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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. Most of the time when I watch an LP of a game I've played or will play, I get more detail from the LP than the game. Being in the action, I tend to miss out on some of the details. For this game, which the LP convinced me I needed to play (thanks Sundowner), so far it seems to be the opposite. For example toward the beginning there is the tape discussing baptism and the duality of the "swimmer". I didn't catch the allusion to superposition of states, Schrödinger's sinner if you will, until I played through it.
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Oct 13, 2013 17:29
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jjac posted:Why do I get the feeling that Lady Comstock wasn't being at all genuine? It's almost like her voxophone was trying to fool me. I... if you take that voxaphone literally, it seems like she regarded pain and betrayal as blessings to give to other people, and she could do it all she wanted because God would forgive her. I wonder if Daisy Fitzroy was just some kid trying to defend herself, and Comstock blew it up into the Vox.
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Oct 14, 2013 01:42
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My read on that diary is that Lady Comstock used to be a really lovely person with a lot of self-loathing, not unlike our friend Booker, and Comstock swept in and said "God loves and forgives you even if you are a terrible person" which helped her on the path to changing herself.
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Oct 14, 2013 02:15
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I took it was that she was Mata Hari. And after her death Comstock whitewashed her image for propaganda use.
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Oct 14, 2013 03:16
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 Tried doing a bit of a hybrid between post and live commentary for this update just to see if it would streamline things a little. I'm a little 50/50 on it and will likely return to full post commentary. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Oct 20, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 19:07
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Is it just me, or did the turret you bring in look kinda WWI-ish?
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Oct 14, 2013 22:12
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Another day, another pile of nonsensical comments, albeit considerably shorter this time round.
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Oct 15, 2013 00:25
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GenHavoc posted:have we encountered him before? Yes, in a vox.
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Oct 15, 2013 01:37
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GenHavoc posted:If it's a "soldier's death" they want, won't Comstock's religious police give it to them? Why spontaneously attack Booker, especially given that Booker neither denies the history that Slate is so protective of, nor apparently has Slate's ire for cowardice or whatever his problem with Comstock is. The way I understood it is Slate doesn't view Comstock, or by extension his men, as real soldiers and feels dying by their hands would be dishonorable, kinda working under a Valhalla type of idea.
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Oct 15, 2013 01:44
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That was four motorized patriots you passed by without grabbing one of their weapons 
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Oct 15, 2013 02:18
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Sundowner said, and I agree with him, that that last combat section brings out some of the best of Bioshock's combat system. Big open areas with easily acessible skyrails are easily some of the game's most entertaining areas - they give you way more mobility than most first-person shooters, and building up a lot of momentum both gives you the best chance to deal with the hordes of enemies coming your way, manage your resources, and compliments the frenetic, hyper-violent, chaotic tone the game's combat generally tries to evoke. Some people really trash the game's combat, but when it really opens up like this I'd consider it well above average.
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Oct 15, 2013 02:20
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Slate says at one point that Comstock will take more than just his soldiers' past victories--he'll take their bodies too. I don't quite remember the line, but I think Slate fears being turned into a cyborg like the Handymen, which seems pretty horrifying to me. If Slate's company had waited for Comstock's attack, they would have been used for parts.
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Oct 15, 2013 02:23
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Kai Tave posted:That was four motorized patriots you passed by without grabbing one of their weapons I actually recorded this update three times (and still didn't fix my autosave bug, which is really irritating me now) and the first two times I actually grabbed and showed off the Patriot's Crank gun but this time I forgot. Don't worry, there are plenty of opportunities to show it off.
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Oct 15, 2013 02:23
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Viola the Mad posted:Slate says at one point that Comstock will take more than just his soldiers' past victories--he'll take their bodies too. I don't quite remember the line, but I think Slate fears being turned into a cyborg like the Handymen, which seems pretty horrifying to me. If Slate's company had waited for Comstock's attack, they would have been used for parts. It still doesn't do much to explain the unprovoked attack on Booker. I have to agree with Gen Havoc that the whole Slate section feels thin and his motivation is lacking outside of 'he's crazy'. It's additionally jarring to be fighting automatons right at the moment when Slate is railing against them. Surely he's not so hypocritical as to be the one sending them at you, so it must be mere coincidence, and it all feels a bit lazy compared to most of what's gone on before. I'm also a touch disappointed in Elizabeth's reaction to what happened with Slate. I think it would have been great to have her realize what kind of man Booker is and then be more and more disgusted and horrified at his actions, while still comprehending that she is stuck with him as her only ticket out. It would also bring up some nice complications if she does turn out to be Booker's daughter. I don't think the game has lost the thread, but it feels like there have been some missed opportunities. That said, the combat at the end truly was the best I've seen so far. It almost makes up for any other weaknesses from earlier. That was easily the best fight and really shows off how fantastic it can get when they give you room to work. Including the ending -- nicely dramatic, Sundowner.
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Oct 15, 2013 03:25
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Now that we got out of the level, I want to say how this is probably my favorite level. I love how Battleship Bay kept things seemingly normal until you went to Solider's Field and started to see the progression from the light-hearted set pieces to all of a sudden grim and dark ones. I think it really taps into Booker's character development as well.
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Oct 15, 2013 03:31
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Kangra posted:That said, the combat at the end truly was the best I've seen so far. It almost makes up for any other weaknesses from earlier. That was easily the best fight and really shows off how fantastic it can get when they give you room to work. Including the ending -- nicely dramatic, Sundowner. I'm happy you say this only because I feel (and continue to feel so every session) that I'm playing really lovely despite generally being good at shooters. I think I joked earlier in the thread about playing the combat DLC before every actual LP recording session but I think I may actually do it just to get my aiming/shooting on point because there's a few more great combat sections like that, which are equally as, if not more dramatic with a lot of verticality and variety and I'd love to do them justice and convince more people that the gameplay in BSI isn't as bad and repetitive as people make it out to be.
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Oct 15, 2013 03:36
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Hrm. The sacrifice being mentioned might simply be the "Sacrifice" needed to "birth" Elizabeth. Granted the circumstances seem to indicate that Elizabeth was smuggled in by Comstock (Seriously. one week development time in the womb?) but the party line makes it seems like a miracle that she was born. One the other note: The two killed by Fitzroy. It seems more likely to me that the guy hunted these two down in their home and then brutally executed them to give Fitzroy a message that he was hunting her. You know to break her morale.
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Oct 15, 2013 04:14
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GenHavoc posted:So in my view, the most pressing question brought up by Booker and Elizabeth's conversation in the elevator, is why she stopped being able to create the tears? She clearly states that she could enter them, even if something drew her back. What was it that drew her back? She claims her family, but she plainly did not have one. Perhaps it's an aspect of the universe trying to right itself whenever someone starts jumping between dimensions by instilling a desire to return? We will, perhaps, see. This LP is my first and only Bioshock 3 information, but it's got to be that siphon we read about on the power level chart back in the lab where they were studying her. They put that in around puberty, so the timeline matches up and it would make sense since it caused a huge drop in her power level. Thanks for the LP, Sundowner. At first I was hoping for someone with more knowledge on American history, to compare the game to actual events, but I've been really enjoying these videos, and look forward to seeing them posted on Sundays, now that I am caught up. e: since I am posting and also a blind viewer, I'll give my speculative theory too. The girl obviously knows more than she tells Booker. I bet she knows full well who arranged her release, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was herself or her daughter or something in a Bill And Ted's style retroactive problem solving or like the weird twins who show up everywhere are either alt universe her and her so far unmentioned twin, or alt dimension her and another alt her from a dimension where she has a Y chromosome, or her kids, or something along those lines. That relation or self or whatever is someone who can come to her reality, so the easiest thing is for her to keep returning "home" until they are united. Arnold of Soissons fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Oct 15, 2013 |
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Oct 15, 2013 08:01
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I get the feeling that Slate fears being captured and made an example of, perhaps paraded and publicly executed, being alive to hear Comstock twist his "rebellion" to his advantage. Also, the risk that one of his men will break and "confess" to whatever Comstock says their motivation was. Which would explain why he didn't just take his own life, Comstock might claim he took the cowards way out, but he has no proof, (even though assisted suicide isn't really more heroic, if he was as commited as he claimed to be he should have taken the risk of surviving and just attacked Booker) and in getting his men killed making sure that no one would be able to turn his cloak. Regarding Lady Comstocks so called sacrifice, I ttook that as an allusion to her dying for the cause, as in, she died for herbelief and her husband, thus it was a sacrifice. Just a way of making her death sound noble. As to Elizabeth feeling she had to go "home" could be the nature of her ability, she may visit other dimensions, but she instinctively feels that they aren't her world/s, so she is compelled to return to the time and/or place where she belongs.
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Oct 15, 2013 09:37
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I seem to recall some sort of upgrade to one of your guns from a previous video being showed off as being on display, and that you could steal it. I figured you'd return to the shop area in question at the entrance pavilion before or after unlocking that gondolla, but I guess we'll see something later. Kind of weird for Slate's men to utilize Motorized Patriots, given how much they keep on spouting lines in favour of Father Comstock and his vision. Waste not, want not, I guess.
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Oct 15, 2013 10:35
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The longer the game goes on, the more hillarious Booker's motivation of "I'm scared of being in debt" becomes. He's clearly a one-man army capable of taking on an entire city including robots with chainguns, but a few debt collectors is just too much. Though, I suppose the vigors and life upgrades have been helping.
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Oct 15, 2013 10:47
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Well, he's kind of stuck in this whole situation now, whether he likes it or not.
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Oct 15, 2013 11:10
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Pyradox posted:The longer the game goes on, the more hillarious Booker's motivation of "I'm scared of being in debt" becomes. He's clearly a one-man army capable of taking on an entire city including robots with chainguns, but a few debt collectors is just too much. Presumably there comes a point where the amount of people he would have to kill to properly "deal with" his debt overwhelms even Booker, what with police involvement, vengeful family members, and eventually the armed forces he was once a part of if he keeps going long enough. This Columbia thing, he just has to fight through enough people to get the hell out.
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Oct 15, 2013 11:17
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Yeah, at some point Booker needs to sleep. It can't be murderthons 24/7.
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Oct 15, 2013 12:08
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Arnold of Soissons posted:e: since I am posting and also a blind viewer, I'll give my speculative theory too. The girl obviously knows more than she tells Booker. I bet she knows full well who arranged her release, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was herself or her daughter or something in a Bill And Ted's style retroactive problem solving or like the weird twins who show up everywhere are either alt universe her and her so far unmentioned twin, or alt dimension her and another alt her from a dimension where she has a Y chromosome, or her kids, or something along those lines. That relation or self or whatever is someone who can come to her reality, so the easiest thing is for her to keep returning "home" until they are united. This is my first viewing of the game, too, so I'm happy to counter speculate. I'm almost certain the 'twins', Rosalind & Robert Lutece, are either time travelers or from parallel realities. Their comments seem cryptic until you look at them through this lens. Such as right at the very start of the game: "He doesn't row." "What do you mean he doesn't row. He seems perfectly capable." "No, I mean he doesn't row." If you presume that the two scientists have done this over and over again, then this suddenly makes sense. Booker doesn't row the boat to the lighthouse, because he never rows in all the times/realities the scientists have explored. Also, when they ask him to flip a coin and it comes up heads. The male scientist is wearing a blackboard and you can see it's covered in tally marks under the 'heads' column. But I'm certainly thinking it's less time travel than it is alternate realities. After all, that's pretty much the nature of Elizabeth's powers, isn't it? And in one of the voxophones, Rosalind says she dreamed of seeing an endless parade of alternate versions of herself and considered it the start of a career in physics. I do like the idea that Rosalind and Robert are the same person from alternate realities, though. That makes sense, too. Remember the statue we saw changing from a man into a woman? I'm 99% sure it became a statue of Rosalind.
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Oct 15, 2013 13:02
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Arnold of Soissons posted:Thanks for the LP, Sundowner. At first I was hoping for someone with more knowledge on American history, to compare the game to actual events, but I've been really enjoying these videos, and look forward to seeing them posted on Sundays, now that I am caught up. I wish I was better read when it comes to American history and maybe I'll do some more reading and watching and try contribute more on that side but the thread seems pretty good at filling in those gaps for me thus far.
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Oct 15, 2013 15:41
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Sundowner posted:I wish I was better read when it comes to American history and maybe I'll do some more reading and watching and try contribute more on that side but the thread seems pretty good at filling in those gaps for me thus far. I have no idea if this would necessarily be of a huge help, BUT this series of videos is quite educational and is covering the history of America, from the first major English settlements to today. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s Also gonna join on the opinion that the whole Slate thing seems really jarring and clashes with what we've seen so far. Maybe insanity explains it for Slate, fine. But that he'd get such extreme fanatical loyalty from so many soldiers to fight not just to the death, but knowing from the beginning that they were committing suicide... Yes you could argue that they were all suicidal but that none of them went "gently caress it, I'm not gonna burn to death, I have a pistol, that'll be quicker and less painful." It all seems so out of place and that all of the soldiers are just as completely insane and on the same wavelength as Slate kinda breaks my suspension of disbelief. I mean unless (And this is my first exposure to Bioshock Infinite, so this is pure speculation) it turns out all the soldiers are Slates from various alternate universes or something who are all just as crazy as him. It'd explain them all having the same level of loyalty and determination.
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Oct 15, 2013 16:27
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Some of the details have been mentioned in the thread already, but Slate referred to Custer again before he died. General Custer was in charge of the 7th Cavalry when he was killed at Little Bighorn. The 7th ended up being the unit that perpetrated the Wounded Knee Massacre, when Booker and Slate both were in it. It is possible that given his age Slate had been in the 7th at the time of Little Bighorn as well (Booker seems pretty unlikely barring time shenanigans, as it was over a decade earlier). Contrary to what many think, the 7th was not destroyed at Little Big Horn – Custer's battalion was wiped out and there were heavy losses in the rest of the regiment, but the unit survived. Indeed, the way the battle proceeded was roughly Custer saying to one battalion, "You attack, and I'll go around and get them from the other side." The first attack was quickly repelled, as Custer had greatly underestimated the size of the opposing force. When Custer went in there was no hope of success; in fact it's possible Custer was aware of his situation and decided to charge hoping to disrupt the enemy rather than let them surround him first. Either way it didn't work out. Possibly there are meant to be some parallels to Slate's actions and Custer but it doesn't seem all that likely. Interestingly enough, roughly the same number of soldiers earned the Medal of Honor at Wounded Knee as at Little Bighorn, despite the rather distinct difference between the "battles". (Of course, all these facts are moot if this is an alternate timeline.) Also something I noticed in the video: One of the songs played is Scott Joplin's "Solace (A Mexican Serenade)", which was written in 1909. But the version played starts in the middle of the piece, and is at a very slow tempo, pretty much exactly in the way Marvin Hamlisch arranged it for the 1973 movie The Sting, which is probably the most commonly-heard version of it. Here's a piano-roll version for comparison.
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Oct 15, 2013 18:51
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Slate definitely places a lot of value on a "soldier's death", but my read is that he's also taking the optics into account. Slate's major problem with Comstock is that he's a historical revisionist, casting himself as a hero he never was. Should Comstock use his super mechs and airships to take out Slate's army and/or put Slate on a show trial and public execution, it would be a continuation of that narrative. "Comstock used his righteous might to destroy the Vox rebels!" But if Booker destroys Slate's army, then it's the False Shepherd continuing to destroy Columbia, illustrating Comstock's true incompetence. Of course, Comstock is probably just going to take credit for quelling the uprising, but the truth is more likely to get out, and Comstock would be trapped in his lie, forced to sustain the paranoia against the False Shepherd, but at the same time try to maintain his own reputation. Obviously, the whole plan's insane, but it would make more sense to a bloodthirsty career soldier.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:56
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I was wondering why you got that little Patriot callout icon on your screen, then the Patriot hit you from where he was standing. Dang. I suppose that's one thing about Columbia that you couldn't really find in Rapture: big open spaces.
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Oct 19, 2013 05:07
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Sundowner posted:I wish I was better read when it comes to American history and maybe I'll do some more reading and watching and try contribute more on that side but the thread seems pretty good at filling in those gaps for me thus far. Do what you feel, but don't feel like you need to change anything on my account. The videos weren't what I was first imagining, but I've been enjoying them a lot, that was the important part. Gorilla Salad posted:But I'm certainly thinking it's less time travel than it is alternate realities. After all, that's pretty much the nature of Elizabeth's powers, isn't it? And in one of the voxophones, Rosalind says she dreamed of seeing an endless parade of alternate versions of herself and considered it the start of a career in physics. Yeah, alternate dimensions for sure, but I'd say the game is treating space time as one thing and not two, with a portal between 1912 American West and 1980s Paris existing, ruling our time travel seems like a bad idea. So Rosalind could (within this framework) be an alternative universe Elizabeth, or her grandmother could have been an alternative universe Elizabeth, or he daughter could be an alternative universe Elizabeth, and to a space-time-reality portal it should all be pretty much the same. At least, to me it doesn't seem any weirder than a giant mechabird who keeps a young woman imprisoned in a tower. e: I also subscribe to the previously mentioned view that Booker's life has been "saved" through manipulations of quantum events, especially in the Songbird instance. In fact, even if this is never confirmed, so long as it is not expressly refuted I will look at all re-spawning and violent cut scenes and even had combat sequences this way for the rest of the game. e2: I also like the idea that Booker is just some washed out former thug for hire, he isn't Steve Rogers, he's not even Sam Spade, he's just some guy cruising to death by the bottle before his mid 40s. But everything he tries winds up working, because he has a guardian angel fudging all his quantum fluctuation dice rolls. I've never finished any Shock game ever, so I don't know if that's in the realm of possibility from a writing standpoint, but it would fit with what we've seen well enough. Airships attacking Manhattan are a quantum step where he didn't take this task and now Comstock's secret attack on America is in place? And if that's the case, then it would suggest that the whole mission has more to do with denial of resources than with rescuing a young girl. Do we know for sure that Booker's debt is financial, and not to his Uncle Sam, or to some Army guy who kept him out of the brig or whatever? e3: oh my god i have too much to say about a videogame I have never played 
Arnold of Soissons fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 08:38
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Glazius posted:I was wondering why you got that little Patriot callout icon on your screen, then the Patriot hit you from where he was standing. Dang. Elizabeth sometimes calls out the more dangerous enemies to you and that little icon pops up to let you know where the pain is.
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Oct 19, 2013 13:06
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Arnold of Soissons posted:Do we know for sure that Booker's debt is financial, and not to his Uncle Sam, or to some Army guy who kept him out of the brig or whatever? Also, did we ever get confirmation on whether or not Comstock can actually see the future, or at least the most likely possible one? It seems like the game is hinting this, what with all his talk of being a "Prophet" and how he knows entirely too much about DeWitt.
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Oct 19, 2013 13:20
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Veyrall posted:At this point, I'm not certain "the Debt" isn't some kind of hypnotic phrase put in place to control his actions. I mean, seriously, Booker has killed a lot of heavily armed people at this point, so I'm not entirely certain the Mob can exert any realistic kind of pressure on him.
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Oct 19, 2013 13:48
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Veyrall posted:Also, did we ever get confirmation on whether or not Comstock can actually see the future, or at least the most likely possible one? How else would you explain the unwavering fervor and fanaticism of the people of Columbia towards Comstock's word if he merely faked being a uncannily accurate prophet of the future?
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Oct 19, 2013 14:40
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Yeah, it's not like people have ever bullshitted about having mystical/supernatural/divine abilities and managed to attract a devoted following of fanatics before.
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Oct 19, 2013 14:48
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Comstock's also delivered in the form of a flying city with a huge population of slave labour. Life for the faithful seems pretty good up here; that will get him lots of adherents just to start out.
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Oct 19, 2013 15:01
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I hope there is only one Handyman fight. This series has a very poor track record with boss fights, instead sticking almost entirely to elite enemies...
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Oct 20, 2013 05:34
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Gensuki posted:I hope there is only one Handyman fight.
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Oct 20, 2013 09:57
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Gensuki posted:This series has a very poor track record with boss fights, instead sticking almost entirely to elite enemies... Are you counting the Big Daddies and Sisters as boss fights? Cause those were loving awesome. If not then there has only been one boss fight in the entire series.
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Oct 20, 2013 10:10
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