Bioshock Infinite's story is OBJECTIVELY better than the original Bioshock [SPOILERS]

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You can't just bring up something and act like you have then automatically discussed it.

Huh? The poster and I replied back and forth many times so it was discussed.

I'm gonna skip mentioning how OP doesn't really know what objective means because people have been over that ITT.

So Vigors. They could have been done better. As it stands, it's just painfully obvious that they were forced in the story on account of this being in the Bioshock series. I'm not averse to them being there, but they were simply not explained well. In the original Bioshock, Plasmids were central to the story. In addition to them making people somewhat nuts, they also simply don't fit in society. Giving people violent, magic powers is a guaranteed way of fucking up your closed society. Infinite's vigors however, are some kind of side-attraction that have little to do with the main story. This irks me a bit. Shouldn't certain Vigors just break things? Possession for example. Have vending machines spew money, make people do whatever you want them to do. Tensions are obviously high, and yet Vigors allowing the wanton magical genocide of skypeople with a flick of the wrist somehow are not a huge factor? I dunno about that. Bioshock 1's approach to those kinds of powers was definitely more coherent and unifying to the story. They also had an origin that made a bit more sense. They came from Ryan's dislike of religion and the restrictions society placed on science. In infinite, a place ruled by religion and faith, they just sort of came, unexpectedly.

As for the storytelling, the games are equal in my eyes. And not in a great way. Which is to say, they both use the patented Bioshock method of storytelling (tm) that involves short moments of actual story progression divided by long arbitrarily contrived (often to the point of being insulting) fetch quests that are sometimes layers deep and often involve recently introduced secondary antagonist NPCs that talk to you through PA systems have a nasty tendency to send conveniently packaged waves of enemies your way for giggles every now and then.

I don't consider the time travel/universe splitting plot a negative like some do, because Bioshock 1 and infinite are obviously different styles of Sci-Fi and Infinite just asks that you have a little more suspension of disbelief, but I do feel they both severely lack any storytelling prowess to compliment the actually pretty interesting main plots of each.

My argument for why Infinite is better is just because the main plot line makes sense while in Bioshock it didn't. A core property of a story for me (and I think for many as well) is for it to make sense so by default Infinite is better in that regard. The core plot of Bioshock doesn't make sense, it's not like I'm nitpicking some side story or some minor thing in Bioshock.

I really don't get why so many people are upset over the vigors. It's easy to bring them into the game due to the multiverse thing. I kinda saw the vigors as being brand new to Columbia, which is why you get the first one as a free sample and barely anyone uses them. Bioshock without plasmids/vigors would be a boring ass FPS so I don't get why so many are upset about them. Just for gameplay purposes, the game needed them. Plus, it's not like having vigors was a key instrument in the main plot line as you can tell exactly the same story without having vigors in the game. Now if Bioshock was a movie franchise or a series of books, I'd understand but it's a game.

I'm not trying to say Infinite is some grand example of storytelling in gaming or anything. It definitely has above average storytelling for a game but that's not really saying much considering how most games handle story and 99% of games don't even strive for telling a story like Infinite (or the Bioshock for that matter). And, the video game medium is still trying to figure out how best to tell a story in an inactive environment.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

I liked both, preferred the original. It was slower-paced, more oppressive, more subtle and focused on its world and a few central plot elements as opposed to character-centric Infinite. I'm not saying it was better but I found it more to my liking. Sorry but claiming something is OBJECTIVELY better based on your subjective interpretation and preference is just ignorant.

 

[Lilani]

If Story X makes sense and Story Y doesn't make sense, Story X is the objectively better story by default. That's is my point. I'm not saying Infinite's story is better because I was impressed, blown away, or even liked the story. For all anyone knows, I might hate the story, but that doesn't matter because a story making sense is better than one not making sense.

Hon, no offense but you've got a lot of studying to do on literature before you're at a point where you can objectively rate literature. There is a lot that goes into "making sense," and plot holes are only one of the most rudimentary elements.

As with any other form of media, the consumer brings with it their own baggage and methods of working things out. While figuring out how objectively "good" a story is can be satisfying for the one who figured it out, it pretty much means nothing in the grand scheme. You aren't going to change how others feel about it. You aren't going to change how new people who approach it feel about it. And the rules by which you used to decide that one was "better" than the other are just as arbitrary as their rules.

The people who worked on both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite have freely admitted the multiverse theory has its holes when you try to link it up with Rapture. And a few things didn't make sense in the original or both? Well yeah. A few things didn't make sense in the Lord of the Rings, like why Gandalf didn't ask Gwahir the eagle to just fly them to Mordor and be done with it. But there is so much else at work in that story that to only focus on that is not only an insult to the work, but also a sign that you as the one passing judgement have completely missed the point of the work.

As for my opinion, thinking back, I think I preferred the original. The pace wasn't so breakneck, you were given a lot of time to just stop and absorb the world around you. The splicers were all unique characters and there were so many amazing ones throughout Rapture (I still remember the Ice Man's voice so clearly...the Ice Man fucking cometh...). Infinite had a lot of people to talk to, and I listened to all I could, but it felt like they were painted with a much broader brush than the splicers.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I was pretty sure that audio log I heard said "only people with Ryan's DNA" which I took to mean it wouldn't work if anybody had non-Ryan DNA on board one. at least that's how I read it.

I'm pretty sure it meant only people with Ryan's DNA could operate it. It doesn't even make much sense for others not to be able to ride in one.

Unless you look at it in the context of "Almost everyone in Rapture wants Ryan dead." then my way would make perfect sense.
Ryan wouldn't have turned his Vitachamber off if he thought some assassin was going to poison him.

Atlas used Jack to prey on Ryan's narcissism. it makes sense, to me anyway.
(The thing that doesn't make sense is how Elisabeth and Booker were able to use the vita chamber Unless Elisabeth is Andrew Ryan's mother! Mind blown!)

Ryan didn't have any vested interest in the outside world, Rapture was his world and he was going to ride it out to the end. I mean, he set Rapture to self destruct if Jack was weak enough to kill him. Ryan would rather die than leave Rapture.

Ryan's actions don't even make sense. An objectivist wouldn't do most of the stuff Ryan does during the game or the stuff he did before the game takes place. The whole reason for him dying ("a slave obeys") is retarded as well.

Well if you didn't like Bioshock I'm not going to hold it against you but it did make sense if you listen to the audio logs.

For all his grandiose speeches he's a weak cowardly narcissist. (Did you not read Animal Farm) He's not an Objectivist, Objectivism is just the framework he used to scam saps so he could be king of his underwater paradise (Which turned into a splicer ridden hell hole, but he was still king so who cared?) Suchong and ...uh, What's-her-face were the real brains of Rapture and both of them are dead now. So Ryan is just an empty figurehead and Fontaine is the real objectivist who sees Ryan for what he really is, and that's why he wants him dead.

And why is "A slave obeys" retarded? Ryan wanted some indication that he was what he pimped him self up to seem like. Ryan's delusion is so thorough he tricked himself (Or everybody but Fontaine. And when he saw Jack (Himself) being controlled by Atlas/Fontaine he had no know if he was a man or a slave. That was the moment when his facade broke.
That was the moment he was willing to die to see for sure whether he was strong or weak.

Bioshock was an expertly crafted story. Bioshock Infinite was too, If more contrived. If you're asking which is better based on a purely analytical standpoint it's the first one.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

If Story X makes sense and Story Y doesn't make sense, Story X is the objectively better story by default. That's is my point. I'm not saying Infinite's story is better because I was impressed, blown away, or even liked the story. For all anyone knows, I might hate the story, but that doesn't matter because a story making sense is better than one not making sense.

Hon, no offense but you've got a lot of studying to do on literature before you're at a point where you can objectively rate literature. There is a lot that goes into "making sense," and plot holes are only one of the most rudimentary elements.

The people who worked on both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite have freely admitted the multiverse theory has its holes when you try to link it up with Rapture. And a few things didn't make sense in the original or both? Well yeah. A few things didn't make sense in the Lord of the Rings, like why Gandalf didn't ask Gwahir the eagle to just fly them to Mordor and be done with it. But there is so much else at work in that story that to only focus on that is not only an insult to the work, but also a sign that you as the one passing judgement have completely missed the point of the work.

What does that say about a piece of literature when it's story can't even pass the rudimentary/basic element of making logical sense?

The Rapture shout-out in Infinite was mainly for fanservice. And, that Rapture may have been one of the infinite Rapture universes where the bathysphere's weren't coded to Ryan's DNA. In LotR, you can easily say they can't just fly an eagle in there because Sauron has those flying things (I forget what they are called). In LotR, I don't have to come up with some lengthy, convoluted explanation for that whereas in Bioshock, you do.

Unless you look at it in the context of "Almost everyone in Rapture wants Ryan dead." then my way would make perfect sense.
Ryan wouldn't have turned his Vitachamber off if he thought some assassin was going to poison him.

Atlas used Jack to prey on Ryan's narcissism. it makes sense, to me anyway.
(The thing that doesn't make sense is how Elisabeth and Booker were able to use the vita chamber Unless Elisabeth is Andrew Ryan's mother! Mind blown!)

I was talking how would the bathyspheres stop Jack from controlling it with others on board from a technology standpoint, not Ryan's reasoning for wanting the bathyspheres to only allow him to use them.

Firstly, the whole Rapture part was mainly fanservice (Elizabeth could've went any underwater to kill Songbird). Secondly, Elizabeth was omnipotent at that time. And, lastly it could've been a Rapture universe where the bathyspheres weren't coded to Ryan's DNA.

Well if you didn't like Bioshock I'm not going to hold it against you but it did make sense if you listen to the audio logs.

For all his grandiose speeches he's a weak cowardly narcissist. (Did you not read Animal Farm) He's not an Objectivist, Objectivism is just the framework he used to scam saps so he could be king of his underwater paradise (Which turned into a splicer ridden hell hole, but he was still king so who cared?) Suchong and ...uh, What's-her-face were the real brains of Rapture and both of them are dead now. So Ryan is just an empty figurehead and Fontaine is the real objectivist who sees Ryan for what he really is, and that's why he wants him dead.

And why is "A slave obeys" retarded? Ryan wanted some indication that he was what he pimped him self up to seem like. Ryan's delusion is so thorough he tricked himself (Or everybody but Fontaine. And when he saw Jack (Himself) being controlled by Atlas/Fontaine he had no know if he was a man or a slave. That was the moment when his facade broke.
That was the moment he was willing to die to see for sure whether he was strong or weak.

Ryan was an objectivist that attained power and that power then corrupted him. That's the logical character arc you can get from the facts of Ryan's life [http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Andrew_Ryan], not that he was some scam artist. It really seems like you are reaching to make Bioshock make sense.

Ryan did the whole "a slave obeys, a man chooses" bit while Ryan himself was mind controlling to Jack to kill him. That is just retarded. Of course, Jack can't "choose" and "be a man" when he's being mind controlled. The moment was designed to impact the player because you literally have to kill Ryan at the point (the player themselves can't choose), which would've been a great moment if it actually made sense with regards to the story and Ryan's character, but it doesn't.

I don't like Bioshock because it has the worst assassination plot I've ever seen, which is still a horrible assassination plot even if your interpretation of Ryan's character is the right interpretation. It was Atlas/Fontaine that put together the assassination scheme so the exact person Ryan was has no bearing on resolving the issues I have with the plot unless you're going to argue Atlas/Fontaine was like the greatest psychologist ever, and Atlas could predict Ryan's response to having his son come to kill him.

 

[Lilani]

What does that say about a piece of literature when it's story can't even pass the rudimentary/basic element of making logical sense?

It says that it may not have been the point.

The Rapture shout-out in Infinite was mainly for fanservice. And, that Rapture may have been one of the infinite Rapture universes where the bathysphere's weren't coded to Ryan's DNA. In LotR, you can easily say they can't just fly an eagle in there because Sauron has those flying things (I forget what they are called). In LotR, I don't have to come up with some lengthy, convoluted explanation for that whereas in Bioshock, you do.

LotR is about the journey, not the destination. It isn't just the eagles that show this, they stop off all the time and have lots of random sidequests that really do nothing to help them along. They meet Tom Bombadil and hang at his place, they hang out with elves a lot, hell it takes Frodo something like 17 years just to get started from when he first receives the ring (though some of that has to do with Gandalf running away and researching the ring before sending Frodo along on his quest). And unless you're going to pick a fight with all literary scholars in the last half century that agree LotR is a monumental piece of work--if for no reason than the sheer scale and depth of the world Tolkien made--then you're going to have to learn a lot more about LotR before you're anywhere near equipped for that sort of a fight. The thing was still a work in progress when he died.

And I'm not asking you to legitimize Rapture, either. I didn't say it was a bad thing when I said they weren't totally parallel. And if you say it was for "fanservice" then you are really discrediting the writers. It's obvious they made Infinite to mirror the original from the beginning. They do have a lot of things in common, but there are nitpicky things some people have found and like to gripe about when somebody tries to claim they're parallel (I don't know any off the top of my head, it doesn't really bother me). But even if someone pointed them out to me, I'd still be willing to forgive them because I get what they're doing. I get what Infinite is about, just like I get what LotR is about. It's what you'd expect to happen when creating an overarching plot from what was supposed to be a standalone story.

Again, you know very little about stories. It isn't just about plotting story points like they're points on a graph. It's about author's intent, theme, purpose, pathos. I'm not claiming to be any sort of pro at this, in fact I've only taken two creative writing classes total. But if there's one thing that I learned, it's that not everything has to make sense. Just the important stuff, and just to the point that your purpose is clear. In fact, let's deconstruct a few of your complaints.

You couldn't kill Ryan with physical violence because of the Vita-chambers, and Ryan knew about the mind control (All Ryan had to say was "Would you kindly not kill me?").

From what I hear, the Vita-Chamber in Ryan's office was not functional. As for the would you kindly not kill me thing, think about what's going on in that moment. Ryan is just egging you on from the moment you walk in. He's out to prove that you're a slave of Fontaine, and you killing him proves that. Rapture is already passed the point of no return, he's never getting it back under control. There's nothing left for him there, and he knows he can't get away from Fontaine. The only thing he has left is his pride, and so he wanted to spend his last few moments making sure you knew you weren't in control of your destiny.

The very reason Atlas/Fontaine wants you to kill Ryan is because he knows the Vita-chambers will work for you (the same blood as Ryan) so you can't really die from the splicers and whatnot on the way to Ryan; therefore, he had to know you can't kill Ryan by normal means. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt about not knowing that Ryan knew about the mind control. A much better means of killing Ryan would have been poisoning him or something. Ryan only died because he wanted to and he disabled his own Vita-chamber.

You sort of answered your question there at the end. As I said, he wanted to die. Rapture was finished, and he just wanted to make sure you would exact his revenge after he was gone. So he egged you on.

And yes, it is an elaborate assassination plot. Probably more elaborate than necessary. But so what? James Bond films have some pretty convoluted ways of killing (or trying to kill) people, and nobody holds them against the films. Fontaine would have hatched this plan long before Rapture fell, and long before he faked his death to become Atlas[footnote]And he obviously does this because he wasn't going to get the people of Rapture on his side to start a revolution if they knew they would be siding with a manipulative mobster. So he faked his death to take on the persona of a revolutionary, a person people would be a lot more willing to follow and die for.[/footnote]. And remember--he didn't just want Ryan dead, he also wanted revenge. This was personal, a battle of wits and wills between Fontaine and Ryan. He got Ryan's own scientist on his side to get it all to work out.

Like LotR, this is about the journey. This is about the wills of all these people crashing together and forming an immense cloud of terrible hatred and cruelty. People driven to do the most horrible things, fed by their own personal desires and delusions and encouraged and forced by each other to go further and further. Until one day they wake up and they're injecting painful chemicals into little girls, or conditioning people into mindless slaves, or that they're the leader of a city populated only by the dead and the insane.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Unless you look at it in the context of "Almost everyone in Rapture wants Ryan dead." then my way would make perfect sense.
Ryan wouldn't have turned his Vitachamber off if he thought some assassin was going to poison him.

Atlas used Jack to prey on Ryan's narcissism. it makes sense, to me anyway.
(The thing that doesn't make sense is how Elisabeth and Booker were able to use the vita chamber Unless Elisabeth is Andrew Ryan's mother! Mind blown!)

I was talking how would the bathyspheres stop Jack from controlling it with others on board from a technology standpoint, not Ryan's reasoning for wanting the bathyspheres to only allow him to use them.

There is such a thing as "over-examination"
Part of story telling (The second most important part) is knowing what it's okay not to tell.
I have two defenses to that point. One: Ryan had engineers design the Bathyspheres to flood if they were transporting anyone without Ryan's DNA. Even if there was someone with Ryan's DNA on board. then he rounded up all the engireers who could undo the process and had them executed (Hence his "trophy room" full of all the people he had killed) Atlas didn't have Engineers so he had to use Jack, and only Jack.
(But that's me inventing exposition that wasn't stated and therefore moot)

My second defense is: The Narrative makes it clear that Atlas/Fontaine is a smart determined and patient man. If there was any better, easier, more practical way to kill Ryan don't you think he would have tried those first and failed?

Bioshock's not the kind of story that beats you over the head with exposition, they present enough information and leave some of the ancillary details up to interpretation. (After you kill Ryan Fontaine makes it pretty clear that that wasn't the first time he tried to kill Ryan)

Firstly, the whole Rapture part was mainly fanservice (Elizabeth could've went any underwater to kill Songbird). Secondly, Elizabeth was omnipotent at that time. And, lastly it could've been a Rapture universe where the bathyspheres weren't coded to Ryan's DNA.

You can't have your cake and eat it to. You can't claim Bioshock 1 is full of holes and then point to the hole in Bioshock Infinite and say "Fan service"

There is an Easter egg in Bioshock where you can hear the Songbird screech in the Fort Frolic level


But... I duno. Bioshock 1 makes sense, Bioshock Infinite has the "Quantum physics" excuse so it can get away with what ever it wants. Personally I think they're both exquisitely written.

Ryan was an objectivist that attained power and that power then corrupted him. That's the logical character arc you can get from the facts of Ryan's life [http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Andrew_Ryan], not that he was some scam artist. It really seems like you are reaching to make Bioshock make sense.

Maybe, I was unaware of the information in that Wiki Article, I didn't read it but it seems like expanded universe to me. The game was kind of shy about giving away details about Ryan's past. And if something that didn't happen, or was never mentioned in the game hurts it's narrative cohesion I'd just as soon declare it non-cannon and move on. (Just like Bioshock 2, and Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 and every season of Prison Break after the first one)
Sometimes a limited view is the best view.

Ryan did the whole "a slave obeys, a man chooses" bit while Ryan himself was mind controlling to Jack to kill him. That is just retarded. Of course, Jack can't "choose" and "be a man" when he's being mind controlled. The moment was designed to impact the player because you literally have to kill Ryan at the point (the player themselves can't choose), which would've been a great moment if it actually made sense with regards to the story and Ryan's character, but it doesn't.

If the choice was left up to the player it wouldn't have been a character moment for Ryan.
(I didn't read that Wiki article but...) I was under the impression that Ryan had to prove to himself that him/his clone/Jack was stronger than Fontaine's mind control, and would rather die than live with knowing he was that weak.
But I've said that already.

I don't like Bioshock because it has the worst assassination plot I've ever seen, which is still a horrible assassination plot even if your interpretation of Ryan's character is the right interpretation. It was Atlas/Fontaine that put together the assassination scheme so the exact person Ryan was has no bearing on resolving the issues I have with the plot unless you're going to argue Atlas/Fontaine was like the greatest psychologist ever, and Atlas could predict Ryan's response to having his son come to kill him.

And that is fair enough.
It's possible Fontaine didn't know Ryan knew about the mind control, and just got lucky with Ryan's ego.

every detail doesn't have to be explicitly stated. The audience should be able to guess that if there was an better alternative Fontaine would have tried it.

It isn't not-contrived, it's a stretch-and-a-half and if you didn't like it, then you didn't like Bioshock.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

LotR is about the journey, not the destination. It isn't just the eagles that show this, they stop off all the time and have lots of random sidequests that really do nothing to help them along. They meet Tom Bombadil and hang at his place, they hang out with elves a lot, hell it takes Frodo something like 17 years just to get started from when he first receives the ring (though some of that has to do with Gandalf running away and researching the ring before sending Frodo along on his quest). And unless you're going to pick a fight with all literary scholars in the last half century that agree LotR is a monumental piece of work--if for no reason than the sheer scale and depth of the world Tolkien made--then you're going to have to learn a lot more about LotR before you're anywhere near equipped for that sort of a fight. The thing was still a work in progress when he died.

And I'm not asking you to legitimize Rapture, either. I didn't say it was a bad thing when I said they weren't totally parallel. And if you say it was for "fanservice" then you are really discrediting the writers. It's obvious they made Infinite to mirror the original from the beginning. They do have a lot of things in common, but there are nitpicky things some people have found and like to gripe about when somebody tries to claim they're parallel (I don't know any off the top of my head, it doesn't really bother me). But even if someone pointed them out to me, I'd still be willing to forgive them because I get what they're doing. I get what Infinite is about, just like I get what LotR is about. It's what you'd expect to happen when creating an overarching plot from what was supposed to be a standalone story.

Again, you know very little about stories. It isn't just about plotting story points like they're points on a graph. It's about author's intent, theme, purpose, pathos. I'm not claiming to be any sort of pro at this, in fact I've only taken two creative writing classes total. But if there's one thing that I learned, it's that not everything has to make sense. Just the important stuff, and just to the point that your purpose is clear. In fact, let's deconstruct a few of your complaints.

I get that LotR is about the journey but if the journey doesn't make sense, then I can't get invested in it. They are on the journey to basically save the world, and if there's a simple way to do it and they don't take it, then I'm just focused on how stupid the characters are. I'm not going to into the themes, ethos, pathos, logos, and all that stuff if the base story doesn't connect or make sense.

Ken Levine's been making like the same game for over a decade now, I get they are mirroring lots of things from their games. Part of Bioshock Infinite's plot was to tie everything together, "There's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city." I realize there's theories tying everything from Infinite to Bioshock (Elizabeth is a little sister, DeWitt is Jack/Ryan, etc.), but I'd rather not interpret it that way because I'm not very fond of Bioshock, I'd rather have Infinite be its own thing with a "shout-out" to Bioshock and Rapture. If I was a huge Bioshock fan, I'd be looking deeper and wanting to connect everything.

From what I hear, the Vita-Chamber in Ryan's office was not functional. As for the would you kindly not kill me thing, think about what's going on in that moment. Ryan is just egging you on from the moment you walk in. He's out to prove that you're a slave of Fontaine, and you killing him proves that. Rapture is already passed the point of no return, he's never getting it back under control. There's nothing left for him there, and he knows he can't get away from Fontaine. The only thing he has left is his pride, and so he wanted to spend his last few moments making sure you knew you weren't in control of your destiny.

I think Ryan disabled it. You can actually go up to it and you get a prompt to fix it or re-enable it or something, but that doesn't do anything (I actually did that because I search every corner when playing Bioshock). I actually expected their to be a twist revealing that Ryan was still alive. Ryan should be able to easily get away from Fontaine; he can go wherever he wants and he can't die. Ryan should have ways out of Rapture; if he came up with whole 'DNA bathysphere' thing, then he definitely should've had several contingencies to get out of Rapture (even before Rapture went to shit, it was an underwater city, shit [like a whale] can happen at really any time). The main issue isn't on Ryan's end, I'll give you that your interpretation of Ryan's motives and everything are spot-on. It's the assassination plan (which is what sets everything in motion) on Fontaine's end that doesn't make any sense. Unless Fontaine is the best psychologist ever, his plan has an almost 0 chance of actually working.

Bioshock Infinite's story frankly has bigger problems than all the stupid shit that is hand-waived by "quantum physics magic", such as being a complete and utter thematic mess without the guts to spend more than five fucking minutes on a single theme before jumping to the next just in case the narrative might threaten to gain some actual gravity and meaning.

Bioshock infinite's approach to story telling is "Oh well, now we mentioned racism a little bit, let's never mention or have it matter to the plot ever again" Repeat about 12 times and replace racism with any given theme of the game.

Also, there's a ghost.

Because Quantum Physics.

Most, if not all, of the stuff (like the floating city) is based in real quantum physics and theories, it's not magic with the word "quantum" thrown in there to make it seem legitimate.

I don't get the racism complaints. You either are going to have Columbia be some racism free society and ahead of its time with race issues or racism will exist like it did back then, and the latter is what they went with. Why does it have to tie into the plot so significantly? The story is about Booker and Elizabeth, and racism is just part of their world (It makes sense that Elizabeth isn't racist, but they definitely should've had a bit of dialogue concerning Booker and racism). If anything, the first Bioshock just ignored racism (were there even any blacks in Rapture?), which is worse than what Infinite did.

You can totally take out the ghost and tell the same story. They go to the cemetery, get Lady Comstock's finger, and continue on. The ghost thing doesn't screw up the main plot line. The ghost was probably mainly thrown in for the video game purposes; a new enemy, a different kind of fight, more opportunity to tell us some backstory, etc. I forget the exact explanation for the ghost.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

First, in contrast to your thoughts about Bioshock:
One of the cornerstones of Ryan's philosophies was that each person should have absolute control over their own destiny. No censorship on art or science or anything else. You can do achieve greatness completely uninhibited by oppressive governments or religion.

That said, if you've got an assassin on the way that you know is effectively immortal, you can either die crouched under your desk and sniveling like a frightened child, or you can die on your own terms. That's why Ryan turns off his personal Vita-Chamber. That's why HE gives the order to kill him. "Are you a man, or a slave?" Ryan's entire point was that he was going to die "like a man", that is to say: die on his own terms. While the player will forever live his life as a slave.

Spoiler: With regards to BS Infinite. Spoiler box being used just in case.

I don't think you need to be an expert in quantum mechanics to use the theories presented in the game itself to show a rather gaping plot-hole in the ending. A simplistic explanation - and the explanation around which the entire story revolves - is that every time you make a choice, a new path/universe is created in which the opposite of that choice - or at least a different choice - was made. Take the baptism for example: to go through with it gives birth to Comstock, to turn away from it gives us Booker. That's all well and good, we can wrap our heads around that pretty easily. If there's a fork in the road and you go left, another universe is created in which you went right.

What rips a rather large hole is the fact that, all throughout the ending sequences.....they're still making choices. At one point Booker says "Let's forget all this nonsense and go home. I've rescued you, everything's fine." or something along those lines. This gives Elizabeth the choice to say "No, we have to do this." or "You're right, let's just get the hell out of here." Wouldn't that mean another universe was just created in which they never went on to "kill" Comstock?

Before you open the last door, it's Elizabeth's turn. She looks to Booker and says "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Yet again, we're given a choice. Booker says it has to be done, but what about the opposite of that choice? Didn't they just create yet another universe in which Booker says "You know what? I'm still kinda thinking we should say screw all this mess and just go home."

Specific examples like those aside, the point is that the story is based around the concept of different choices leading to different worlds. They make the choice to "hunt down" and kill Comstock. Again, by the game's own logic, that means they just created a universe in which that choice wasn't made. As such, Comstock cannot be erased from every possible universe.

The point is that neither of the stories are perfect. I do find it kinda funny, though, that while your conclusion accuses people of specifically trying to find holes in Infinite's plot, you seem to be doing the exact same thing with Bioshocks plot. Aren't YOU just poking at it from different angles just to "prove" to yourself that the story was worse than Infinite's?

The key thing to remember about the entire Bioshock series is that the games are more about exploring the characters themselves rather than the stories that they're in.

P.S. Another reason I've heard people say they don't like Infinite is because it's pretty much just a re-write of BS2's story, which apparently a lot of people didn't like.

 

[Elijin]

In the words of a great man:

You keep using that word, I dont think it means what you think it means.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

First, in contrast to your thoughts about Bioshock:
One of the cornerstones of Ryan's philosophies was that each person should have absolute control over their own destiny. No censorship on art or science or anything else. You can do achieve greatness completely uninhibited by oppressive governments or religion.

That said, if you've got an assassin on the way that you know is effectively immortal, you can either die crouched under your desk and sniveling like a frightened child, or you can die on your own terms. That's why Ryan turns off his personal Vita-Chamber. That's why HE gives the order to kill him. "Are you a man, or a slave?" Ryan's entire point was that he was going to die "like a man", that is to say: die on his own terms. While the player will forever live his life as a slave.

Like I've said to others that have posted relatively the same things, I'll give you all the Andrew Ryan stuff even though it doesn't make sense (Why would Ryan turn off the Vita-chamber that makes him immortal as well? Why should he be worried about an immortal assassin coming?). The problem is on Fontaine's end. Fontaine's assassination plan sets everything in motion and the plan is just horrible. Unless Fontaine is the best psychologist in the world, how is he going to know (or anticipate to a decent degree) that Ryan will "let" his son kill him? Ryan doesn't die because of Fontaine's plan, he dies because he wants to. Fontaine knows Ryan can't be killed, he should've came up with a much better plan that, you know, isn't dependent on the assassination target killing himself. That is my main issue, not the Ryan stuff. If Fontaine's plan was sound and Ryan ended up doing what he did, then that would've been fine.

Spoiler: With regards to BS Infinite. Spoiler box being used just in case.

I don't think you need to be an expert in quantum mechanics to use the theories presented in the game itself to show a rather gaping plot-hole in the ending. A simplistic explanation - and the explanation around which the entire story revolves - is that every time you make a choice, a new path/universe is created in which the opposite of that choice - or at least a different choice - was made. Take the baptism for example: to go through with it gives birth to Comstock, to turn away from it gives us Booker. That's all well and good, we can wrap our heads around that pretty easily. If there's a fork in the road and you go left, another universe is created in which you went right.

What rips a rather large hole is the fact that, all throughout the ending sequences.....they're still making choices. At one point Booker says "Let's forget all this nonsense and go home. I've rescued you, everything's fine." or something along those lines. This gives Elizabeth the choice to say "No, we have to do this." or "You're right, let's just get the hell out of here." Wouldn't that mean another universe was just created in which they never went on to "kill" Comstock?

Before you open the last door, it's Elizabeth's turn. She looks to Booker and says "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Yet again, we're given a choice. Booker says it has to be done, but what about the opposite of that choice? Didn't they just create yet another universe in which Booker says "You know what? I'm still kinda thinking we should say screw all this mess and just go home."

Specific examples like those aside, the point is that the story is based around the concept of different choices leading to different worlds. They make the choice to "hunt down" and kill Comstock. Again, by the game's own logic, that means they just created a universe in which that choice wasn't made. As such, Comstock cannot be erased from every possible universe.

They made those last choices in "limbo" so to speak, they weren't in any universe at that time so no new universe(s) sprung from the other choice(s). That's why Elizabeth says "are you sure" BEFORE going through the door.

Those choices you mention like hunting down and killing Comstock did create new universes (which is why you see other Bookers and Elizabeths running around at the end) but going back and killing the source Booker that leads to all those Comstock universes 'kills' all of the Comstock universes and any universes made during the game.

Bioshock Infinite's main plot works everything out without even giving it that much thought.

That kind of thing is EXACTLY what I was imagining Bioshock Infinite being based in, some quaint 8 minute video that gives none but the flimsiest pre-school level understanding of the terms being bandied about.

They indeed took something real, but they drained it of anything of actual substance and added a load of garbage of their own.

She has a degree in physics (hardly pre-school level understanding), what are your credentials? Just the way you talk/post, I doubt you have better credentials than she does.

Why don't you care to give us a proof disproving Infinite's quantum science?

In the words of a great man:

You keep using that word, I dont think it means what you think it means.

I'm fully aware of what the word means and that's why I used it. A plot on it's most basic level has to make logical sense; Infinite accomplishes this, Bioshock does not (by default, Infinite is better). Bioshock most probably would be the better story if it actually made sense, but then that would be subjective, not objective.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

You said it yourself: Fontaine knows Ryan can't be killed. So who better to take out an immortal than another immortal? Ryan never spliced up, he never became a lightning-bolt flinging god. And the player's character isn't going to stop until he kills Ryan. So here's the choices: go out on your own terms, or live in a personal hell in which a god-like immortal is constantly chasing you through your ruined dream of a city and murdering you. Personally, I don't blame Ryan for letting the player kill him. Death would be a release from an endless cycle of getting killed over and over again. As for simply having Ryan say "Would you kindly not kill me?" what's to stop Fontaine from just saying over the radio "Would you kindly kill him?"

Ryan's philosophy was everything to him, and his death was to serve a point. Where as he believes he lived and died as a true man, he proves that the player is nothing but a slave. It could easily be said that Fontaine was well aware of Ryan's pride and knew he wouldn't want to live the rest of his existence being hounded by his own immortal son. Or it could simply be that, like I said, he figured the best chance to kill an immortal is by having another immortal do it.

As for Infinite: fair enough, but what about the choice to go into Limbo in the first place? That's the "problem" with the multiverse theory. Since there's infinite possibilities based on infinite choices, you can always point back to an earlier choice and say "The opposite of that derails the story." Beyond that there's the part where Booker says "I won't give you to that man!" and Elizabeth says "Booker...you already have..." Indeed, all the possibilities and realities have already been played out, so wouldn't that mean that the great convergence and drowning already took place as well?

The problem is that Elizabeth pulls a Super Man and just makes up a new power at the very end of the game. She can see all the doors and see what's behind them. Fair enough. So how does that allow her to act like a cosmic staple to bring every one of the infinite universes in which Booker and Comstock exist and wipe them all away with a deus ex machina drowning? They're in limbo, right? So why does the drowning do anything in the first place? It's not as though they actually went back to the true baptism and killed Booker. If drowning Booker in this limbo has an effect on every single timeline out there, why don't any of the choices they make while they're in limbo? Is the drowning itself not a choice? What makes it different than any other choice?