thoughts on bioshock infinite spoilers

[hector530]

let me start by saying i thought bioshock 1 was a masterpiece. amazing game with an great world and prominent themes throughout everything was there for a reason. one of the most quotable games ever!

 

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small"

 

god damn that game was amazing.

 

now on to bioshock infinite and wow was i disappointed. lets start with the combat. a back step in every way from bioshock 1. 2 weapon limit, no special ammo so that means the ammo/plasmid combos are gone. no more using the environment to your advantage. no water on the floor, gas, ice, etc like bioshock 1. pretty much removed and replaced with elizabeth porting powers which 8 out of 10 times is just cover aka boxes n' crates. nope forget all that, no great enemies like big daddy's you can avoid or kill or make fight other enemies. nope just get a shotgun or sniper rifle and aim for the head if you dont want to spend your time shooting whole clips into enemies and this is the part that pisses me off, for a game that is supposed to be intelligent and deep and insightful and whatever. IT IS A CORRIDOR SHOOTER man this game is so brooding and deep now wait for me to kill every living thing to open the next door where i will be forced to murder everyone to open the next room...... this is a clearly made game for intellectuals. yep....

 

now the story everyone seems to find mind blowing. i didnt find it mind blowing when reading and hearing thoughts from other players. the people who got their minds blown didnt know Booker was Comstock and Elizabeth was your daughter till the end. i assumed that about 1/3 of the way in and about 2/3 way i was very sure. i thought it was obvious there was so much clues about it, i mean that part where you lose elizabeth and you fight the sound boys(the things with giant air horns) and once you find her again and pull that needle from her back.... she basically told you that you are comstock. i dont know how people missed that? in fact the first 5 mins if you paid attention you'll figure out a major plot point. the game starts with a quote:

 

"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist"

 

i kept that in mind the whole game and it makes everything so obvious, so when the twins drop you off in the lighthouse Booker says his tagline "i get the girl and you wipe away the debt" the twins has no idea what the hell he is talking about. just like that i already knew Booker was full of crap or he is hiding something horrible from himself.

 

also there didnt seem to be anything great themes in this game, bioshock 1 dealt with freewill, governance, art without morals, science without ethics, industry without regulations. bioshock infinite is about plots twists and explaining everything that doesnt make sense by saying "quantum particles" and murdering everything in corridors to unlock the next door.

[billyro]

Bioshock Infinite is the only Bioshock game I've played, so here are my thoughts:

 

Combat - it is a basic shooter, doesn't require much thought besides "shoot shoot shoot boom explosion", the powers are unbalanced and oft-times annoying, some sections of the game have marginally tougher encounters than other areas, Elizabeth gives you ammo and health all the time so a lot of the tension is removed, and it's mostly just uninspired.

 

Setting - the flying city of Columbia, motion sickness for its denizens, massive jumping power and low gravity, and for some reason most of the game is either at night time or is overcast/raining (despite the sunny weather looking much nicer).

 

Story - a lot of the story plot went over my head. Towards the end, I pretty much just zoned out and paid no attention to what was happening. Why? Because it was boring (for me). Talk about alternate realities and stuff just seems... cheap. Why did Elizabeth kill Booker at the end? Wouldn't there just be another Booker in an alternate universe? You can't kill them all!

 

 

In conclusion: Bioshock Infinite didn't interest me. I've no doubt that heaps of people would love it... but I just don't.

 

(Note: I haven't played this game in about a year, so some of my points might be a bit rusty...)

Edited January 12, 2014 by billyro

[hector530]

they kill Booker because it would close the "loop" i.e. stop Elizabeth from being raised by comstock who would make her burn the world for their sins. when something has a story line dealing with alternate universe you can bet it will have a "stop the loop" ending.

 

the loop in bioshock infinite starts when booker gives away his daughter(Anna) to the wonder twins to pay off a debt or something. driven mad by the choice he made, he becomes comstock(and a racist for shock value). finds one of the twins(they're arent really twins, its the same person). that twin finds the magic "quantum particles" that make the magic powers, float the city, make unlimited energy and open portals through time/space and dimensions (what a coincidence!!!) the twin finds his "other" half. so them(the twins) and comstock go back in time(not really its another universe.... or it could be the past which then creates more universe changing the past.. whatever) to find Booker and his daughter(Anna) to make the deal to wipe the debt or whatever. the twins take the girl (Anna) to comstock, who he rises as his own daughter names her Elizabeth, to burn the world for its sins which might destroys the whole world(it isnt clear) but its bad for everyone. booker goes insane and starts the "loop" in his universe which will continue thus its "Infinite"

 

the point of this is that if Anna becomes Elizabeth she will grow up to destroy the world. this is a constant that will happens in all universes in some forum or another.

did i mention that Elizabeth gets her powers from losing her pinkie?...... yeah...... by losing her pinkie during the transfer between universes, she exist in two places at once this messes with everything and gives her amazing powers..... or she could have a high level quantum particles in her blood stream (lol starwars joke)

 

 

sounds stupid and convoluted? the answer is yes.

 

 

also Booker doesnt die if you sit through the credits........ which further complicates things

[brokenergy]

I think these two sort of help with your view but I agree Bioshock Infinite is overhyped tripe

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3733057.htm

[hector530]

that was a great review. puts more it eloquently then i can. as he said the problem i have with bioshock infinite is that what infinite pretends to be and what it is are two totally different things. infinite acts like its some wonderful and deep game, artful and meaningful. when in reality its a dumb corridor shooter totally dependent on its twist ending to evoke meaning to the 8 hours of shootin n' killin'.

 

there is just so much wrong in this game. just compare the major villain of bioshock 1 Andrew Ryan and infinite's comstock. Ryan was a visionary trying to defend what was left of his great city what he believed was a threat. comstock was an a**hole..... a racist religious zealot who's plan was that of a saturday mourning cartoon villain's i.e. im gonna destroy the world cuz im the bad guy!!!

 

 

at this point i dont want to see another bioshock game, ken levine should just start a new IP, but he wont and we'll get bioshock modern warfare soon

[billyro]

Didn't watch the review (20 mins is too much for my small brain :tongue:) but your sentence, "its a dumb corridor shooter totally dependent on its twist ending to evoke meaning to the 8 hours of shootin' n' killin'" is probably the most accurate thing to describe Bioshock Infinite with.

[brokenergy]

at this point i dont want to see another bioshock game, ken levine should just start a new IP, but he wont and we'll get bioshock modern warfare soon

 

I would rather if EA would at least get System Shock series out of the grave and give it to Visceral Games to remake it like Square Enix did with Eidos Montreal and Deus Ex Human Revolution or Ken Levine finally make a modern interpretation of System Shock that doesn't end with whatever we got now with Bioshock. But both these dreams will not come true and I am more depressed just thinking about it.

[gamevsreality]

I love playing around in Bioshock 1 on hardest difficulty with the plasmids and weapons.

The weapons and vigors in Infinite were mostly either overpowered or meh.

 

It takes too long before you meet and fight a special enemy like the Handyman, and wen you get to fight a Handyman it's on a small platform which makes it more frantic than fun.

Since the Songbird is Elizabeth's guardian/caretaker you think he would appear more than just a couple of times before the nonexistent boss fight.

 

Having played Oblivion, Skyrim and New Vegas with companion mods like Vilja made Elizabeth really disappointing as a companion.

She mostly runs around right infront of you and the enemy during a fight looking for a place to hide.

When you save her from the torture and she suddenly threatens you with the rift with the tornado she used a couple a seconds ago, i just wanted to shoot her and continue the game without her.

If you threaten the man at he part where you can either demand (i don't remember what it was about) or threaten him, Elizabeth runs away and calls you a monster.

That part seems rather pointless seeing that you can kill civillians before they run away in some parts of the game and Elizabeth doesn't react at all, so much for storytelling and grand companion AI.

[hector530]

looks like Ken Levine won't be making bioshock 3 modern warfare, he is going back to a smaller team to make more focused game for "core gamers"

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/uk/2014/02/18/irrational-games-winding-down-ken-levine-starting-smaller-team-within-take-two/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=emp

 

other than the all the people getting laid off this is the best news that could have come from Irrational games.

[brokenergy]

Idk, it's quite s**** to cut everyone but 15 people in your staff. If he wanted to return to "core gamers" (whatever that means), he and the other 15 could have left and formed their own studio with Take Two at their side than can about 200 jobs.