The Big Picture: Shock Treatment

[CrazyGirl17]

Interesting points, Bob. I find the whole Alternate Universe aspect of Bioshock fascinating... even if the mechanics of it make my brain hurt.

...Is it wrong that I laughed at his "It's fun to hit racists in the face with a buzzsaw" comment?

"Hitting racists in the face with a buzzsaw".
That one line makes me want to see a steampunk version of Django Unchained.

Hey, I'd watch it.

 

[1337mokro]

Snip

We basically get the quite insulting insinuation that religous folk view their beliefs as nothing but a get out of jail free card and by your dismissive answer of "relgious folk just be crazy yo"...

Wow, that's quite a weird interpretation. I really don't understand how you took that from what I said. Just because a story feature crazed religious zealots, does not mean that all religious people are that way. You are confusing the specific with the general.

I was talking about how Bioshock Infinite portrays religion. As nothing but a facade and a charade to make belief that your mistakes are forgiven. After the yo I am talking about your cop out excuse for how Comstock acts being basically that religious people act crazy because they are religious. No other reason.

You are trying to handwave away useless elements and themes in Infinite by using an "it's a videogame" like excuse. Nothing HAS to be included in anything. But when it IS included it should be there for a reason. It should have a purpose other than just being window dressing.

Little details are not an issue, I don't care what kind of twirly moustache someone has or the Lutece sister's raincoat being yellow. When you however include racism. Make a point to show it multiple times. Have the characters talk about it. Base an ENTIRE FACTION around how they are treated because of it. Then still do nothing with it for the story at all... now you have a useless theme.

I am not at all asking for a sterile world. No the contrary I want to delve into it. Dig into the brain of these people see why they think how they do. What motivates them into their state of mind. Why do they follow Comstock, what won them over? How do newcomers think about killing people on the surface? Do any of the Columbians struggle with guilt because they know Comstock is a fraud? Do any of them have families on the surface they are trying to save?

Heck an even simpler question would be why are there vigour machines EVERYWHERE but nobody uses them? Bioshock managed to explain the plasmids, the vigours are just kinda .... there! Sure boss characters use them but we see that people play GAMES with these plasmids. That they even give out free samples! Why is no one using it then? Why is there literally only ONE gondolla that requires a vigour to use? I'm not joking here you see the electroshock doors on just ONE level and then they permanently disappear. Who would even have a use for this stuff?!

Again in Bioshock it made sense because even in a work of fiction the elements were TIED into the story. The plasmid technology was central to Rapture's decay. The vigours.... they are there because Bioshock had plasmids.

There is SO much more you could do with these gigantic themes!

But no. All they do is point at it and go. Look! A prophet! Look! Racist cartoons!

Nothing is done with it. That is my issue, it could be stripped out of the game and nothing would change.

 

[Jennacide]

Shock Treatment

MovieBob gives us a spoiler filled look into the ins and outs of BioShock Infinite

Watch Video

I enjoy seeing people actually understand what the game was going for. Far too many times I've seen lame complaints about how the game didn't deserve that much praise because the combat is "subpar" (an aside: it's old school Quake era shooter, it's still good), and that none of the choices mattered. Yes, they didn't, and THAT'S THE POINT. It's a game about probability and String theory, that's the gag.

As for Bob's question on why the Vox needed guns, that's actually easier to explain, as a few audio logs hint at it. Vigors aren't cheap. Remember that aside from the free Possession you get, which I'll remind you is during a fair where blacks aren't allowed, you get them as gifts from other people are from the vending machines. This is a place where the Vox, primarily blacks, aren't making any real money. A gunsmith can craft them guns, but they couldn't craft Vigors if they wanted. It's not until the Vox uprising that you see vigors on the street to pick up, when they're vandalizing things and spilling them out onto the street.

 

[Farther than stars]

Bob, that was the best interpretation of this game I've heard. It seems like too many people, myself included, got hung up on all the supposedly-deep themes that were actually pretty damn shallow. But in the end, it's just one dude's failure to deal with his massive guilt. Beautiful.

And also very good for video games as a whole. Of course, MovieBob is better versed at this sort of analysis, because film has been doing this kind of thematic storytelling for a long time now, indeed ever since the days of theater (you only need to think of Shakespeare). But since AAA games such as "Bioshock Infinite", "Spec Ops: The Line" and "The Walking Dead" are now doing this as well, it is evident that better days lie ahead for storytelling in video games.

 

[I.Muir]

Some of the mechanics they use to present the story I feel don't really work and it bugs me as much as time paradoxes. That being said I had a lot of fun playing it be more fun even discussing it with others and come to the conclusion that it tried to tackle theories it did not really understand and failed.

Mostly about how constants just do not fit in with multi verse theory at all. Liz suddenly becoming omniscient and some details about Booker being drowned. For instance: Liz drowned Booker thus removing Com-Stock and causing her to cease to exist. Why then wouldn't those events just loop anyway since she never existed to interfere with them.

Still good try.

There was another good post after the experienced points column about infinite explaining that.
I will try to recreate it, but if it doesn't work, go there.
So, in the End, after the cutscenes, you shortly play a few seconds of broker again, so he seems to be alive.
For clearance reason i will here refer to Anna and Elizabeth as two seperate persons.
In every Universe were Comstock comes out of the Baptism, he will steal an Anna from another Broker, thus creating an Elizabeth, which will consequently go back in time and kill all brokers before the baptism. But when Comstock isn't there, there also was no elizabeth to drown him so he does survive. Therefore: Any Universe that creates an Comstock, will also create an Elizabeth and therefore erase itself. Any Universe that makes Broker refuse the baptism, doesn't create Comstock, doesn't create Elizabeth and therefore stays in existence.
This way only the "Brokers" of the multiverse survive.

Yes but exactly why does the drowning of a Booker brought in from a different dimension who does not become com-stock remove com-stock? Wouldn't there be two Bookers present since they also went back in time to the same event in the one dimension. I mean the other Booker is still alive in the past, the one who becomes Com-Stock. I don't see how the Booker you are playing suddenly becomes the evil Com-stock just because you are brought back in time. If it is trying to tell me that event was somehow multidimensional then why would some Booker's survive the event at all and only the Com-stocks die.

It's also possible in some dimensions Booker just decided to be a better person and were not very interesting.

 

[Parakeettheprawn]

The Binary Choices thing REALLY got me. I like how it played with your expectations. The decision moments, the two differently colored sets of guns, etc.
But in the end, you see another booker who wasn't stabbed in the hand walking on another plank, propably with an Elizabeth with a cage-necklace...

I also love how they literally ripped open the possibilities for a sequel. They can now do everything they want, including alternate history, fantasy, Sci-Fi, you name it, as long as it contains a "man", a "city" and a "lighthouse", in the loosest sense of the words.

That was my though, although I really didn't like the choice they made in the end. I wouldn't have done that, IMO, the circle is already broken, it's just a matter of watching that it never happens again.

Also, did anyone else notice how interesting it was that Booker can use Bathyspheres, even though they're gene-coded to Ryan? Not like they're suggesting anything there, aye? ;P

I was worried after hearing about the religious controversy (and as a Christian, yeah, if this is what Ken Levine thinks Christianity is really like, he doesn't know any Christians that I do), but thankfully Comstock was just another cultist extremist lunatic. And the fact is, even if the game had been done from a purely Christian perspective, the point Levine makes holds true -- a man has to forgive himself, no matter if he seeks and/or gains forgiveness from someone else, he has to forgive himself, or none of that matters. And if he can't, he'll destroy himself utterly and entirely, one way or another. Plus considering Comstock seems to make it ideal for Booker to destroy Columbia, you could even argue that as self-destruction.

 

[sageoftruth]

Thanks for the warning. I guess I'll have to see this one later.

 

[Pebkio]

Wait... so the argument here is that Bioshock Infinite was shallow... on purpose? Oh... great, I guess that makes everything better again. I'm not disappointed in BS:I, I actually just dislike BS:I. Here I was giving the benefit to a game I thought was trying to hit the high mark it's predecessor had set when really it was aiming for the low mark Halo had set and only gave the impression of aiming high for a trick shot.

I was being mean there, actually, because I still think that choices mattered, just not the ones you made. Dewitt's choice in the river mattered, your choice of necklaces didn't; Dewitt's choice in his apartment mattered, your choice of who to throw a baseball at didn't; Dewitt's final choice at the "lighthouse" mattered, your choice to kill or spare a crazy guy didn't. It was a little off-putting, actually, as if the game were trying to reinforce linearity. Not just in gameplay but in story.

In fact, I started to wonder why I (as the player of the game) was even there. Combat felt, partly because of it's mediocre nature but also because there was nothing else to break up the story, like a non-standard quick-time event. As in, I now have to get through this next section of button presses to get to the next part of the story and if I fail it'll just start me over again. The three "choices" I was given were just really slow quick-time events. The traveling between the shooting galleries was just an event that I had to get through to get to the story bits. You could say that about any game, but no other game spends so much time reinforcing the notion that what you're doing has no effect on what happens. That seems really opposite of what makes a game a "game".

So I agree with the small few that have said this: but this would've been better as a book or a movie... especially now that the idea of "shallow on purpose" has been introduced.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Also I take issue with Bob's statement that the focus on the Booker/Elizabeth relationship makes the story "darker and bleaker". Surely the fact that the game renders a righteous rebellion against racist oppression a heinous act of barbarism which 'never should've happened' and proceeds to assume moral stances *for* the player is the darkest and bleakest and most depressingly cynical aspect of the game.

Well, it really never should have happened, the folk of the Vox were murderous thugs, there are multiple instances of them just murdering unarmed people because they are a bit annoyed.

But that's the problem. The game embarrasses itself trying to be "balanced". It paints the rebels - the enslaved, disenfranchised, tortured and oppressed - as though they were no better than Comstock's racist status quo. Booker and Elizabeth both make comments that amount to drawing direct moral equivalences between the two. It's disingenuous, and it's blatant intellectual cowardice on display. Daisy Fitzroy's characterisation (what little there was) goes out the window entirely in tandem with this painfully forced objective stance the game demands the player to assume, and then she's fridged for the benefit of Elizabeth's character development.

BioShock: Infinite is a neoconfederate racist theme park which never attempts to address or take responsibility for the issues and imagery it invokes. Worse, it outright misrepresents them.

 

[equalplatinum]

Too bad the gameplay was mediocre.

 

[karamazovnew]

Wow, that's a cool pre-rendered animated scene. I've never seen it before. If only the game was like THAT. Come on guys, face it already. Bioshock Infinite isn't as good as you try to remember it to be. The story is just some joke of a Star Trek parody that somebody imagined during a marijuana ride or in a bar after a couple of beers. Unfortunately, that story drowned the guys in the design department and dumbed down the gameplay. Seeing that trailer again I realized just how much Columbia and Elizabeth disappointed me. Seeing Elizabeth at the end of a noose, instead of being an immortal coin dispenser... that could've been something.
After all that publicity and "awesome" reviews, this game actually feels like 1984 chocolate price propaganda. If this game is "awesome" by today's standards, we're pretty much fracked.

 

[Dalisclock]

But that's the problem. The game embarrasses itself trying to be "balanced". It paints the rebels - the enslaved, disenfranchised, tortured and oppressed - as though they were no better than Comstock's racist status quo. Booker and Elizabeth both make comments that amount to drawing direct moral equivalences between the two. It's disingenuous, and it's blatant intellectual cowardice on display. Daisy Fitzroy's characterisation (what little there was) goes out the window entirely in tandem with this painfully forced objective stance the game demands the player to assume, and then she's fridged for the benefit of Elizabeth's character development.

BioShock: Infinite is a neoconfederate racist theme park which never attempts to address or take responsibility for the issues and imagery it invokes. Worse, it outright misrepresents them.

Because obviously, all revolutions are civilized and include no war crimes at all, especially amongst a people harboring a ton of resentment towards the people they are overthrowing.

Maybe in their original incarnation they weren't bad, but by the time Elizabeth is done mucking around with the universe, the new vox is a heavily armed, incredibly pissed off mob hungry for about 20 years worth of revenge. No, I can't see how this could possibly end badly.

 

[Dalisclock]

Also what did he do at the battle of Wounded Knee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

Short version: Wounded knee is one of the most shameful chapters in US history involving the US army killing nearly 300 people, many of them unarmed. While exactly what Brooker did is never explicitly mentioned, it can be assumed his part in it probably messed him up somewhat.

 

[Amaror]

Some of the mechanics they use to present the story I feel don't really work and it bugs me as much as time paradoxes. That being said I had a lot of fun playing it be more fun even discussing it with others and come to the conclusion that it tried to tackle theories it did not really understand and failed.

Mostly about how constants just do not fit in with multi verse theory at all. Liz suddenly becoming omniscient and some details about Booker being drowned. For instance: Liz drowned Booker thus removing Com-Stock and causing her to cease to exist. Why then wouldn't those events just loop anyway since she never existed to interfere with them.

Still good try.

There was another good post after the experienced points column about infinite explaining that.
I will try to recreate it, but if it doesn't work, go there.
So, in the End, after the cutscenes, you shortly play a few seconds of broker again, so he seems to be alive.
For clearance reason i will here refer to Anna and Elizabeth as two seperate persons.
In every Universe were Comstock comes out of the Baptism, he will steal an Anna from another Broker, thus creating an Elizabeth, which will consequently go back in time and kill all brokers before the baptism. But when Comstock isn't there, there also was no elizabeth to drown him so he does survive. Therefore: Any Universe that creates an Comstock, will also create an Elizabeth and therefore erase itself. Any Universe that makes Broker refuse the baptism, doesn't create Comstock, doesn't create Elizabeth and therefore stays in existence.
This way only the "Brokers" of the multiverse survive.

Yes but exactly why does the drowning of a Booker brought in from a different dimension who does not become com-stock remove com-stock? Wouldn't there be two Bookers present since they also went back in time to the same event in the one dimension. I mean the other Booker is still alive in the past, the one who becomes Com-Stock. I don't see how the Booker you are playing suddenly becomes the evil Com-stock just because you are brought back in time. If it is trying to tell me that event was somehow multidimensional then why would some Booker's survive the event at all and only the Com-stocks die.

It's also possible in some dimensions Booker just decided to be a better person and were not very interesting.

You didn't understand the ending right.
When you walk through that last door you BECOME past broker. The one from before the baptism and that past broker gets drowned.

 

[Amaror]

Also what did he do at the battle of Wounded Knee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

Short version: Wounded knee is one of the most shameful chapters in US history involving the US army killing nearly 300 people, many of them unarmed. While exactly what Brooker did is never explicitly mentioned, it can be assumed his part in it probably messed him up somewhat.

There was a Comstock Voxophone which claimed that his commander mentioned that he had indianer blood in him, which made the whole company dislike him and so he tried to prove himself

Oh and thanks for your explanation of the ending, I didn't get that he became Comstock after the baptism and I was still utterly confused as to how the hell he was fighting himself.

Also what did he do at the battle of Wounded Knee?

You might want to replay the ending. There is a bug which makes the credits role, right after you walk through the last door. They shouldn't however. It gets explained by elizabeth that you became comstock. Just replay the last chapter, i got the right ending then.