Bioshock Infinite is literally, physically, driving me insane (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

[nuttshell]

Bioshock Infinite again?

Oh well, lets try to make it funny.

The game is like a beautiful model with a bad case of uncontrollable flatulence. Every time you try to get a closer look you get-

Are fart jokes funny?
Think about it. Bioshock Infinite.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I've played many games, and yes, I was hyped for infinite. I expected something that would enthrall my attention, play superbly, and surpass 1 and 2 in quality. What I got was a messy narrative that had some interesting ideas, and impressed me with its mentioning and use of the infinite universes theory, but was completely erratic in its execution, required dlc to actually explain certain key points, and in the end, couldn't stand on its own two feet. Instead of embracing Columbia and the potential it had, they fell back to rapture in order to save face. I liked infinite, but so much potential was squandered that, in all honesty, it felt massively disappointing.

The impression I got from Infinite wasn't so much that Levine failed to embrace Columbia but rather he intentionally deconstructed the game he was making while he was making it. The call back to Rapture, the "always a lighthouse" quip, the clear abandoning of Columbia's political upheaval as a central plot - these were evidence of his restlessness with regard to the "formula" he'd created. Blowing it all up, as he did in the final 20 minutes or so, was his way of escaping from that box. Infinite begins and carries on very much as another entry in a "series", but it ends tearing pretty much everything down. I respect that.

As for spec ops: while the gameplay was generic, it was polished and it worked. It never felt as cumbersome and archaic as infinites did. When I was frustrated in the game, I felt connected with walker and how he was overwhelmed by the dire situation he walked into.

We had very different experiences, then. I thought Spec Ops had somewhat shoddy controls and an all-around inferior, second-rate "feel" as an action game. Infinite was, by comparison, a lot more polished and refined in my opinion. But the "feel" of a game is about as subjective a measure as exists.

 

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

I played spec ops on the 360, so maybe that could explain the control differences. But, as you said, experiences do differ between people and we just feel differently about infinite and spec ops. Thank you for the conversation though, it was nice and I do hope I didn't come off as aggressive. I just feel abit passionate about how infinite made me feel.

 

[RJ 17]

EDIT FOUR: I am really beginning to regret starting this thread, it seems to have sparked allot of discourse and clashing of polarized opinions, and for that I'm sorry.
Bottom Line: I do not think Biohsock Infinite is necessarily a bad game, like I said I quite liked it at first, just that I personally dislike the way much of the plot is structured, and think it runs on a very confusing and contrived set of rules that frequently contradict themselves in my opinion.

Don't worry about it, you stated your opinion and it's a valid one with valid concerns. It's just that The Defenders of this game are as passionate about its story as those who defended Mass Effect 3.

The main problem with BS:I's story is that, by default, working with the Multiple Universe Theory is going to leave your story with plotholes big enough to drive a sky barge through. For instance: their plan to ultimately and permanently wipe Comstock from existence from every possible universe wouldn't and couldn't possibly work...and after Elizabeth spends a good 20 minutes trying to explain the multi-verse theory, this is something that she should already know. According to the game, every choice, no matter how mundane, spawns new universes for every possible choice applicable to that situation. Ok, fair enough, so what about the choice to drown Booker? What about the universe where Booker chickens out at the end and says "Fuck this! I'm not letting you drown me!" That right there spawns a new universe in which Booker isn't sacrificed, and from that universe infinite more universes (and thus Comstocks) are spawned.

"Well the choice is made out in limbo! That area with all the light houses is like a neutral zone, no choices or decisions made there create any more realities! That's why she asks Booker if he's sure he wants to go through with this before she opens the door to that final baptism scene!" Bollocks. First of all this "neutral zone" is never mentioned or described as being as such. 2nd of all, the choice that's made outside in limbo is the decision to kill Comstock. However at this point, Booker doesn't know that he's Comstock, nor does he know what it will take to wipe Comstock out of existence. Upon realizing that he is Comstock and that he needs to die to kill off Comstock, he is thus presented with another choice: accept his fate and sacrifice himself or, as I said, chicken out and say "Fuck that!" If drowning him in that floating island baptism scene would have, theoretically, worked in wiping out Comstock then that means that decisions made in that space can indeed create and effect other realities. As such, a new universe is still created in which Booker refuses the sacrifice.

The point is that you'll never sort out this mess. As I said, working with the multiverse theory inevitably leaves your story open for nit-pickers to rip it to shreds with plotholes because, indeed, anything and everything that possibly can happen does happen and has already happened. Literally all you have to do is imagine some/any scenario that screws up the story and you have a valid plothole.

Personally what I found to be more maddening than the game's story was the combat. It's a game where you're fighting nothing but bullet sponges from start to finish. I'm not asking for CoD "realism" in that 1 to 3 shots will down an enemy, but I shouldn't have to reload my machine gun twice to take down a target.

(edited to fix some spelling errors and such)

 

[Dansen]

I think its a bit overrated but I still enjoyed the experience a lot. I wish the struggle between the Vox Populi and the Founders was highlighted more since it is pretty much shoved to the side after a while. To be honest I just wondered why Elizabeth didn't just kill the twins. They are the whole reason Columbia, Comstock or Elizabeth exist, they are the creators of all the conflict in this game. Killing them would be more likely to end all this multiverse crap than killing Booker.

 

[CyberSinner]

=
I think I've just found my people...

I actually quite enjoy BioShock 1, but you're right, it really isn't as deep as people say, particularly considering the framework and story are derivative as hell. Unfortunately, pointing that out in most places doesn't lead to a discussion, just people telling me I'm a c***...

I already gave my reasoning why I think the plot twist was a lot deeper in meaning than some of you folks believes. Because it did something other games did not do at the time. It broke away the formula of just doing everything you're told. In nearly ever game you got yourself a checkpoint system and you do everything someone says without question or unbelievable amounts of faith.

Atlas was the totem. You did everything he said without question, with blind faith. You did everything he said and didn't even consider what you were doing. Then it turns out you were being a puppet being controlled by the very orders given. Just as you are in many many games. Like COD or Killzone or Halo. You just do what people tell you.

Bioshock 1 instilled distrust and paranoia, and broke a gaming cliche.

 

[Reaper195]

I really wish Bioshock 1 and Infinite (since no one gives a shit about 2) weren't seen as these great games with such a d33p story. Because they're not. The plot twist in 1 wasn't anywhere near as grand as the internet kept making it out to be and Infinite was nothing but pretentious bullshit. I could look past all this if the games were genuinely fun to play but they're piss poor shooters to boot.

I....holy shit. I have actually found someone on the internet who DOESN'T think those two are the gr3t3st d33p games ever. I got bored of Bioshock 1 very quickly with its disgusting amount of fetch quests no one ever seems to mention, and while I did enjoy Infinite for a while, the whole "Going between worlds" seemed suddenly less important to the characters the second time they did it. And the last hour of that game can eat a bunch of knobs. At least the gameplay was tighter than the previous Bioshock games.

 

[SaberXIII]

=
I think I've just found my people...

I actually quite enjoy BioShock 1, but you're right, it really isn't as deep as people say, particularly considering the framework and story are derivative as hell. Unfortunately, pointing that out in most places doesn't lead to a discussion, just people telling me I'm a c***...

I already gave my reasoning why I think the plot twist was a lot deeper in meaning than some of you folks believes. Because it did something other games did not do at the time. It broke away the formula of just doing everything you're told. In nearly ever game you got yourself a checkpoint system and you do everything someone says without question or unbelievable amounts of faith.

Atlas was the totem. You did everything he said without question, with blind faith. You did everything he said and didn't even consider what you were doing. Then it turns out you were being a puppet being controlled by the very orders given. Just as you are in many many games. Like COD or Killzone or Halo. You just do what people tell you.

Bioshock 1 instilled distrust and paranoia, and broke a gaming cliche.

I must admit, whilst there are many nit-picks I can (and certainly have) made about the game, that is the one element which I totally agree was pretty ground-breaking; its hardly a complex concept, but then complexity was never the point, and as you suggest it did give the game a rare dual-layered quality which makes it stand out. Like I said I quite like it, and taken simply as a game I'd say is drastically deeper than many of its peers, its just what bugs me is that people use that lower expectation to judge it as a philosophical work, which is where it all falls apart. Perhaps that makes me too harsh a critic, but I still stand by that.

 

[sumanoskae]

Spoiler

It's not really critical information for the plot, and the voxophone is one of the more obviously placed ones in question (not long after the fighting starts, out in the open on a route the game forces you down, if I remember right). It's a convention of the series anyway, and one I rather enjoy. The dialogue of the game gives you the information you need, the rest just fills out the picture.

It may not be necessary for understanding the plot on a basic level, but that doesn't mean it isn't critical for giving it context. In Lord of the Rings, you don't NEED to know how Hobbit culture works, but it's important so that you can empathize with the characters. Why should all this not be the main focus of the game if it's what fills in the picture and makes the setting interesting?

Again, look at Columbia before everything goes to crap, and compare it to life in the average early 20th century city. It actually looks pretty nice by comparison. In fact, if you're not a minority, Columbia looks amazing. Rapture was cramped, with no security net, and an almost inevitable crime problem. Columbia, by contrast, is sunlit, open, with strong security, no menial labour for the pilgrims, and full of like-minded people. What, exactly, is the downside to living in Columbia versus anywhere in the USA in that time period?

The down side is that it's run by a psychotically patriotic religious fanatic who employs slave labor. No matter how "Normal" this was for the time period, most people still can't relate to it because it's psychopathic behavior; it needs to be further examined to be believable. In real life, people don't behave this way just "Because", just like any other behavior, it has to be conditioned. It may be realistic on the most basic, superficial level, but that doesn't mean it will work in context of a story. To all us normal Joe's, Columbia just looks like a bunch of sickos.

Maybe I just missed something or forgot, but when did Comstock ever tell the future BEFORE he had already amassed his flock? Wasn't Elizabeth the only thing he predicted? Besides, someone who is crazy doesn't become worth following when they become powerful, they just become dangerous. This is the conclusion I would expect a sane person to reach when they heard that Comstock could predict the future; nobody sane would ever trust him in the first place, especially with that kind of power.

What do you mean, "doesn't add to the story"? It adds to the motivation of the Vox Populi, it provides an explanation for how Columbia can function as an Eden for its chosen people, and it demonstrates how Columbia treats certain citizens as less than equal due to their race. I flat out don't understand what you mean by this point.

No, it CREATES the motivation of the Vox Populi, it doesn't give that motivation nuance or depth. All of these things are just ingredients for a story that makes basic sense. There is nothing to learn here because the motivation of the Vox and the inter workings of Columbia are exactly what you would expect. This looks like motivation from the outside, but it doesn't give the characters humanity; a character doing what you would expect from anyone in their situation tells us nothing about them. This concept can apply to cultures as well as people.

What is shit about Columbia? I mean this in all honesty. The life of the pilgrims there is positively beautiful. They live in relative luxury, are in a community that embraces the same faith and ideals (faith and ideals common to America at the time, I should note), and have the worst jobs filled by the minorities. They don't have to deal with pollution, crime doesn't appear to be terribly high until later on, they have technology the world below hasn't even begun to dream of, what, precisely, makes Columbia a "shit place"?

Add to this the fact that it's impossible to characterise every individual. Bioshock Infinite does it enough to demonstrate that citizens of Columbia aren't all a homogeneous mass, that some sympathise with the Vox, and so on. There are multiple instances of people standing up to Comstock, each for their own reasons. You can add Slate to that list I named before. Some do it because of their conscience, others for their pride, and still more for their faith.

Columbia is only a paradise if you're a sociopath; 1st world countries in real life have comparatively easier lives for their citizens, that doesn't stop those same citizens from feeling guilty or protesting against that inequality. Being utterly oblivious and callous towards the people who suffer so you don't have to isn't realistic human behavior; upper class Americans probably had things easier when Slavery was still in practice, but that didn't stop many of them from being sickened by their own actions. This turmoil should have been played up, Columbia should be characterized as a forbidden fruit that offers an easy life in exchange for blood, the psychological struggle that it's citizens face (Or the notable lack thereof) should have been explored. But because the game treats Columbia like it's charm is self evident, we never get any insight into why these people behave in such a horrific way, so they seem like absolute nut cases.

And again, all the tiny bit of resistance amounts to is a handful of characters behaving a little more realistically, it doesn't humanize the majority of the population who are still either totally insane or lacking in any character outside of being oppressed. Because the initial characterization for everyone on the ruling end of Columbia is that they decided to come there at some point, any further development they may have had is lessened, because it's still not clear why they're there.

The resistance of people like Slate suggests that some people in Columbia regret their decision come there, but this is pure speculation, it's never confirmed; this train of thought is never explored, so it's only the possibility of better characterization, not the real thing. It doesn't make up for all the other problems.

Does every detail of the setting need to be profound? It's obvious, for example, that Rapture needed a food source. Does the fact that they have a large fish market lower the quality of the game by not being profound? This is another of those rather baffling comments.

No, but SOME of them should be. My problem is not that Columbia doesn't try to make a statement with every detail of it's existence, it's that it doesn't make a statement with ANY of them. Everything about Columbia is obvious.

Any description of an individual sounds corny and shallow by default. I doubt I'd be able to characterise, say, one of my siblings without making them sound poorly written. So I'm not sure what you aim to gain from that.

That said, there are some obvious character traits. Booker is quick to violence, angry, a gambler, off-balance throughout much of the game by only having the loosest grasp on his own motives, and, obviously, haunted by past mistakes. He reacts quickly and often irrationally. You can see the parts of him that could grow to become Comstock, from that old desire to rid himself of accusations of Native blood by his actions at Wounded Knee, to his callous disregard towards the lives of both Comstock's men and the Vox. Even his more fatherly traits could be seen as fully blossoming in Comstock.

Elizabeth is harder to summarise, because she's the one that changes the most during the game. She starts off excited at the prospect of finally being free, horrified at the costs required to attain that freedom, and appalled at what Columbia is like beneath the surface. She's intelligent, empathises with the plight of others, and brave. She's also a lot more calm and patient than Booker, and far more open to new thoughts and ideas (possibly due to having nothing to do all her life but read books Songbird brings her, exposing her to new concepts all the time). Where Booker tends to react impulsively (something looks dangerous at first glance, let's avoid using it in the future), she has the determination to actually sort through the problems to make it work.

I didn't observe Booker ever being violent other than to defend himself or Elizabeth, nor would I call him angry, just stoic. It doesn't help that Columbia give him nothing nuanced to react to; his only reactions to it are disgust or indifference, which are both to be expected. Remember, that for most of the game his motivation is very simple, pay some people back; simple self interest. It's not until later that we realize that he's motivated by guilt, but even then, he does nothing to make himself stand out. He reacts exactly as you would expect someone riddled with guilt to react. I did not know he was accused of being native, so that's on me. I would still chalk it up to normal behavior though; people who are accused of something falsely will usually try to subvert that claim. Again, Comstock and the Vox are trying to kill him and he defends himself.

I would agree that Elizabeth is a better character, but I wasn't blown away by her complexity. Short of being braver than most, she just does exactly what I would expect anyone to do in a place like Columbia; she finds it abhorrent and wants to leave. I wouldn't say she's a bad character, just an unremarkable one.

Entire nations have been driven by demagogues into doing all kinds of despicable things in the past. Just because Comstock does them with American values doesn't change the fact that a certain kind of rhetoric appeals to a certain segment of the population. And because Columbia is drawn from those Comstock deems worthy, he can effectively scour America for the handful that share his opinion and populate his city with them. And always, always bear in mind that this is a man who can consistently see the future and has access to technology far beyond its time.

And even then, the game shows repeatedly that not everyone is in Columbia because they are true believers. As Fink shows, Columbia's laws provide many, many reasons for those with the privilege to enforce the status quo beyond blind racism.

On top of this, I'm still failing to see what is so bad about Columbia. The injustices in the city aren't out of line with what America was like at the time. The West really did intervene in the Boxer Rebellion. Interracial marriages were a reason for lynching. The slums like Finkton were real. Even Fink's hilarious time auctions, selling jobs to the worker who promises to do it fastest, were a thing that really happened. The city isn't all that much worse than the world below, with the sole exception of the promises to cleanse the world in fire at some indeterminate point in the future. And that's not something the average citizen has to engage with.

Anyway, I'll wrap up there. Get back to this sometime tomorrow. Feel free to respond in the meantime though

Again, Comstock is not Adolf Hitler. I totally buy that a place like Columbia COULD exist, my problem is that it's existence means nothing. It's a nakedly oppressive place run by someone who is obviously a maniac; it doesn't give you anything to think about. When things like this crop up on a scale large enough to create a nation, it's not because the majority of the world is insane, it's because people in real life exist who are intelligent and charismatic enough to manipulate people and cultures on a grand scale.

The funny thing about dogma is that it's a contradictory term; no one truly does anything without reason, even if that reason is unknown to them. This is why a character cannot be simply "Dogmatic", there is a reason, somewhere within their psyche, for their actions. Most Columbia seems to be content to follow Comstock and the bible without complaint, when doing such a thing in real life would be a complex psychological process.

A real life example is the slave trade; it was a publicly awful practice that almost no sane person thought well of, but it thrived because people got invested in it's benefits and justified their addiction to it by doing mental gymnastics to convince themselves of their own rightness.

The movie 12 Years a Slave does a good job in depicting the ways in which normal people, not so different from you or I, can become complaisant with or sometimes even participate in terrible things.

This is how Columbia SHOULD feel, it should be a well rounded enough world that even if you don't know the history, you can understand why people would act like this; the oppression of Columbia should not be comfortably distant from the player, it should be uncomfortably close.

Isn't Fink an example of this? He plays up the fears of racism because it gives him an excuse to continue treating the minorities who work for him like crap.

It's worth noting that I found Fink himself to be the best character the game had to offer, but if what I was referring to was working properly then it should be understandable why people are attracted to Columbia's ideas.

The problem is that Fink is just one part of a machine, and is relegated to a single section of the game. It's not Fink who convinced the majority of Columbia's population to follow it's ideals, it was supposedly Comstock, and I still don't buy that Comstock is convincing anyone of anything.

Some games have more variables than others, but no matter what you do, you will play through Mass Effect 3 fighting down most of the same corridors, against the same bosses, and the narrative will remain the same. Certain aspects will change, and those will be the variables, but the game's main structure is constant.

Now, you can disagree with Bioshock Infinite's view on decision making in games. That's fine. Personally, I don't view Bioshock Infinite as a flat out criticism of this kind of game design, just a commentary of the situation. Ultimately, the narrative stays the same, and this is even more true for games outside the RPG genre. I would suspect, based on its gameplay and so on, that Infinite is rather more targeted at more linear games than RPGs anyway.

Bosses and corridors are not what make a story or decision meaningful; these are superficial elements, changing them would be a pointless and arbitrary waste of resources. I don't see how a narrative that can involve or not the extinction of an entire species and the death of half the main cast could be considered unchanging. The narrative of a game can change in almost every meaningful way, the fact that the locales don't change is incidental.

If Bioshock Infinite had nothing to say on the matter other than pointing out that it exists, why dedicate the most fucking complicated aspect of it's narrative to it.

I disagree with this. I don't think Infinite is actually advocating endless freedom in games. Like I said, it's commentary, not criticism. You can't disregard commentary by saying "if we did it any other way the game would be meaningless". That's a valid point in favour of the current state of gaming, sure, but it doesn't mean that Infinite's own point that choices in games never change the pre-destined narrative isn't equally as valid.

It's not a huge issue for me. I can appreciate Infinite's argument that the choices you make in a video game basically don't matter without actually hating video game choices for it. It's an interesting observation and the game tells it in a novel way.

When you comment on something, it's presumed you have something to say about it, you don't have to criticize it, but you have to justify it's inclusion somehow; going through the trouble of bringing something up just to point out that it exists is pointless. I wouldn't call Infinite's point valid, I would call it obvious at best; it's not really an observation if doesn't present any new information. If Infinite isn't being critical, than it is referencing choice in game narratives, but it doesn't comment on it.

Not exactly. What you do in a game is meaningless because despite others playing it differently, you all go through virtually an identical narrative. Me using a machine gun while my brother uses a sniper rifle doesn't mean that the ending of a Call of Duty game will play out differently. In fact, it will be identical. From a narrative perspective, the gameplay decisions are entirely without meaning.

On a similar note, no matter what choices I made in Dragon Age, I will always end up killing the Archdaemon. Similar kind of deal, although there are more things afterwards that are a bit variable.

Again, this is simply not the case; what Infinite doesn't seem to get is that the variables often outnumber the constants.

You will not always imprison it's soul in the body of an unborn child, nor will you always die, nor will any of the characters always end up in the same place. Origins dedicated the last few minutes of the story to painstakingly detailing all the fates of your companions and the realm, most of which can change significantly.

Not everyone who played Mass Effect will watch the woman they love get a whole put through her skull; not everyone will be forced to condemn her species to extinction to protect their innocent victims; not everyone will cure the genophage; not everyone will betray their old friend and his species to a slow death in order to secure an alliance; not everyone will leave the counsel to die in order to install a new government in their place; not everyone will choose to destroy the heretics; not everyone will allow the Geth to become individuals.

Given all the possibilities before them, people still choose to focus on the aspects of the narrative they can't change.

The game is not critiquing the real Many Worlds theory. That works very differently from the way their version of the theory works in Bioshock Infinite. In Bioshock Infinite, there are no worlds where Comstock spearheads a civil rights movement. None. That's a constant that never changes. Comstock is always, inevitably, going to do all the awful things he is shown doing in the game.

This isn't because that's how Bioshock Infinite understands the real Many Worlds theory. Bioshock Infinite doesn't care about the Many Worlds theory at all, no more than the first Bioshock cares about how DNA really works. Bioshock is using an altered version of Many Worlds as a metaphor for video games, and in the context of that example there is no playthrough of Bioshock Infinite carried out by anyone anywhere in the world where Comstock is anything other than what he is presented as in the game.

To get a truly complete victory over a villain like Comstock, the game seems to suggest, you basically need to go back to the game's development and kill it before it gets past the conceptual stage. Which I found a pretty entertaining concept.

I said before that I won't harp on plot holes, but in this case they cause a problem with the metaphor, so I'll point out one of them; if you can stop Comstock at all, how is he a constant? Wouldn't there also still be versions of reality in which you DIDN'T kill him at the baptism?

The problem here is that the game makes a metaphorical claim, but doesn't prove it's point; the manner in which you stop Comstock is entirely arbitrary, it works because the game says it works. The process of cause and effect has been lost, and any comment Infinite was trying to make about life or video games is lost because it fails to maintain internal consistency.

So that's enough about plot holes, onto my other gripes. What point is Bioshock Infinite making outside of it's pseudo commentary on video games? Comstock is not a villain in real life because he doesn't really exist, and there are no villains like him IN real life because the Many Worlds theory doesn't work that way in reality.

The greatest works of art have applicability to the real world; this is why we can get emotionally invested in a work of fiction, because although it isn't literally happening, we know on some level that there are many situations in real life that resemble it; it SEEMS real.

If Bioshock Infinite's only goal was to engineer a setting with a magically unstoppable villain, I would describe such a thing as ineffective; I can't relate to this situation, I can't apply it to reality or immerse myself in it.

This isn't because Infinite is unrealistic in a literal sense, it's because it's unrealistic at it's very core, even the most primal aspect of my mind recognizes an arbitrary concept like "You can't defeat the villain because I say so" as a work of fiction because the game never offers any reason why such a thing is impossible, in either a metaphorical or literal sense.

Let's look at another unrealistic character who DOES work and examine this further; we'll use The Joker from The Dark Knight. Like Comstock, the Joker probably has no business being as hard to kill as he is; after all, he's just a man, he doesn't have any super powers or futuristic technology, but I'm able to buy into his indestructibility because of what he represents and because of how what he represents operates in the real world.

The Joker represents entropy, savagery, and discord. The Joker is elusive and invulnerable because he has no rules, no limits to his behavior; he is willing to use any tool available to him and he doesn't care who he hurts. He can't be reasoned or negotiated with because he just wants to watch the world burn, and he can't be stopped because all he's doing is accelerating a natural process of social decay.

He's elemental, and I know that the concept of what he's doing is effective because I see that element at play in the real world every day. I can ignore some of the details not adding up if I can get behind the core concept; I can deal with the Joker knowing which inmate to put the cell phone in because I believe that he probably could have found a way to break out of prison regardless, because he has proven to be otherwise ten steps ahead of everyone else, because he understands the other characters better than they understand themselves.

I can suspend my disbelief of the literal because the metaphor is rock solid.

I'm not clear at all on what sort of grand metaphor Comstocks invulnerability is supposed to be. For a metaphor to work, it can't just resemble the thing it's commenting on from the outside, it's mechanics and inter-workings have to be similar as well; this is why I prefer a metaphor to an allegory, because the only reason an allegory represents something else is because the creator says it does, a metaphor resembles the thing it's commenting on no matter what anyone says; they may not be the same thing, but they share some of their most important qualities, to the point that you can apply the same ideas and methods to dealing with both of them.

I've never heard of any situation that resembles that of Infinite's many worlds idea on any level, and I think the reason the game never had time to develop the idea is because it's only revealed at the very end. Oh, the alternate dimensions are present everywhere, but that idea of constants and variables only shows up in the end. There might have been some mileage in either idea, but the prior idea is dropped at the last minute, so whatever it meant is gone, and the latter idea doesn't get the opportunity to become a real metaphor.

So what else is Bioshock Infinite about besides it's reference to video game narratives?

The ending makes sure that the only places that exist are the ones where Comstock doesn't. I wouldn't call that a pessimistic attitude, it seems positively empowering.

As I already stated, the ending makes no sense. And the point that I was making is that it was cynical to even be upset about Comstocks existence in the grand scheme of things, but since the whole thing about infinity doesn't hole up anyway, that's a moot point.

Nevertheless, the people being killed are, as you say below, people. Booker doesn't show any remorse during the game for the killing he does. He is, hilariously, desensitised to violence. In the game, based on how Elizabeth and Fink react to him, that actually makes him come off as a bit of a psychopath. It's not really the point of the game (Spec-Ops: The Line went far more into this kind of point), but it is something that the game seems to acknowledge as part of its meta-commentary.

Most of them are awful human beings who the world is better off without, there might more mileage in Booker's desensitization if the people he was killing were ever characterized as anything other than Knight Templar religious fanatics. Not to mention that being desensitized to violence doesn't really connect him to Comstock; Comstock's relationship with violence is not that of a war veteran, he does not simply disregard the use of violence, he considers it a meaningful act that is justifiable if used against people who don't live in Columbia, minorities, whoever the fuck he thinks is a sinner at the moment, and presumably his wife. Desensitization is the least of his problems (Fucking fruitcake)

With exception of the Vox Populi. The fact that Booker proclaims them to be just as bad as Comstock always bothered me; it doesn't sound like something either Booker or Comstock would say, it just sounds short sighted and thoughtless. I was actually disappointed that more of a point wasn't made out of Booker being forced to fight against the Vox

You honestly don't feel that the ability of both characters to easily justify violence doesn't draw some similarities between them? I know that in video games we kind of expect our protagonists to not have a big deal about killing the enemies, because that's often the point of the game, but Infinite does seem to be drawing the comparison between the two to address the possibility that this kind of behaviour is not remotely normal. Or healthy. Or moral.

A: Anyone will kill without question in a desperate situation; it's just fight or flight.

B: No, I do not see the common thread, because Booker doesn't justify shit, he isn't interested in doing the right thing. When Booker kills people, it's to survive or further his own ends. He's a pretty typical thug. And the violence he commits against Comstocks men is no worse than they would do to him. The violence he commits against the Vox is out of necessity for the most part, he's just trying to survive; perhaps not moral, but not psychotic.

C: Comstocks justification of violence is a whole other level of insane. Booker's violence is mostly reactive, Comstock on the other hand regularly abuses people who can't defend themselves and have done nothing wrong and claims it's for their own good. He also plans to kill countless millions when Columbia attacks the world below. The simple fact is that Booker either kills people who deserve it or at least acknowledges and admits it when he doesn't; he's not a good man but he's not a psychopath. Comstock kills people based on the words of a book, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin, and their nationality. Many of these things are not in their control, more are completely meaningless. If such a thing exists, Comstock is fucking evil, a complete and utter monster; he is totally lacking in empathy and finds cruelty towards the innocent to be justified and instructive.

Both characters make judgement calls on who deserves to live, but Bookers ideals are at least based in the understanding that everyone has a basic right to life regardless of where they come from. Comstock is under the impression that if the bible says it, or if he decides it, it's sanctioned by his all powerful and infallible imaginary friend.

Violence is not an inherently good or bad thing, the important thing is who the target is.

The Bioshock Infinite equivalent to this is the arbitrary choices it asks you to make. Throw a ball at the prisoners or their captor. Pick the free bird or the empty cage. Kill Slate, or leave him to a fate as bad as death. You go in expecting consequences, and the game subverts that expectation.

That one went over my head; what is that meant to imply? That the decision you make will not affect the game? The first choice doesn't matter because you never actually throw the ball, the second one is just a fashion choice, and the third one DOES have a a consequence, even if you yourself don't see it. Even if I conceded that the metaphor was there, it still wouldn't be very good.

Again, the point Infinite is making about other games simply isn't true, so it's really only commenting on itself, but since the choices sometimes DO matter within the world of the game, it all means nothing.

"Not as smart as it thinks it is" is a pretty mean-spirited accusation, I tend to feel. It implies that the subject has somehow declared itself as being superior, which is a nasty thing to say when Infinite has never said it thought it was superior in any way.

Frankly, I think Infinite is an intelligent game. It's not the most intelligent game, but it's certainly got a lot more thought put into it than the majority of games. I make no judgement on how intelligent Infinite considers itself to be, however, because I have no way of knowing that.

I say Infinite is not as smart as it thinks it is because of how it presents simple concepts as though they were complex. I didn't say Infinite isn't thoughtful, I placed a judgement on the quality of thought. But truthfully, I think pretentious is kind of a silly thing to call an inanimate object; I refer to it as "Not as smart as it thinks it is" because it's presented with a degree of gravitas I don't think it's earned; it's not as complicated as it presents itself to be. It's certainly miles above a lot of it's competition, bit I wouldn't call it great.

 

[rbstewart7263]

The plasmids(I forget what there called here) were discovered through the tears by someone, Fink I believe. And then brought into columbia. Its heavily implied that they were looking into rapture and stealing there science essentially.

I thought it was odd at first that there was no explanation for these either until there was an explanation.


Also if you think the plot doesnt make sense it makes PERFECT sense. Either you dont understand all of the science behind what happened(all of this is simple quantum theory ) Or you missed a voxophone or something that explains what happened.

 

[purf]

Funny thread. I just started the game about two nights ago and I can happily read all of this. With Bioshock1 going to great lengths to make very sure I fully understand I'm just the feet and triggerfinger of a spineless moron-on-a-string from the get-go, now the amount of fucks I give about any of the convoluted shit Infinite throws at me is written out here:

 

[Azahul]

It may not be necessary for understanding the plot on a basic level, but that doesn't mean it isn't critical for giving it context. In Lord of the Rings, you don't NEED to know how Hobbit culture works, but it's important so that you can empathize with the characters. Why should all this not be the main focus of the game if it's what fills in the picture and makes the setting interesting?

As I've said, the game practically funnels you onto this voxophone, along with many of the other more critical ones. Hunting for the rest is a gameplay element they added presumably because it allowed them to do precisely what you describe, flesh out the city of Columbia, encourage empathy with different members of the populace, show different aspects of the story that the main characters don't encounter personally during the plot.

Spoiler

The down side is that it's run by a psychotically patriotic religious fanatic who employs slave labor. No matter how "Normal" this was for the time period, most people still can't relate to it because it's psychopathic behavior; it needs to be further examined to be believable. In real life, people don't behave this way just "Because", just like any other behavior, it has to be conditioned. It may be realistic on the most basic, superficial level, but that doesn't mean it will work in context of a story. To all us normal Joe's, Columbia just looks like a bunch of sickos.

Maybe I just missed something or forgot, but when did Comstock ever tell the future BEFORE he had already amassed his flock? Wasn't Elizabeth the only thing he predicted? Besides, someone who is crazy doesn't become worth following when they become powerful, they just become dangerous. This is the conclusion I would expect a sane person to reach when they heard that Comstock could predict the future; nobody sane would ever trust him in the first place, especially with that kind of power.
He had political support based on his ultra-nationalist rhetoric, but the invention of the tears (something that predates the completion of Columbia, I should note) is what turned him into "Father" Comstock, the Prophet, and created his cult of personality. As a result, by the time he was aboard Columbia, he already had access to visions.

As for the rest, Comstock's prophecies of doom don't kick off until after he got his hands on Elizabeth. Prior to that, he was interested in salvation. He actually comes off as fairly benevolent, talking about how salvation is within the grasp of sinners and so on. The "burn the Sodom below" stuff really only comes in after he's already been established as a miracle worker, and has come to the personal revelation that the only way to ensure mankind has the salvation he is offering is to tear it all up by the roots and start again.

No, it CREATES the motivation of the Vox Populi, it doesn't give that motivation nuance or depth. All of these things are just ingredients for a story that makes basic sense. There is nothing to learn here because the motivation of the Vox and the inter workings of Columbia are exactly what you would expect. This looks like motivation from the outside, but it doesn't give the characters humanity; a character doing what you would expect from anyone in their situation tells us nothing about them. This concept can apply to cultures as well as people.

So, you don't find it interesting that it suggests a large convict population among Columbia's minorities? I find that adds an interesting nuance to the subsequent rebellion, as there is a strong possibility of violent criminals among the uprising.

Columbia is only a paradise if you're a sociopath; 1st world countries in real life have comparatively easier lives for their citizens, that doesn't stop those same citizens from feeling guilty or protesting against that inequality. Being utterly oblivious and callous towards the people who suffer so you don't have to isn't realistic human behavior; upper class Americans probably had things easier when Slavery was still in practice, but that didn't stop many of them from being sickened by their own actions. This turmoil should have been played up, Columbia should be characterized as a forbidden fruit that offers an easy life in exchange for blood, the psychological struggle that it's citizens face (Or the notable lack thereof) should have been explored. But because the game treats Columbia like it's charm is self evident, we never get any insight into why these people behave in such a horrific way, so they seem like absolute nut cases.

Besides, as I've mentioned, the fact that an early level takes you through a household where white Columbians are running a printing press and hideout for the Vox Populi.

You're right, just because slavery made life easier didn't mean everyone supported it. But Columbia is like the slaving states in this respect. The majority are generally apathetic towards the inequality. A few care vehemently one way or the other, but most just accept it as part of their everyday life. I wouldn't say an implicit support for inequality leads automatically to a psychological struggle. Sadly, the US seemed to go along fine with such inequality until the Civil Rights Movement, which was half a century after the events in Columbia take place.

Yes, it looks like they're sickos from our modern perspective. It wasn't really something to get angsty about at the time though.

And again, all the tiny bit of resistance amounts to is a handful of characters behaving a little more realistically, it doesn't humanize the majority of the population who are still either totally insane or lacking in any character outside of being oppressed. Because the initial characterization for everyone on the ruling end of Columbia is that they decided to come there at some point, any further development they may have had is lessened, because it's still not clear why they're there.

The resistance of people like Slate suggests that some people in Columbia regret their decision come there, but this is pure speculation, it's never confirmed; this train of thought is never explored, so it's only the possibility of better characterization, not the real thing. It doesn't make up for all the other problems.

Slate doesn't resent going there because of the racial differences. He works with the Vox for reasons that boil down to "enemy of my enemy", and loathes Comstock because of the invention of mechanical soldiers. And honestly, the race stuff isn't all that different from how race was treated in parts of the US at the time.

That said, the very "I've made a mistake" mentality is explored in some Voxophones. It's not a major part of the story, and they don't represent the majority of the population, because one aspect the Bioshock series loves to play around with is the danger of extreme ideologies. In this case, the majority accept the dominant ideology, because without that there would be no Columbia. And, again, it's not even a terribly extreme ideology for the time. The way we see minorities treated is not all that exceptional.

Again, Comstock is not Adolf Hitler. I totally buy that a place like Columbia COULD exist, my problem is that it's existence means nothing. It's a nakedly oppressive place run by someone who is obviously a maniac; it doesn't give you anything to think about. When things like this crop up on a scale large enough to create a nation, it's not because the majority of the world is insane, it's because people in real life exist who are intelligent and charismatic enough to manipulate people and cultures on a grand scale.

The funny thing about dogma is that it's a contradictory term; no one truly does anything without reason, even if that reason is unknown to them. This is why a character cannot be simply "Dogmatic", there is a reason, somewhere within their psyche, for their actions. Most Columbia seems to be content to follow Comstock and the bible without complaint, when doing such a thing in real life would be a complex psychological process.

Again, higher quality of life, fervent religious beliefs, definitive "proof" of their leader's near-divinity, and a rhetoric that began with them being granted salvation, and from there assumes that they are the Chosen of God.

It's worth noting that I found Fink himself to be the best character the game had to offer, but if what I was referring to was working properly then it should be understandable why people are attracted to Columbia's ideas.

The problem is that Fink is just one part of a machine, and is relegated to a single section of the game. It's not Fink who convinced the majority of Columbia's population to follow it's ideals, it was supposedly Comstock, and I still don't buy that Comstock is convincing anyone of anything.

A lot of your problems with the game's setting seem to boil down to you having missed a lot of the game's voxophones. In this respect, the game's method of divulging additional information does work against it. To someone attempting to interrogate Bioshock Infinite without hunting the game world for all its content, there are going to appear to be some plot holes. As someone who did hunt for every voxophone I could find in each of my playthroughs, I'll confess to probably having a blind spot when it comes to this aspect of the game as I likely take the information in them for granted.

So, I'll concede that there is probably a better way for them to explore Columbia than through voxophones. It worked for me, but clearly isn't accessible for everyone.

Bosses and corridors are not what make a story or decision meaningful; these are superficial elements, changing them would be a pointless and arbitrary waste of resources. I don't see how a narrative that can involve or not the extinction of an entire species and the death of half the main cast could be considered unchanging. The narrative of a game can change in almost every meaningful way, the fact that the locales don't change is incidental.

If Bioshock Infinite had nothing to say on the matter other than pointing out that it exists, why dedicate the most fucking complicated aspect of it's narrative to it.

Even in the cases you describe, Bioshock Infinite is questioning how important those choices really are. What looks like the extinction of an entire species really just boils down to an aesthetic choice that doesn't happen in someone else's version of the game anyway. Rendering the Rachni extinct, for example, changes nothing. Maybe inside your head, but the choice doesn't impact the way the game plays or how the narrative continues, and in another "universe" they still live anyway.

You can consider that a pointless, self-evident message if you want, I guess. Personally, in an industry which touts the value of choice and consequences so highly, I found it a rather fascinating angle to take.

When you comment on something, it's presumed you have something to say about it, you don't have to criticize it, but you have to justify it's inclusion somehow; going through the trouble of bringing something up just to point out that it exists is pointless. I wouldn't call Infinite's point valid, I would call it obvious at best; it's not really an observation if doesn't present any new information. If Infinite isn't being critical, than it is referencing choice in game narratives, but it doesn't comment on it.

But how obvious is it, really? Bearing in mind how nearly every game before release has developers exclaiming how much choice and freedom you have. If you want, consider it targeted not at the somewhat cynical gaming audience, but back at the developers of the gaming industry who clearly don't seem to have got the message on how pointlessly arbitrary so many of their choices are.

Not to say that such choices are bad. Just that they're nowhere near as significant as game developers seem to think they are.

I said before that I won't harp on plot holes, but in this case they cause a problem with the metaphor, so I'll point out one of them; if you can stop Comstock at all, how is he a constant? Wouldn't there also still be versions of reality in which you DIDN'T kill him at the baptism?

The problem here is that the game makes a metaphorical claim, but doesn't prove it's point; the manner in which you stop Comstock is entirely arbitrary, it works because the game says it works. The process of cause and effect has been lost, and any comment Infinite was trying to make about life or video games is lost because it fails to maintain internal consistency.

Not remotely arbitrary. You kill Comstock in the moment before he exists. Metaphorically, it's suggesting that the only way to actually beat a video game villain would be to go back in time to the game's development and shut it down.

As for the plot hole, Comstock as a result of the Baptism is a Constant. The game gives Elizabeth the power to step outside the narrative though, and to create a scenario in which every universe where Comstock exists ends in a paradox and erases itself from existence. The events of the game never happen, all the trials and suffering are gone, and the characters can live a much more peaceful life by virtue of no longer being in a video game (metaphorically).

So that's enough about plot holes, onto my other gripes. What point is Bioshock Infinite making outside of it's pseudo commentary on video games? Comstock is not a villain in real life because he doesn't really exist, and there are no villains like him IN real life because the Many Worlds theory doesn't work that way in reality.

The greatest works of art have applicability to the real world; this is why we can get emotionally invested in a work of fiction, because although it isn't literally happening, we know on some level that there are many situations in real life that resemble it; it SEEMS real.

If Bioshock Infinite's only goal was to engineer a setting with a magically unstoppable villain, I would describe such a thing as ineffective; I can't relate to this situation, I can't apply it to reality or immerse myself in it.

This isn't because Infinite is unrealistic in a literal sense, it's because it's unrealistic at it's very core, even the most primal aspect of my mind recognizes an arbitrary concept like "You can't defeat the villain because I say so" as a work of fiction because the game never offers any reason why such a thing is impossible, in either a metaphorical or literal sense.

Right, this is where the subjectivity comes in. I like the game as a criticism of other art. You're looking for something about the real world, and Ken Levine, it seems, doesn't actually care that much about the real world. The original Bioshock was a critique of game design without any real applicability (the political ideals expoused in it are absurdly unrealistic, the science is fictional, and the metaphorical point of the game boils down to "video game protagonists are basically slaves").

Comstock isn't magically undefeatable for no reason. He's magically undefeatable because you can only beat him in the game you own, not in every other version of the game that exists. Within that universe, Booker and Elizabeth could have beaten him, gone to Paris, and lived happily ever after. That would be a more standard video game plot.

However, all this stuff about your immersion and your standards of what makes "great art" is entirely your opinion. That's fine, I think that's a perfectly respectable standard. It just means that you're never going to enjoy Bioshock Infinite as much as I do, and all that we've been waffling on about so far is pretty much a futile endeavour. We simply have different standards.

A lot of the rest of your post is more along this line. We'd just be arguing about the relative worthiness of a particular metaphor, when we clearly have different standards about what makes something "worthy". Agree to disagree, I guess.

Most of them are awful human beings who the world is better off without, there might more mileage in Booker's desensitization if the people he was killing were ever characterized as anything other than Knight Templar religious fanatics.

Actually, the majority of people you kill are either the town's militia or Vox Populi insurgents. Some among them, on both sides, are terrible. You also find voxophones, and can probably infer from a title like "militia", that suggest some are just out to defend their families.

I say Infinite is not as smart as it thinks it is because of how it presents simple concepts as though they were complex. I didn't say Infinite isn't thoughtful, I placed a judgement on the quality of thought. But truthfully, I think pretentious is kind of a silly thing to call an inanimate object; I refer to it as "Not as smart as it thinks it is" because it's presented with a degree of gravitas I don't think it's earned; it's not as complicated as it presents itself to be. It's certainly miles above a lot of it's competition, bit I wouldn't call it great.

We're down to using phrases like "I think/don't think" and "my opinion". Essentially, structurally, I find Bioshock Infinite to be perfectly sound. We might disagree on the quality of its various aspects, but that's just a consequence of us being different human beings. You might feel it's not earned the gravitas with which it presents its story, I do, and there's not much more we can say on the matter.

 

[Azahul]

Spoiler

The main problem with BS:I's story is that, by default, working with the Multiple Universe Theory is going to leave your story with plotholes big enough to drive a sky barge through. For instance: their plan to ultimately and permanently wipe Comstock from existence from every possible universe wouldn't and couldn't possibly work...and after Elizabeth spends a good 20 minutes trying to explain the multi-verse theory, this is something that she should already know. According to the game, every choice, no matter how mundane, spawns new universes for every possible choice applicable to that situation. Ok, fair enough, so what about the choice to drown Booker? What about the universe where Booker chickens out at the end and says "Fuck this! I'm not letting you drown me!" That right there spawns a new universe in which Booker isn't sacrificed, and from that universe infinite more universes (and thus Comstocks) are spawned.

"Well the choice is made out in limbo! That area with all the light houses is like a neutral zone, no choices or decisions made there create any more realities! That's why she asks Booker if he's sure he wants to go through with this before she opens the door to that final baptism scene!" Bollocks. First of all this "neutral zone" is never mentioned or described as being as such. 2nd of all, the choice that's made outside in limbo is the decision to kill Comstock. However at this point, Booker doesn't know that he's Comstock, nor does he know what it will take to wipe Comstock out of existence. Upon realizing that he is Comstock and that he needs to die to kill off Comstock, he is thus presented with another choice: accept his fate and sacrifice himself or, as I said, chicken out and say "Fuck that!" If drowning him in that floating island baptism scene would have, theoretically, worked in wiping out Comstock then that means that decisions made in that space can indeed create and effect other realities. As such, a new universe is still created in which Booker refuses the sacrifice.

The point is that you'll never sort out this mess. As I said, working with the multiverse theory inevitably leaves your story open for nit-pickers to rip it to shreds with plotholes because, indeed, anything and everything that possibly can happen does happen and has already happened. Literally all you have to do is imagine some/any scenario that screws up the story and you have a valid plothole.

Personally what I found to be more maddening than the game's story was the combat. It's a game where you're fighting nothing but bullet sponges from start to finish. I'm not asking for CoD "realism" in that 1 to 3 shots will down an enemy, but I shouldn't have to reload my machine gun twice to take down a target.

(edited to fix some spelling errors and such)

Spoiler

So many people seem to be under the unfortunate misapprehension that Real World Many Worlds Theory=Bioshock Infinite's Many World's Theory.

Bioshock Infinite has some events and parts of reality always being constant. No matter what. There is no universe where Booker chickens out from being drowned by Elizabeth. He either accepts the Baptism, creates Comstock, the series of events in Bioshock Infinite unfold, and the events create a paradox that result in Comstock (and every universe containing him) being destroyed. Or he chooses to refuse the Baptism, none of the events of the game take place, and he goes to raise Anna as well as he can.

The reason for this "some things are always the same, some other things change from reality to reality" is part of the game's commentary on game design. In a video game, some things might change (the guns you use, the routes you take, and, if offered, the choices and decisions you make in relation to the narrative), but the general thrust of the narrative will always, always play out the same way. That's the idea that Bioshock Infinite's Many Worlds theory is based upon. The reason killing Comstock isn't enough, is because he still exists out there in other games causing misery for the main characters. The only way to stop him is to make sure the game doesn't ever take place in the first place.

At the Baptism, Elizabeth seems to try and create an event that occurs in every universe (or at least, every universe where Booker accepts the Baptism and becomes Comstock). She is, essentially, trying to erase every version of the events of Bioshock Infinite from existence by the creation of a paradox. And since every time you play Bioshock Infinite, you end up back at the Baptism creating a paradox that undoes the events of the game... she succeeds. That event becomes something that is constant in every universe.

 

[RJ 17]

Spoiler

The main problem with BS:I's story is that, by default, working with the Multiple Universe Theory is going to leave your story with plotholes big enough to drive a sky barge through. For instance: their plan to ultimately and permanently wipe Comstock from existence from every possible universe wouldn't and couldn't possibly work...and after Elizabeth spends a good 20 minutes trying to explain the multi-verse theory, this is something that she should already know. According to the game, every choice, no matter how mundane, spawns new universes for every possible choice applicable to that situation. Ok, fair enough, so what about the choice to drown Booker? What about the universe where Booker chickens out at the end and says "Fuck this! I'm not letting you drown me!" That right there spawns a new universe in which Booker isn't sacrificed, and from that universe infinite more universes (and thus Comstocks) are spawned.

"Well the choice is made out in limbo! That area with all the light houses is like a neutral zone, no choices or decisions made there create any more realities! That's why she asks Booker if he's sure he wants to go through with this before she opens the door to that final baptism scene!" Bollocks. First of all this "neutral zone" is never mentioned or described as being as such. 2nd of all, the choice that's made outside in limbo is the decision to kill Comstock. However at this point, Booker doesn't know that he's Comstock, nor does he know what it will take to wipe Comstock out of existence. Upon realizing that he is Comstock and that he needs to die to kill off Comstock, he is thus presented with another choice: accept his fate and sacrifice himself or, as I said, chicken out and say "Fuck that!" If drowning him in that floating island baptism scene would have, theoretically, worked in wiping out Comstock then that means that decisions made in that space can indeed create and effect other realities. As such, a new universe is still created in which Booker refuses the sacrifice.

The point is that you'll never sort out this mess. As I said, working with the multiverse theory inevitably leaves your story open for nit-pickers to rip it to shreds with plotholes because, indeed, anything and everything that possibly can happen does happen and has already happened. Literally all you have to do is imagine some/any scenario that screws up the story and you have a valid plothole.

Personally what I found to be more maddening than the game's story was the combat. It's a game where you're fighting nothing but bullet sponges from start to finish. I'm not asking for CoD "realism" in that 1 to 3 shots will down an enemy, but I shouldn't have to reload my machine gun twice to take down a target.

(edited to fix some spelling errors and such)

Spoiler

So many people seem to be under the unfortunate misapprehension that Real World Many Worlds Theory=Bioshock Infinite's Many World's Theory.

Bioshock Infinite has some events and parts of reality always being constant. No matter what. There is no universe where Booker chickens out from being drowned by Elizabeth. He either accepts the Baptism, creates Comstock, the series of events in Bioshock Infinite unfold, and the events create a paradox that result in Comstock (and every universe containing him) being destroyed. Or he chooses to refuse the Baptism, none of the events of the game take place, and he goes to raise Anna as well as he can.

The reason for this "some things are always the same, some other things change from reality to reality" is part of the game's commentary on game design. In a video game, some things might change (the guns you use, the routes you take, and, if offered, the choices and decisions you make in relation to the narrative), but the general thrust of the narrative will always, always play out the same way. That's the idea that Bioshock Infinite's Many Worlds theory is based upon. The reason killing Comstock isn't enough, is because he still exists out there in other games causing misery for the main characters. The only way to stop him is to make sure the game doesn't ever take place in the first place.

At the Baptism, Elizabeth seems to try and create an event that occurs in every universe (or at least, every universe where Booker accepts the Baptism and becomes Comstock). She is, essentially, trying to erase every version of the events of Bioshock Infinite from existence by the creation of a paradox. And since every time you play Bioshock Infinite, you end up back at the Baptism creating a paradox that undoes the events of the game... she succeeds. That event becomes something that is constant in every universe.

That's certainly an interesting take on the game. I disagree with it as I don't think the game is that "self aware", but it's an interesting thought.

 

[Azahul]

That's certainly an interesting take on the game. I disagree with it as I don't think the game is that "self aware", but it's an interesting thought.

Interesting. May I ask why not? The first Bioshock was, after all, lauded for its plot twist because of what it said about existing game design (that player protagonists are basically slaves). Ken Levine clearly has a thing for this kind of stuff.

"Always a lighthouse. Always a man. Always a city." It's a pretty self-aware game in general.

 

[Sefa Lagaaia]

I'm not saying there isn't plotholes in this game, but, I think they just use Elizabeths "Time travel multiverse theory thingo" as plot hole filler. Anything that can't be expained "normally" is just written off as Elizabeth tear manipulation magic.