Gripes About Bioshock Infinite

[Church185]

@ Where the vigors come from

Spoiler

Ohhhhhh. I had no idea where they were from. That little throwaway line probably should have tipped me off, but it was such a short line. I do wish they had made it a little more clear; I was angry about that yesterday.

Yeah I feel like they explained it in a throwaway line just so they could justify having as part of the gameplay again. Like Plasmids before it, this game's focus was firmly on the tears, so it chose to weave that into the narrative and gameplay.

 

[Pebkio]

Gripes? Yeah, I have a few. 1999 mode is kicking my ass. The shotgun guy... that first one at the ticket station, took forever to die. He just stood and ate an entire clip of machine gun rounds while he loaded me with buckshot. And then, when I finally got his shotgun, I pointblank loaded it into someone and they didn't die. I died because they melee'd me which took away nearly everything I had... 100% of my shield and 80% of my health. This makes the shotgun pretty worthless in 1999, as far as I'm concerned. And I think it's quite enough to just have enemies as tanks and me as a creme brulee without taking 100+ dollars everytime I die. I've played System Shock 2 and it wasn't this unforgiving.

Anyway, while I don't miss the mini game of hacking... I miss the hacking. I liked being able to permanently take care of machinery without wasting a gobshite amount of my precious ammo.

I miss the special ammo because it allowed me to save up for specialized enemies.

The vigors in this game are all but useless because the effects don't last more than 10 seconds. And the trap versions cost more, are just as aoe as the targeted version and do just as much damage, which is pointless. You don't get a good stun until well into the game. And finally, the costs of upgrading these powers are through the roof. They don't need to cost that much. Weapon upgrades cost less and you can get more of them. Vigors are pointless.

And I miss the utility plasmids. The gear is alright but it's friggin random. I want to choose what load-outs I get. And none of them ups my defensive abilities. I wish I could get more opportunity to survive the NPCs that know they can just run up on me and survive full clips of ammo.

I miss being able to set up strategic points of defense. There is none of that in Infinite. No corner has good cover and most defensive areas have a second entrance so you can get flanked. Okay okay, there are a few places like hallways that open into rooms. But the enemies can soak up so much damage that they can successfully rush you and you can't set anything up besides what you could just throw at them anyway. I thought I was going to be alright playing super offensive in 1999 mode until SOMEONE TOOK A SHOTGUN BLAST AT POINT BLANK RANGE WITHOUT FLINCHING.

In Bioshock and Bioshock 2, you could find a loadout that works for most situations except for special enemies and tough situations. I have yet to find any combination of anything that is useful for most combat in Infinite. I'm sure once I get Bucking Bronco I'll have an easier time... but until then, I'm not having any fun. If we don't specialize we die, but we can't specialize in the good stuff until way late. Which means we'll die a lot until we get there. And dying takes all of our money so we can't specialize on the good stuff when we get to the good stuff. Either we spent our money specializing on lesser stuff or we lost it because we died.

Also, I wish they had a list of what was left in a chapter to gather. Y'know... sightseeing spots... infusions... voxphones. Maybe only seen from the chapter select after you beat the game, but still. I'm down to 3 sightseeing and I really, really, don't want to have to randomly explore every chapter over again just to find them, I'd like the ability to narrow my searches. If they aren't going to let us manually save... or explore areas we've already been... then they have to give us something else we can do.



...the two weapons thing didn't actually bother me all that much. I mostly just use my favorites anyway. The rpg didn't hit any harder than any other gun but carried less ammo, I didn't care to use it except to get the achievement. The flack cannon had the same problem but is harder to aim. The shotgun seems to be as useful as a pretty wet sneeze because I have to get in close, it doesn't kill when I'm close, and no matter what enemy it is, one melee and I'm nearly dead. The carbine is pretty good put replaceable by the hand cannon. The sniper is great and I'm going to use it a lot. In fact, I'm probably going to use the sniper for long range and carbine (until I get the hand cannon) for less long range. I'll need the shirt that gives me ammo, the hat that can make me invincible for getting a health item, the pants that give health when I'm low and kill an enemy and maybe those boots that up the damage when aiming. Then a little Bucking Bronco for crowd control and the occasional shock or crows for the heavy hitters that are immune to everything else. Not sure which infusions I should focus on, the shield is pretty useful as long as I'm not being melee'd so I might stick with that first. Then the salt infusions. I might just make it through. Money will be an issue though, because dying is on the menu. Yeah, I need that hat first.

...even if I have to constantly reload the second chapter.

 

[Averant]

I wondered if other folks had problems with Elizabeth's pathing, she also trapped me in a room. Also, in the Shantytown skylines she jumped on right in front of me and I bumped into her enough to slow me down and get killed :/

But those are minor hiccups at best.

Oh, definitely, but I can't say I was surprised. AI pathing is never perfect. From what I'm hearing, though ,there's a surprising amount of bugs that people run into for a triple A game that isn't made by Bethesda. I got trapped in a barge cabin, and couldn't get out because I couldn't move far enough away. And then there was that time

Spoiler

when Elizabeth teleported me and the songbird to Rapture... and then didn't come along. So I'm standing in a room, watching the songbird die, and spend 15 minutes trying to figure out where the hell to go from there. Eventually I realized something was wrong and restarted at a checkpoint.

As for the Sirens, what's not to like about a flying enemy that's incredibly tough to kill that can summon up an entire army of the dead in a matter of moments? /sarcasm

The Siren was one of those enemies where I hid behind a wall and hoped to god they didn't flank me. The first couple battles, they did, but they were easily taken care of. The last time they didn't, but they had a hailfire heavy, so I'm getting constantly bombarded. The siren was bullshit, really. -_- Infinite lackeys that hit just as hard as the regular ones, and just as much health as a handyman.

My biggest gripe right now? Well I'm stuck very near the end of the game in which you're supposed to stop what is essentially an army from destroying something you're supposed to be protecting. On Hard it made me want to snap my controller in half. I turned it down to Medium after about seven failed attempts and it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I ragequit after two tries of that. I hear the ending is incredible, but I honestly doubt it'll be worth continuing to put myself through this torture. Christ, and people thought the Little Sister escort mission near the end of the first BioShock was bullshit.

That scene is actually fairly easy, tactically. You use the songbird to take down the heavy hitters, such as the blimps or the rocket barges. If you've got a spare Songbird, you can even use it to take down the patriots, once they move to certain areas. If you can't, then just pack a shotgun and Return to sender, and go take out the infantry. The patriots actually half ignore you, so once you take care of the men, you can focus on the patriots, especially because they turn their backs on you. Just pack a handcannon or a carbine, something with a lot of damage. Don't waste your shotgun ammo, I've found that doesn't do much to them.

I finished that on hard, so it's not impossible. Chin up, mate! You'll get through it!

 

[New World Fool]

I've got a few small ones, the first one is the fact that Staltonstall and Charles don't make an appearance! I was looking forward to kickin' their butts. Also, the vigors, maybe it's just me but compared to the Plasmids from Bioshock they feel kinda... worthless, the only one I really enjoy is Devil's Kiss because FIRE IS OUR FRIEND!

 

[Dreadman75]

Just finished up my first playthrough and felt like voicing some complaints. I'll get the spoiler ones out of the way first.

Spoiler: About the ending...

I enjoy a good mental warp as much as the next, but good god did that ending come out of left field. Maybe it's because up to that point I had read the foreshadowing well enough to predict pretty much every major plot point in the game...that is until you get to Comstock Home. Truly that is THE place of nightmares!

But seriously, can't say I was expecting a good ol' Darth Vader "No, Elizabeth....I am your father!" moment. Well, it's the same type of revelation, just a different delivery on it. But if you ask me it was a bit contrived...I'm still not entirely certain how Comstock and Columbia came into being at all. My biggest question is specifically what sins was Booker trying to rid himself of at the Baptism? When you first arrive there during the ending, Booker says it was right after the Battle of Wounded Knee. That leads me to believe that he was washing away all the horrors he committed during the wars. But if that's the case, then he was reborn as Comstock before Booker had Anna. And if THAT'S true, how could Booker have Anna for Future-Booker/Comstock to rip open a hole and steal? Or am I simply thinking too hard about this and just fill in all the blanks with "quantum mechanics, they just found one of the infinite worlds in which Booker never became Comstock" which - since I fully admit I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to such things - basically equates to good ol' fashioned magical science.

Alright, that's more of a question than a ccmlaint. Just something I couldn't really wrap my head around, but hell, that was one doozy of an ending. A genuine gripe is that they never reveal just what the hell the deal is with Elizabeth. Why is she able to see and open tears?

Also, for that matter, I wish they would have explained what the hell the deal was with the Vigors. I'm not saying they had to do like the first two games and have the entire story revolve around the developement of super powers, but just as it was nice to know that plasmids came from a substance secreted by sea slugs, it would have been nice to know what technology or discovery led to people being able to throw flocks of ravens, do a good ol' vanguard charge, levitate everything in front of them, and catch frickin' bullets. Just a simple recording of some scientist describing the discovery would have sufficed, just for a "Well now you know" type of deal.

And this one can't really count because I've only beaten the game once and therefor don't yet have a basis for comparison, buuuuut it seems to me the choices you make don't really matter. Yeah, yeah, that good ol' ME3 complaint. But honestly, does it make a difference if you pick the Bird or Cage pendant?

Spoiler: I picked the Bird, using this for anyone that picked cage in case things ARE different depending on your choices

I just wonder if the decisions affecting the ending take place much earlier in the game than you'd think, since during the entire ending sequence you're not given any choices at all (I'm assumin that no matter what way you go when you're walking between the lighthouses, you'll always find out that you're Comstock and therefor have to kill yourself to save Elizabeth). The reason I think this is because ater picking Bird and calling Songbird to destroy the Siphon, I got the achievement "The Bird or The Cage?" Which leads me to believe that if you pick the Cage pendant, you'll instead preserve the Siphon and quite possibly lead to an alternative ending.

Or do all roads lead to Comstock living unless Booker kills himself?

Now for some non-spoiler, basic mechanic gripes. For starters, I didn't like the fact that you couldn't save your game at any point. This means that if you're part-way between checkpoints and have to leave, you've got to start over from the last checkpoint you reached. I liked being able to save where I wanted and when I wanted, like in the first two games.

Also...what the hell happened to the map? One of those would have come quite in handy...especially when trying to find all the locked chests and Vox Secrets.

Maybe it was just that I was playing on Medium, but it seemed like you pretty much have infinite ammo during combat. I was able to take the first sniper rifle and first RPG you find in the game all the way to the end. I only changed my sniper rifle for the shotgun in Comstock house because I discovered the joys of Charge-Shotgunning people, up until then I had been using the Bronco and easily sniping the helpless fools out of the air. But no matter what gun you're using, whenever you get low, Elizabeth is there - for the most part - to throw you some more ammo. Same thing with health, though it doesn't necessarily save you if you're getting your ass handed to you, but if you're hurting here comes a free medkit out of nowhere. Just seemed that it made the combat a little easier to deal with than it was in the first two games.

And finally, I miss Booze Hound and having an ice power.

All in all, I loved the game. As most people rave, it's got absolutely fantastic story telling and the world is truly beautiful. My favorite thing about the game is that it's a living, breathing world, and a damn beautiful one at that. You get to see the city BEFORE the shit hits the fan, unlike arriving in Rapture to find an already dead and destroyed world. The funny thing about the ending is that I feel like I don't understand it...and yet at the same time I do. If you've beat the game you should know what I'm talking about...I think my nose is bleeding...

P.S. The most money Elizabeth flipped to me in a single coin was $275...that's a big coin.

P.S.S. Fucking hate those god damn Sirens.....

I pretty much agree with all your gameplay gripes. I hated having to rely exclusively on an autosave system!

As for the ending...

Spoiler

Talk about a mindfuck. I believe there are only two things that can complicate a narrative so badly that it's nearly impossible to figure out where the plot ends and the plot begins, those are Time Travel and the Multiverse.

And boy did they pull the Multiverse card.It made for a very...cerebral storyline that was incredible to play through. (I now understand why they called this Infinite!) And I kind of liked how all the roads began and ended with Booker DeWitt, creating one of those 'endless cycles' that is almost doomed to repeat no matter what.

I just wish it was a little less confusing!

P.S.

Spoiler

Who else enjoyed going back to Rapture? I don't care if that was just fanservice, it was AWESOME to see Rapture again!

 

[Sight Unseen]

Really the only graphic glitch I ran into was Elizabeth warping to a wall or bench or something when she wanted to sit or lean on something. She'd be standing next to me, then just zip right over to said wall or bench.

Reminds me of a rather hilarious and creepy time when Elizabeth suddenly appeared behind a locked gate in a cemetery and stood staring out at me until I moved far enough away for her to warp out of there. It also felt like I had quite a few moments of "Hey, where'd Elizabeth go?" only for her to appear right next to me a second later.

My biggest gripe right now? Well I'm stuck very near the end of the game in which you're supposed to stop what is essentially an army from destroying something you're supposed to be protecting. On Hard it made me want to snap my controller in half. I turned it down to Medium after about seven failed attempts and it didn't seem to make much of a difference, but I ragequit after two tries of that. I hear the ending is incredible, but I honestly doubt it'll be worth continuing to put myself through this torture. Christ, and people thought the Little Sister escort mission near the end of the first BioShock was bullshit.

A hint that worked well for me

Spoiler

When they start marching out tons of patriots, use Shock Jockey traps all over the floor leading up to the protection zone thing. They'll get practically perma stunned and you can just plink away at them in relative peace. This worked well for me on medium.

Also, use Songbird whenever you can

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

And see, that's one of the reasons I liked the hacking mechanic, so you could perma-hack turrets and cameras to be on your side. I think one of the reasons they didn't do that in Infinite is because every now and then you'd have another battle in a place where you'd already fought, so if you already had turrets in place they could wipe out the ambush before it begins. I think a good way around that, though, would to have had them be perma-hacked for the battle at hand, but if once you leave that battlefield, the turrets become hostile again.

Snip

Spoiler: That is the great thing about the ending to the game.

And that's the fact that Rapture's appearance WASN'T just a blatant fan-service addition. They actually tied it to the story. "Constants and Variables. There will always be a city, a man, and a girl." If Columbia never existed, Rapture would still rise. If neither of those cities existed, some other wild city with an insane leader would rise. The possibilities are infinite! *drum rimshot*

 

[ABLb0y]

I have another problem: The bit on the airship when you can control Songbird and have to protect this energy core thingy from the Vox might be kinda awesome but annoying as hell. It's basically an escort quest, in which the escorted party cannot move or defend itself and has all the health of a Big Mac.

 

[NightmareExpress]

One of my gripes of the game was how combat oriented it was combined with the two-weapon system.
I'm completely fine with the earlier given the setting and the turmoils that Columbia faces, but the later was just tedious.

You should have been able to pick up all the weapons and had a wheel like you did with plasmids.
Tactics and realism went out the door the second that you went to a flying city, were able to hold a chaingun alongside an RPG and had access to a majority of the weapons in any given area at any given time.

The upgrade system was also scrubbed out, meaning that your weapons no longer change visually when you spend the dosh to make them better. The upgrade system is still there, only you buy them from a vending machine and it seems rather hollow in comparison to the original Bioshock where each upgrade was monumental and amazing.

There are also a few points in the game that I feel were bullshit.
Mainly *spoilers for the latter half and last spot of gameplay*

Spoiler

the Siren battles and the last bit where you defend the airship's core

.
Goddamn were those annoying.

Oh, and the saving system. Complete shite. You can't save on a whim like you could the other titles, instead you have to rely on "auto-saving checkpoints" which appear every so often. Sometimes they appear a lot in a short time and sometimes you have a good 20 minutes plus gameplay in between them. So if you want to quit you have to essentially keep playing until you see the symbol in the upper right lest you wish to lose a varying amount of progress.

There are my complaints.
Other than that, it's quite enjoyable.

 

[Ishal]

snip

I LOVE 1999 mode.

Its so relentlessly unforgiving... and in the cheap ways like you described. Just like it was in 1999. Its perfect.

Like you said, you need to get the good stuff and the only way to do that is to not die all the time. I suggest using shock jockey or devils kiss and getting that gear that chains the effects to enemies around the ones you initially hit. So far its really helping me out.

Its just painstakingly slow avoiding dying like that.

Though I admit, I am quite concerned about the guys with the burst guns/flak cannons. I see a lot of deaths in my future.

 

[NightmareExpress]

Though I admit, I am quite concerned about the guys with the burst guns/flak cannons. I see a lot of deaths in my future.

Burst guns aren't that bad.
It's the snipers and volley/flak guns that really mess you up.
The earlier instantly shatters your shield and takes a bit of your health away (a second shot will kill you or bring you to the brink of death), the latter takes about two/three hits to accomplish the same effect and people who use them are much more common and durable than snipers.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I think this game is meant to be played on hard difficulty. Maybe it's just because it's the second time I'm playing through it, but I've noticed I'm going through the environments much slower, and fighting a bit more tactically.

As for the ending, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and enjoyed it. I think they should have slowly revealed throughout the natural course of the game instead of piling it on in the last few minutes, but all in all, it was interesting.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Glad to see you're embracing the topic whole-heartedly!

Anyways, you touched on a number of things I didn't realize I missed until you brought them up. Namely the special ammo and, on a related note, being able to set up your own defenses. In the first two games, the special ammo let you tactically switch as the situation in combat changed. Some armor-piercing ammo would have definitely been nice when taking on enemy heavies. But beyond that I definitely could have used some traps like the Spear Gun's electric wire or even the good ol' rivet traps. Obviously they'd be different in this game, but still some traps would have definitely been nice.

The lack of perma-hacking was something I mentioned to someone else as well. Really pisses me off when you Possess a turret, finish the fight, then the turret switches back to hostile and guns you down from behind because you forgot about it. Add to that how god damn expensive Possess is even with the upgrade that makes it cheaper to use and it really becomes pretty damn useless.

As for the rest of the vigors...yeah, a lot of them I didn't bother with. Crows and Bronco were my bread and butter. Once you get the Crow Corpse Trap upgrade, the Crows become pretty damn good since people that are killed by the crow corpse traps in turn become corpse traps themselves. Pretty much the only way I could handle fighting all the zombies that the Sirens kept ressurecting...think my record was having 12 active corpse traps at the end of combat, frickin' crows were EVERYWHERE! The bullet catching vigor sounded nice, but Crows and Bronce were just working too good for me to want to switch. Devil's Kiss was absolutely useless and an utter waste. As I mentioned in my OP: there is no ice vigor so that kinda let me down. Only time I used the Tentacle Rape vigor was when you're flying up to Comstock house and barges keep flying up to attack you. Charge worked well for me during the final battle, it seems to be effective on Patriots because it makes them turn sideways, giving you a few good shots at their gears. Plus - at least on Medium - you can do pretty well with a Charge-Shotgun combo. I rarely used lightning since I liked Bronco and Crow and they're both stun-inducing.

Another thing they did away with was the handy-dandy ability to carry some health packs and eve hypos salt bottles to use manually when you need them. Granted, you've not got Elizabeth chucking you items you need and on Medium (the only difficulty I've played so far) she did a good enough job at keeping me alive and well supplied with ammo, but I hear on hard she becomes less likely to throw you stuff, so I'd imagine on this imfamous 1999 mode she must be down-right stingy about it. As such, I think being able to carry some healing items on you at all times would probably come in handy on those harder difficulties.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

OK then, here are a few things that sort of bothered me:

Vigors. I understand why they are in the game from a gameplay perspective and pseudo-magical powers are by now a staple of the Shock games. The game also explains why they exist if you scrounge around and find the right Voxophones.

But thematically, I find they don't fit with the setting. You have this classist society of deeply religious ultraconservatives that are all about racial purity and the inherent superiority of the white man. Yet everybody seems completely fine with the drinks that give you magical powers, essentially messing around with God's creation and allowing anybody to become a superman. It's a minor gripe and didn't really take away from my enjoyment of the game, but still.

Spoiler: About Songbird

Why is it that Songbird can casually smash through buildings and airships with impunity, but a relatively small amount of water pressure can already damage it? It only seems to affect his eyes, but it feels strange for a creature that serves as an unstoppable juggernaut to have a weakness like large, very vulnerable eyes. What if he attacks something and a piece of debris hits them? It was probably to give Songbird some kind of Achilles heel and a means of killing it eventually, but something that nagged at me the moment you and it drop into Battleship Bay.

Spoiler: About Comstock (major spoiler)

Why does Comstock look so much older than Booker. They are the same person and thus should have been born on the same day, yet Comstock looks like he has a good 20 years on Booker. Another side-effect of the same experiments that left Comstock sterile? Some kind of time-continuum shenanigans?

 

[Karoshi]

Spoiler: About Songbird

Why is it that Songbird can casually smash through buildings and airships with impunity, but a relatively small amount of water pressure can already damage it? It only seems to affect his eyes, but it feels strange for a creature that serves as an unstoppable juggernaut to have a weakness like large, very vulnerable eyes. What if he attacks something and a piece of debris hits them? It was probably to give Songbird some kind of Achilles heel and a means of killing it eventually, but something that nagged at me the moment you and it drop into Battleship Bay.

Spoiler

It has been adressed in one of the voxophones as a major oversight, but no one was very inclined to do anything about it. Besides, it's a bird! Shouldn't be swimming in water anyway.

Spoiler: About Comstock (major spoiler)

Why does Comstock look so much older than Booker. They are the same person and thus should have been born on the same day, yet Comstock looks like he has a good 20 years on Booker. Another side-effect of the same experiments that left Comstock sterile? Some kind of time-continuum shenanigans?

Spoiler

It has nothing to do with time-continuum, but everything to do with the experiments. His body detoriates due to the machine which Lutece used, including accelerated aging process.

 

[Joccaren]

Regular enemies are tough enough that I stopped using the shotgun because it wasn't killing fast enough, even with upgrades.

Oh god this. Until the final battle conveniently enough. At that point I'd grabbed the [pants?] that gave you extra damage for every kill, so I grabbed me a sniper and a shotgun, headshot 1 guy, insta-gib another 2, then shotgun rampage on anyone left before trying to take down the army of patriots coming at me. I swear that last battle, and the first one with the Siren, were the only ones I had trouble with in the game 'cause of BS mechanics that I was completely not expecting.
The enemies I do hate though? VOLLEY GUN USERS. DEAR GOD THEY ARE EVIL. Not only do they shoot blooming rocket launcher grenade things at you, they also have enough health that 10-20 shotguns won't kill them, and it takes 5 shotgun headshots, or 4 sniper headshots, with each fully upgraded, to do so. I mean... Why? Who would be so sadistic as to make the most annoying and potentially damaging enemy [Thanks to splash] have the most rediculous amount of health? They don't even count as a "Heavy Hitter" and I find them harder than all but the siren [And the last Handyman you fight 'cause you're in a rediculously confined space, making him a bit harder than the others].

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I have another problem: The bit on the airship when you can control Songbird and have to protect this energy core thingy from the Vox might be kinda awesome but annoying as hell. It's basically an escort quest, in which the escorted party cannot move or defend itself and has all the health of a Big Mac.

Yeah, I really hated that bit. Took me about an hour to get past it, thanks to the endless streams of Patriots and the complete lack of auto-saves midway in a quite extensive sequence.

 

[Zeke63]

I really thought the combat was too frequent and took away from the immersive experience, as all my favorite parts were non pew pew sections. It really distracted from the narrative and pacing, an over saturation of shooting if you will. I wish they would have taken more risks with gameplay, having more exploration and/or puzzle elements and less shooting

 

[zumbledum]

If there is one single complaint about the narrative, its that the vigors make little sense in this game.
don't get me wrong, from a gameplay standpoint its extremely fun, and no one would consider making a "Bioshock" game without them, but from a narrative viewpoint, they don't make as much sense as the Plasmids did in the first Bioshock.
the Plasmids, were a large part of the whole "ADAM","Splicer" and "Little Sisters/Big Daddy" angle that played a very large part in the world of Rapture and its downfall as a whole.
and much of the point of Bioshock was about how you can make great advances in science in the absence of moral limitations of the research (stem-cell research taken to its "fear mongering" conclusion).

there was nothing in Colombia that justifies having "super powers in a bottle" to that extent.
and since there doesn't seem to be the same level of mental decay that splicing causes, there is no logic to having most of the population being "baseline" humans despite ready access to such powers.

they are imported from rapture through tears, as is the tech to make the songbird, you may have also noticed some very out f place music like the beach boys and some ac dc it all got harvested through tears. id go as far as to say salt is eve but yes it doesnt really account for how they harvest it in columbia.

I wouldn't sweat it man, literally everything except the Avengers gets called cliche on the Escapist.

Also while we've got this thread going, what the hell did the post-credits scene mean?

Well unless one of the devs steps up and tells us its largely down to personal view of the ending, personally i took it as proof that Elizabeth and Booker were pretty fucking stupid and dropped the ball massively and everything has just snapped back to where Booker sells his daughter.


some of my gripes

Where does the food come from?

there above the clouds and presumably stay there as the fixed height particle drives probably cant go up and down and no one on the earth has seen them. so how exactly do they get water?

Why is it so warm 20k feet up?

as you arrive there you see a bridge , it has its underground supports , they would be load bearing on a ground based tension bridge but i think in this airborne scenario they would snap the bridge like a twig.

there are kids playing with a water hydrant, so these fractured city clouds have water pressure from where exactly?

why does the "sea" in battle ship bay have waves going up the shore?

Elizabeth- 20 years in near isolation only ever seen Lutece and songbird

how does she know the way out?

how is she so amazingly well adjusted. id expect her to be screaming and freaking out in battleship bay but this firecat goes off for a dance! 20 years in isolation to that....

she claims to not be able to open tears to anywhere she wants anymore, but she opens a tear across time and space to a Paris where return of the Jedi is on the cinema just fine! and we see from the chart at the bottom of the siphon facility her power levels are back to her previous child hood spike anyway, and she starts doing it again near the end.

How about instead of opening a portal to Columbia where Lin isn't dead why not open one to a Columbia that had a peaceful revolution and is now a Utopian picture of racial harmony that bounces around the majour cultural centers of the world (and Paris) on a cheese and whine tasting binge?

why does she do another portal to a place where the tools are not in place when , oh just see above for every bad choice they make re tears.

If liz gains her ability with tears from being from another plane , why don't we? Booker isn't native to the plane we start in and even less to the second and third and fourth and ...

its an infinite multiverse where all choices are possible and play out, except its impossible to not hand over Elizabeth.

Why choose erasure? at the end she has become a weaver of dimensional lines bringing a whole subset together to be affected by one choice. well first off its a bit rude to not go back further and save all the people we murdered at wounded knee, in the boxer rebellion (not sure we went there or not slate and comstock both hint we did but its vague) and as our time as a paid killer in the pinkertons.

Why not change some other decisions pre wounded knee and instead have a normal happy life with a well adjusted booker and wife?

in an infinite multiverse there was close to an infinite number of better choices to make !

 

[codeg]

The only annoyance for me was the lack of a map. The levels are very linear so I can understand why they left it out but later on it's a pain in the ass to navigate the market district without spamming the magical navigator arrow-thingy.

In regards to the complicated story, having listened to (maybe?) all of the recordings, everything is explained throughout the course of the game. My second run through the game was maybe more fun than the first if only because of all the hints I found, that lead up to the shocking ending.

Also, you can tell a game is amazing when everyone's problems with it are just nitpicks regarding difficulty and minor plot holes.

edit: Oh! I almost forgot about the absolute randomness of your loot. Sandwich in a box of chocolates anyone?