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Epic High Five posted:I'm no historian, but considering the circumstances of Wounded Knee and the Boxer Rebellion, I had zero qualms about killing every last bastard in that hall. It's way harder to justify killing the countless police that the player has killed up to this point (you see, I suffer from NPC Empathy Syndrome and feel bad about killing supposed "bad guys" who are just grunts doing the best they can until a confused, possibly psychotic mass murderer crosses their path) than it is the soldiers. Yeah, no doubt all the white people in this game except Elizabeth and the Lutece twins (unless we've not yet seen them show their true colours) are pieces of poo poo that deserve to be put down, and Slate's one of the worst we've run into, but the whole "hey someone who's not Comstock is here, let's immediately try to commit suicide by them!" thing seemed dumb to me when a) all Booker wanted was the vigour, b) Booker'd already shown he was likely on Slate's side by gunning down what felt like half of Columbia's police force on the way in and c) he and Elizabeth probably would've helped them break out or something if they'd asked. But with the way you and louispul5 broke it down, it makes some sense, sorry if it was a stupid question on my part.
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Oct 6, 2013 16:52
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ynohtna posted:Could the discrepancy between Slate and Comstock's version of events be explained through them experiencing different alternate histories/dimensions?
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Oct 6, 2013 17:07
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Flesnolk posted:Yeah, no doubt all the white people in this game except Elizabeth and the Lutece twins (unless we've not yet seen them show their true colours) are pieces of poo poo that deserve to be put down, and Slate's one of the worst we've run into, but the whole "hey someone who's not Comstock is here, let's immediately try to commit suicide by them!" thing seemed dumb to me when a) all Booker wanted was the vigour, b) Booker'd already shown he was likely on Slate's side by gunning down what felt like half of Columbia's police force on the way in and c) he and Elizabeth probably would've helped them break out or something if they'd asked. But with the way you and louispul5 broke it down, it makes some sense, sorry if it was a stupid question on my part. There are no stupid questions in a game like this, only ones that people will be hesitant to answer because everything is a spoiler in this game  I don't think the non-white characters are squeaky clean either, it's just that all we've come across so far re: the Vox is their desire to kill a whole bunch of men, women, and children instead of the actual execution of said act. That and they're more sympathetic a group of people compared to the others we've seen so far. We haven't really met anybody who doesn't want the streets to run red so far, except Elizabeth. My MAIN beef with this game was the lack of people being killed by being thrown to their deaths off the side. I mean there's precipitous drops everywhere you go, and in a place like this it's a symbolic death as well!
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Oct 6, 2013 19:54
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Epic High Five posted:My MAIN beef with this game was the lack of people being killed by being thrown to their deaths off the side. I mean there's precipitous drops everywhere you go, and in a place like this it's a symbolic death as well! That will easily change with certain things that Booker will get later on in the game, my friend. Even then though, the number of times where it's practical to kill people by throwing them off of Colombia is still pretty small.
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Oct 6, 2013 22:05
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GenHavoc, all of the music in Lady Comstock's memorial is from Mozart's Requiem. (It's just piecemeal enough to drive me batty to listen to.) I will never understand Slate's motivations in sending his men to be slaughtered by Booker. Of all the things in this game that don't make sense, it is once of the worst bits.
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Oct 6, 2013 23:30
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Plus, I mean it's not like this is a historical retelling or any poo poo. The game designers made the conscious choice to plot things out a certain way, and then wrote the story around it. It is literally just another example of "We both hate the same person, but now we must fight to the death because the only way to resolve things in an FPS is to shoot each other." You can paint as much story as you want over that, but it's still the same old tired cliche underneath. I have yet to see a single thing that dispells my earlier post about how tiresome this stupid poo poo is.
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Oct 6, 2013 23:37
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Sionja posted:GenHavoc, all of the music in Lady Comstock's memorial is from Mozart's Requiem. (It's just piecemeal enough to drive me batty to listen to.) Slate is obsessed with the ideological concept of being a soldier. I'd assume his men are too. Ideological purity/zeal is a major theme in the game. Thus you get Slate, and Comstock, and possibly Fitzroy.
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Oct 7, 2013 00:08
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There's being obsessive about soldiering, then there's throwing away your life stupidly for no gain, which I'm pretty sure soldiers are taught not to do.
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Oct 7, 2013 00:35
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Flesnolk posted:There's being obsessive about soldiering, then there's throwing away your life stupidly for no gain, which I'm pretty sure soldiers are taught not to do. Unless your CO is alongside it. Hamburger hill, machine gunners in WW1, etc
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Oct 7, 2013 00:40
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Captain Bravo posted:Plus, I mean it's not like this is a historical retelling or any poo poo. The game designers made the conscious choice to plot things out a certain way, and then wrote the story around it. It is literally just another example of "We both hate the same person, but now we must fight to the death because the only way to resolve things in an FPS is to shoot each other." You can paint as much story as you want over that, but it's still the same old tired cliche underneath. I have yet to see a single thing that dispells my earlier post about how tiresome this stupid poo poo is. Yup. The biggest problem with Infinite is that they've created this really beautiful world but the only way to interact with it is "Use gun on man" over and over and over again. In the original they made a story that fit with that theme but in this it's really out of place.
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Oct 7, 2013 00:43
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There's definitely a sort of mad logic to it, Slate and his men have realized they'll never see glory again and are likely to die alone and forgotten. So they provoke one last battle with the goal of being killed one way or the other. When Booker shows up it's even better, because he and his men don't even have to give Comstock the satisfaction of being responsible for their actual deaths as well as erasing them from history. I mean think about it, they're soldiers whose 'glory' was participating in a pair of horrible massacres and their reward for it is to have someone who wasn't even there take credit for their actions while they're forgotten. Back before they'd been flushed down the memory hole they at least had the adulation of the awful people who supported their heinous crimes to let them fool themselves that they're not monsters. But once that goes away, once you're just a liar trying to associate yourself with the victories of the glorious Prophet Comstock, it's a hell of a lot harder to tell yourself that you did the right thing. Feinne fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 00:45
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I was reading about the Boxer Rebellion on Wikipedia, and the design for the boxers in the Hall of Heroes looks a lot like this picture:
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Oct 7, 2013 05:42
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The whole thing with Slate and his troops makes more sense if you assume that they were basically suicidal, but their whole Valhalla-style craving for a 'Warrior's Death' precluded just offing themselves/each other. Working with Booker and attempting to take down Comstock wasn't really the goal, at least not by the time Slate notices Booker & Elizabeth. For this to make sense though Slates' supposed deal with the Vox Populi must have gone south ( ) somehow, or perhaps been more in the way of 'Enemy of my Enemy' than actual contact. We'll see.
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Oct 7, 2013 07:18
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Hermetian posted:I was reading about the Boxer Rebellion on Wikipedia, and the design for the boxers in the Hall of Heroes looks a lot like this picture:
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Oct 7, 2013 08:16
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Feinne posted:There's definitely a sort of mad logic to it, Slate and his men have realized they'll never see glory again and are likely to die alone and forgotten. So they provoke one last battle with the goal of being killed one way or the other. When Booker shows up it's even better, because he and his men don't even have to give Comstock the satisfaction of being responsible for their actual deaths as well as erasing them from history. That makes a scary amount of sense.
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Oct 7, 2013 09:12
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Welp, I saw this on sale and wound up marathoning through the game on Sunday. Guess I'll follow along with this LP to see what I missed! As for where we are right now, it looks like the real/Infinite comparison has already been taken care of. So gameplay stuff: Once I picked up the carbine, I never left it. Aside from being very versatile in FPS aspects, it was one of the two weapons that really felt like Booker would have used them in the story.
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Oct 7, 2013 14:41
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Feinne posted:There's definitely a sort of mad logic to it, Slate and his men have realized they'll never see glory again and are likely to die alone and forgotten. So they provoke one last battle with the goal of being killed one way or the other. When Booker shows up it's even better, because he and his men don't even have to give Comstock the satisfaction of being responsible for their actual deaths as well as erasing them from history. Worse still, they will die in a museum of lies that is about them and will be a later be lied about again as a future installment of that very same museum. I can see why dying at the hands of a competent and honorable warrior like Booker is preferable.
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Oct 7, 2013 15:19
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Hermetian posted:I was reading about the Boxer Rebellion on Wikipedia, and the design for the boxers in the Hall of Heroes looks a lot like this picture: ...now I'm hungry for pizza.
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Oct 7, 2013 15:21
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Here's how I see it - Slate decided to stop cooperating with Comstock, and took his men with him. At that point, their lives are over. There's no escaping Columbia, they all know a "secret" that could ruin Comstock or severely upset the state of things in the city, and there's just no way he's going to let them live. Even if he was incredibly merciful and wanted to keep them alive, he'd still have to jail them all because the enemies of Columbia (i.e. America) would badly want all the information those released soldiers had. Their time is up, their day has come, they have no other options. I still think it's a dumb video game convention, but I can see how it's at least justified in-universe that they'd throw their lives away. If they didn't die by Booker's hand, it would be at Comstock's lackeys' hands. Also, I feel like "tin soldiers" definitely carries the double meaning of "false soldiers" and "murderous robots". This LP is awesome, I can't play most FPS games because they make me really motion sick  . But BI is gorgeous and I'm really enjoying the atmospheric nature of every detail. This feels like the highest accomplishment of video-game storytelling I've seen in a long time, can't wait to see where it ends up.
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Oct 8, 2013 01:59
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Sunning posted:You'll notice much of the criticism of against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being used as the backdrop for Columbia, such as institutionalized racism, the deification of founders, religiously charged militarism, and mass exodus. Comstock's backstory so far parallels that of both Brigham Young and Joesph Smith. You can read more about the Mormon Church under DDS# 289.3 at your local library. There's a rather brilliant series of blog posts kicking around the internet about how the Twilight series is just riddled with unconscious references to Mormonism (Cliff's Notes version: Edward Cullen is Joseph Smith. Stephanie Meyer wants to screw her prophet). I think it serves better as commentary on the faith than as a form of actual entertainment; if I recall the posts correctly pretty much everything creepy and/or incongruous in those books is rooted in Mormonism to a greater or lesser degree. Even the stuff that isn't directly relevant to the faith still gets a pass on the basis of Jose-I mean Edward being super hot. No offense to you Mormons in the thread but I've always been a little leery of "cult of personality" type religions like LDS. I'm automatically suspicious of any guy who says "God says listen to me because I'm special" unless he can back it up by performing Jesus' first miracle. Sundowner posted:I don't really know what you mean Cardiovorax? I think the running theme in all Shock games that ties them together is not continuity in the literal front facing themes but rather the idea that the world is built up and slowly degraded or shown of it's true colours and a lot of the plot is built up through ancillary means, through observation and through learning about it's past rather than it's immediate future (other than what relates to the pro/an-tagonist). It's as much a Shock game as any other, it's just a completely new world to play around in. I don't think it's necessarily contiguous with the first two games but I wouldn't say it's far enough from them to feel like it could have been a new IP. I've always thought the theme tying Bioshock games together was that they're about the downfall of inherently flawed philosophies. That said I think Infinite would be a better Bioshock game if they hadn't shoehorned in plasmids. They made sense for Rapture, with everyone striving to be literal supermen; not so much for Columbia, where you're already a superman just for being white, and anything else is just saying you don't think God did a good enough job the first time around. Dr. Buttass fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 12:55
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Dr. Buttass posted:There's a rather brilliant series of blog posts kicking around the internet about how the Twilight series is just riddled with unconscious references to Mormonism (Cliff's Notes version: Edward Cullen is Joseph Smith. Stephanie Meyer wants to screw her prophet). Gotta link to those? I looked around but can't seem to find anything. To contribute: I'm loving the game and the LP so far. Having been raised in rural Mississippi, some of this strikes... uncomfortably close to home to me, but I like it that way. Someone earlier in the thread was talking about the dichotomy between racists saying how inferior other races are, then turning around and talking about how the supposedly "lesser" races consist of ubermensch, pardon the pun, who use their advantages to keep the white man down. I lived that with my neighbors and spotted it, though I never put it to words like that. And then there's outright denial... I knew a guy once who was 5'6" and weighed maybe 120 pounds, tops; he tried out for football on a college level (I'm not sure why) but got cut out of tryouts pretty quickly, for obvious reasons. As far as I know, to this day he claims it's because "black people have an extra calf muscle in their legs, that's why they're so great at sports." Being so small totally didn't have anything to do with it, nope. I'm not sure if we've seen any of that in Columbia yet. Anyway, the only thing about the game that bugs me is that they don't seem to bother giving the Vigors even a handwavey explanation, which I would've liked. Instead, it feels like the game is saying "oh, you need some kind of special options for combat, hereya go."
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Oct 8, 2013 13:22
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Dr. Buttass posted:There's a rather brilliant series of blog posts kicking around the internet about how the Twilight series is just riddled with unconscious references to Mormonism (Cliff's Notes version: Edward Cullen is Joseph Smith. Stephanie Meyer wants to screw her prophet). I think it serves better as commentary on the faith than as a form of actual entertainment; if I recall the posts correctly pretty much everything creepy and/or incongruous in those books is rooted in Mormonism to a greater or lesser degree. Even the stuff that isn't directly relevant to the faith still gets a pass on the basis of Jose-I mean Edward being super hot. The ones I've seen about that tend to do quite a bit of reaching to reinforce their argument. Things like "the books have Native American characters, Mormons believe they have a ancestral link to Native Americans" or "Bella doesn't drink tea, Mormons don't drink tea, therefore THESE BOOKS ARE ENTIRELY ABOUT MORMON DOCTRINE." They're definitely books written from a "nice boys and girls who do the things nice boys and girls do" perspective that has values lagging a bit behind the times in a manner shared by Mormonism and other religions (but not all religions and not exclusive to religions), but there's a fair bit of difference between that and "Meyer wants to bone Joseph Smith." That said, I consider my threshold of "books that exist as a mouthpiece for religion/author's philosophy" to be the Narnia series, particularly the later books. That's a pretty high bar to pass, and I think the only other books I've willingly read that passed it are the Golden Compass trilogy, where one character stands up on a soapbox and monologues about everything that's wrong with the Catholic church. Bruceski fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 14:01
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CK07 posted:Here's how I see it - Slate decided to stop cooperating with Comstock, and took his men with him. At that point, their lives are over. There's no escaping Columbia, they all know a "secret" that could ruin Comstock or severely upset the state of things in the city, and there's just no way he's going to let them live. Even if he was incredibly merciful and wanted to keep them alive, he'd still have to jail them all because the enemies of Columbia (i.e. America) would badly want all the information those released soldiers had. Their time is up, their day has come, they have no other options. I still think it's a dumb video game convention, but I can see how it's at least justified in-universe that they'd throw their lives away. If they didn't die by Booker's hand, it would be at Comstock's lackeys' hands. Also, I feel like "tin soldiers" definitely carries the double meaning of "false soldiers" and "murderous robots". An earlier Vox log showed Slate calling Comstock out over him changing the historical facts, and Comstock stripped him of his rank and publically denounced him, hence the smashed Slate statues in the Hall of Heroes, so Slate really had no choice since he was dead either way. EDIT: He did throw his lot in with Daisy and the Vox as well, thus giving Comstock perfect reason to have them all killed. Judge Tesla fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 15:03
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Bruceski posted:That said, I consider my threshold of "books that exist as a mouthpiece for religion/author's philosophy" to be the Narnia series, particularly the later books. That's a pretty high bar to pass, and I think the only other books I've willingly read that passed it are the Golden Compass trilogy, where one character stands up on a soapbox and monologues about everything that's wrong with the Catholic church. I'm sure you know this, but Pullman did this deliberately as a sort of response to the Narnia books (and his criticism could well have been aimed at the Anglicans as well as the Catholics). I think the best (at least most entertaining) Twilight analysis is this series on Livejournal. It was mainly meant as a broad criticism of the books and not on the Mormon connection specifically. But as it is written by an ex-Mormon, she is able to elaborate a bit on the conscious or unconscious elements Meyers included, without trying to argue every point. One of the strongest things I see is the Voltari (or whoever the 'old' vampires are) are located in Italy and stick to old ideas, while the Cullens represent a newer, fresher, maybe even more American style of vampirism, and that aligns pretty well with how the LDS Church views the Roman Catholic Church. As for this game, it doesn't seem to be taking on Mormonism in any way as much as, say, Bioshock tackled Objectivism. It's just a convenient way to work in historical figures with the American Exceptionalist cult that is Columbia.
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Oct 8, 2013 17:01
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Kangra posted:I'm sure you know this, but Pullman did this deliberately as a sort of response to the Narnia books (and his criticism could well have been aimed at the Anglicans as well as the Catholics). No, I didn't know that. Did he intend it as a satire or "you think you can write a heavy-handed essay of your dogma disguised as a children's story? Check THIS out!" Because it doesn't really work on the former count.
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Oct 9, 2013 00:11
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Cardiovorax posted:The more videos of this I watch, the more I think that it really shouldn't even have been called Bioshock at all. It has plasmids and you shoot people, but what else does the game have in common with its predecessors? The atmosphere is completely different, you're constantly surrounded by other people, there's nothing of the sense of isolation that Bioshock 1 (and 2, kinda) had. There's no real exploration at all and you're on a really limited path of progression. They even went the CoD route of limiting you to two weapons at a time. I still feel this way after beating the game twice. The Bioshock name carries a lot of good marketing weight. They could've called it Aeroshock, or... Billowshock. 
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Oct 9, 2013 01:02
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Bruceski posted:No, I didn't know that. Did he intend it as a satire or "you think you can write a heavy-handed essay of your dogma disguised as a children's story? Check THIS out!" Because it doesn't really work on the former count. In fairness, maybe I should not have said 'deliberately' because he probably wouldn't claim it himself. On the other hand it's hard to rely on just what he says — he rejects the supernatural and accepts the label of 'atheist' and yet one could find a certain spirituality and supernatural hints in other things he's written. What is clear is that he really hates the Narnia books and to some extent Lewis as well, and it is hard not to see his own series as a response given the vitriol he has for them and his awareness of how beloved they are. But I do think it's more of 'two can play at this game' than a satire on them.
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Oct 9, 2013 01:36
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Bioshock Infinite is a thematic extension of Bioshock, but sadly I can't take about the themes of the game because spoilers. It definitely deserves to have the same name even if I wish the gameplay had let itself be more different.
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Oct 9, 2013 03:23
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I think the next Bioshock game should take place in space. Y'know, take the series back to its roots. Only, the space in question will resemble 1970's Space.
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Oct 9, 2013 03:25
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I think you mean Space 1999! So sexy: 
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Oct 9, 2013 05:06
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Kangra posted:I'm sure you know this, but Pullman did this deliberately as a sort of response to the Narnia books (and his criticism could well have been aimed at the Anglicans as well as the Catholics). This is the one I was thinking of. The "Meyer put her religion in the book by accident" kind of stood out at me because she mentions the "Edward is Joseph Smith" angle, and then there's pretty much their entire relationship being creepy and controlling and abusive but it's okay because Edward's super hot. That's kind of where I got "everything creepy is because Mormons". Dr. Buttass fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Oct 9, 2013 |
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Oct 9, 2013 05:20
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Fargo Fukes posted:Yup. The biggest problem with Infinite is that they've created this really beautiful world but the only way to interact with it is "Use gun on man" over and over and over again. In the original they made a story that fit with that theme but in this it's really out of place. No, nononononononono. I can't get behind that take. For my money, if Bioshock Infinite is about nothing else, it is all about violence. I won't say any more because the thesis gets a lot clearer as we go ahead into as-yet spoilery territory, but try and look at it that way moving forward, see if it works better for you.
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Oct 9, 2013 06:27
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Speedball posted:I think the next Bioshock game should take place in space. Y'know, take the series back to its roots. Only, the space in question will resemble 1970's Space. If it means another game where one can go nuts on an O'Neill Cylinder/Island-3 pair, I'm all for it. 
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Oct 9, 2013 07:44
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Spiritus Nox posted:No, nononononononono. I can't get behind that take. For my money, if Bioshock Infinite is about nothing else, it is all about violence. I won't say any more because the thesis gets a lot clearer as we go ahead into as-yet spoilery territory, but try and look at it that way moving forward, see if it works better for you. Pieuvre posted:To contribute: I'm loving the game and the LP so far. Having been raised in rural Mississippi, some of this strikes... uncomfortably close to home to me
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Oct 11, 2013 08:18
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Fun game: Is this quote from an upcoming voxophone or from an elected official who won office in 2010????? posted:"Nowhere in the Holy Bible have I found a word of condemnation for the operation of slavery, Old or New Testament. If slavery was so bad, why didn’t Jesus, Paul or the prophets say something? This country already lionizes Wehrmacht leaders. They go by the names of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Custer, etc. These Marxists not only destroyed the Constitution they were sworn to uphold, but apostatized the word of God. Either these depraved infidels or the Constitution and Scriptures are in error. I’m more persuaded by the word of God." It's Loy Mauch, a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives! Still fun to read in Comstock's voice though
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Oct 12, 2013 08:14
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Is it ok to ask who Lady Comstock is, exactly? Already finished the game, hopefully answers in spoiler tags are ok with this thread.
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Oct 13, 2013 07:20
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Don Tacorleone posted:Is it ok to ask who Lady Comstock is, exactly? Already finished the game, hopefully answers in spoiler tags are ok with this thread. Not in this thread. We do have a handy SPOILERS THREAD IN GAMES. Go there if you really need to ask poo poo and want to be spoiled.
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Oct 13, 2013 07:29
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Brainamp posted:Not in this thread. We do have a handy SPOILERS THREAD IN GAMES. Go there if you really need to ask poo poo and want to be spoiled. Thanks, heading there now! Still watching the let's Play here, because this game really needs at least 2 playthroughs
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Oct 13, 2013 07:31
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Don Tacorleone posted:Thanks, heading there now! Still watching the let's Play here, because this game really needs at least 2 playthroughs Oh yeah. I've never played this game (or any Bioshock game for that matter,) and I already know I'm gonna have to watch almost all the videos again. I saw the first video of another Bioshock Infinate LP, and I just noticed the statue changing. I still have no idea how I missed it the first time. There was even a sound cue. 
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Oct 13, 2013 08:23
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Miz Kriss posted:Oh yeah. I've never played this game (or any Bioshock game for that matter,) and I already know I'm gonna have to watch almost all the videos again. I saw the first video of another Bioshock Infinate LP, and I just noticed the statue changing. I still have no idea how I missed it the first time. There was even a sound cue. There was even me panning my view to the statue for like 10 seconds and saying that was weird but yeah, there's lots of easy to miss little things!
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Oct 13, 2013 14:37
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