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KaptainKrunk posted:He goes through a rift and has his memories scrambled (see the opening quote of the game). Remember, in the universe in which Booker and not Comstock exists, there's no such thing as Columbia. Ah, I thought each Booker was chasing a Comstock that came to his universe after taking another Booker's baby (from another universe). But that would lead to a doubling of Bookers (two in each universe). But still, doesn't the twins' conversation at the end suggest he had made up the circumstances of being hired by one of them? Isn't that unnecessary, since they'd have to get him into a rift personally anyway? I mean he still has to forget about Anna and Lutece's face (though twenty years would suffice for the latter) but not the part about being hired? I'm definitely missing something here.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:14
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Merry Magpie posted:Yes, that's what I said. Were you confused by my explanation? I misunderstood how you inferred your conclusion. Sequentially the baptism scene takes place before the baby is handed over, but they don't necessarily have to be travelling between events chronologically. I guess Booker saying the baptism being "right after" Wounded Knee would suggest that, but I initially read his sins as being related to his abandonment of Anna in addition to what transpired durring the war. Watching it again I'm now partial to your interpretation, but I don't see anything definitive.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:24
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And it needs to be definitive otherwise it doesn't work. If Booker sells his daughter before the baptism it kind of makes sense. Otherwise it all falls apart. Unfortunately the ending doesn't make this clear. Maybe the full game does? Still doesn't fix the time loop issue, but if Bookers sells his daughter before he gets baptised/becomes Comstock the story makes a lot more sense.
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Mar 22, 2013 03:18
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At least the game is complete and we don't need to buy the Bioshock Infinite: Aftermath DLC for 20bux to get the rest of the ending.
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Mar 22, 2013 15:10
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Booker does sell his daughter before he 'becomes' or doesn't become Comstock. I thought that was pretty clear?
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Mar 22, 2013 15:20
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Well if he does it after, and only has his daughter as Booker (that is, the circumstances that lead to her birth never happen to Comstock), then Comstock wouldn't already have a daughter and so he'd have to go get one. But he also wouldn't realize a daughter even exists unless one of the Luteces told him so, because that's in a parallel dimension. But if it's done before, then there should still be a daughter in Comstock's reality. Couldn't he just... go find her? And if he did buy her from the Booker-dimension... that means there's two of them in Comstock's dimension now, because he took the other one from later than the point where the timeline split (because he's Comstock now). And how did he end up back before the split? In the Booker universes, he never existed. Apparently never existing was enough to make the timeline reset itself back to before Booker sold the kid or something, so Comstock never existing to make the transaction with himself shouldn't also be allowed to happen. Hopefully that's all clarified somewhere the streams didn't see.
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Mar 22, 2013 16:54
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CJacobs posted:At least the game is complete and we don't need to buy the Bioshock Infinite: Aftermath DLC for 20bux to get the rest of the ending. It has a season pass and no multiplayer. I wouldn't be so hopeful.
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Mar 22, 2013 17:28
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Nakar posted:Well if he does it after, and only has his daughter as Booker (that is, the circumstances that lead to her birth never happen to Comstock), then Comstock wouldn't already have a daughter and so he'd have to go get one. But he also wouldn't realize a daughter even exists unless one of the Luteces told him so, because that's in a parallel dimension. It makes waaay more sense to me if Booker sells Anna before the baptism. If it's before, the ending kills Elizabeth/Anna as well and like you said, Comstock wouldn't know he has a daughter. It would also imply Comstock knows the two are the same person - which Comstock's last conversation kind of implies but I'm not totally sure. If it's before there wouldn't be a daughter in Comstock's reality. If Booker always sells Anna before the baptism, she's always taken from all realities. Comstock later on can discover dimension travel and probably thinks "Hey, I can go back in time and both rescue my daughter and fix my debt and everything will be perfect." But Comstock doesn't realize the baptism is a branching point that creates him and Booker. When Comstock goes back, he affects two dimensions. There's what I guess would be a stable loop in one, where he buys Anna from Booker-who-will-become-Comstock. There's also a dimension where he buys from Booker-who-will-stay-Booker, which creates miserable Booker. Does Comstock have AD on his hand like Booker does?
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Mar 22, 2013 18:31
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Infinity Gaia posted:It has a season pass and no multiplayer. I wouldn't be so hopeful. So because they're making DLC the game isn't complete?
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Mar 22, 2013 18:33
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The story sounds ok and pretty strange so far. It's hilarious that people think that originality beats execution when it comes to story telling. The complaints are completely premature until you play though the game.
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Mar 22, 2013 18:43
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Tezzeract posted:The story sounds ok and pretty strange so far. It's hilarious that people think that originality beats execution when it comes to story telling. The complaints are completely premature until you play though the game. Execution like a scripted 15 minute exposition dump at the end?
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Mar 22, 2013 18:52
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Yeah even if you tihnk the ending is perfectly fine I don't see how you could argue that the execution is good. All the info just gets dumped on you in the last 15 minutes by your suddenly omnipotent friend.
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Mar 22, 2013 19:47
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jsr v2.0 posted:So because they're making DLC the game isn't complete? What he was saying is that there's a high possibility for there to be an 'after the ending' DLC because they're selling a season pass, implying there is going to be more than one. Personally I hope that doesn't happen but I don't see where else the story could go besides 'Booker from a different world does different stuff'. Tezzeract posted:The story sounds ok and pretty strange so far. It's hilarious that people think that originality beats execution when it comes to story telling. The complaints are completely premature until you play though the game. I dunno about Ken Levine but I really would rather not walk down a 15 (almost 20 if you count the scene that comes after the songbird blows up the siphon!) minute long hallway listening to Elizabeth spout exposition, then kill me, then the credits roll. It is true that the complaints are premature because all people are able to see so far is the recorded stream video of the ending... but, like, they show the entire ending and it's just one big info dump, which is boring and unintuitive. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 20:03
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Is there something else after the credits? The clip I saw ends with the drowning and the piano notes. People are mentioning the timelines collapsing and returning back to the point before Booker gives up Anna, but I didn't see that. And yeah, it's a LOT of info dumped on the player all at once. Which is poor storytelling in any medium, even if the ideas are interesting.
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Mar 22, 2013 20:37
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Spite posted:Is there something else after the credits? The clip I saw ends with the drowning and the piano notes. Credits end, player takes control of Booker back in his office/home. Booker opens the door to baby Anna's room and game cuts to black with him saying "Anna?" without revealing if she is in the crib or not.
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Mar 22, 2013 20:40
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It seems like there are at least 4 big twists they dump on you in the last 4 minutes; -That the events of the story unfold slightly altered in a thousand different dimensions -Booker has been pulled from one dimension to another -Elizabeth is Booker's daughter -Booker is Comstock It's a lot to suddenly learn and I don't know how well any of this is foreshadowed, if at all. If not then it would probably work better if you learned some of these twists earlier on rather than right at the very end. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Mar 23, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 21:19
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Is there a complete list of vigors out yet? Edit: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Vigor So there are only 8 and you can hold them all? Why all the hemming and hawing about it being a permanent choice? GenoCanSing fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Mar 22, 2013 |
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Mar 22, 2013 21:31
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Internet Kraken posted:It seems like there are at least 4 big twists they dump on you in the last 4 minutes; The whole thing is a very obvious and conscious reaction against the common complaint that the first Bioshock revealed the big twist too early, and then kind of left you twisting in the wind until the end. So, of course, the answer is for this game to take it way too far in the opposite direction 
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Mar 22, 2013 21:45
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No Mods No Masters posted:The whole thing is a very obvious and conscious reaction against the common complaint that the first Bioshock revealed the big twist too early, and then kind of left you twisting in the wind until the end. I dont know if youve ever played Final Fantasy 13, but im sure youve heard the "Long Hallway" gossip. Basically, the first 11 chapters of the game really are a long hallway. Unlike modern FPS design (which is also a long hallway) FFXIII had a minimap, so it really pointed out the fact that you were just running in a single direction, constantly. Chapter 12 had you land on the planet your home moon circles and instantly, the game opens up. Instead of being a long hallway, your minimap is showing a vast plain with lots of places to explore. You get a serious feeling of exhiliration, after 30 hours of being lead by the nose, you are finally free to do things your own way. Lets look at Bioshock, the narrative is completly geared towards the feeling you get in FFXIII. Even if you dont know it, youre being lead around by the nose, and running down the cooridoors your told to run down. After you meet Ryan, you find out the truth about your situation, but after killing him and leaving Hephasteus, all that happens is you are given a second talking head in the form of Dr Tenenbaum to take orders from. They make a huge deal about how you are on a leash but after the climax, you are just strung along by another master. If Bioshock had dropped you in Rapture as your own man, free to roam around and do as you pleased following your confrontation with Ryan, it would have been amazing. That feeling I felt when playing FFXIII would have been amplified because the narrative of the story went along with your sudden unleashing. A complete waste. It wouldnt be such a big deal if people didnt laud the Andrew Ryan reveal as being so amazing though. An almost universally hated game like FFXIII made me feel what Ken Levine was going for way more than his own game did.
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Mar 22, 2013 21:54
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Meme Emulator posted:I dont know if youve ever played Final Fantasy 13, but im sure youve heard the "Long Hallway" gossip. Basically, the first 11 chapters of the game really are a long hallway. Unlike modern FPS design (which is also a long hallway) FFXIII had a minimap, so it really pointed out the fact that you were just running in a single direction, constantly. I felt like Ken Levine's storytelling chops were seriously overrated coming out of Bioshock 1, and the ending certainly seems to back me up insofar as none of his worst tendencies have changed in any real way. We have the same reliance on the Big Plot Twist crutch to carry the story. And we have the same impulse to borrow powerful political philosophy images and ideas without really exploring or commenting on them in any mature or thematic way. Maybe the full game will prove me wrong to some degree, but insofar as Bioshock Infinite was touted to be about religion and/or American exceptionalism and/or communism, those things are certainly not really material to the Time Travel Bullshit ending in any important way in my opinion.
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Mar 22, 2013 22:17
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No Mods No Masters posted:I felt like Ken Levine's storytelling chops were seriously overrated coming out of Bioshock 1, and the ending certainly seems to back me up insofar as none of his worst tendencies have changed in any real way. ~twists~ are the drat jump scares of storytelling, in that they are for children So seriously, all that talk of racism and the myth of american exceptionalism was just so much window dressing for a story about dads, or even worse just some dumb drat time travel paradox? PoontifexMacksimus fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Mar 23, 2013 |
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Mar 23, 2013 03:17
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anti_strunt posted:~twists~ are the drat jump scares of storytelling, in that they are for children Columbia itself and its factions are pretty much totally irrelevant to everything that happens in the ending after Elizabeth goes time lord, and in my understanding they actually never even existed once all the Time Travel Bullshit has spun out. Now that's some profound commentary about the great issues of our times. In all seriousness I think Ken Levine (correctly) sees that the political/philosophical/historical images and ideas he lifts are powerful, and he includes them because they look cool and they make people who play the game think that the story is smarter than it actually is. But he's pretty much hopeless if he wades any deeper than "Aren't propaganda posters neat?" I mean, the deepest air-quotes insight about objectivism in Bioshock 1 is essentially that it doesn't work in actual society. 
No Mods No Masters fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Mar 23, 2013 |
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Mar 23, 2013 04:11
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I think it's annoying that they went to SO MUCH GRAND EFFORT to set up the entirety of Columbia, to have its population be waging war on itself, to make a perfect setting for a game like Bioshock to take place. ...But then it has absolutely no bearing on the "twist" or the real plot you are fed in the last bit of the game. It's just bullshit!
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Mar 23, 2013 04:33
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CJacobs posted:I think it's annoying that they went to SO MUCH GRAND EFFORT to set up the entirety of Columbia, to have its population be waging war on itself, to make a perfect setting for a game like Bioshock to take place. Exactly. The ending doesn't even fully explain some things that would help push the themes forward too and make up for the fact that Columbia itself is ultimately inconsequential. For instance, what happens to all the countless other Bookers? Some of them fail, some of them kill Comstock, but what is it about the player character Booker that makes him special? What did he do differently? Why didn't the others succeed? It isn't made clear. There's just a bunch of handwaving and little explanation. This is obviously supposed to spur discussion and crazy fan analysis but it just falls flat on its face.
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Mar 23, 2013 04:56
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KaptainKrunk posted:Exactly. The ending doesn't even fully explain some things that would help push the themes forward too and make up for the fact that Columbia itself is ultimately inconsequential. For instance, what happens to all the countless other Bookers? Some of them fail, some of them kill Comstock, but what is it about the player character Booker that makes him special? What did he do differently? Why didn't the others succeed? It isn't made clear. There's just a bunch of handwaving and little explanation. This is obviously supposed to spur discussion and crazy fan analysis but it just falls flat on its face. Deus ex machina. The "countless other Bookers" were all stopped by the Songbird. The sole reason this Booker succeeds is because an older Elizabeth hands Booker a diagram to give to her younger self. The diagram is for the "Whistler," a giant bird whistle/controller for the Songbird. Contrivance ladled upon contrivance.
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Mar 23, 2013 06:46
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Merry Magpie posted:Deus ex machina. This must occur during the game I guess? An older Elizabeth in a tear? That's actually a pretty sloppy way to resolve it; time loop stories lend themselves to deus ex machina but that seems like a cop out. There's a lot of interesting stuff that they drop in favor of the twist, but that's really not unexpected because Bioshock 1 does it as well. You can argue Ryan's obsession with objectivism and the fact that he associates it with freedom has some thematic relation to the twist. But here it looks like Columbia is just a backdrop really. Which is too bad because you could bring in themes of fatherhood and doing horrible poo poo in the past and hoping for redemption into American History quite easily if you wanted to.
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Mar 23, 2013 13:08
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The older Elizabeth giving the younger one the diagram for the whistler is even stupider, come to think of it! Because if the older Elizabeth practically has the whistler in her possession, then that means she could command the songbird in HER world to destroy the siphon even if her world's Booker failed in some way. Then, the older Elizabeth's world would be the one to end the cycle because that one would gain I-Know-Everything powers instead! But the fact that she's giving it to Booker to give to 'our' Elizabeth means she failed, even though she had the whistler or at least the schematics for the drat thing in her possession the whole time and somehow didn't find time to make it! This means that she had the deus ex machina under arm and for some reason decided to go back to a plot-relevant moment instead of just giving Booker the loving thing at the start of the game and saying "Okay, so, this is the key to solving everything. All you have to do is blow up the siphon and the rest will be self-explanatory." Arggghhhhhhh!!! CJacobs fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Mar 23, 2013 |
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Mar 23, 2013 15:27
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CJacobs posted:The older Elizabeth giving the younger one the diagram for the whistler is even stupider, come to think of it! Because if the older Elizabeth practically has the whistler in her possession, then that means she could command the songbird in HER world to destroy the siphon even if her world's Booker failed in some way. Then, the older Elizabeth's world would be the one to end the cycle because that one would gain I-Know-Everything powers instead! The Siphon is turned off in Old!Elizabeth's world, but there's no Booker there, and Comstock is dead. Also her powers were severely weakened because she spent so long being Siphoned, and some nondescript surgery hosed up her powers even more. She's effectively powerless to affect the horrible poo poo she created. The Frozen Dimension part is the closest thing Infinite gets to being creepy, with pretty much literally everyone being dimension-hosed, and Columbia destroying the entire world in some weird nationalistic rage.
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Mar 23, 2013 15:35
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Somethings I missed: Elizabeth's finger is missing because it gets caught when the gate closes as Booker tries to grab her back from Comstock right? Does Comstock have AD on his hand? Also it seems odd that Booker would chose to name himself Comstock if he knows that's the name of the person he sold his baby to. But then again, if he's a guilty mess (which he clearly is) maybe he thinks it's apt somehow.
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Mar 23, 2013 15:50
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Infinity Gaia posted:The Siphon is turned off in Old!Elizabeth's world, but there's no Booker there, and Comstock is dead. Also her powers were severely weakened because she spent so long being Siphoned, and some nondescript surgery hosed up her powers even more. She's effectively powerless to affect the horrible poo poo she created. The Frozen Dimension part is the closest thing Infinite gets to being creepy, with pretty much literally everyone being dimension-hosed, and Columbia destroying the entire world in some weird nationalistic rage. Oh. Well, that makes... I mean, it doesn't make sense in the slightest, don't get me wrong, but I guess it keeps there from being more terrible plot holes in that situation.
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Mar 23, 2013 19:24
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Infinity Gaia posted:The Frozen Dimension part is the closest thing Infinite gets to being creepy, with pretty much literally everyone being dimension-hosed, and Columbia destroying the entire world in some weird nationalistic rage. Care to elaborate on this? This part sounds a lot more interesting than the actual ending.
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Mar 23, 2013 23:01
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Thinking about it, it seems like the sale must happen after the baptism, which kind of breaks the ending for me. Wounded Knee was in 1890 and the game is like 1913. Elizabeth is like 20. Booker says the baptism is immediately after he gets back, so he has to have her after it. Also Booker has his office which it seems he wouldn't have until afterward. Is there a calendar in there somewhere? Which means Comstock wouldn't know about her unless one of the Luteces told him. Or they are somehow doing experiments and discover it, which is a bit too convenient. Also it means that Elizabeth killing Booker before the baptism kills her as well. I guess they are going for "timelines collapse so everything is good now," but that seems like a cop out. I also feel personally that undoing a bunch of stuff the player just did (or everything, in this case) in a cutscene they have no control over is horrible storytelling for games. Removing all the agency from the player because you want to push your plot forward is the weakest way to progress your story. I think the biggest issue is there's no emotion in the ending. It's very mechanical. Elizabeth turns into a plot robot. She's also discovering all this stuff herself - wouldn't she react to the news that this person she's been fighting alongside is also her father who sold her to Comstock to get out of a gambling debt? She doesn't react to any of it at all, which is incredibly sloppy. Bioshock's always gone for the idea of emotion more than actual emotion (I thought Bioshock 2 was better at eliciting emotion from the player than 1). Another plot hole I just thought of: Elizabeth kills the player Booker in the ending. But this shouldn't affect the timeline since he's already made the choice to be baptized or not (he obviously chose no). The whole ending should be Booker watching another version of himself; it doesn't make sense to remain in the first person viewpoint. This is probably just a bit of sloppy direction or they didn't want to make a 3rd person model for Booker. Spite fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Mar 24, 2013 |
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Mar 24, 2013 20:07
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It's because Booker is the Chrono Trigger.
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Mar 25, 2013 02:30
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Spite posted:Thinking about it, it seems like the sale must happen after the baptism, which kind of breaks the ending for me. This, my darling, is the Comstock Clock.
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Mar 25, 2013 02:43
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drat. And here I was, hoping for something less ridiculous than Johnny 5 Aces. How long until someone mods him into the game?
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Mar 25, 2013 15:57
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So what's the reason for all the anachronistic music and technology and stuff? Is it just "oh this world developed differently and got the Beach Boys in the 1900s" or what? I'm guessing there's some time travel involved?
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Mar 25, 2013 19:34
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Kelp Plankton posted:So what's the reason for all the anachronistic music and technology and stuff? Is it just "oh this world developed differently and got the Beach Boys in the 1900s" or what? I'm guessing there's some time travel involved? There are/were experiments in Columbia involving time/dimensional travel. They sort of ended badly. Plus one of the main characters has the ability to pull things through time/dimensions and she can't really control it.
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Mar 25, 2013 19:57
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I am not the least bit sorry for what I have done. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Mar 25, 2013 |
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Mar 25, 2013 20:29
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CJacobs posted:
You are my favorite person. Straight to the OP with this sucker.
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Mar 25, 2013 20:33
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I'm unlikely to ever get the game soon enough to avoid all the spoilers, and I like spoilers anyways and I'm already in this thread, so might as well ask-- what's the deal with the First Lady? There's screenshots that show portraits of her and there's that aerodrome named after her, so presumably she's dead, but... why? Is her death the cause of Columbia blowing up the Boxers in China? What was her part in the story?
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Mar 25, 2013 20:44
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