a short summary that clearly explains what the fuck is going on in this game, within a few short sentences. I surely can't.

Don't read this unless you played through the game:

I didn't get the story at all. Elizabeth is DeWitts daughter and is really called Anna? Booker is Comstock? Who is the old guy that Booker killed? Elizabeth is Mrs. Comstock? Or her daughter? But then it turns out that she isn't her daughter after all? I guess Mrs. Comstock wasn't able to conceive, so Mr. Comstock went out to buy a baby, from himself, cause Mr. Comstock is Booker... (WHAT THE FUCK?). Why is Mrs. Comstock a ghost? Why does she resurrect a gazillion soldiers that are just out to kill me? Was all of this just a dream? Who started the 'false prophet' notion? Everything is multi-dimensional time travel? Quantum mechanics are in it, too? What did Rapture have to do with all of that? All of this is so fucking complex, convoluted and over the top that no human being could ever decipher what really is going on. Even if you try to tell a story about existentialism, you should do it in a way where the audiences feeling after having finished it isn't utter confusion.

It's one thing to tell a story that's a little bit out there - But a David Lynch movie I can at least still grasp. This felt like Irrational had a drawing board of a shit ton of ideas and just threw everything in a bucket and had to bring in every single theme they were able to come up with. The best stories aren't the most complex ones. The best stories are usually stories that are simple and feature characters that we have empathy for - I think Telltales 'The Walking Dead' raised the bar for what videogame characters should be. Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth - in my opinion - aren't even in the same ballpark.

It doesn't help that the world just is completely batshit insane. The game is full of videogame logic and I still have absolutely no understanding what the tears are and why Elizabeth can open them. I still have no understanding why all these armies are shooting me down. With the above setup, I guess absolutely everything is open and possible, but if you base a story around that, you'll create an incoherent mess, which Bioshock Infinite is.

I can appreciate an experience if it's just about the world and the atmosphere you're being put into - like Journey - but this isn't that. This game tries to tell you a - very complex - story and interrupts the gameplay CONSTANTLY so you'd follow the plot.

So at the end of the day: Maybe Bioshock just isn't for me. I gave it another honest shot and actually played through it this time. I gave my copy to a friend now who enjoyed Bio 1 and I'm very interested what he'll make of this one. To me, this just isn't the kinda game that shows us where the industry should be heading in the future. Nothing is ever explained properly in a way that the audience could ever follow and the core gameplay - the absolute most important thing - is just pretty mediocre.

I'd give Bioshock Infinite a 7/10. Put everything together and it's an above average first person shooter with a pretty confusing story. And again, I'm totally not judging the production itself, cause obviously the sets and the spectacle is pretty goddamn amazing, but just as the explosions in Transformers 2 don't make for a very enjoyable experience, I had a very hard time staying motivated playing through Bioshock Infinite, feeling that I have no fucking clue what's going on, not liking the gunplay and at the end really not getting a satisfying conclusion.
 
Some jerk spoiled the twist for me, but I was holding out hope that it was told in such a way that made it less stupid. I guess that doesn't happen. The game being 90% shooting and Elizabeth just being a walking item dispenser doesn't instill much confidence either.

FFS use spoiler tags.

The title says spoilers.
 

jgmo870

Banned
This is the Spoiler/story discussion thread.

The fuck do you think was going to be in here?

If you're going to go through the effort of posting: Spoiler! Last Warning! etc. how hard is it to the make jump to using spoiler tags? Obviously not very since you just edited your post.
 
Just finished it, too. I now think I understand how KH fans feel... wow.

90% of the game is gunplay, yet that part gets old pretty quick. You constantly fight waves after waves of enemies, constantly the same enemies, too, with usually the same weapons. The people that are proclaiming that Bioshock isn't about gunplay must be completely mental - This game features so many explosions, deaths and special effects that even Michael Bay doesn't hold a candle to the spectacle that's being delivered here.

Well, I've just played the first Bioshock and this one, and I think they were pretty different, especially in this aspect and the setting. I agree with you, the gunplay sets were way more than needed, as well as monotonous and out of place. In a game like Bioshock, the least I wanted was this.

This is also where tech problems come in: The end runs at a constant 15-20fps and was very, very unenjoyable because of that. I hate non-60fps games, the very least I can bare is a constant 30. This reminded me of Goldeneye or Perfect Dark (Playing this on the 360) back in the olden days.
Had no problems with the FPS, just ocassional screen tearing. PS3 version here.

A note to level design: While the sets were amazing - starting at the middle of the game, you constantly keep triggering Up on the Dpad just to find out where the hell you're supposed to go, cause there is absolutely no way that the player can know that this or that area that Booker has to visit next is in this or that direction. There's no map, the environment constantly changes while staying the same, it's confusing as hell. Leveldesign where the player basically constantly has to ask the game where to go is NOT good level design.
Had no problem with this, either. I just used the arrow in the last part of the game because I was fucking tired of the enemies and wanted to go through to where I was supposed to go. Guess it worked.

I didn't get the story at all. Elizabeth is DeWitts daughter and is really called Anna? Booker is Comstock? Who is the old guy that Booker killed? Elizabeth is Mrs. Comstock? Or her daughter? But then it turns out that she isn't her daughter after all? I guess Mrs. Comstock wasn't able to conceive, so Mr. Comstock went out to buy a baby, from himself, cause Mr. Comstock is Booker... (WHAT THE FUCK?). Why is Mrs. Comstock a ghost? Why does she resurrect a gazillion soldiers that are just out to kill me? Was all of this just a dream? Who started the 'false prophet' notion? Everything is multi-dimensional time travel? Quantum mechanics are in it, too? What did Rapture have to do with all of that? All of this is so fucking complex, convoluted and over the top that no human being could ever decipher what really is going on. Even if you try to tell a story about existentialism, you should do it in a way where the audiences feeling after having finished it isn't utter confusion.
You're right, the story is batshit insane. I started the ending with less questions than after if finished. I don't know if I'll ever understand completely what's going on. Everyhing was overly complicated. I thought the ending would explain more about
Lady Comstock and the origin of the tears
, but as far as I understood, they didn't. They instead complicated the things that were somewhat clear already and made a mess out of it. I mean,
Booker is Comstock? Then Lady Comstock is Elizabeth or what? Why did Comstock grab a child from himself and how did the Letuces do it?
I think it's cool that they wanted to give some more insight, but there should have been a more simple way to deliver that to us. And yes, you are right. If they are going to tell a story, "they should do it in a way where the audiences feeling after having finished it isn't utter confusion"

Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth - in my opinion - aren't even in the same ballpark.
Well, I liked Elizabeth and the Luteces.

I can appreciate an experience if it's just about the world and the atmosphere you're being put into - like Journey - but this isn't that. This game tries to tell you a - very complex - story and interrupts the gameplay CONSTANTLY so you'd follow the plot.
Yeah, I agree. It's sad because Bioshock had a really powerful setting that it used to it's max potential, IMO. But this game fails miserably. I don't like Journey, so no comments on that comparison.

So at the end of the day: Maybe Bioshock just isn't for me. I gave it another honest shot and actually played through it this time. I gave my copy to a friend now who enjoyed Bio 1 and I'm very interested what he'll make of this one. To me, this just isn't the kinda game that shows us where the industry should be heading in the future. Nothing is ever explained properly in a way that the audience could ever follow and the core gameplay - the absolute most important thing - is just pretty mediocre.
I also await impressions from big Bioshock fans like myself. It's going to be an interesting reception for sure.
Just a question, what ending did you get? I think I fucked up at some point because mine was... ugly.
So, several Elizabeth reveal I'm Comstock and then kill me? What the fuck? That's it?
Which is weird, because I'm pretty sure I took the "good" choices along the game.

Some other thoughts:
The setting had A LOT of potential for great enemies and locations, but I think they didn't take advantage of it at all. We had very few unique, steampunk like enemies which were REALLY interesting to me (
The fire-man, the crow, the patriot and the handyman.
Or am I forgetting one?). I mean, the gunplay sets were generic and boring, and they go and make most enemies generic and boring, too? That's not good.

I have to admit, though, I LOVE
the nod they gave to Bioshock 1 and 2 fans.
(PICTURE SPOILERS) When I first saw this, and then turned around and saw this, I went nuts (in a good way) and started grinning like a madman. Needless to say, I spent quite some time just wandering around that set, thanking Irrational for doing something right.

In short, I'm somewhat disappointed. The Bioshock sequel I wanted wasn't supposed to consist of mostly gunplay. It wasn't supposed to have an innecesarily, overly convulted story. And it was supposed to make use of the wonderful setting to make things different from those millions of shooters out there.

EDIT: Updated with picture links.
 
Just a question, what ending did you get? I think I fucked up at some point because mine was... ugly.
So, several Elizabeth reveal I'm Comstock and then kill me? What the fuck? That's it?
Which is weird, because I'm pretty sure I took the "good" choices along the game.

I got the same exact ending and I'm pretty sure I picked the bad choice every time I could.
 

bidguy

Banned
Are there even multiple endings ?
Got the same ending as the guys above and I took (at least I think I did) the good choices everytime.
I hope there is more to the moral system.

I have to admit the last part of the game surprised me because I thought it would end with a simple "save the damsel in distress" happy ending.
 
Damn, must be a short game.

Nope, felt pretty long. After people were teasing me here to finish it, I just wanted to be done with it and basically finished it in 2 sittings. Definitely longer than your average first person shooter, probably around 9-10 hours.
 
If you watch a lot of public television, the ending was
satisfying. I'm sure people can poke on the logic, but that wasn't the point. It was a somewhat elegant ending to Elizabeth's adventure.
 

DatDude

Banned
So did everyone skip the
credits like I did and missed the big piece where booker returns back to his office and asks if anna is still in the crib?
 
The story is definitely complicated and there are still a lot of questions left unanswered.

For one, i still don't understand
the attack on New York
or maybe i wasn't paying much attention.
 
Top Bottom