The Big Picture: Shock Treatment

[daxterx2005]

Alternate universe themed games are always great.

 

[Impluse_101]

Another fantastic interpretation of the game...sweet...just sweet.

And I'll accept that.

 

[Impluse_101]

I played the game. I thought the end was ok. I just wanted Elizabeth to see Paris.

The most D'aww response to Bioshock Infinite I'll ever see in my entire life.

 

[Gunnyboy]

Bioshock was one of the most half-assed narratives I've ever played. I couldn't believe the amount of praise it received, but it makes sense since people are so desperate for "adult" storylines, that anything resembling something more than the norm is seen as a drastic step forward. This looks like another game along that path.

 

[UnSub]

I seem to be in the minority (because every single person I talk thinks Infinite's story is the best thing since sliced bread) but I was rather disappointed.

You aren't the only one - I was also extremely disappointed by B:I (as others in this thread also are). The combat was dull and the narrative papers over any attempt at building a consistent narrative by bringing in 90% of the game's key plot points through trans-dimensional / time travel (it uses both) in the last section.

Where Bioshock managed to craft a multi-layered narrative, Bioshock has created an incredibly uneven one. It's an ending in love with its own cleverness, regardless that it renders the rest of the plot pointless.

 

[Mitch Monin]

Aw, man. MovieBob, I just submitted a query to the Escapist analyzing the major themes of Bioshock Infinite, and then I found this video. I don't want to look like a plagiarizer... v.v

 

[FourCartridge]

This is pretty close to how I felt about the game. I found it interesting that I heard from a lot of critics before the game that this was Elizabeth's game, that she's a incredible character and that the story revolves around her character arc.

When I finally played it, I didn't find this to be the case at all. Elizabeth was fine, but this game is all about Booker. And that's good, because Booker ended up being absolutely fascinating to me, much more than I expected. He wants nothing more than to forget the sins of his past and move on with his life, but he can't. He can never forgive himself for his atrocities at Wounded Knee and the selling of his daughter, and even when he tries to redeem himself in Colombia he is required to revert to his brutal ways. Slate and Fink go out of their way to do this, forcing him to kill wave after wave of people just to remind him of the monster he is. So in the end there's only one way for Booker to achieve his goal.

"That idiot priest needs to learn the difference between baptizing a man and drowning one."

It turns out that, in Booker's case, there's actually no difference between the two at all.

I thought I was the only one who thought that. I may have bought into the "Elizabeth is the main character and Booker's a PC spectator to have exposition blasted at him" type of deal, maybe even a western version of Final Fantasy. But then I noticed how Booker was thrusted more into the fold with more connections in Columbia that I would have expected a satellite character to have. When the ending revelation came, I was convinced in my guess.

I did expect the meta-commentary elephant though.

This explanation seemingly confirms what I saw. Thanks MovieBob, for shedding more light. =P

 

[MegaSuperUberMe]

The problem with Booker as a character is the same as it is with Kratos. He is trying to atone for his sins of being a murderous, psychopathic war criminal, by slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands of people in horrifically brutal ways and without showing any remorse. The story has its moments, but despicable protagonist, excessive amount of violence and dull gameplay definitely hurt it a lot.

 

[saintdane05]

Aw man. I thought this was going to be about that god-awful Rocky Horror sequel.

 

[OuroborosChoked]

Honestly, I'm just shocked Bob played a game that wasn't on a Nintendo system... and LIKED it.

Can we just move on from this game?

Seriously people it is not the Messiah of story telling. It is not the paragon of videogaming. It is a game marketed to as many people as possible, getting rave reviews based on it's pedigree.

Moviebob trying to hastily bury all the dead plotpoints, bad gameplay and unnadressed themes in favour of what I would basically say is the most common and blandest interpretation of the story.

"It's about Booker having to accept what he did!"

Yeah we kinda get that when the game spells it out for you. What bothers me is that for that story we didn't need racism, xenophobia, classicism, religious zealotry, kidnapping, a city in the sky and basically anything else in the game. That story could have been told and has been told in better ways. You see when you add something to a game just to divert attention it ends up being a quivering addition. Something that doesn't quite belong there and is useless.

This could just as easily have been an adventure game delving into the story and characters rather than breaking things up for oh... 5 hours or so with boring shooting.

I'm in complete agreement with you. I've been a very harsh critic of this game for the failings you just mentioned, specifically the fact that the game's setting is irrelevant to the story. The over-the-top sci-fi story completely overwhelms the 1912 setting and pushes all of the racism and so on into just being window dressing... which I find borderline offensive.

However, there is one way to make the story almost decent: it never actually happened and was all the drunken hallucination of the remorseful, broken Booker dreaming that his daughter ended up being someone truly special... and he gets to play the hero for once.

That interpretation can still cause ire, though. As in, 'Why suffer through the mediocre gameplay for hours just for an "it was all a dream" ending?' I don't have an answer for that... but you can either choose to hate the game, choose to find a way to mitigate the disappointment or just move on.

 

[master-xavier]

When I got to the ending there was a part of my head that couldn't help but yell "END OF EVANGELION, END OF EVANGELION" I know the ending itself can't be compared but it gave me the same feeling when watching it.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

What bothers me is that for that story we didn't need racism, xenophobia, classicism, religious zealotry, kidnapping, a city in the sky and basically anything else in the game. That story could have been told and has been told in better ways. You see when you add something to a game just to divert attention it ends up being a quivering addition.

Yeah, why bother with actual themes in a story? I'm sure Shakespeare's writing would be just as good without all those annoyingly distracting details about characters, politics, and history.

Themes don't matter if your not going to do anything with them.

Infinite introduces these themes of racism, classism, and how these attitudes are magnified within a closed circle like Colombia, then decides it wants to be about one man's search for redemption for a horrible crime (ironically killing even more people), and then decides it wants to be about time travel.

I think Irrational Games may have a few tears lying around the office, because this game feels like three other possible Bioshock Infinites got fused together like Jeff Goldblum and a housefly.

 

[Zeras]

What bothers me is that for that story we didn't need racism, xenophobia, classicism, religious zealotry, kidnapping, a city in the sky and basically anything else in the game. That story could have been told and has been told in better ways. You see when you add something to a game just to divert attention it ends up being a quivering addition.

Yeah, why bother with actual themes in a story? I'm sure Shakespeare's writing would be just as good without all those annoyingly distracting details about characters, politics, and history.

Themes don't matter if your not going to do anything with them.

Infinite introduces these themes of racism, classism, and how these attitudes are magnified within a closed circle like Colombia, then decides it wants to be about one man's search for redemption for a horrible crime (ironically killing even more people), and then decides it wants to be about time travel.

I think Irrational Games may have a few tears lying around the office, because this game feels like three other possible Bioshock Infinites got fused together like Jeff Goldblum and a housefly.

And don't forget, Irrational Games apparently decided that they wanted to have people come to the conclusion that since a person might become evil/a monster/a drug addict/etc. they should be killed anyway, without someone coming to terms with the consequences of their decisions by atoning for them and living out their days knowing that they've done bad things, not commit suicide - and seemingly condemn the people that believe and love them to know that they could've done something to prevent it. Redemption doesn't come from removing oneself from the world; it comes from forgiveness from the people who have been wronged.

 

[MovieBob]

I have one huge issue with Bioshock Infinite and that's pretty much the same issue I had with Bioshock back in the day: Yeah, the "morale" of the story is kinda "cool" and "clever" and the ending was pretty cool to witness in both cases, but that didn't make going through the majority of the story any more fun, sorry.
Bioshock was this linear experience and got this hideously annoying corridor shooter at the end and many say that was done to drive the point home you're nothing more than a drone following orders like you do in most other games, too. Honestly, though, that point didn't make playing that section of the game fun. It still sucked.
Now, Bioshock Infinite throws this "it's all repeating patterns and none of what you do really matters" thing at you in the end, but guess what? That didn't make it any more enjoyable to go through the game and experiencing a story that's copies so many elements from Bioshock, which already copied so many things from System Shock 2. Yeah, repeating many of these things obviously helps with the "it's all patterns" theme... but it doesn't make them fun to go through.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it's such a good idea to do these kinds of things throughout a campaign that lasts several hours just to make some supposedly clever point.

 

[lukesparow]

This was a very well thought-out analysis Bob!
I hardly think Irrational was trying to create something this interesting though.

 

[John Connor M]

EDIT I totally didn't realise this thread was that old, the DLC wasn't even out then... I should just leave quietly.

It seems that Bob and hardly anyone played the Burial at Sea DLCs, which might make you change your opinion on Infinite. They tie Infinite to Bioshock 1 for better or worse depending on your opinion and pull some retcons that attempt to fix some of the more glaring plotholes/inconsistencies in Infinite. (e.g. not going in to spoilers but justification for Daisy's later out of character actions)

Personally my biggest gripe with Infinite was vigors, they were boring and seemed to be included because 'it's a bioshock game, we need plasmids!' but Burial at sea ep2 explains why/how they came about and was nearly enough to satisfy me on the vigors front.

The thing is the DLC is a continuation from the main story, where infinite was essentially a story about a person (booker, BaS is a story about a person (Elizabeth). Personally I enjoyed infinite's ending and after playing the DLCs see burial at sea's ep 2 ending as the 'true' ending of bioshock.