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[spirity]

Well that would have definitely helped to know. So apparently my version of this convoluted narrative had some key information left out because I didn't scrounge around every environment carefully enough to find magic voice recordings that explain things.

Maybe you did know it, but you got amnesia

 

[GoddyofAus]

Returning to Rapture just blew my mind and a giant smile appeared across my face. While I was busy puzzling over Elizabeth, Booker, Comstock and Songbird, finding myself in Rapture totally caught me off guard. Possibly my favourite event of the whole game.

I almost came everywhere, and discovering the context of why you went back there later on just made it all the better.

"There's always a Lighthouse, a Man and a City."

let's be real we all know the lettuce twins are a little too close

In another Universe, they are

Spoiler

Jaime and Cersei Lannister

.

See what I did there?

 

[toastyToast]

I feel like I'd have a better grasp of the plot if I didn't have to find 80 fucking voxophones

 

[blame space]

the game and the ending have weight regardless of how many things did or didn't click for you by the end of it. you still get the facts. that there are so many nitpicks explained within the game's actual gameplay isn't something to complain about.

 

[nbthedude]

Maybe you did know it, but you got amnesia

I guess I'll have to go scrounging around my house to see if I left any 20 second voice recordings of myself that explains it.

 

[Horse Detective]

just like "where does the poop go"

 

[Sidzed2]

I feel like I'd have a better grasp of the plot if I didn't have to find 80 fucking voxophones

To get all of that backstory in they could have splayed it all out in the instruction manual. Or perhaps employed hour-long cutscenes.

I think the Voxaphones are awesome. They are all well-acted and are great rewards for exploring.

 

[DTKT]

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the idea of unlocking crucial info through hunting collectibles. That stuff should not be missable. Give me a god damn map or a hint system. Let's say that each area has a list of all the collectibles with a little hint on it's location. You can even give me a circle highlighting the zone.

I finished with 75/80 so it isn't that big of a deal, but it would have been nice to have. Bioshock is a kind of game that can only works when you have all the puzzle pieces.

 

[GoddyofAus]

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the idea of unlocking crucial info through hunting collectibles. That stuff should not be missable.

I finished with 75/80 so it isn't that big of a deal, but still.

That's easy to solve; make the plot crucial Voxophones exceptionally easy to find, which for the most part, they are.

 

[rohlfinator]

the game and the ending have weight regardless of how many things did or didn't click for you by the end of it. you still get the facts. that there are so many nitpicks explained within the game's actual gameplay isn't something to complain about.

Yeah, really I think they did a fantastic job of explaining the minor details for us lore nerds who want them. A lot of these types of stories (Lost, for example) leave far more questions unanswered.

 

[greycolumbus]

I almost came everywhere, and discovering the context of why you went back there later on just made it all the better.

"There's always a Lighthouse, a Man and a City."



In another Universe, they are

Spoiler

Jaime and Cersei Lannister

.

See what I did there?

That line really got to me. It was haunting.

 

[blame space]

i finished with 55. it's not a big deal. you can be an actual stupid person like i am and still understand the basics of the plot's falling action and resolution. and it's really good still.

 

[Horse Detective]

I think its really cool that in the first flash back, the baby music is heavily distorted and sounds like nonsense, but in each new sequence, it gets louder, and more clear. You can even hear slight echoing cries.

 

[drkOne]

inception was very clear cut, but the ending here is still very open to interpretation. well, i feel there's a decisive ending but enough people think otherwise that it's obviously up for interpretation.

the interpretation being how and when universes branch, if they meld back together, what the post credits scene meant, if only the bad bookers were killed or the good ones too, or maybe just some of the good ones.

that's all up to people to figure out.

I mean, applying "our laws" into that other universe, and trying to comprehend it based on our laws.
I didn't mean the ending, but all of the rest, you can't try to comprehend what's happening in Inception, you just watch it.
This multiverse thing, like the dreams in Inception, if you try to think about them "outside of the box" it's obvious you'll find a ton of unexplained holes. You can't question how the multiverses work, outside of what the game gives you.

I don't find the story that hard to follow even considering the complex stuff it bases itself on. I was pretty lost in the beginning, not knowing why I was the false prophet, what the Songbird was, who were the Luteces.
But it all comes together quite well. And it wouldn't be Bioshock without that ending.

Oh, and about that nod to Rapture, I was expecting more. Can only dream of a DLC with some more of that.

 

[SmithnCo]

I feel like most of the important voxophones are lying out in the open. The rest are for rewarding exploration which is half the game.

 

[WrenchNinja]

That is a holy shit mind blown series of revelations, depending on your standards.

Yeah, I guess I probably should have ignored everyone making a huge deal about it and making my expectations go higher.

It's a less narratively satisfying 999 packaged in a better game

Yeah, at least I didnt have to play through the game over and over. Course I did have to deal with all those constant enemy waves. Hmm.

 

[DatDude]

I was thinking could Elizabeth symbolize Jesus Christ in some way.

I saw some glass statue at walmart with a painting of jesus having a tear through his hand.

It made me think how Elizabeth could relate to being Jesus.

I'm struggling coming up with points, but the main one I could connect with is the ending in that she died for the sins of other..this being bookers sins..and that she could have resurrected, symbolically as Anna again in the crib.

 

[nbthedude]

the game and the ending have weight regardless of how many things actually click for you by the end of it. the fact that so many nitpicks are explained within the game's actual gameplay isn't something to complain about.

Even after reading the wiki, that narrative seems pretty needlessly convoluted especially if you "really want it to be a story about Elizabeth" or even about the major themes the game is exploring (the idea of redemption, American Exceptionalism, religious fundementalism, etc.).

I mean, hey

-let's tell a personal dramatic story about a father/daughter relationship and of personal regret and redemption
-let's tell the satirical story of a utopia experiment based on American exceptionalism gone wrong
-let's tell a sci-fi story about space-time continum and alternate realities and how it impacts our moral perceptions

No, wait I got it, let's do all of that at once! But even better, when we do it, let's not put it together in any reasonable order or fashion. Let's have characters with amnesia and false memories, and let's scatter random bits of important narrative dialog around the world on tape recordings that explains important plot points of important events that happened in the lives of the major characters, events that those characters never tell us directly, though they totally could.

Guys, this is bad writing. Maybe the concepts are good individually. But all crammed together and the way it is delivered, it is sloppy and convoluted. It's not an elegant narrative. It's a two page sci-fi story ripped into little pieces and thrown in the air for you to tape together.

 

[DTKT]

It's also pretty awesome that the Rapture section at the end of the game is actually the very first section when you first enter the city in Bioshock 1.

 

[toastyToast]

To get all of that backstory in they could have splayed it all out in the instruction manual. Or perhaps employed hour-long cutscenes.

I think the Voxaphones are awesome. They are all well-acted and are great rewards for exploring.

The thing is, there are a lot. If I went back and played, scoured harder than I did the first time and found most of them save 3 or 4, what's to say that those 3 or 4 aren't going to be the ones that tell me exactly what I'm most curious about. Should I have to use a guide to resolve the plot in a game?

Getting all 80 is equivalent to 'get 100% complete to unlock the true ending' type of BS and people complain about that type of stuff regularly.

 

[Jarekx]

So if we ended the infinite loop does that mean there is no Rapture either? Since that was a permutation of these events?

 

[GoddyofAus]

I was thinking could Elizabeth symbolize Jesus Christ in some way.

I saw some glass statue at walmart with a painting of jesus having a tear through his hand.

It made me think how Elizabeth could relate to being Jesus.

I'm struggling coming up with points, but the main one I could connect with is the ending in that she died for the sins of other..this being bookers sins..and that she could have resurrected, symbolically as Anna again in the crib.

A.D.

After Death.

There is a bit of religious symbolism going on.

So if we ended the infinite loop does that mean there is no Rapture either? Since that was a permutation of these events?

It's not really a permutation. Comstock didn't found Rapture, Andrew Ryan did.

 

[DTKT]

So if we ended the infinite loop does that mean there is no Rapture either? Since that was a permutation of these events?

As far as we know, that's totally unrelated. Rapture is in another version of the universe.

 

[Opiate]

Not a great game, but fun enough. The story was fairly silly, and as someone who can usually distinguish between exquisitely meaningful and vaguely fumbling with meaning, this fit the latter definition far better than the former.

Spoiler

Most of the early allusions to ingrained societal racism and jingoism went virtually nowhere, as did the vague dalliances with capitalism, and amnesia is a heavy handed plot device.

Better than most games trying to tell a story and create meaning

Spoiler

(and like Braid, more apt for the medium given its thematic focus on choice),

but largely only cements my sense that video games are just not a very good medium for conveying serious meaning in this manner.

Mechanically the game was nearly identical to Bioshock, and as a mechanics focused gamer this strikes me as boring.

Spoiler

The contrast between the game's mechanical design as a prototypical big budget corridor FPS and the game's thematic emphasis on choice was amusing, but probably not deliberate.

 

[greycolumbus]

It's also pretty awesome that the Rapture section at the end of the game is actually the very first section when you first enter the city in Bioshock 1.

Yeah, that took me back. Especially seeing where you get your first plasmid.

 

[GoddyofAus]

Not a great game, but fun enough. The story was fairly silly, and as someone who can usually distinguish between exquisitely meaningful and vaguely fumbling with meaning, this fit the latter definition far better than the former.

Spoiler

Most of the early allusions to ingrained societal racism and jingoism went virtually nowhere, as did the vague dalliances with capitalism, and amnesia is a heavy handed plot device.

Better than most games trying to tell a story and create meaning

Spoiler

(and like Braid, more apt for the medium given its thematic focus on choice),

but largely only cements my sense that video games are just not a very good medium for conveying serious meaning in this manner.

Mechanically the game was nearly identical to Bioshock, and as a mechanics focused gamer this strikes me as boring.

Spoiler

The contrast between the game's mechanical design as a prototypical big budget corridor FPS and the game's thematic emphasis on choice was amusing, but probably not deliberate.

I have to disagree completely. All of my views are opposite to yours. Ken Levine did say that this game would be very divisive.

 

[DatDude]

I wonder how the first song we hear in the lighthouse, '
"Old Time Religion" fits thematically with the game:

lyrics:
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

Makes me love everybody
Makes me love everybody
Makes me love everybody
It's good enough for me

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

It was good for Hebrew children
it was good for Hebrew children
It was good for Hebrew children
And it's good enough for me

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

It was tried in the fiery furnance
It was tried in the fiery furnance
It was tried in the fairy furnance
It's good enough for me
[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/old-time-religion-lyrics-david-houston.html ]

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

It will do when I'm dying
It will do when I'm dying
It will do when I'm dying
It's good enough for me

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

It can take us all to heaven
It can take us all to heaven
It can take us all to heaven
It's good enough for me

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

 

[Uno Venova]

I wish I knew going on the story would be a 'million dimensions' type of story, if I knew that going in I would have never had high hopes for the ending like I did. Seeing rapture was amazing, but these types of stories don't work for me.

 

[DatDude]

I think it would be a more interesting tale if mrs Comstock is the same woman as Anna's mother. It doesn't really matter, in fact the mystery is more interesting to me--but it add an interesting texture to the whole anna-lady Comstock relationship and plot reveals.

I think it would make perfect sense.

I mean his wife would be the equivalent of Anna right?

An the fact she appears as a ghost?

Fucking brilliant.

 

[blame space]

yo this game sucked what the hell.

im sh ooting dudes? i thought this was supposed to be art. and theres' all kinds of references to american history. bro, i went to high school. and then there's the whole time travel thing.. listen, we've all seen back to the future. marty mcfly would have NEVER biotched out and not delivered his own daughter to his debtor because he realized that her entire struggle was only due to the fact that he existed and couldn't pay a debt on a gambling problem that he was driven to because he had to give her up in the first place. also what's with the multiverse thing.. played out.

sub par. didn''t enjoy much, but i bought and played it so there's that. that's my opinion.

 

[greycolumbus]

He's based on Big Daddy tech except he can't deal with high pressure since he's built to function in the sky.

Wonder if they used a mentally challenged person to make the Song Bird, maybe even a kid. It's been a long time since I played Bioshock but isn't that what they did for Big Daddies?

The whale sounds are replaced by songs which is cool too!

I believe they used criminals for Big Daddies.

 

[MormaPope]

At the start of monument island, there's three chambers with Elizabeth childhood items, one of them being "menarche". First time through I didn't really know what that was, second time it hit me that it's blood on a white cloth.

Comstock stored her first period in a display case. Menarche entails/means first menstruation.

Baptism is one hell of a drug.

 

[Guevara]

I still can't believe at the end of the game I was basically fighting space machines, with sniper rifles and RPGs, from dropships. It may as well be Killzone.

 

[antitrop]

i finished with 55. it's not a big deal. you can be an actual stupid person like i am and still understand the basics of the plot's falling action and resolution. and it's really good still.

The fact that you even know what 'falling action' is in the first place puts you ahead of most, in terms of literary analysis.

 

[Suburban_Nooblet]

I wish I knew going on the story would be a 'million dimensions' type of story, if I knew that going in I would have never had high hopes for the ending like I did. Seeing rapture was amazing, but these types of stories don't work for me.

I felt the same. I had fun with the game but hate being explained a plot by the "anything can exists in another world" solution.

 

[CrazyDude]

I don't know, maybe it's because I played Zero Escape games recently, and I feel like those game did a better job of doing the whole multiple universes then this game.

 

[GoddyofAus]

At the start of monument island, there's three chambers with Elizabeth childhood items, one of them being "menarche". First time through I didn't really know what that was, second time it hit me that it's blood on a white cloth.

Comstock stored her first period in a display case. Menarche entails/means first menstruation.

Baptism is one hell of a drug.

For science (or, in this case, Science being manipulated to serve a religious, totalitarian, genocidal agen-....HOLY SHIT, COMSTOCK IS CATHOLIC....).

 

[nbthedude]

Most of the early allusions to ingrained societal racism and jingoism went virtually nowhere, as did the vague dalliances with capitalism, and amnesia is a heavy handed plot device.

I am not sure they went completely nowhere. There is commentary there in Booker seeking that society as a way of making amends for his own past life, but it is defimitely under developed.

And that is the problem with the game overall. Rather than developing any of these things in a meaningful way--a father daughter relationship, a social satire, or a scifi tale about alternate dimensions devaluing choice--it just ladels them altogether into an under developed mess.

 

[SiskoKid]

Even after reading the wiki, that narrative seems pretty needlessly convoluted especially if you "really want it to be a story about Elizabeth" or even about the major themes the game is exploring (the idea of redemption, American Exceptionalism, religious fundementalism, etc.).

I mean, hey

-let's tell a personal dramatic story about a father/daughter relationship and of personal regret and redemption
-let's tell the satirical story of a utopia experiment based on American exceptionalism gone wrong
-let's tell a sci-fi story about space-time continum and alternate realities and how it impacts our moral perceptions

No, wait I got it, let's do all of that at once! But even better, when we do it, let's not put it together in any reasonable order or fashion. Let's have characters with amnesia and false memories, and let's scatter random bits of important narrative dialog around the world on tape recordings that explains important plot points of important events that happened in the lives of the major characters, events that those characters never tell us directly, though they totally could.

Guys, this is bad writing. Maybe the concepts are good individually. But all crammed together and the way it is delivered, it is sloppy and convoluted. It's not an elegant narrative. It's a two page sci-fi story ripped into little pieces and thrown in the air for you to tape together.

I don't know what books or other movies or TV shows you watch, but plenty of them juggle multiple themes while maintaining multiple subplots through a main plot. It's not bad writing to do this.

The game does a fantastic job piecing it all together.

 

[MormaPope]

I am nit sure they went nowhere. There is commentary there in Booker seeking that society as a way of making amends for his own past life, but it is defimitely under developed.

And that is the problem with the game overall. Rather than developing any of these things in a meaningful way--a father daughter relationship, a social satire, or a scifi tale about alternate dimensions devaluing choice--it just ladels them altogether into an under developed mess.

So instead of subtlety you want to be beat over the head with those elements?

 

[Dug]

Can't believe I never thought of this:

Every death in game = a different booker. The implication is that the game is started in medias res. If you were to die in Hall of Heroes for example in a regular gunfight, it shows you waking up inside your room in black and white.

That's another version of Booker. When you step through the door it kind of skips through what you've already played and it's the next Booker coming up to the point where the previous Booker died.

Mind blown.

 

[nbthedude]

So instead of subtlety you want to be beat over the head with those elements?

No, I want you to pick a tone and a major focus and develop it. There is a big difference between a well developed story with depth and a complicated one.

 

[CrazyDude]

I don't know what books or other movies or TV shows you watch, but plenty of them juggle multiple themes while maintaining multiple subplots through a main plot. It's not bad writing to do this.

The game does a fantastic job piecing it all together.

Not really, it didn't feel natural at all, it seemed like it didn't know what it wanted it to be about. It was juggling to many things at once and ends up failing at all of them.

 

[GoddyofAus]

Can't believe I never thought of this:



Mind blown.

That theory sort of gets blown out the window the moment Elizabeth starts reviving you herself, though.

No, I want you to pick a tone and a major focus and develop it. There is a big difference between a well developed story with depth and a complicated one.

Complication is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[SiskoKid]

Not really, it didn't feel natural at all, it seemed like it didn't know what it wanted it to be about. It was juggling to many things at once and ends up failing at all of them.

We clearly will have to agree to disagree. But I respect where you're coming from.

 

[Tummi Gummi]

Not a great game, but fun enough. The story was fairly silly, and as someone who can usually distinguish between exquisitely meaningful and vaguely fumbling with meaning, this fit the latter definition far better than the former.

Spoiler

Most of the early allusions to ingrained societal racism and jingoism went virtually nowhere, as did the vague dalliances with capitalism, and amnesia is a heavy handed plot device.

Better than most games trying to tell a story and create meaning

Spoiler

(and like Braid, more apt for the medium given its thematic focus on choice),

but largely only cements my sense that video games are just not a very good medium for conveying serious meaning in this manner.

Mechanically the game was nearly identical to Bioshock, and as a mechanics focused gamer this strikes me as boring.

Spoiler

The contrast between the game's mechanical design as a prototypical big budget corridor FPS and the game's thematic emphasis on choice was amusing, but probably not deliberate.

Little harsher than my own reaction to the writing, but fairly close. As everyone says it was better than most games in that regard, which isn't a particularly high bar. But there are a few games that I think did a better job with the general concepts people are going wild over - foreshadowing, symbolism, merging themes with mechanics (I found Alan Wake, Silent Hill 2 and Torment more rewarding in those areas). I didn't think the ending was a total mess or anything, but on a base level I didn't feel like I'd gotten meaningful closure out of it. I am a bit biased against time-travel/alternate-reality/interdimensional stuff becoming integral to the plot, but I still think the Legacy of Kain series did a far superior job of tying all the major strands together (not really a fair comparison since it's 15-18hrs vs. around 100hrs over the LoK series).

 

[DatDude]

It's a Lutece test, like the coin flip. It's like they're doing progress updates and if you choose correctly then they know you're journey is still progressing as they'd like. Probably because you die in the water after songbird chases you, so they check the Booker they used this time to see if he's legit so to speak. Same with the coin flip at the start because as I see it you die when baptised by the priest, the coin flip isn't far after that.

Of course as a player it never matetrs what choice you pick, the Luteces adjust accordingly to it and whatever you pick is just the right choice. Choice is an illusion to all humans and it's also a play on how videogame choices never actually matter, the end is still the same

Wow. Really nicely put. Damn, can we probably say this is one of the few games ever created that have been this philosophical?

I think how you can make all these various choices through life.

Get married to X girl, get married to Y girl.

Have kids, don't have kids.

Go to this University, or that university.

Get this job, or get that job.

Go to this retirement home, or live independently.

In the end, none of those choices are really all that relevant. Because at the end of the day, we die.

All we are doing in are daily lives is making choices, thinking they have some impact, but in reality there just illusions. Yes we could make a better career going to this university than that university..yes you could be more happier with X wife, rather than Y wife..and so on and so forth.

But the final outcome, regardless of those choices you made, the same outcome occurs. You die.

 

[gdt]

That theory sort of gets blown out the window the moment Elizabeth starts reviving you herself, though.

Not really. When Elizabeth is around, she'll revive you instead of you dying again. When's shes not, you die and the Lutteces bring in another Booker.

 

[blame space]

No, I want you to pick a tone and a major focus and develop it. There is a big difference between a well developed story with depth and a complicated one.

and how about balancing that with essentially a collection of chase sequences full of huge complicated shootouts that lasts for ten hours?

 

[Opiate]

I am nit sure they went nowhere. There is commentary there in Booker seeking that society as a way of making amends for his own past life, but it is defimitely under developed.

Sure, that's reasonable.

Spoiler

Given how central the ending is to "Tying all the parts together," anything that isn't explicitly addressed by the ending effectively had no resolution.

And that is the problem with the game overall. Rather than developing any of these things in a meaningful way--a father daughter relationship, a social satire, or a scifi tale about alternate dimensions devaluing choice--it just ladels them altogether into an under developed mess.

Strongly agree. It reminds me of novels or films that make hundreds of allusions to quantum physics and Shakespeare and free will and religion, and then sort of vaguely tie them all together, hoping one or two of them seem to strike a chord in the audience.

There is a very significant difference between a story that can focus on a complex topic and make meaning of it, and one that simply throws a huge number of big topics on the wall and hoping some stick.