Bioshock Infinite

So, played through it, beat it, enjoyed it immensely even though I knew the plot twist at the end ^^ One of the best games I've played.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

The rulebook for the official board game version seems to lack any sort of reference to the actual background. I wonder how people who played the board game but not the video game try and reconstruct the fluff.

edited 19th Jul '14 8:19:55 PM by SantosLHalper

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

I didn't even know there was a board game.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKz45K4teqA

VERY fascinating lecture from GDC this year (March 2014) about the development of Elizabeth from the character to technology merging to create how she would react to the world.

Sort of wish the audio had played for some of those scenes though. Would have loved to heard the 'Gibson Girl' scene.

I'm a critical person but I'm a nice guy when you get to know me. Now, I should be writing.

Decided to replay this, starting from my last autosave in the final area. Got my ass handed to me by the Motorized Patriots. :(

So, old questions emerge:

• Who was the Lighthouse Keeper in the beginning? The one tied to the chair and beaten to death?
• Why are the Luteces sending alternates back and forth through Columbia, instead of just telling him? They give Booker a gun and very vague instructions, then expect for his memories to align with "rescue Elizabeth".
  • It's very convenient that they manage to pick up Bookers on a loop: Booker A lost Elizabeth A to Comstock A, so the Luteces grab Booker A and send him to Comstock A's world. Booker A fails or is killed by Comstock or is killed by Daisy or catches tuberculosis and dies, so they go grab another Booker, Booker B, who lost his Elizabeth to Comstock B, and so forth.
• Why are the Luteces/Comstock cryptic about everything?
• What actually makes a Booker - a Comstock? Why is being baptized the thing that drives him into becoming Comstock, losing his rationale, and ultimately creating Columbia and later fighting an alternate version of himself, coincidentally the one he stole Elizabeth from?

edited 5th Feb '15 12:33:33 PM by FOFD

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

I get the impression that the Luteces, while ultimately trying to fix their mistake, are treating the entire thing as an experiment. They are trying to figure out just what the constants and variables to each world is.

This one's pretty involved. Basically, Comstock misunderstood the point of a Baptism. Instead of seeing his sins at Wounded Knee being just forgiven, he saw the Baptism as basically God saying his actions before and after are all now justified and that he can't do wrong anymore. In his own words: "The Lord forgives everything, but I'm just a prophet... so I don't have to."

edited 5th Feb '15 12:15:54 PM by Spirit

#IceBearForPresident

I'll make my way through and answer as best as possible

• We don't have a ton of details. but the general idea is that he was some kind of guard for the Lighthouse; A Gatekeeper for someone who wants to escape the 'Sodom'. Comstock knows Booker is coming and orders the gatekeeper to kill Booker when he arrives. The Luteces presumably killed him a head of time for the Player's Booker. Then planted a lot of the 'whipe away the debt' and etc from Booker's 'Employers' to make everything convincing and placate Booker's memories.

• I get the impression that Lutece can't entirely interact with the worlds or something of the like. When they converse with Booker and Elizabeth, they never ever act on their own. They always hint and prod but never act. They are incredibly passive characters. So, its possible that they CAN'T correct their mistake and thusly need Booker to do so. Or, its possible that they're just simply choosing to treat it like an experiment as mentioned above and interacting as little as they possibly can until an impass is reached (i.e. Chen's death provoked them to hint something to Elizabeth)

• Not entirely correct. By bringing Booker to Columbia at all, they have created hundreds and hunrdreds of branching paths of what Booker chooses to do. Booker dies? They just jump to the next timeline where Booker is alive. This is implied with the Heads/Tails board at the beginning of the game. They're just appearing to every Booker who is still alive and asking them Heads or Tails. However, this slightly gets muddled, presumably in lazy writing or oversight, in that some universe's seemingly diverge earlier than when Booker first goes to the lighthouse; one of them is where Comstock imprisoned Elizabaeth in Comstock House rather than Monument Island.

• The Luteces are cryptic as discussed above. They either CAN'T be clearer because god knows what their preception on everything is and maybe entirely unable to be active in the world's events. OR, its the discussed idea that they're treating it entirely as an experiment (Either idea isn't mutually exclusive either) and, thus, want to interfer with the experiment as little as possible just as real scientists want to interfer with their experiments as little as possible. On top of that, they don't care if the Player's Booker succedes in resucing Elizabeth because A Booker in a different universe will succede in resucing her.

• Ok. This is a complicated one...

Booker at the time of Wounded Knee was, what? Sixteen? He was kind of a broken boy and horrified by the events that occured at Wounded Knee. He's suffering PTSD even if the game doesn't entirely go into it. Booker attends a baptism in searching for resolution for the horrible things he did.

The diverging point isn't exactly the baptism, but how Booker's character responds to this event. 16-year-old!Booker might missinterpret this event as 'I can do no wrong and my opinions are correct because God has forgiven me' which reinvents him as Zachary Comstock and the disgusting interpretations only get worse from there.

16-year-old!Booker might refuse the Baptism and own up to his mistakes and accepts what he did as horrible and move on with his life. By doing this, 16-year-old!Booker comes more into line of the Booker we play as during the game.

Now, its ENTIRELY possible that not-every Booker who takes the baptism will become Comstock, but Comstock is always born through the Baptism because that event entirely defines his life. Thus the downing at the end of the game. Booker takes the baptism and takes the identity of Comstock and Elizabeth's downing of Comstock rewrites it that every Booker that takes the Baptism will drown instead of going onto potentially be Comstock as we know him during the game.

I'm sorry if that's hard to understand. I usually have a graph on paper when I try to explain things to friends when it comes to Time Travel stuff.

The real question is "why didn't Booker get a Psychic Nosebleed and memories of being Comstock when he entered Comstock world"?

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

Sorry for not responding sooner, and I'll have more to add later, but I'm in the middle of Walking Dead right now. Yes, most of what you said, I get.

Which Comstock? Booker did have a nosebleed (I'm at that part), he has one when the Luteces drag him to the rowboat (the part he doesn't remember), and he has one when he first sees Comstock.

My question is why Comstock didn't get curious about seeing his younger self. He came up with the "False Shephard", but why? When?

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

He knew Booker was coming. He wasn't 'curious' because he was prepared for this day to come. He has the Lutece Machine to peer through to get all the details he wants and the Booker that comes after him to get Liz always had the AD Brand. Thus he makes the 'False Shepard' thing to turn ALL of Columbia against him.

Post-editing seems to be... glitched.

Does time travel work like that here? They have to go to each universe, find the Booker there, then bring him to a corresponding Columbia (shown by all of the various Bookers/Elizabeths we see).

They seem a little too lucid. Aloof, perhaps, but far from befuddled or encumbered.

So he knew that his alternate self would brand himself with 'Anna Dewitt', would be brought to Columbia somehow, and would pursue Elizabeth all those years later? I remember him coming to the realization that the easiest way to defeat Booker was to simply point out to Elizabeth who Booker actually was, and Booker becoming inexplicably angry, like he knew what Comstock was about to say.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

I'll make my way down.

• No. All the Luteces' need to do is bring ONE Booker (the same one they stole Anna from in the first place) to the Columbia that they brought Anna to Comstock and everything should start branching from there. They don't need to get 'multiple Bookers' and bring them to Columbia because the rules of how multiple universes work supply the Luteces with an infinite number of Bookers.

• Yes, he knew that the Booker that would come to save Anna would have an AD brand. Because the Lutece tear showed him that and the A.D. Brand is the result of stealing Anna in the first place. It couldn't be any other Booker but the one that Comstock stole Anna from.

• Booker became angry at Comstock because Booker's memories threw all the horrible things Booker did (selling Anna) onto Comstock rather than himself. Once again playing with the themes of responsibility and acceptance of it. Booker is fighting Comstock (a horrible father figure) and fighting himself and working out his own short comings as a father at the same time.

There are a couple of things that make that hard to believe:

• We get visual reminders that Booker is being "pulled" back from death, a la, a Booker is being respawned, a Booker is being substituted.
• We know that these parallel universes existed prior to the Luteces doing anything; their act of bringing Booker alone did not create these universes, and thus did not create branching paths that we follow. They instigate,are instigating, and will instigate.
• Booker and Elizabeth freely traverse 2-3 parallel worlds in search of that weapons maker.
• In at least one universe, the details are different, as you said with Elizabeth being in a different place, to Booker strangely rejoining that Slade guy.
• When Booker sacrifices himself, if this was just him from one timeline, one of the branching paths, then him drowning at the end wouldn't stop every Comstock. He's just one of the duplicates that made it to the end and drowned.
• Rosaline, Robert, Revolutionary Booker, and the various Elizabeths imply that these timelines are different. If the Luteces were merely going to/picking back up from the nearest timeline, these changes shouldn't be present, it should effectively be the same game over and over. Their experiment would also be foiled if Booker and Elizabeth left one timeline, because that causes the events of one universe to bleed into another.

We;re arguing "do they jump timelines" or "do they move through timelines restarting the same process". I don't think recall any scene in the game that implies they do the latter.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

I think the issue that we're running into is a linear perspective vs. a big picture perspective. Following one line vs. following the entire tree. Some of the things you mention, I'd need the scene you're mentioning it from to counter if it is that I've missed something.

And, I think its clear that there are going to be some issues with any theory put forward on exactly what is happening because its very clear that the writing wasn't entirely keeping track of itself or its own rules.

On a different tangent, I didn't know this beautiful song had an english version.

edited 7th Mar '15 8:33:38 PM by FOFD

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

Double, but worth it. This is really the part of Bioshock Infinite that captured me the most.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

So, I was browsing the Nightmare Fuel page for this game.

...and I really think this page needs to be trimmed down for gushing. A lot of this is based on preconceptions/speculation. There's blocky, wordy paragraphs abound. Objections?

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Go right ahead. I mean, don't go too crazy, but I think you have a good idea of what's reasonable.

Judging by the comments section you weren't alone.

So, I've just finished Burial at Sea. I especially loved the ending, where Elizabeth watched Sally play with her balloon while remembering how she rescued Sally from Frank Fontaine, threw him into a tear to Jupiter and brought her to Paris.

... I have to go on, don't I?

edited 2nd Jun '15 7:17:57 PM by SantosLHalper

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

Or how Comstock was forgiven by Elizabeth and they teamed up to escape from Fontaine's hand?

This post was thumped by the Eldritch Flyswatter of Horror

Halper's Law: as the length of an online discussion of minority groups increases, the probability of "SJW" or variations being used = 1.

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

It's funny that we've necroed this topic, as I bought the whole Bioshock Collection on Steam Summer Sale and recently finished everything. Well, mostly.

Bioshock Remastered

Although I'd been spoiled on the plot twist through popcultural osmosis, it was so long ago that I managed to approach the game with a fresh perspective. It's definitely as good as advertised. Obviously, I went for the good ending. It's amazing how well the graphics hold up after seven(?) years. Occasional CTDs marred my gameplay experience, and the quicksave doesn't persist across restarts(!!) so I got very fond of the manual save feature.

Bioshock 2 Remastered

Despite what Zero Punctuation said, I found the story of this game fairly heartwarming. The idea of Eleanor as a superbeing infused with everyone's genetic memory via ADAM has some very cool transhumanism themes, and I love how you can guide her moral development with your own choices. Since this is canonically the last event in the internal timeline of the Bioshock series, I guess that makes Eleanor the spiritual pre-successor of Elizabeth?

My biggest problem with the game is that I didn't finish it. The Remastered version should be called the CTD version, as I nearly gave up on several occasions out of frustration at all the crashing, and I literally could not finish the final battle; after about 20 reloads I said, "Fuck it," and watched the endings on You Tube.

Bioshock Infinite

I went into this game knowing it pretty well, as I watched Tobuscus' Let's Play of it when it came out. It didn't stop me from enjoying it like crazy, though. The design aesthetics of Infinite are just plain amazing: I don't think I've ever seen a game that's more beautiful. The Mind Screw of the ending leaves some pernicious questions about the nature of individualism in quantum reality, and I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of watching other people's reactions to it from Let's Plays.

That said, the Burial at Sea DLC pissed me off a bit. Well, a lot. Sure, it's emotional and cathartic and everything, but it commits a number of serious sins in its story, particularly in the second part:

• It does the whole "we're going to go back and explain gaps in the story between games" thing, which is always fraught with complications. Most especially enraging is the retcon to Fitzroy's motivations, changing her from a self-motivated antagonist to yet another pawn of the Luteces. Grrr, stop it writers!
• When you get to play as Elizabeth (conveniently de-powered because Plot!) , it turns from a shooter into a stealth game, "coincidentally" when you play as a female character?. Yes, I know it's internally justified, but the implicit sexism is still present.
• Of course, this same female character gets captured, beaten, and tortured by Atlas and crew on a consistent basis, and the ending has her willingly die to save a single Little Sister. I kept waiting for her to restore her powers and Deus ex Machina her way out, but nope. Fin.

Yes, I know that the story has to tie off Elizabeth's end, otherwise why is she not doing anything at all during Bioshock and Bioshock 2, but come on: she's a godlike quantum superbeing — there have to be better ways to accomplish what she wants!

Positive: The idea that Rapture and Columbia are exchanging scientific discoveries through the tears does a great deal to explain the similarities between Vigors and Plasmids, between the Big Daddies and Songbird, and so on. I'm still a little shaky on how Columbia managed to get Vigors to work without the catastrophic side-effects of ADAM, but I guess we aren't supposed to look too hard at that. I also find it rather clever that Elizabeth popping around between quantum realities helped set up the plot events in Bioshock and then recursively set up the events of her own story.

edited 16th Jul '17 7:40:23 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The Vigors came first, and Rapture's duplication created the side effect IIRC. There's a lot of materials showing Fontaine's notes (injection is more efficient for instance) showing how he planned to roll them out,