Support NeoGAF

[XANDER CAGE]

While I didn't especially love Bioshock 1's narrative either, it was at least more focused. Where Infinite tries to take stabs at jingoism / American nationalism, religious fundamentalism, racism, free will, capitalism, and quantum physics/multiple universes, Bioshock 1 is significantly more coherently focused on its central theme of libertarian freedom of choice.

I don't feel that's necessarily true. Bioshock 1's major antagonists besides Ryan are:

-Steinman, surgeon who takes his rejection of traditional beauty to an extreme. He ultimately has no bearing on the actual plot.
-Cohen, an artist who takes his search for the perfect devotion to his muse to an extreme. He also is, really, just a tone-setting obstacle.

A great deal of BioShock is much more piecemeal than Infinite. Objectivism takes a backseat to a lot of other themes, similar to how Infinite isn't really about racism. The actual protagonist/Fontaine/Ryan conflict plays out before and after all these other characters are dealt with, with tidbits of audiolog hints in between.

 

[DatDude]

No, these elements were given significantly more focus than was strictly necessary for these sorts of efforts. It's entirely possible to create a racist, religiously fundamental nation without giving those ideas the focus they did.

I think the problem lies in the way your perceive how it was handled. It didn't bother me much because I could tell it wasn't the primary focus of the game. I looked it as the circumstances that abide with the world they lived in.

If you saw it as a bigger theme than that's not the games fault but your own.

 

[guit3457]

It's so interesting to read the RPS interviews with Ken Levine after finishing the game:

RPS: So Elizabeth and her reality tearing powers… I guess that has something to do with the exploration of quantum physics exploration you mentioned earlier? What were you actually trying to explore there, or is that a major spoiler?

Levine: Okay, well, this is a little spoilery, so if you are worried by that stop reading right here! But Elizabeth’s powers are tied into the idea of there being multiple universes out there.

This was the time period, around the turn of the century, when scientists like Einstein, Heisenberg and Planck began moving away from the Newtonian view of the universe which was very deterministic. When they started poking at this idea and doing the math, they realised that the universe must be a much more complex thing that we thought, and we had the rise of observations such as a photon being a wave and a particle at the same time – two mutually exclusive concepts to our traditional way of thinking about the universe – and that was the beginning of notions like Many World Theory, because how does this one thing exist in two mutually exclusive states at the same time? In the same way that in the era of Bioshock 1, Crick and Watson were just starting to get their heads around the structure of DNA, and we took that and ran crazy with it, well, we’re doing something similar with these ideas in Infinite.

RPS: That sort of multiple reality multiverse idea gets a lot of play in literature and fiction these days, and I think that’s because it’s super exciting for writers, because it suggests a sort of concreteness to the imagery they play with, and perhaps that the barrier between the real and imagined is quite thin – was that the sort of thing you were thinking? And was it exciting to play with those ideas when you were writing the characters and plot?

Levine: Yeah! I came up with the concept and decided that I wanted those to be Elizabeth’s powers, and it then took a while for us to define exactly what that meant. But also I wanted those powers to be central to the plot of the game. It was exciting and fun because, for the writing team, it was one of the hardest things we had to plot. As an individual writer I know, well – I wrote almost all of Elizabeth and Booker’s dialogue and those interactions – trying to get that stuff across in the context of a videogame, and have it work on a metaphorical level, well… If you watch Back To The Future the doc takes out a blackboard and starts explaining things, and fortunately Christopher Lloyd is actor enough to pull that off, but it’s true of so much: the character who explains things, like The Watcher in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, he’s there to explain everything. That’s really hard to do well in a videogame. I think the way we do it is to stretch it out across the game and make it very visual, build up to it. We add a little bit of information at a time, don’t dump it. So getting those ideas across was one of the toughest things we had to do, but it was also one of the most exciting, particularly when you’ve finished it.

There’s a saying, something like… “It’s terrible to write but great to have written!”

RPS: A few people said, having played the first few levels at preview, that they felt Booker might be an unreliable sort of character… can you say anything about that? Are you dabbling in that area of unreliable narration again? A player-character that the player can’t trust?

Levine: If you’ve seen the first five minutes video you’ll see that there’s a quote on the screen that implies pretty much exactly that. You come into a Bioshock game, and that’s not going to be too much of a surprise. You are expecting something to be going on. Whether Booker is keeping information from you that he knows, well, that’s a separate issue, and I think that would be an uncomfortable place to be. I wouldn’t say that about him. His perception of the world and the player’s perception of the world might have some challenges. I don’t see any reason to be coy about that – people are coming into it expecting that, and the question is really how and why and what does that mean? The question of unreliable narration was one of the big reveals of Bioshock 1, and it’s very different here, and serves a different purposes, but it is there and we fess up to that pretty quickly.

 

[zkylon]

It's so interesting to read the RPS interviews with Ken Levine after finishing the game:

RPS: So Elizabeth and her reality tearing powers… I guess that has something to do with the exploration of quantum physics exploration you mentioned earlier? What were you actually trying to explore there, or is that a major spoiler?

Levine: Okay, well, this is a little spoilery, so if you are worried by that stop reading right here! But Elizabeth’s powers are tied into the idea of there being multiple universes out there.

This was the time period, around the turn of the century, when scientists like Einstein, Heisenberg and Planck began moving away from the Newtonian view of the universe which was very deterministic. When they started poking at this idea and doing the math, they realised that the universe must be a much more complex thing that we thought, and we had the rise of observations such as a photon being a wave and a particle at the same time – two mutually exclusive concepts to our traditional way of thinking about the universe – and that was the beginning of notions like Many World Theory, because how does this one thing exist in two mutually exclusive states at the same time? In the same way that in the era of Bioshock 1, Crick and Watson were just starting to get their heads around the structure of DNA, and we took that and ran crazy with it, well, we’re doing something similar with these ideas in Infinite.

RPS: That sort of multiple reality multiverse idea gets a lot of play in literature and fiction these days, and I think that’s because it’s super exciting for writers, because it suggests a sort of concreteness to the imagery they play with, and perhaps that the barrier between the real and imagined is quite thin – was that the sort of thing you were thinking? And was it exciting to play with those ideas when you were writing the characters and plot?

Levine: Yeah! I came up with the concept and decided that I wanted those to be Elizabeth’s powers, and it then took a while for us to define exactly what that meant. But also I wanted those powers to be central to the plot of the game. It was exciting and fun because, for the writing team, it was one of the hardest things we had to plot. As an individual writer I know, well – I wrote almost all of Elizabeth and Booker’s dialogue and those interactions – trying to get that stuff across in the context of a videogame, and have it work on a metaphorical level, well… If you watch Back To The Future the doc takes out a blackboard and starts explaining things, and fortunately Christopher Lloyd is actor enough to pull that off, but it’s true of so much: the character who explains things, like The Watcher in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, he’s there to explain everything. That’s really hard to do well in a videogame. I think the way we do it is to stretch it out across the game and make it very visual, build up to it. We add a little bit of information at a time, don’t dump it. So getting those ideas across was one of the toughest things we had to do, but it was also one of the most exciting, particularly when you’ve finished it.

There’s a saying, something like… “It’s terrible to write but great to have written!”

RPS: A few people said, having played the first few levels at preview, that they felt Booker might be an unreliable sort of character… can you say anything about that? Are you dabbling in that area of unreliable narration again? A player-character that the player can’t trust?

Levine: If you’ve seen the first five minutes video you’ll see that there’s a quote on the screen that implies pretty much exactly that. You come into a Bioshock game, and that’s not going to be too much of a surprise. You are expecting something to be going on. Whether Booker is keeping information from you that he knows, well, that’s a separate issue, and I think that would be an uncomfortable place to be. I wouldn’t say that about him. His perception of the world and the player’s perception of the world might have some challenges. I don’t see any reason to be coy about that – people are coming into it expecting that, and the question is really how and why and what does that mean? The question of unreliable narration was one of the big reveals of Bioshock 1, and it’s very different here, and serves a different purposes, but it is there and we fess up to that pretty quickly.

have a link for that?

 

[DatDude]

I don't feel that's necessarily true. Bioshock 1's major antagonists besides Ryan are:

-Steinman, surgeon who takes his rejection of traditional beauty to an extreme. He ultimately has no bearing on the actual plot.
-Cohen, an artist who takes his search for the perfect devotion to his muse to an extreme. He also is, really, just a tone-setting obstacle.

A great deal of BioShock is much more piecemeal than Infinite. Objectivism takes a backseat to a lot of other themes, similar to how Infinite isn't really about racism. The actual protagonist/Fontaine/Ryan conflict plays out before and after all these other characters are dealt with, with tidbits of audiolog hints in between.

Exactly and lets not forget how even after the plot twist, even after breaking our chains from Foutnaine we still became a mindless puppet following the games rules and demands.

The whole theme was a Man chooses a slave Obeys. It was a neat gimmick up to the would you kindly part. But afterwards just shows how flawed the games narrative became when you still become a slave "to the game" following everything it's telling you to do.

Yes, get a big daddy suit, and watch over this little sister!

Also the games 2 ending doesn't fit any of these themes as well. Jack rising up to the surface to find a nuclear submarine? How does this fit into the games themes?

 

[XANDER CAGE]

The whole theme was a Man chooses a slave Obeys. It was a neat gimmick up to the would you kindly part. But afterwards just shows how flawed the games narrative became when you still become a slave "to the game" following everything it's telling you to do.

Yes, get a big daddy suit, and watch over this little sister!

I actually think that's the most interesting aspect of Bioshock, although gameplay and narrative wise most of the game after the clever reveal is bunk. It also undermines itself by offering multiple endings.

 

[guit3457]

have a link for that?

Here you go:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/01/ken-levine-interview/

 

[DatDude]

I actually think that's the most interesting aspect of Bioshock, although gameplay and narrative wise most of the game after the clever reveal is bunk. It also undermines itself by offering multiple endings.

Yet some people praising it to having this great and well focused narrative!

No it didn't!

It collapsed dramatically after the Ryan Reveal. The narrative was complete and utter dog shit.

The only good consistent narrative was the audio diaries.

 

[EatChildren]

thanks for this, I'm surprised to have picked it up myself as much as I did, I'm usually terrible at parallel universes, but it still was helpful in sorting out in my head.

changed the yellow to green for my own reading, so I figured I might as well upload it here.

Thanks! Much better.

 

[DatDude]

It's so interesting to read the RPS interviews with Ken Levine after finishing the game:

RPS: So Elizabeth and her reality tearing powers… I guess that has something to do with the exploration of quantum physics exploration you mentioned earlier? What were you actually trying to explore there, or is that a major spoiler?

Levine: Okay, well, this is a little spoilery, so if you are worried by that stop reading right here! But Elizabeth’s powers are tied into the idea of there being multiple universes out there.

This was the time period, around the turn of the century, when scientists like Einstein, Heisenberg and Planck began moving away from the Newtonian view of the universe which was very deterministic. When they started poking at this idea and doing the math, they realised that the universe must be a much more complex thing that we thought, and we had the rise of observations such as a photon being a wave and a particle at the same time – two mutually exclusive concepts to our traditional way of thinking about the universe – and that was the beginning of notions like Many World Theory, because how does this one thing exist in two mutually exclusive states at the same time? In the same way that in the era of Bioshock 1, Crick and Watson were just starting to get their heads around the structure of DNA, and we took that and ran crazy with it, well, we’re doing something similar with these ideas in Infinite.

RPS: That sort of multiple reality multiverse idea gets a lot of play in literature and fiction these days, and I think that’s because it’s super exciting for writers, because it suggests a sort of concreteness to the imagery they play with, and perhaps that the barrier between the real and imagined is quite thin – was that the sort of thing you were thinking? And was it exciting to play with those ideas when you were writing the characters and plot?

Levine: Yeah! I came up with the concept and decided that I wanted those to be Elizabeth’s powers, and it then took a while for us to define exactly what that meant. But also I wanted those powers to be central to the plot of the game. It was exciting and fun because, for the writing team, it was one of the hardest things we had to plot. As an individual writer I know, well – I wrote almost all of Elizabeth and Booker’s dialogue and those interactions – trying to get that stuff across in the context of a videogame, and have it work on a metaphorical level, well… If you watch Back To The Future the doc takes out a blackboard and starts explaining things, and fortunately Christopher Lloyd is actor enough to pull that off, but it’s true of so much: the character who explains things, like The Watcher in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, he’s there to explain everything. That’s really hard to do well in a videogame. I think the way we do it is to stretch it out across the game and make it very visual, build up to it. We add a little bit of information at a time, don’t dump it. So getting those ideas across was one of the toughest things we had to do, but it was also one of the most exciting, particularly when you’ve finished it.

There’s a saying, something like… “It’s terrible to write but great to have written!”

RPS: A few people said, having played the first few levels at preview, that they felt Booker might be an unreliable sort of character… can you say anything about that? Are you dabbling in that area of unreliable narration again? A player-character that the player can’t trust?

Levine: If you’ve seen the first five minutes video you’ll see that there’s a quote on the screen that implies pretty much exactly that. You come into a Bioshock game, and that’s not going to be too much of a surprise. You are expecting something to be going on. Whether Booker is keeping information from you that he knows, well, that’s a separate issue, and I think that would be an uncomfortable place to be. I wouldn’t say that about him. His perception of the world and the player’s perception of the world might have some challenges. I don’t see any reason to be coy about that – people are coming into it expecting that, and the question is really how and why and what does that mean? The question of unreliable narration was one of the big reveals of Bioshock 1, and it’s very different here, and serves a different purposes, but it is there and we fess up to that pretty quickly.

Really interesting thought process.

 

[kerotan_eater]

Just to be clear. We can safely assume Elizabeth (adult) has vanished from existence right?

 

[DatDude]

Just to be clear. We can safely assume Elizabeth (adult) has vanished from existence right?

yes.

 

[Dusky]

This isn't comprehensive, but here's a look at the evolution of Infinite from the debut trailer to the launch trailer.

Debut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDQ4FhslSk

Debut gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU

E3 2011 demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBwKO4RFOU

VGA 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIU1e7k7Oc

launch trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wq5KHPYWWY

Staggering how different the game was initially. Elisabeth was a much more active character in the battlefield. I know they earlier demos are essentially nothing more than vertical slices/targeted gameplay demos, but some of the changes, cut content and reworked content are really interesting.

Especially the E3 2011 demo. Also didn't realise they changed the design of the skyhook from the initial demo to E3 2011. I quite like the original design.

Going by the early demos it would seem that Columbia was far more absurd than it turned out to be, along the lines of Rapture. I suppose Ken changed the atmosphere slightly so that Columbia wasn't just simply "Rapture in the sky".

 

[dark_inferno]

The ending itself is good but the game itself is just... not as good as i expected. I mean the only good point was the multiverse ending. It was somehow a WTF moment. But has it the quality of "Would you kindly?"? No.
The characters themselfs were annoying. Elizabeth always said "Uh" "oh" "mhh". The dialogs are not as intelligent as the one in Bioshock.

I felt it was a step backwards stoywise. It wasnt bad and the ending was really really perfectly made but it doesnt make the story or the game perfect. It just makes the ending perfect. A better story and better characterization and the ending had a better effect.

 

[Thoraxes]

I'm gonna start reading through this whole thread now, but did we ever figure out the significance of his choosing to worship himself and the founding fathers?

Did he know the future/have "prophetic powers" because of the quantum Rosalind? And the man was actually an alternate dimension version of Rosalind?

The same thing is what I was wondering with the symbols too. The Key, the Scroll, and uh, the Cage I think?

And, why did he (as Comstock) say that Anna/Elizabeth was to become his successor? Is it ever seen what he originally intended to happen?

 

[kerotan_eater]

yes.

Perhaps I'm ignorant ... no I'm pretty sure I am -- but two cut to black endings, damn you Levine. To me, there will always be hope she still exists =)

 

[DatDude]

The ending itself is good but the game itself is just... not as good as i expected. I mean the only good point was the multiverse ending. It was somehow a WTF moment. But has it the quality of "Would you kindly?"? No.
The characters themselfs were annoying. Elizabeth always said "Uh" "oh" "mhh". The dialogs are not as intelligent as the one in Bioshock.

I felt it was a step backwards stoywise. It wasnt bad and the ending was really really perfectly made but it doesnt make the story or the game perfect. It just makes the ending perfect. A better story and better characterization and the ending had a better effect.

What exactly was the quality of would you kindly? 3 words that you failed to recognize that have meaning, when you didn't think there would be?

Infinite plot twist starts from minute 1 and builds itself till the very last scene. You can see it with the Lutece scene in the boat, the raffle fair, just in the music lyrics (will the circle be unbroken?), and various other small details in the world.

You could actually figure out what the ending would be by the Hall of Hero stage.

With Would You Kindly, it was just BAM...and done

It was cool...but that's all it was, just neat. Nothing really much to further delve into or discuss like there is with Infinite.

With Infinite, there's just so much to discuss other than how it's simply a plot twist. It's not just that. It's build up from the beginning to the end, highlighted by details and foreshadowing galore (alot with in regards to the Luteces). That's what makes it so great, and so much better than would you kindly.

 

[Thoraxes]

Also looking at the possibilities of things they could have put in this game, I can easily imagine why Ken talked about the cut content statement (5 or 6 fill games with all we cit) and why there was so much of it.

I can only imagine the sheer amount of iteration this game has gone through to try an approach the way they wanted to tell the story and individual gameplay scenario, and to see even the evolution of videos we've seen over the year is just immense.

This game has gone through some massive changes since we've first seen it, and the sheer amount of possibilities of things that could have happened and ways to tell certain parts of the story could have been done at least 100 different ways.

 

[dark_inferno]

What exactly was the quality of would you kindly? 3 words that you failed to recognize that have meaning, when you didn't think there would be?

Infinite plot twist starts from minute 1 and builds itself till the very last scene. You can see it with the Lutece scene in the boat, the raffle fair, just in the music lyrics (will the circle be unbroken?), and various other small details in the world.

You could actually figure out what the ending would be by the Hall of Hero stage.

With Would You Kindly, it was just BAM...and done

It was cool...but that's all it was, just neat. Nothing really much to further delve into or discuss like there is with Infinite.

With Infinite, there's just so much to discuss other than how it's simply a plot twist. It's not just that. It's build up from the beginning to the end, highlighted by details and foreshadowing galore (alot with in regards to the Luteces). That's what makes it so great, and so much better than would you kindly.

But for most people "Would you kindly?" was the same as the finger scene in Infinite. I knew it the second as the universe jumping was intruduced. I thought somehow that it would end in a Oldboy scenario. And it ended like that with a bigger scale. And a bit more explaining about how Booker is Comstock would have been better.

 

[DatDude]

And a bit more explaining about how Booker is Comstock would have been better.

What exactly would you like to know more in that regard^

Also what other narrative questions do you have (if any)?

 

[dark_inferno]

What exactly would you like to know more in that regard^

Also what other narrative questions do you have (if any)?

The Bioshock reference was somehow cool but useless storywise (besides killing the songbird), right? Then the next... how get a drinker who lost his kid because of gambling becomes a religious racist? And why is he so damn rich afterwards and wants to kill false americans? That was the point were it lost so much potential. The rest of the plot wasnt hard to understand.

 

[DatDude]

Perhaps I'm ignorant ... no I'm pretty sure I am -- but two cut to black endings, damn you Levine. To me, there will always be hope she still exists =)

did you watch the scene after the credits?

 

[dark_inferno]

Perhaps I'm ignorant ... no I'm pretty sure I am -- but two cut to black endings, damn you Levine. To me, there will always be hope she still exists =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4OMmfAwVGg

 

[Screaming Meat]

I thought somehow that it would end in a Oldboy scenario.

After the looks I gave Elizabeth in her corset and how the game ends, I think it was pretty like Oldboy

 

[DatDude]

The Bioshock reference was somehow cool but useless storywise (besides killing the songbird), right?

"There's always a lighthouse, there's always a city, there's always a man."

It's basically illustrating that there are infinite number of cities like Columbia, like Rapture in different universe and time lines. Also, it was supposed to show how "symbolically" these are alike as well.

For example:

Daisy Fitzroy (the leader of the rebellion against the founders) is Atlas (the leader of the rebellion against Ryan)

Booker=Jack

Comstock=Andrew Ryan

Song Bird=Big Daddy (both served to protect someone very important)

Elizabeth=Little Sister (protected by the hulking brainwashed humanoid in a robot bird suit, also why it shows her with a syringe in the office scenes with booker when he is being revived)

Also there's evidence in the voxohphones that suggest that the concept of The Song Bird was stolen from the Raptures Big Daddies.

Then the next... how get a drinker who lost his kid because of gambling becomes a religious racist? That was the point were it lost so much potential. The rest of the plot wasnt hard to understand.

First off, I imagine your referring to comstock. He became religious first all due to the horrific scenes he witnessed in the Battle of Wounded Knee. He needed to have his soul cleansed and free from the sins that he had committed and witnessed on that battle field.

Comstock himself isn't a racist, but uses religion as a way to justify it's racism: "Even Adam and Eve were banned from Eden"

So Comstock himself didn't WANT to be a racist. He only did so because his religion justified the existence of racism existing.

 

[Patrick Bateman]

This isn't comprehensive, but here's a look at the evolution of Infinite from the debut trailer to the launch trailer.

Staggering how different the game was initially. Elisabeth was a much more active character in the battlefield. I know they earlier demos are essentially nothing more than vertical slices/targeted gameplay demos, but some of the changes, cut content and reworked content are really interesting.

Especially the E3 2011 demo. Also didn't realise they changed the design of the skyhook from the initial demo to E3 2011. I quite like the original design.

Imagine that they had this story about the different universes in their heads right from the start and these are all examples of a different universe, leading up to the actual game we play now.


I also would play the shit out of a Columbia with the graphics of the first video. <3

 

[CrankyKong]

I uh, my head hurts.
I get it, but I admit I needed to come here to figure out what the hell the ending meant.

 

[dark_inferno]

"There's always a lighthouse, there's always a city, there's always a man."

It's basically illustrating that there are infinite number of cities like Columbia, like Rapture in different universe and time lines. Also, it was supposed to show how "symbolically" these are alike as well.

For example:

Daisy Fitzroy (the leader of the rebellion against the founders) is Atlas (the leader of the rebellion against Ryan)

Booker=Jack

Comstock=Andrew Ryan

Song Bird=Big Daddy (both served to protect someone very important)

Elizabeth=Little Sister (protected by the hulking brainwashed humanoid in a robot bird suit, also why it shows her with a syringe in the office scenes with booker when he is being revived)

Also there's evidence in the voxohphones that suggest that the concept of The Song Bird was stolen from the Raptures Big Daddies.





First off, I imagine your referring to comstock. He became religious first all due to the horrific scenes he witnessed in the Battle of Wounded Knee. He needed to have his soul cleansed and free from the sins that he had committed and witnessed on that battle field.

Comstock himself isn't a racist, but uses religion as a way to justify it's racism: "Even Adam and Eve were banned from Eden"

So Comstock himself didn't WANT to be a racist. He only did so because his religion justified the existence of racism existing.

The first one(with Bioshock 1) makes sense. And the last one doesnt explain anything that i wanted. Was Booker as we knew him at the start or troughout the game brainwashed? Because i hadnt any feeling that he is religous. Or his room hasnt any cross or anything in it. The racism thing is explained but the rest not.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

The first one(with Bioshock 1) makes sense. And the last one doesnt explain anything that i wanted. Was Booker as we knew him at the start or troughout the game brainwashed? Because i hadnt any feeling that he is religous. Or his room hasnt any cross or anything in it. The racism thing is explained but the rest not.

He pretty much felt his need to be a racist justified.

Remember that he built a city among the clouds, which is the common imagery for paradise.

Now after getting to use the tear to 'see' the future he developed a god complex. Thus the need to only pick the chosen ones amongst his 'flock'

Hell white supremacy was something common during the 1900s. It's much more surprising when someone isn't a racist.

 

[dark_inferno]

He pretty much felt his need to be a racist justified.

Remember that he built a city among the clouds, which is the common imagery for paradise.

Now after getting to use the tear to 'see' the future he developed a god complex. Thus the need to only pick the chosen ones amongst his 'flock'

Hell white supremacy was something common during the 1900s. It's much more surprising when someone isn't a racist.

So he got this god thing after he build columbia without any money?

 

[Nibel]

This isn't comprehensive, but here's a look at the evolution of Infinite from the debut trailer to the launch trailer.

Debut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDQ4FhslSk

Debut gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU

E3 2011 demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBwKO4RFOU

VGA 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIU1e7k7Oc

launch trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wq5KHPYWWY

Staggering how different the game was initially. Elisabeth was a much more active character in the battlefield. I know they earlier demos are essentially nothing more than vertical slices/targeted gameplay demos, but some of the changes, cut content and reworked content are really interesting.

Especially the E3 2011 demo. Also didn't realise they changed the design of the skyhook from the initial demo to E3 2011. I quite like the original design.

Okay, the scale and scope of the E3 2011 demo is way better than what we got in the final game; also the whole world seems to be way more alive and interactive. There is so much stuff going on! And most of it looks really marvelous which asks the question why it was cut/redesigned. The final product seems more.. dunno, streamlined? I don't know if that E3 2011 demo would run on current gen consoles like that.

And I wished there would be have been at least one or two fights against Songbird - some crazy skyline-focused battles would have been really good since somehow Songbird falls flat in the final product

I like BioShock Infinite 2013 very much, but I can't help but think that it has way more potential than they showed - it really feels like IG was handicapped by a lot of things

 

[kerotan_eater]

did you watch the scene after the credits?

Yes. I'm talking about the Elizabeth WE know, the one that has been giving me coins throughout not the baby who isn't the one with all the personality.

 

[Screaming Meat]

The first one(with Bioshock 1) makes sense. And the last one doesnt explain anything that i wanted. Was Booker as we knew him at the start or troughout the game brainwashed? Because i hadnt any feeling that he is religous.

I think being Born Again is when he had his religious ephiphany.

 

[Noray]

Anyone F12 the moment where Songbird drowns outside of Rapture? Holy fuck I did not anticipate that is how the beast would meet its demise. Was too awestruck to screen-cap the moment, so if someone else did it, please share, or else I'll have to boot up Chapter Select just for that bit, lol.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594747728596571379/D790360B11138602F6DFA41A14A2746E69FFF9C6/

It's my wallpaper... so sad

 

[zkylon]

This isn't comprehensive, but here's a look at the evolution of Infinite from the debut trailer to the launch trailer.

Debut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDQ4FhslSk

Debut gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU

E3 2011 demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBwKO4RFOU

VGA 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIU1e7k7Oc

launch trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wq5KHPYWWY

Staggering how different the game was initially. Elisabeth was a much more active character in the battlefield. I know they earlier demos are essentially nothing more than vertical slices/targeted gameplay demos, but some of the changes, cut content and reworked content are really interesting.

Especially the E3 2011 demo. Also didn't realise they changed the design of the skyhook from the initial demo to E3 2011. I quite like the original design.

they really did fail to achieve the scale of that mindblowing E3 demo. I mean that huge fight became the VGA fight, which is a lot smaller and self contained.

trying to collect my feelings on the game, a bunch of pluses and minuses:
+ mindfuck ending but in the best of ways, tons of foreshadowing and the sort. nothing that makes you feel cheated like shitty mass effect space boy.
+ booker and elizabeth had good chemistry and it felt alright. probably one of the best pairings ever in videogames, way ahead of ego groping alyx and sexual tension elena-nathan drake.
+ the lutece twins in general
+ when you're allowed to skyhook and do shit like in the E3 demo it's great
+ when you're allowed to roam around like in bio 1 it's pretty great
+ the non-fight parts are also pretty good, though I wish they allowed you to interact with stuff even more
+ audiologs, short films, etc., tons of cool backstory, though it felt like less than in bio 1.
+ I really like how the bio games seem to take a lot of story out of contextualization for gameplay mechanics. like vita chambers and plasmids and tears and whatnot.
+ super pretty, varied, etc. beautiful to look at from beginning to end.
+ themes of racism, class struggle, fate, religion, etc. all are at least touched upon...

- comstock and fitzroy are both cartoony and one dimensional. I mean, daisy fitzroy decides to kill you because you serve her better as a martyr? how does it help her cause to have people kill their martyr? there's that impostor thing for a while but the vox dudes just shout "it's dewitt!" and go after you. the audiologs make her seem like she has character but after all she's only after blood? that's a terrible antagonist right there. comstock is not much better, he sounds deranged all game long just yelling insane racist and religious propaganda all along. the beauty of andrew ryan was that you could sorta understand where he came from, fitzroy and comstock are both terrible at antagonizing you because they seem to be like nonsensically evil.
- the on-foot and overall corridor shooter sections are usually uninteresting. the combat isn't bad, but it isn't very engaging since your enemies are simple, your guns are simple and don't really interact with you, each other or the environment all that great. the vigors aren't really all that fun to use aside of the first few. unfortunately, this makes for the majority of the game, you're not allowed to do those big scale battles very often, and that's a darned shame.
- the game's mostly on rails, which isn't so bad itself, but I didn't like the linear sections as much as I liked the more open parts, of which there aren't many.
- the equipment system doesn't make any sense. it's similar to my problem with bio 1 on that regard, you get so many plasmids and gene tonics with so weird and situational effects that you can barely even manage them. I mean, you move faster for 5 seconds after getting off a skyhook sounds pretty great but with the scarcity of skyhookeable rails you never know. it's also very random and weird, like wear these pants and you'll get better headshots. it's silly and weird in a game so thought-out.
- the upgrade system is no better. unlike bio 1 in which you had all your weapons at all times and could decide to upgrade them based on which one was your favorite. you kinda do that in bio infinite but you're juggling all the time between whatever ammo you have available. and the upgrades are usually really boring. this was sorta the same in bio 1 but at least you got to see them all pimped up. upgrading vigors wasn't so great either.
- the new big daddies, like the handyman and the fire dudes and whatnot weren't really as fun or as memorable as the old ones. the scary dudes with the mask were relegated to weird camera duties for like 10 minutes of the game, too, for some reason.
- the checkpoint system is abysmal. they checkpoint too far and in between, and the "saving profile" message is very discreet and sometimes just plain untrue. there's no reason for this game not to feature quicksaving at least on PC.
- themes of racism, class struggle, fate, religion, etc. all are at least touched upon... but then go nowhere. I really wish there had been a little more discourse along the window dressing. it's nice to say "hating black people is bad" but it doesn't feel as condemning as, maybe, django unchained or something. I mean I'm grateful there's at least a few interesting themes but basically at the end fitzroy is just as bad as comstock and so are atheism (booker) and religion (comstock again). I really wish the game took a stronger stance with this, and just said "you know, maybe poor people would be right to take their lives back from the rich people that treat them like shit". or whatever.

overall I think it's a pretty good game, the ending was pretty mindblowing (I'm sure my brother will figure it out on minute 2 of the game but fuck him) and I really enjoyed the ride, but I get the bitter feeling of settling for less. if the game had consistently delivered scale in the quality of the E3 demo I'd probably be a lot warmer to it. as it is right now, it's mostly like a call of duty game with a couple weird alternate fire options for weapons :/

maybe DLC?

Here you go:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/01/ken-levine-interview/

ty

Thanks! Much better.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

So he got this god thing after he build columbia without any money?

In time, Comstock met quantum physicist Rosalind Lutece, and with her help, and the cooperation of the United States government, he was able to make the floating city a reality, naming it Columbia and creating an all white leadership called The Founders, with himself as the leader. Columbia became a symbol of American ideals, as the country was becoming a world power, and was dispatched to different parts of the world where it would be marveled by people throughout the world.

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Zachary_Hale_Comstock

 

[Patrick Bateman]

I just realised that the guy holding the raffle lottery is Jeremiah Fink...



Btw. what does the AD stand for on Booker's hand?

 

[Nibel]

I just realised that the guy holding the raffle lottery is Jeremiah Fink...



Btw. what does the AD stand for on Booker's hand?

Anna DeWitt, his daughter

 

[Dusky]

By the way what do you guys make of the scene where Esther mistook (or pretended to) Elizabeth for Annabelle? Do you think she knows who Elizabeth really is or is it just Comstock messing with Booker's head?

 

[dark_inferno]

By the way what do you guys make of the scene where Esther mistook (or pretended to) Elizabeth for Annabelle? Do you think she knows who Elizabeth really is or is it just Comstock messing with Booker's head?

It was probably a test? Because afterwards you get into an ambush(and the girl who asks shoots at you). If she said she would be Anna maybe the outcome would have been different.

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Zachary_Hale_Comstock

Now everything makes sense. Okay i have to admit... i said bullshit about the story not being good as Bioshock 1.

 

[zkylon]

I think my big problem with the vox populi is that I feel like they're made to be artificially bad just to maintain some weird grey balance between factions.

I mean, I can't help but think "yes, people that are slaved by other people, you are allowed to free yourselves and answer to your tormentors with righteous murder" because they are. it's just that they stop making sense after a while. why are they just blowing up everything? where do they even intend to live?

 

[Patrick Bateman]

Anna DeWitt, his daughter

Oh. Thanks.

 

[Mister_Bubbles]

I suppose someone could no-clip that scene and see if there's a baby in the crib... If I was working at Irrational, I would put a card in the crib that just said "Fuck off ", lol.

 

[dark_inferno]

I think my big problem with the vox populi is that I feel like they're made to be artificially bad just to maintain some weird grey balance between factions.

I mean, I can't help but think "yes, people that are slaved by other people, you are allowed to free yourselves and answer to your tormentors with righteous murder" because they are. it's just that they stop making sense after a while. why are they just blowing up everything? where do they even intend to live?

Levine seems to like those nonsensical WE HATE THIS SHIT Factions with those revolts. In Bioshock 1 they blow up the city they live in to get more Adam and because they dont like Andrew? Everyone is on drugs... And in Infinite they just wanna blow up the city because the others are racist and wont let them have a good life? Well okay.

 

[megalowho]

- comstock and fitzroy are both cartoony and one dimensional. I mean, daisy fitzroy decides to kill you because you serve her better as a martyr? how does it help her cause to have people kill their martyr? there's that impostor thing for a while but the vox dudes just shout "it's dewitt!" and go after you. the audiologs make her seem like she has character but after all she's only after blood? that's a terrible antagonist right there. comstock is not much better, he sounds deranged all game long just yelling insane racist and religious propaganda all along. the beauty of andrew ryan was that you could sorta understand where he came from, fitzroy and comstock are both terrible at antagonizing you because they seem to be like nonsensically evil.

Fitzroy being framed for the beloved Lady Comstocks murder, making her public enemy #1 in Columbia is a pretty strong motivation for violent revenge. And in a reality where her revolution is fueled and legitimized by the sacrifice of DeWitt (and used heavily in propaganda), suddenly appearing alive again is not just a mindfuck when she saw him die, but a big wrench in the narrative she is building alongside her revolution if it becomes public knowledge. Cartoony to a point and perhaps not given enough screen time, but still valid in my opinion.

 

[XAL]

So some questions:

1. Did they ever explain what exactly vigors are?

With ADAM it was stem cell slugs, so are vigors just tech stolen from another universe or did the Luteces' just invent it, later to be manufactured by Fink?


2. Did anyone else besides me pick up that Elizabeth was Dewitt's daughter REALLY EARLY in the game? Referring specifically to the scene where one of Comstock's female undercover commandos calls Elizabeth "Annabelle" (after the kid's arcade and before the train station ambush).

That was when I put it together that Comstock must have been an older Dewitt with player Dewitt being brought into a parallel universe (this theory made up because when Dewitt dies he's back in his office just before he heads off to Columbia, basically when he dies he resets then SOMEONE brings him back to where he was in the alternate timeline).

3. Why/How does Elizabeth have powers? Is it because the Luteces' messed with her physiology as an experiment or is it like the wiki says that having a part of her body cut off in a different universe allowed her to have an intuitive understanding of time-space which allows her to manipulate the Lutece fields...???


**
also here's a better timeline
http://i.imgur.com/MaHNjLo.jpg

 

[Alienous]

I accidentally took a picture of Robert Lutece juggling, and only now looking at my 200mb of images (this is a beautiful game) did I realise.

More the 122 times in, it's amazing that they can still entertain themselves.

 

[dark_inferno]

So some questions:

1. Did they ever explain what exactly vigors are?

With ADAM it was stem cell slugs, so are vigors just tech stolen from another universe or did the Luteces' just invent it, later to be manufactured by Fink?


2. Did anyone else besides me pick up that Elizabeth was Dewitt's daughter REALLY EARLY in the game? Referring specifically to the scene where one of Comstock's female undercover commandos calls Elizabeth "Annabelle" (after the kid's arcade and before the train station ambush).

That was when I put it together that Comstock must have been an older Dewitt with player Dewitt being brought into a parallel universe (this theory made up because when Dewitt dies he's back in his office just before he heads off to Columbia, basically when he dies he resets then SOMEONE brings him back to where he was in the alternate timeline).

3. Why/How does Elizabeth have powers? Is it because the Luteces' messed with her physiology as an experiment or is it like the wiki says that having a part of her body cut off in a different universe allowed her to have an intuitive understanding of time-space which allows her to manipulate the Lutece fields...???

1. I think they tried to explain it.

2. Yeah i thought she could be his daughter the moment they showed me paris.

3. She only opens those tears or doors with her hand. Not with her head or something but with her hand. So i believe its the finger. Would make sense to me at least.

 

[zkylon]

Levine seems to like those nonsensical WE HATE THIS SHIT Factions with those revolts. In Bioshock 1 they blow up the city they live in to get more Adam and because they dont like Andrew? Everyone is on drugs... And in Infinite they just wanna blow up the city because the others are racist and wont let them have a good life? Well okay.

yeah it's pretty weird, though seeing it in action in bio infinite makes it all the more confusing. looting and overall rampage is expected in a revolution but in infinite it just looks like chaos for chaos' sake. what is fitzroy's intention? why not make her a flawed character, juggling her ideals and her lust for revenge? instead, she's orphans a child and you stop her just as he was about to murder him, for no reason other than personal. and after she's dead, it's business as usual for the vox and they just continue on blowing shit up.

Fitzroy being framed for the beloved Lady Comstocks murder, making her public enemy #1 in Columbia is a pretty strong motivation for violent revenge. And in a reality where her revolution is fueled and legitimized by the sacrifice of DeWitt (and used heavily in propaganda), suddenly appearing alive again is not just a mindfuck when she saw him die, but a big wrench in the narrative she is building alongside her revolution if it becomes public knowledge. Cartoony to a point and perhaps not given enough screen time, but still valid in my opinion.

it's silly in the sense that she sees you once, says "wait you must be an impostor!" and just sends the whole army to kill you. I mean, she even says something along the lines of your being alive doesn't help her revolution or something. it's just unnecessarily evil, and you get the feeling she's genuinely a thinking woman from her audiologs, it's just that went it's time to act she always chooses to shit on the vox and go for her personal vendetta.

I mean if lenin were to revive I don't think the bolsheviks would mind lol. comstock himself proves that adoration of a living hero is possible in the bio infinite universe, so why try to kill booker?

 

[Pein]

just finished it, what the hell was that nonsense. It makes more sense than the first bioshock's ending but is even more ridiculous. Why couldn't they just go to Paris and be happy or something, simple or what ever I would have preferred it.

good shit though, maybe I'm an idiot I dunno.