Review RPG Codex Review: BioShock Infinite [Spoilers!]

[Major_Blackhart]

Like a bad version of Looper, as was mentioned earlier.

 

[circ]

Looper wasn't ALL THAT in the first place though.

 

[MetalCraze]

A shitty generic shooter with overrated incoherent plot - on a front page of RPG Codex?

Joke or not fuck you.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah we specifically state it is a cRPG.

 

[almondblight]

Like a bad version of Looper, as was mentioned earlier.

The difference being that Looper makes sense inside it's own world. It has back to the future time travel - go back in time, chop off your hand, and your hand will disappear because you're changing your own history. How does Bioshock Infinite make sense? Granted, I only saw the last 15 minutes (and read the synopsis on Wikipedia). But from that I gathered that Comstock is an alternate universe version of you that decided to get baptized while you walked away from the baptism. You kill Comstock, but that doesn't stop him because he exists in other universes. So in order to stop all the Comstocks, you have to kill yourself in the past - even though you're not the version of you that becomes Comstock. What.

So let me get this straight. Killing the version of Booker who is Comstock doesn't stop Comstock because he exists in other universes, but killing the version of Booker that doesn't become Comstock kills all the Comstocks in all the universes because...eh...skyhook? That's not Looper. That's Kirk killing mirror universe Kirk, and then going back in time and killing himself to stop other mirror universe Kirks.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Hence, a bad version.

 

[tuluse]

That's Kirk killing mirror universe Kirk, and then going back in time and killing himself to stop other mirror universe Kirks.

best analogy ever

 

[circ]

Singularity was that thing where in some sequel Abe Lincoln and his buddies joined you in hunting something? Which seemed to just have fun with the plot.

 

[commie]

Singularity was that thing where in some sequel Abe Lincoln and his buddies joined you in hunting something? Which seemed to just have fun with the plot.

No, it was the one where you go with a US spec ops team to search a Soviet base that did time travel experiments cause of strange phenomena happening and you get sent back in time by these time storms(or whatever) and unknowingly save a Soviet scientist during a failed experiment that created them in the first place. Since he survives, he ends up succeeding in making a time altering machine and no matter what you do then, the end is mostly the same. In fact the 'good' ending has the 'present' being one in which the Soviets rule the world which is pretty cool. I liked that you would come across scrawls on the wall by an alternate 'you' suggesting that from that point on everything is already determined and you're doomed to 'fail' and by failing it means that you can't preserve the previous order of the world. It was throwaway like all time travel stories what with the pure paradox of them, but it worked well enough there.

Oh and I deleted my post because I haven't finished Bioshock, so don't want to be jumping the gun until I've properly examined the ending and its shittiness.

 

[Castanova]

I'm not totally sure but I think people were "shocked" that you ARE Comstock and that you have to kill yourself to break the cycle. Even though they clearly foreshadow the "twist" about an hour before the end of the game.

Just watched the ending on youtube. I'd be pissed if I had actually played the game. Is it explained why killing Booker/Comstock at the baptism destroys him in every dimension, but killing him at other times doesn't?

The idea is that whenever you make a choice, a new dimension is created for every possible choice you could have made. Comstock is in a dimension where you choose to get the baptism, you are from a dimension where you don't. So, by going back in time to BEFORE the baptism and killing yourself, you are preventing the choice from ever occurring. Therefore, Comstock cannot possibly exist in any dimension at all. However, there ARE versions of you that go on to have a baby because there are versions of you who theoretically never go to that river with the baptism at all and therefore are not made extinct by your suicide.

Yeah.

 

[almondblight]

Ah, I see. So you kill yourself because the Comstock realities are a branch off of your own. But if they're saying that a new dimension is created for all possible choices:

1. There are no dimensions where you split off a minute, an hour, a day, etc. before the baptism that then lead to the baptism? From the infinite realities, including countless ones that branch off from Booker prime only moments before he arrives at the baptism, only one version of Booker ever actually gets to the baptism? You kill yourself and then find out that the Comstock that stole your daughter is one that branched off the day before when he decided to tip the waiter 17% instead of 16%. Touch luck.

2. Certain choices - IE, to drown yourself - lead to no new dimensions created from alternative possibilities. If you decide not to get baptized, there will still be a million branches where you decided to get baptized, but if you decide to drown yourself, then that's the only dimension that will exist from this branch (which, of course, would have had splits milliseconds before).

3. Because of 2, for some reason Bookers death at the baptism is final. He kills all his evil future manifestations, and also all of the Booker saints that go on to cure cancer and kill Hitler. Of course, he doesn't stop all of the countless evil (and saintly) Bookers from the multitude of earlier branches (most of which he couldn't stop, because they branched off before he was born).

4. Because there's a dimension for all possible choices we could make, everyone has saintly and diabolical branches that split off. Using Booker logic, we should all kill ourselves then to stop the bad uses from ever occurring.

OK, I'm starting to see why people found the ending so confusing.

 

[Average Manatee]

As soon as you make a plot point about infinite universes you have lost any sense of purpose or consequence. That is all. I can find, excuse the humor, an infinite number of possible problems with the plot of Infinite BS.

 

[GarfunkeL]

No, people found the ending confusing because they are used to a game hand-feeding them simplistic Hollywood plots on a silver platter. Most gamers don't overthink the "plot" they way you just did. Because that would be nerdy.

 

[Israfael]

2. Certain choices - IE, to drown yourself - lead to no new dimensions created from alternative possibilities. If you decide not to get baptized, there will still be a million branches where you decided to get baptized, but if you decide to drown yourself, then that's the only dimension that will exist from this branch (which, of course, would have had splits milliseconds before).

I guess its a philosophical question that has no definite answer - as I see it, Booker makes a 'third' choice (i.e. to drown instead of getting baptized/ walking away), and there's unexplained consequences (which should definitely exist) of him being 'outside' of conventional time.. In this case Anna/Elizabeth may play the same role as Yamanama in Paul McAuley's Confluence trilogy (I suspect Levine borrowed many things from there, especially this idea of 'splitting' universes, an 'indigo child' that doesnt want to 'serve' (one faction in BS case and two factions - god-fearing ultra-conservative 'bureaucrats' in Ys vs egalitarian atheist Heretics - in Confluence), 'ring' structure of the story.. Good books by the way.

 

[Sòren]

No, people found the ending confusing because they are used to a game hand-feeding them simplistic Hollywood plots on a silver platter. Most gamers don't overthink the "plot" they way you just did. Because that would be nerdy.

i wouldn't call it nerdy but rather retarded. the plot doesn't make a lick of sense starting from booker's arrival at the lighthouse till the end.

the people who are responsible for this game aren't even smart enough to tie their own shoes. anyone noticed that the quest to find the chinese weapon's dealer is completely meaningless? -
1. "oh lol we didn't think about how we are going to transport that. silly me"
2. Booker expects that the deal with the negro is still valid even if he changes universe
3. accidentally get to a universe where Booker is a freedom fighter
(btw. they are still not in the universe that those two originally belonged to; in fact there must be a second Elizabeth somewhere in that place)

- and now everyone expects that people who wrote shit like could make something that's not utterly moronic? there's no reason to analyze anything in this game.

 

[MicoSelva]

That was... certainly original. Not sure if I liked it as a review, but it was a fun read. It also helped me resolve my dilemma whether to play this game or not (not), for which I am very grateful.
Castanova, twice in the text You call the Mono Cull guy "Mono Call". Maybe it needs fixing.

BTW, I enjoyed Looper. Just watched it recently, expecting shit, and was pleasantly surprised.

 

[WetWorks]

Liked the review. Well-written.

 

[St. Toxic]

Looper didn't make any sense. Why shoot yourself in the chest when all you need to do is blow off your trigger finger?

Oh, and that fucking kid. Jesus, what a mess of a movie.

 

[Irenaeus]

If there are infinite dimensions, why should I care about the fate of a particular one? Also, move this shit to GD.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Wait, is Bioshock Infinite an RPG or is the Codex just grabbing for page views?

The current administration wants it to be more mainstream clearly. They even edited "evil n-word" out of my comment under the Expedition: Conquistadores feature.

hey man, I changed it because there were complaints in the report queue and I didn't want people to think I'm against african americans just because I'm german or something, so I changed it to african american, peace yo

ps: no hard feelings, bro

 

[Jasede]

It's shit. /skyway

 

[Multidirectional]

Well done Castanova.

 

[Metro]

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Of Course it is a cRPG. computer Retarded Popamole Game.

 

[Orma]

Definitely not enough hate. And that schizophrenic writing style gave me a headache.