BioShock Infinite - Airships and Racism

[Ariphaos]

Bean, my reference was the thought I got at the beginning. It's still close enough in overall context, and contrary to what the hype was ("The ending is like nothing you've ever seen in a game before!" ...), other games have done this sort of theme before. Regardless
Spoiler

there is no time loop - the Lutece 'twins' (they aren't twins, but alternate gender versions of each other) are hopping from alternate reality to alternate reality - you play Booker #122 out of a presumably nigh infinite number.

[Mr Bean]

Bean, my reference was the thought I got at the beginning. It's still close enough in overall context, and contrary to what the hype was ("The ending is like nothing you've ever seen in a game before!" ...), other games have done this sort of theme before. Regardless
Spoiler

there is no time loop - the Lutece 'twins' (they aren't twins, but alternate gender versions of each other) are hopping from alternate reality to alternate reality - you play Booker #122 out of a presumably nigh infinite number.

See not exactly Spoiler

There are two Bookers, Let refer to them as Booker A who had Ann and Booker B who accepted the Baptism. Only Booker A who had given away his Ann would carve AD for Anna Dewitt into his own hand. Only Booker B who had accepted the Baptism would become Comstock and buy Anna. There are alternative versions of Booker running around all over the place but remeber... Can happen/Will Happen/Has Happened... Is dead/will be dead/Is alive. Comstock's visions comes from viewing alternative futures and using these to gain followers by predicting the things he see's in his alternative futures. The Lucete's are on try 122 because Booker A inevitability fails at some point or never starts his quest to begin with because he runs into Slate and takes up with the Vox or is a shade to slow or is killed by Songbird. Your not the 122 Booker your the 122nd attempt of Booker A. Every time you fail the Lucute's grab you out and dump you back at the Will be stage to try again.

[Ariphaos]

Spoiler

There are a lot more than just the two. Hell an alternate 'you' dies half a dozen times throughout the course of the game - every time your nose bleeds. The Lutece's don't have that casual ability to waltz through time - that's what they need Elizabeth to do - otherwise they'd just go back and kill you pre-baptism themselves.

[Mr Bean]

Spoiler

There are a lot more than just the two. Hell an alternate 'you' dies half a dozen times throughout the course of the game - every time your nose bleeds. The Lutece's don't have that casual ability to waltz through time - that's what they need Elizabeth to do - otherwise they'd just go back and kill you pre-baptism themselves.

Oh really? Spoiler

We see the future where Elizabeth is never saved. Also there's an audiolog to the effect that death did them a lot of good as it let both of them free to travel as Elizabeth does. She is not the one carting them around time and space they are. And yes one of the attempts "died" heroically for the Vox but notice the nose bleed does not start until Booker is confronted with his deal. Likewise when you kill Comstock the nosebleed starts because he knows he is Comstock subconsciously even if he refuses to acknowledge it which causes the mind fuckery and the nose bleeds.

Also you forget that the twins don't want to directly interfer (Even if they do cheat) because despite the fact they want to correct their sin... they also want to experiment... they are scientists and they literally have until the end of time for you to get it right.

[Vendetta]

Spoiler

The story is predicated on quantum many worlds. There are an infinite number of Booker DeWitts, an infinite number of them chose to be baptised and became born again as Zachary Comstock, an infinite number of them didn't, an infinite number of them gave Anna to one of an infinite number of Luteces to clear a debt (a similarly infinite number didn't) and an infinite number of them returned to Columbia to get her back.

The trouble is, an infinite number of Booker DeWitts also drowned at their baptism, so the whole aspect of "smother Comstock at birth" doesn't change anything.

This is the problem with storytelling in an infinite phase space, and very very few stories get away with it.


A pity Bioshock is getting praised to high heaven for doing a QMW story badly on top of a no challenge bland ass shooter.

[Tolya]

Spoiler

The biggest grief I have with the plot is that it pretends to be set in a multiverse, but it's really not. It's timeline is linear up to the point of DeWitt's baptism, where it branches in two directions, and then into more.

Which, for me, destroys the suspense of disbelief, because I feel that the author does not understand the multiverse theory very well (no shame in that, just don't try to pretend that you do), or did lousy job at modifying it to suit his idea's needs.

It's like that: you can concoct a world in which there are cars but they only drive in a straight line. Which isn't a smart variation of our world, it is just plain stupid, because the whole point of having a car is being able to choose and alter your travelling direction.

Actually, if you want to see a better game, look at Singularity. It actually gets away with a time loop story, giving you interesting ending options. And it's not so smug and pretentious about it's own plot. But I guess there wasn't a forbes journalist on station when Singularity came out. It's a hands-down better game in almost every aspect.

[Vendetta]

Not writing a good multiverse wasn't the core of my problems with the story.

I think the problems are actually fairly numerous.
Spoiler

The first is that Booker DeWitt just isn't a character, he's got a few bits of backstory but that's all he is, a walking backstory with no moment to moment expressiveness of character traits or agency. Partly this is down to the excuse that he is constructing memories because he has been moved between timelines, but the story can never decide when this happens and why, he remembers Wounded Knee and the rest of his history before the baptism, he remembers things he's done since in the Pinkertons (which are real and externally confirmed by Fink) he remembers the baptism itself, and when you travel through tears as the game progresses he remembers the reasons he did so and what he should be doing next. He only doesn't remember things that are convenient for the "shocking revelation" late in the game

But that's not enough. Almost all of Booker's lines in the game are meant to be instructive to the player, and due to their focus on this they're not expressive of a personality that's not directly related to the game objective, all we know about Booker is that he wants to do the job he came to do. He hardly reacts to Columbia at all, though it should be way outside his personal frame of reference and as novel to him as it is to the player. This is obviously done because they wanted to keep him as a blank slate so that the player can experience Columbia on their own terms like they did with Rapture. But that lack of character for Booker means that the revelation that Comstock is a possible alternate self can only be met with the reaction "so what?". If an important story revelation is supposed to hinge on who Booker is, but who he is is suppressed to showcase the environment instead, that story revelation falls flat. If who Booker is isn't strongly defined, who he could have been doesn't matter at all.

The second problem is that the story keeps flapping around because the writers couldn't decide whether Booker or Elizabeth is the focus of it. Elizabeth is an actual character, she responds in realistic ways to her situation, taken in by Columbia at first sight because this is her first time free and not focused on "follow next arrow!" like Booker is, has a goal which has multiple layers (she wants to be free and escape, but she's associated that freedom with going to Paris, so that's what she says she wants), and she grows as a character throughout the story in response to things that happen in it, the Elizabeth who lived in the tower wouldn't have killed Daisy Fitzroy, but the one that had travelled through Columbia for a time did so because she'd changed as a person. When the story is focusing on Elizabeth as a person is when it's strongest, but at the end she's yanked out of focus so we can go back and undo the choice that made Booker into Comstock, something that she's not involved in but the blank slate Booker is. He doesn't have the character to carry the story, so it flies away into irrelevance right when it should be reaching its denouement.

And even if we take the ending to mean that all possible comstocks and bookers that branched out of the baptism have ceased to have existed, all that means is that the central theme of the game has resolved down to "if a bad thing happens, go back in time and kill yourself/father to stop it". Which really isn't a very interesting comment on the human condition because it's fucking stupid. It's sort of the antithesis of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which was "if a bad thing happens you can't unhappen it, but you can accept it and get on with your life from here").

And let's not forget all the times we travel between parallel universes and the story forgets that we have done so. When we enter the 'verse where Booker is the martyr of the Vox there's a voxophone from Booker himself which says that he's working with them as a stepping stone to getting to Elizabeth. Elizabeth in this universe shouldn't be free, but she is still treated as having escaped when she is captured, and she is still treated as being unique even though there should have been two of her, and monument island is ruined in exactly the same way as it was when we escaped from it two universes ago.

[Grumman]

It's like that: you can concoct a world in which there are cars but they only drive in a straight line. Which isn't a smart variation of our world, it is just plain stupid, because the whole point of having a car is being able to choose and alter your travelling direction.

As long as you were talking about a world where rail remains the primary mode of transportation and not just "lol, cars without steering wheels", I reckon that could work.

[Tolya]

My point is that nonsensical pretentious bullshit like that breaks the suspension of disbelief, which is perhaps one of the worst offences you can commit upon a narrative. It can be retarded or stupid, no big harm in that, as long as it's internally coherent.

[Tolya]

Spoiler

He only doesn't remember things that are convenient for the "shocking revelation" late in the game

That isn't actually that much relevant. He probably remembers the event of baptism, but being DeWitt who resigned at the last moment, he just doesn't ascribe any meaning to it.

If who Booker is isn't strongly defined, who he could have been doesn't matter at all.

Yep. And it works for stories like Half Life, which are entirely confined in themselves - require no a priori knowledge of the world - and if it does, "real world reference" works perfectly fine. Hence you can have a mute Gordon Freeman not saying a single world and only being a vessel for the player and still feel immersed. I've only played up to the first boss in Bioshock 1 before it bored me to death, but at least they pulled a proper Freeman there. Infinite just does not care about proper narration and exposure.

The second problem is that the story keeps flapping around because the writers couldn't decide whether Booker or Elizabeth is the focus of it.

Their biggest sin here is making the "shocking plot twist" change the character focus ENTIRELY. There are pretty heavy references to that in the museum, but otherwise, DeWitt for the most of the game is an empty shell. In the very end they want to fill that empty shell with content. But you just can't rescue an underdeveloped character by adding content in the last 20 minutes of the game because at that point players treat him as a Freeman - and thus making him entirely irrelevant as a character.

Actually, the bond between DeWitt and Elizabeth is one of the strongest story elements. It would have been perfectly fine if the plot revolved entirely about her, since the PC becomes attached to her through what happens in the story. Saving Elizabeth is perhaps the only motive one could have in BI, since through bad writing no one cares about Comstock, DeWitt, Luteces, Fink or Fitzroy. They are only hoops to jump through in the story to shape Elizabeth and her connection to the player. Everything else is irrelevant, so when the big "shocker" comes I could only shrug and ask "why should I care"?

There is a similar problem in Tomb Raider, although much less serious, as the story is focused entirely on Lara, but suddenly at one point shifts to saving a bland sack of potatoes being carelessly lugged around by bad men (Sam) and about whom one really cares.

And even if we take the ending to mean that all possible comstocks and bookers that branched out of the baptism have ceased to have existed, all that means is that the central theme of the game has resolved down to "if a bad thing happens, go back in time and kill yourself/father to stop it". Which really isn't a very interesting comment on the human condition because it's fucking stupid. It's sort of the antithesis of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which was "if a bad thing happens you can't unhappen it, but you can accept it and get on with your life from here").

The biggest problem here to me is that since this is an infinite multiverse, there will ALWAYS be other versions of the world in which DeWitt doesn't kill himself and there are still Comstocks and DeWitts zapping about. So you had zero impact on the world and it's story, congratulations. And on top of that you killed yourself. I can see why emo kids will sympathize, but everybody else? On top of that, when Elizabeth takes you to "infinite lighthouses world" you do see another Elizabeth and Booker there. So you theorize, that the other pair decided to do something different, because they came from a different universe where story might have unfolded differently.

And let's not forget all the times we travel between parallel universes and the story forgets that we have done so. When we enter the 'verse where Booker is the martyr of the Vox there's a voxophone from Booker himself which says that he's working with them as a stepping stone to getting to Elizabeth. Elizabeth in this universe shouldn't be free, but she is still treated as having escaped when she is captured, and she is still treated as being unique even though there should have been two of her, and monument island is ruined in exactly the same way as it was when we escaped from it two universes ago.

True. And I haven't noticed that when I first played the game. Actually, there should be an Elizabeth in every other universe. And there is no easy way to get around it, since Elizabeth is THE central character for every universe in which Columbia exists. So you just can't go with the explanation of "she never existed here in the first place". Actually, meeting your alternate selfs earlier in the game might have been a pretty neat thing which could help wrap the story up and eliminate yet another plothole.

[Vendetta]

Spoiler

He only doesn't remember things that are convenient for the "shocking revelation" late in the game

That isn't actually that much relevant. He probably remembers the event of baptism, but being DeWitt who resigned at the last moment, he just doesn't ascribe any meaning to it.

Yeah, he remembers that, what he doesn't remember is giving up Anna to Comstock to clear his debt and that his reason for going to Columbia is to rescue her, or that he's crossed through a tear to do so, and that this was nothing to do with what the player initially thinks the reason is because he is supposed to have constructed new memories on travelling from his own timeline to one where he became the Comstock he gave Anna to.

But all the other times he travels between universes (to where Chen Lin wasn't dead, then to a universe where his tools weren't taken, and then to the bad end where he doesn't rescue Elizabeth) this doesn't happen, even in his inner monologue (because he doesn't have one). He retains all his memories and reasons for crossing over. They established a rule of their made up physics and then only used it when it was convenient, not when it wasn't even though the same rule should have applied.

It's not even like it's particularly hard to trick a player into thinking that the objective and motivations have remained consistent when they've actually changed drastically, Spec Ops does it repeatedly and very few people notice. (protip: start the game again and watch how long it takes for Walker to go off mission)

[tezunegari]

A theory about the ending: Spoiler

In one of the voxophones, the one you can find in the Lutece home / lab, Roberta talks about Comstocks infertility and theorizes that the contact with other realities diminishes your abilities / traits and compares this to how traits can vanish over generations of descendents.

Now what where Roberta and Robert Lutece trying to do with the 122 DeWitts?

The baptism had three possible outcomes:

• DeWitt rejects it
• DeWitt gets baptized and lives as Comstock
• DeWitt gets baptized but dies

Now, if contact with other realities diminishes abilities / traits can you steer the outcome of a situation in such a way that one of these outcomes vanishes?
By having enough Elizabeths drowning Booker during the baptism (or having Booker convinced to drown by her) you remove the survival as Comstock completely from all realities as a viable outcome of the baptism.

Just a thought.

Doesn't explain the reality jumping for the weaponsmith though.

[Vendetta]

It's also a grandfather paradox*.

Which was new.

In 1943.

Maybe.


There should be a law about using time travel in fiction, if you've ended up with a grandfather paradox, especially as the resolution of your tale, you should be forced to go back in time and call yourself a dumbass.

*Spoiler

The grandfather paradox is not from Booker's point of view, it's from Elizabeth's. By preventing all possible Comstocks (which is apparently what we're supposed to believe) she has prevented all possible Elizabeths, therefore she doesn't exist and can't prevent Comstock from existing. Even the supposition that time travel creates alternate universes holds no escape, because this is explicitly all possible universes where Booker becomes Comstock, there's not simply a new timeline where Booker never sold his child (given the nature of QMW these timelines must have existed anyway, and must still exist even if Comstock isn't the buyer), there are explicitly no universes left wherein the motivation to kill Comstock before he is born can exist, so there is no reason to travel back to the baptism to do it

The thing about the grandfather paradox is that it's so old and oft seen that unless you have a really new take on it and deliberately acknowledge its presence it's just a sloppy plot hole that will annoy audiences that think about your fiction for more than two seconds in a row.

[Tolya]

Spoiler

Oh, since we are on the subject of Infinite, we can also cook up a universe in which Booker becomes Comstock without the river baptism thingy. We only need a world in which river baptisms are outlawed because someone of high profile died as a result of such a baptism. Then just make Comstock reborn in a normal church where you can't really drown. Presto.

Again, thanks for playing the game and achieving NOTHING.

I can understand why some people have trouble with mathemathical infinity, it is a very complicated concept. But this? This is just common sense.

[FaxModem1]

So, what's the point of the choices, the bird and the cage, the baseball, etc. It it all supposed to show that later on they all mean nothing because the game....I mean reality railroads you into doing things?

[Mr Bean]

So, what's the point of the choices, the bird and the cage, the baseball, etc. It it all supposed to show that later on they all mean nothing because the game....I mean reality railroads you into doing things?

It means there are choices along the way, but minus true divergent points your path is fixed.

[Guardsman Bass]

Spoiler

Do all the possible Elizabeths actually die? After the drowning sequence, we see all but one of them quickly disappear after Booker dies in the river - and after the credits, there's the unresolved scene where he's back in his Pinkerton office and goes to see if Anna's there. I remember reading a theory that that particular version of Elizabeth had become something like the Luteces, "smeared" across time and space and able to jump in god-like.

In any case, I liked the game, although (as with the original Bioshock) I didn't care much for the game mechanics as opposed to the "fluff" and back-story of the setting that you uncover.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I played it through, and I found it was ok but I didn't enjoy the gameplay as much as the first two Bioshocks. Indeed pretty much as soon as I was done with infinite I played through 2 again and found it more enjoyable. And not just because I used the wiki to get the most out of the ADAM I collected either. Who knows, maybe if I play through Infinite again I might find it more fun

[Starglider]

I thought this game was excellent, very well made in all regards. I played through it twice; 'Hard' was actually rather easy (as per Bioshock tradition) but 1999 mode was pleasantly challenging. Definitely the best game of the series in gameplay, writing and setting design - largely due to being free of annoying bullshit detracting from the experience in the first two games. Criticising for lack of gameplay innovation seems unfair - it had the skylines and tear mechanics, on top of the usual Bioshock magic/gunplay combination and weapon variety. The enemies were more inventive than the previous two games as well. Yes the writing came a bit unhinged at the end, but I forgive that for being generally ambitious and interesting. Plus the game is just outright beautiful, even moreso than Bulletstorm. Overall, a very pleasant surprise after Bioshock 2.

It contrasted sharply with another shooter I picked up around the same time (it finally got cheap enough); Halo 4. Now that really is a completely unoriginal and unintentive piece of crap (no mecha suit sequences do not count as an evolution over Halo 3). Totally linear, completely uninteractive environment, zero interesting characters (not even Cortanna any more), zero interesting dialog. Some nice art in the 'matte painting backdrop' sense but boring contrived gameplay areas devoid of anything that brings the environment to life. Finally, the exact same ultra-low-lethality gameplay Halo 1 presented. Completed it out of stubbornness but won't be bothering with the series again.

[Nephtys]

So, what's the point of the choices, the bird and the cage, the baseball, etc. It it all supposed to show that later on they all mean nothing because the game....I mean reality railroads you into doing things?

I found them actually more of an inversion of the standard 'you can choose your way!' game feature blurb that ends up not really being true. It's a 'You can choose your own way! Only not at all, it's deliberately inconsequential'. It messed with my expectations of what is currently 'standard' design, by highlighting how little choice your character has in any of the game's affairs.

So yeah. It's to highlight how totally railroaded you are. And not just from a 'we can't design an open ended game' way, but the 'the story is railroading you' way.

[Terralthra]

Overall, a very pleasant surprise after Bioshock 2.

The main story of BioShock 2 isn't nearly as good as the Minerva's Den DLC, though I may be a bit biased. Much more interesting story, new weapon/plasmid/tonics/etc., and generally more fun, for me. Did you try that one?