Bioshock Infinite - the $200 million 6 hour literally on rails interactive movie with guns thread

[aris]

Downgrade total.

Kind of agree with you. I'm kind of disappointed that they took all of this out of the game (they moved som scenes though). In this trailer, it's just pure trolling of the republican party (tea party in particular).

 

[aris]

That seems a little extreme just to repay a debt. Booker can obviously handle himself, couldn't he have just kill his debtor(s) instead of fighting a war against an entire city? Or just stay in Columbia. I bet he could handle any collectors coming for him if it came to blows.

Spoiler

The debt is a moral one that he owes to his daughter, it's not about money. Furthermore the game show awarness of the fact that the actions of Booker aren't very helpful, and he just gets more and more moral debt as he goes along his quest to redeem himself for his previous actions, which is why this song is one of the most heard

 

[toro]

Spoiler

I know, I saw that scene after the credits too. It is extremely ambiguous though, and might just be a figment of his imagination, his final thoughts before he died. The only thing certain about the ending, is that Booker did drown. If the elisabeth you knew remains, is however unknown. How is the world inconsistent with itself? You need to explain that a lot beter.

Spoiler

Because Comstock will cease to exist, the Elisabeth/Little Sister will cease to exist. That's why they disappear one by one at the end of the game.

The world is inconsistent because the basic axiom was that at each given moment there are infinite universes going in different ways.
But also that at each point in time you can divide the universes based on one single decision.

Original baptism moment:
1) Booker DeWitt is baptized in one set of universes and he became ComStock.
+--> 1.1) Universes were ComStock manages to create Columbia.
| +--> 1.2.1) Comstock goes after Anna.
| +--> 1.2.2) Comstock doesn't go after Anna.
+--> 1.2) Universes were ComStock doesn't manage to create Columbia. He acquires a young choir boy.
2) In another set of universes he refuses to be baptized.
+--> 1.1) Universes were he eventually have a child.
| +--> 1.1.1) He sell the child to repay is debt.
| +--> 1.1.2) He refuses to sell the child.
+--> 1.2) Universes were he doesn't have a child. He buys a dog.

The representation above is primitive, but the idea is that each subset is infinite. And the whole purpose of the game is to convince you - the player - that if Booker is drowned, then Comstock will cease to exist.
But based on the representation above, normally even if he drowns in one set of universes, he will not drown in another set. And everything that could happen, it will happen anyway. And your actions are meaningless.
Also if Booker drowning is definitive, he will not have any childs, therefore the ending is cretinous.

The main problem is that in a multiple-universe world, there is no longer a single definitive reality. As a consequence, there is no definitive closure for any action.
I also think Levine was aware of the fact that he cannot provide closure, but he still went with convoluted shit hoping that the quality will outshine the absurd plotline. Levine cannot into infinite. But he likes money.

 

[Blagrar]

Spoiler

The debt is a moral one that he owes to his daughter, it's not about money. Furthermore the game show awarness of the fact that the actions of Booker aren't very helpful, and he just gets more and more moral debt as he goes along his quest to redeem himself for his previous actions, which is why this song is one of the most heard

Spoiler

Well, the gameplay makes that morality play look plenty silly in my eyes. Must be a hell of a debt he owes to his daughter if he thinks he can still redeem himself after shooting/decapitating/immolating dozens of more or less innocent people. Does he ever bring that up himself?

 

[toro]

That seems a little extreme just to repay a debt. Booker can obviously handle himself, couldn't he have just kill his debtor(s) instead of fighting a war against an entire city? Or just stay in Columbia. I bet he could handle any collectors coming for him if it came to blows.

Spoiler

The debt is a moral one that he owes to his daughter, it's not about money. Furthermore the game show awarness of the fact that the actions of Booker aren't very helpful, and he just gets more and more moral debt as he goes along his quest to redeem himself for his previous actions, which is why this song is one of the most heard

Spoiler

Nope. In the game he states that he had a gambling debt. But in one universe he gives his daughter and in the other one he goes after Elisabeth. In both cases, there is no moral debt, is just about the money.

 

[aris]

Spoiler

I know, I saw that scene after the credits too. It is extremely ambiguous though, and might just be a figment of his imagination, his final thoughts before he died. The only thing certain about the ending, is that Booker did drown. If the elisabeth you knew remains, is however unknown. How is the world inconsistent with itself? You need to explain that a lot beter.

Spoiler

Because Comstock will cease to exist, the Elisabeth/Little Sister will cease to exist. That's why they disappear one by one at the end of the game.

The world is inconsistent because the basic axiom was that at each given moment there are infinite universes going in different ways.
But also that at each point in time you can divide the universes based on one single decision.

Original baptism moment:
1) Booker DeWitt is baptized in one set of universes and he became ComStock.
+--> 1.1) Universes were ComStock manages to create Columbia.
| +--> 1.2.1) Comstock goes after Anna.
| +--> 1.2.2) Comstock doesn't go after Anna.
+--> 1.2) Universes were ComStock doesn't manage to create Columbia. He acquires a young choir boy.
2) In another set of universes he refuses to be baptized.
+--> 1.1) Universes were he eventually have a child.
| +--> 1.1.1) He sell the child to repay is debt.
| +--> 1.1.2) He refuses to sell the child.
+--> 1.2) Universes were he doesn't have a child. He buys a dog.

The representation above is primitive, but the idea is that each subset is infinite. And the whole purpose of the game is to convince you - the player - that if Booker is drowned, then Comstock will cease to exist.
But based on the representation above, normally even if he drowns in one set of universes, he will not drown in another set. And everything that could happen, it will happen anyway. And your actions are meaningless.
Also if Booker drowning is definitive, he will not have any childs, therefore the ending is cretinous.

The main problem is that in a multiple-universe world, there is no longer a single definitive reality. As a consequence, there is no definitive closure for any action.
I also think Levine was aware of the fact that he cannot provide closure, but he still went with convoluted shit hoping that the quality will outshine the absurd plotline. Levine cannot into infinite. But he likes money.

Spoiler

I know she disappeared because of this, she was after all the son of Booker. I agree that the fact that other versions clearly don't die, but that all the bookers/comstock dies when you get drowned is confusing. But why on earth would they make a HUGE deal out of the fact that people don't die simultaneously in all worlds at several instances of the game (With Chen Lin in particular). Why make a huge deal out of something that introduces a inconcistency in the plot, if it is indeed an inconcistecy? They could have just removed that part of the history easily, and there would be no inconsistecy when all of the bookers died, drowning the booker you had. Do you remember what they said at the end? The only way to break the circle, is to kill Comstock at birth, the baptising symbols his birth and is before him entering any rift. Thus killing him here, would undo him entering any rift, and thus destroy any version of himself that appeared in the other world. That is my theory any way.


I can see that you want to hate this game really badly, but I don't think the story is nearly as full of holes as you think it is. The subject matter of infinity of multi-verses is really difficult to do and an ambitious one, and not your typical go to the castle and save the princess quest, and I think they did the job of explaining pretty much everything admirably. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagionation, but the writers did a good job.

Spoiler

The debt is a moral one that he owes to his daughter, it's not about money. Furthermore the game show awarness of the fact that the actions of Booker aren't very helpful, and he just gets more and more moral debt as he goes along his quest to redeem himself for his previous actions, which is why this song is one of the most heard

Spoiler

Well, the gameplay makes that morality play look plenty silly in my eyes. Must be a hell of a debt he owes to his daughter if he thinks he can still redeem himself after shooting/decapitating/immolating dozens of more or less innocent people. Does he ever bring that up himself?

Spoiler

Yeah, more or less. Most of the game, he isn't 100% aware of just what debt he is owing though. He is a mercenary type; does what he does for his own ends, and doesn't ask too many questions.

 

[aris]

That seems a little extreme just to repay a debt. Booker can obviously handle himself, couldn't he have just kill his debtor(s) instead of fighting a war against an entire city? Or just stay in Columbia. I bet he could handle any collectors coming for him if it came to blows.

Spoiler

The debt is a moral one that he owes to his daughter, it's not about money. Furthermore the game show awarness of the fact that the actions of Booker aren't very helpful, and he just gets more and more moral debt as he goes along his quest to redeem himself for his previous actions, which is why this song is one of the most heard

Spoiler

Nope. In the game he states that he had a gambling debt. But in one universe he gives his daughter and in the other one he goes after Elisabeth. In both cases, there is no moral debt, is just about the money.

Spoiler

Well, that too. But his main motivation is to cleanse himself of his past sins (in the war the first time, for Anna the second time), which he thinks Comstock/the prophet can do for him by bringing the scientists the girl.

 

[DalekFlay]

Not reading all these spoilers but on the subject of the change in tone (on Republicans specifically) since the early walkthroughs... good. One thing that really shocked me in the game was (halfway through spoilers) when the Black resistance girl ended up being just as much of an asshole psychotic as the Comstock guy. That really turned the tables on where I assumed the story was going, and was better social commentary than "Republicans are evil" by a MILE.

 

[toro]

Spoiler

gaudaost: The entire idea of multiple-infinite-universes existing at the same time is retarded as fuck. The point is that even if Booker doesn't became Comstock, another fucktard will build Columbia in another universe anyway. And Booker doesn't even have to exist in that universe.
In such a world, there would be no definitive action. Nothing would really matter. There is no ending of a circle or of any kind of circle. But whatever ...

 

[aris]

Not reading all these spoilers but on the subject of the change in tone (on Republicans specifically) since the early walkthroughs... good. One thing that really shocked me in the game was (halfway through spoilers) when the Black resistance girl ended up being just as much of an asshole psychotic as the Comstock guy. That really turned the tables on where I assumed the story was going, and was better social commentary than "Republicans are evil" by a MILE.

Yep, really agree here. Thought it would be a moralizing on racism, but that's not what they do at all. Indeed it shows that anyone that comes into power can become corrupt.

They did troll the republican party thouroughly in the opening scene though, with the garden of worship for the founding fathers, something that was blashphemic and delightfully parodic of the republican party at the same time.

 

[Gelbvieh]

It's all a bit like talking about the ending of Inception, but:

Spoiler

So! Elizabeth/Anna and Lutece's doppel shouldn't have existed in other worlds, or at least that's what He-Lutece thinks. He figures that by pulling them through, the Luteces have created holes in time and space and nothing makes sense. Also, the Luteces are dead and alive at the same time and it seems to be hurting his brain.

So He-Lutece pulls Booker into the Comstock-world in the hope that he will end up where he does at the end, which is a pretty terrible plan but works because whenever Booker fails (like die, fall off a building, do something other than follow the plot) actually, he doesn't.
So Booker (all the Bookers) ends up at the baptism and this time he dies, which means there's no Comstock and all the Elizabeths disappear because they were never pulled through by him.

And with that, the whole game never happened.
Except because there's infinite dimensions of every time at all times that are all right next to each other, it doesn't matter.

This is what happens if you attempt to analyse this thing:

 

[sea]

I have yet to get to Elizabeth so I guess I'm playing slowly, only put an hour and a half or so in though.

I will say that combat is okay, but very unremarkable. Basically if it wasn't for the skylines, it'd be "just another shooter" with some slightly more varied types of grenades to throw. I tried 1999 mode and it's painfully easy - I am having absolutely no trouble at all, and this is with the awkward laggy mouse controls too that artificially gimp me. Beyond that, the only gameplay involves wandering around environments and picking up the 500 objects in every single room, which is about as fun as it sounds.

The story has not grabbed me at all so far. The setting is kinda cool, but I don't feel like I'm going deeper into it, like I'm going to see anything more impressive and exciting and fun. The game really blew its wad with the "floating city" deal early on and now I feel like it just can't top itself. All the crazy god rays and bloom get old real fast and I'm now completely desensitized to it. BioShock Infinite really is Half-Life 2 in a different setting, but whereas Half-Life 2 was able to create a sense of mystery to its world that made me want to learn more, BioShock Infinite feels like a theme park of the most artificial sort. And the complete lack of free-roaming elements, side quests, etc. means there can be no real exploration of what's going on at my own time and pace.

It's still better than your average military shooter, and isn't woefully incompetent. But for all the visual splendor and pains to create an original setting, it's just kind of... boring.

 

[aris]

It's all a bit like talking about the ending of Inception, but:

Spoiler

So! Elizabeth/Anna and Lutece's doppel shouldn't have existed in other worlds, or at least that's what He-Lutece thinks. He figures that by pulling them through, the Luteces have created holes in time and space and nothing makes sense. Also, the Luteces are dead and alive at the same time and it seems to be hurting his brain.

So He-Lutece pulls Booker into the Comstock-world in the hope that he will end up where he does at the end, which is a pretty terrible plan but works because whenever Booker fails (like die, fall off a building, do something other than follow the plot) actually, he doesn't.
So Booker (all the Bookers) ends up at the baptism and this time he dies, which means there's no Comstock and all the Elizabeths disappear because they were never pulled through by him.

And with that, the whole game never happened.
Except because there's infinite dimensions of every time at all times that are all right next to each other, it doesn't matter.

This is what happens if you attempt to analyse this thing:

Spoiler

It is possible somehow didn't exist in the other world before after the baptizing (he is undoubtedly quite special, being the father of elisabeth who has the ability to open rifts), and thus going back to the baptizing and killing him off, never caused him to go into the rifts in the first place

I tried 1999 mode and it's painfully easy - I am having absolutely no trouble at all, and this is with the awkward laggy mouse controls too that artificially gimp me.

Painfully easy? Don't be ridicolous. You're fooling no-one. Show me videos of you ramboing through 1999 mode without dying once, or it isn't "painfully easy".

 

[Gelbvieh]

Spoiler

It is possible somehow didn't exist in the other world before after the baptizing (he is undoubtedly quite special, being the father of elisabeth who has the ability to open rifts), and thus going back to the baptizing and killing him off, never caused him to go into the rifts in the first place

Spoiler

Elizabeth is only special because she's from a different world - that's why she can open tears. She's an extension of an impossibility. If she hadn't been taken, she'd just be a normal person.
Booker isn't special either. Again, it's just circumstances that make him different. The problem is more that once you start applying logic to this crap, it just goes round and round (and there's the Circle).

 

[aris]

Spoiler

It is possible somehow didn't exist in the other world before after the baptizing (he is undoubtedly quite special, being the father of elisabeth who has the ability to open rifts), and thus going back to the baptizing and killing him off, never caused him to go into the rifts in the first place

Spoiler

Elizabeth is only special because she's from a different world - that's why she can open tears. She's an extension of an impossibility. If she hadn't been taken, she'd just be a normal person.
Booker isn't special either. Again, it's just circumstances that make him different. The problem is more that once you start applying logic to this crap, it just goes round and round (and there's the Circle).

Spoiler

[/quote]

Spoiler

Elisabeth and the booker you play comes from the same world, as you are her father, wouldn't that make you special too somehow?

 

[Jashiin]

Downgrade total.

I get tired just from watching this.

 

[Gelbvieh]

spoiler tags

1999 mode gets harder when everyone starts putting on metal plates. It's pretty much like ramping up the difficulty in Skyrim though: hp bloat & you get killed quicker. And it is a cakewalk esp. at the beginning if you use your vigor(s) smartly and headshot people.

Oh man, these spoiler tags.

Spoiler

Neither one of them is innately special. The world they come from isn't special, and Booker being Elizabeth's father has no link whatsoever to why she has her abilities. Her abilities are a result of her properties - ie, being from another world.
Edit: OK, so yeah, conceivably Booker might develop her abilities if he worked on it, or if he spent a lot more time in that world. Not because he's her father though. And he wouldn't, because he always dies. Or does he? Sigh.

 

[chestburster]

Guys I have a question (just finished the game):

As far as I know, all the dimension hopping is invented by the Lutece twin with quantum physics right? So did these two come from the future, or did they invent that stuff before 1912?

Columbia was cracking down the Chinese Boxers in 1900, which means the Lutece twins developed "quantum physics" in the 1800s. But quantum physics didn't even exist in the 1800s. How da fuck did they come up with all the dimension hopping ability and flying city stuff? Are we supposed to accept that they're simply so brilliant, or are they supposed to have gotten information from the future?

Seems like a contrived deus ex machina to me. And without the Lutece twins inventing "quantum physics magic" in the first place, the whole plot of the game cannot even exist.

 

[Average Manatee]

I tried 1999 mode and it's painfully easy - I am having absolutely no trouble at all, and this is with the awkward laggy mouse controls too that artificially gimp me.

Painfully easy? Don't be ridicolous. You're fooling no-one. Show me videos of you ramboing through 1999 mode without dying once, or it isn't "painfully easy".

Like most shooters these days, being "painfully easy" isn't about how good you are as a player, but about how you approach the situation (i.e. how boring you make the game). If you don't rambo in, camp behind cover, wait for shields to regen at all times, the game is pretty easy. The only way to add difficulty to the game is through ramboing in, but this is essentially a self-imposed artificial difficulty on the level of asking someone to complete DOOM with just a pistol. It's fun to do, but not the way the game is meant to be played. Modern shooters are meant to be played by hugging cover and slowly picking off enemies while recharging to full health shields before popping out again.

 

[sea]

Like most shooters these days, being "painfully easy" isn't about how good you are as a player, but about how you approach the situation (i.e. how boring you make the game). If you don't rambo in, camp behind cover, wait for shields to regen at all times, the game is pretty easy. The only way to add difficulty to the game is through "ramboing in", which is essentially as self-imposed artificial difficulty.

This. Use caution and careful aim and you really won't have trouble. Resources are very plentiful as well. Admittedly I'm still fairly early on, but it really does feel like "normal" from many other games.

 

[aris]

A painfully easy game is a game where you can do a shit ton of mistakes, and still never die. Period. It's really that simple, you don't need to come up with some contrived definition of "painfully easy" in modern shooters (bioshock:infinite has much more in common with the classical shooters than the modern ones). If you do a mistake, or something stupid in 1999 mode, you get punished by for it harshly. Thus, it's not a painfully easy game.

Spoiler

Guys I have a question (just finished the game):

As far as I know, all the dimension hopping is invented by the Lutece twin with quantum physics right? So did these two come from the future, or did they invent that stuff before 1912?

Columbia was cracking down the Chinese Boxers in 1900, which means the Lutece twins developed "quantum physics" in the 1800s. But quantum physics didn't even exist in the 1800s. How da fuck did they come up with all the dimension hopping ability and flying city stuff? Are we supposed to accept that they're simply so brilliant, or are they supposed to have gotten information from the future?

Seems like a contrived deus ex machina to me. And without the Lutece twins inventing "quantum physics magic" in the first place, the whole plot of the game cannot even exist.

That they come from the future is quite likely, we see time travel in several instances throughout the game, in particular to 1983 where new york is attacked by columbia. Maybe that's the year she comes from?

 

[Jaesun]

Wow so this is really a gigantic interactive movie..... with guns.

 

[HanoverF]

I think that's a big failing of the game's combat, they want you to run around using skylines and having Elizabeth open tears, but on the harder difficulties you pretty much just have to hunker down and pop some moles, then take anyone out who gets close with a shotgun or handcannon. Sometimes some fireguy or handyman will showup and fuck you up, but usually they come after a wave of cannon fodder.

 

[Menckenstein]

 

[Azazel]

Fucking hell, Reddit is a goddamn shithole. Good thing I left the window open when I went to bed:

I'd like to bring to the table example A:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBwKO4RFOU

Please watch the above 15 minutes of gameplay from July 2011 and ponder how little of that actually made it into the game which shipped 16 months later:

- Non-aggressive NPC's that don't realize who you are until you do something drastic, and whom you an interact with in non-violent contextual circumstances.

- Elizabeth reacts to the environment prompting conversations which build depth and character.

- Very dense scenes with NPC setpieces creating a far richer tapestry of the world that you are exploring. Only the opening level of the shipped product is as rich as this scene.

- Vigors based on an inventory stock instead of a refillable mana bar.

- Very, very, very large environments with HUGE skyline segments, combat on the skylines, and "3D" combat (Ground, Skyline, Zeppelin)

- AI that is noticeably more advanced than the current, including flanking and shifting to different levels in the environment to gain an advantage.

- Dialogue that is present in the shipped product, but in dramatically different situations and context, implying that the story was scrapped and re-written VERY late in development (this is Q3 2011, remember). Elizabeths line in the trailer where she mentions asking Comstock for help escaping is itself a potent indicator that the story was vastly different.

After having gone back and watched several of these, I've come to the conclusion that the product which was shipped out to stores contains not even a fraction of the actual assets that were developed for this game. In comparison the AI is incredibly dumbed down, and the world is a sterile theme park which you are railroaded through.

It honestly feels like the Infinite which was released is either an earlier build than what is shown in these videos, or a patchwork of assets which was hacked together at the very end of the development cycle in order to ship a product by a specific date. This is supported by several jarring issues in the final game, primarily Abandoned Game Mechanics:

- Vox Cyphers & Crows Chests are both implied to be recurring elements, to the extent that they even feature voiced dialogue and in-game tutorials about them. Yet there are 3 cyphers and 3 crow chests, in the entire game.

- In the first level, after you find the first crow chest, you enter a mansion and are given a tutorial prompt which suggests "Try not shooting your gun and drawing attention to yourself" Clearly this is a remnant the 2011 build in the video above, where enemies were not instant-hostile zerglings, but is useless in the release build as all enemies shoot on sight.

- The previously inventory-based vigor system appears to have been changed very late in development, as the old pick-up bottles are still to be found scattered throughout levels, but now only act as salt refills.

- The design of many early levels, such as Soldiers Field, feel very odd and out of context, and not designed for Combat. I suspect these were originally built as the "hub" levels when the game was more open world, and then pared down when it was cut up into a linear shooter.

- There is an interview with Ken Levine, I believe from 2010, discussing an artist quitting after they axed the Shantytown segment because it made little sense on the context of a floating nationalist utopia. Mysteriously, Shantytown is back in the release build.

There are several instances in the course of the game which, upon reflection, are shoe-horning in assets that they had paid to develop and needed to justify the cost of, but which make very little sense when the whole cloth is examined.
When it comes down to it, comparing what was shipped to what was promoted leading up to launch, I actually do believe Ken Levines quote of having "Cut enough content to make ten games". Unfortunately, it's clear that they cut out the vast majority of what had made Infinite unique, and replaced it with a severely reduced linear shooter. It's like they took a finished game, pulled it apart into all the pieces, and then built a much smaller game out of them in a fraction of the time. Like making an Unreal mod using stock assets or something.

It is a testament to Irrational that they were able to pull together a very enjoyable product in what appears to be a very short span of time, but the shipped game is also clearly not the one that was in development for so long, and only a pale shadow in terms of depth in both gameplay and worldbuilding.

So again, the question, what the hell went wrong during development that caused this level of scrapping at the last minute?