Angel Dust on 2/4/2013 at 10:01
I don't know if there are many possibilities. Comstock is Booker if he took the baptism, which is why he, Comstock, crossed over to Booker's timeline to grab Anna rather than any old baby. All the Elizabeths you see at the end are from Comstock timelines and I'm guessing they are bringing their Booker/Comstock to drown with you in order to completely close off that branch.
Also the Lutec's are the same person. Their paths diverged in the womb ("one chromosone").
Personally, I'm a bit meh on the ending. It's kinda conceptually cool I guess, but, man, was it really crammed into the last hour or so of the game. I'm aware there were little hints all the way through but that doesn't change the fact that the game felt like it was about one thing for 5 hours, pretty much nothing for the next 5 but endless, increasingly tedious since it's so stingy with the awesome skyrail arenas, shooting, and then suddenly the ending. I think a big problem for me was the world-building was not that good and the game side never really meshed with it. In Bioshock the plasmids, eve, the monsters (especially the Big Daddies), Ryan's motivation for creating Rapture, the eventual civil war etc, all felt much more solid, plausible and thought out. Not perfect (those vending machines are still dumb) but compared to Infinite's "City in the clouds? Vigors? Magic Pants? Why not?", it really made a huge difference to how engaged I was in the plot. I was still interested in seeing what was going to happen in Infinite, or more precisely seeing what it was going to look like because visually the game always delivers, but I didn't feel anything.
Still, there were many memorable moments and I don't really mind that Irrational work in the linear* shooter area these days because while they can script spectacular scenes of destruction with the best of them, they also create the kinds of scenes you would never see in any other linear shooter in a million years. The scene in the basement of The Graveyard Shift would be my highlight but there are many more.
* It should be noted that the game is linear in terms of fixed progression through various areas. A fair number of those said areas are actually quite large and tremendously non-linear as these games go, packed full of little secrets.
Thirith on 2/4/2013 at 10:03
Haven't finished the game yet, so I haven't looked at any of the spoilers - but it's funny how in terms of my own engagement in the story it was exactly the other way around for me. I agree with you, the world is much less coherently explained, yet Columbia feels more like a real place to me (in spite of magic pants etc.) than Rapture did, especially in the first Bioshock.
Angel Dust on 2/4/2013 at 10:24
It started out feeling that way for me too and I think that's pretty much down to the visuals and inclusion of quieter moments. However, by the end of the game I was starting to feel like all the shooting of goofy enemies like Handymen and Robotic Washingtons with my magic powers (and pants) were taking place in a different game from all of the story stuff, whereas the confrontations with the Big Daddies and splicers, the harvesting of eve etc felt very much part of the lore. I don't think Bioshock is particularly brilliant in this regard, just better at it than Infinite is. None of this stops me from saying I'd probably still rate Infinite higher overall, I'm just trying to figure out why I'm so 'meh' about an ending that I can see would normally have me up at night trying to figure out all the answers.
Thirith on 2/4/2013 at 11:25
I'll be curious to see whether I'll end up with a similar impression as you. Lore is a tricky thing for me - I like me some good world-building, but lore can draw a lot of attention to itself, especially if everything's explained in a very up-front way.
What I'm more worried about at the moment is that Infinite risks succumbing to Lost Syndrome. I love all the little and big mysteries, the anachronisms, the tears, the weirdness around the edges, but if there's an explanation for them that doesn't measure up to the mystery, that's disappointing. If there's no explanation at all (at least for the major mysteries), that's also disappointing.
Anyway, I've just left the Hall of Heroes (which puts me roughly at 1/3 through the game, right?). For the most part I'm keeping out of discussions of the game, since for once I want to be spoiled as little as possible.
Angel Dust on 2/4/2013 at 11:49
Quote Posted by Thirith
What I'm more worried about at the moment is that
Infinite risks succumbing to
Lost Syndrome. I love all the little and big mysteries, the anachronisms, the tears, the weirdness around the edges, but if there's an explanation for them that doesn't measure up to the mystery, that's disappointing. If there's no explanation at all (at least for the major mysteries), that's also disappointing.
Incidentally, this is what I loved about the first chapter of
Kentucky Route Zero but what I'm also concerned about for subsequent episodes. It's a tricky thing to sustain.
Thirith on 2/4/2013 at 11:53
Yeah, that one'll be interesting to follow. (Any news on episode 2?) I'm less worried about it, though, since Kentucky Route Zero seems to go more the route (no pun intended) of dream logic - which often is an excuse for "No, it doesn't make any sense at all," I know... For me it's like David Lynch at his best - there's no *logical* coherence, yet it doesn't feel random, and the feeling that there *is* some sort of sense there but it's tantalisingly out of reach is part of what made KRZ work for me so far. Perhaps it's more about emotional coherence, for want of a better word?
Jason Moyer on 2/4/2013 at 12:22
Since you mentioned David Lynch, I wish more fantasy and horror games would use his style of dream logic or magic realism or whatever it's called instead of feeling like everything needs to either be completely inexplicable or have a completely real-world-doable explanation. Off the top of my head, the only game that really did that in a convincing way was Alan Wake. The story isn't entirely nonsensical, but the explanations to everything don't really make any sense outside of the story. It's the way David Lynch works at his best; there is a "logical" reason for everything, it just doesn't necessarily make sense in a way that you're accustomed to. Sure the logic might be "well darkness is evil and there's a magical typewriter and so of course it makes sense that when Alan does blah blah blah blah that would happen."
Malleus on 2/4/2013 at 12:49
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
Personally, I'm a bit meh on the ending...
Same here on most of the things you said. The ending (and the way the story went) was kind of a disappointment for me, though truth be told I generally dislike these
parallel world / time travel / mindfuck kind of stories. I guess I hoped they do more with the
extremist/racist/religious fanatic angle. I also found it a bit odd how some things that were integral part of BS's world are almost just thrown in here, like Vigors or the Handymen (sure there are explanations for them, but they're nowhere near as part of the story as Plasmids or Big Daddies were in BS).
Despite that, when I played the game, it did drew me in, kept me interested - I almost couldn't put it down, just had to see where things went. There were lots of great scenes and visuals, I liked the main characters and the combat wasn't too bad either, so even though I don't really like how the story ended up and the ending was kind of a let down, playing through this game was quite an experience, and it's certainly a unique and memorable journey. So I voted for the second option here, but I'd recommend it.
polytourist97 on 2/4/2013 at 17:42
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Don't be retarded. Bioshock: Infinite (the System Shock heritage is irrelevant at this point) is a cinematic SP FPS in the mould of Half-Life, so don't compare it to fucking RTSes, realistic tactical shooters, RPGs and MP arena shooters. The way Half-Life 1 and similar SP FPSes of that era handled their difficulty settings is precisely how BS:I's 1999 modes does, bullet sponge enemies that do higher amounts of damage.
Go fight some marine grunts on HL1's highest difficulty and just watch them soak up heaps of damage from the MP5/M4.
I was only comparing it to games from the era that I have experience with. If you think that's retarded then ok. But like I said, I don't recall any games that had an analogous difficulty system to BS:I, so I just came up with the most comprehensive list of games I played from 1999 that I could manage. Would you care to offer up some examples rather than berate me for the examples I supplied? If you say "cinematic SP FPS in the mould of Half-Life", then from 1999 I can think of...Half-Life. And really that's about it. Definitely that's the only game in that mold (of the era) that I have personal experience with. I will concede that Half-Life utilized increasing enemy health on higher difficulties, though while enemies were tougher, you could also still take quite a few hits yourself, so the enemies' health increase didn't seem imbalanced. In fact, it felt more like they were put on a level playing field with the player.
Jason Moyer on 2/4/2013 at 19:41
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
(the System Shock heritage is irrelevant at this point)
I dunno why you and Dethy insist that it's irrelevant when 1999 Mode is a direct reference to the year System Shock 2 came out.
