RockyRaccoon37

I tried to come up with a response but I scrapped when I saw rebgav's. Yeah...the game doesn't seem to be about the exploiters and the exploited. The game isn't about power and how it corrupts. The game isn't about choice or determinism or any of that. No wonder why you are disappointed.

Congratulations on missing the point so, so thoroughly. And twice in the same breath, too! Amazing.

Wait, why should Bioshock Infinite be about anything we care about? It would be more important it is about something they, the writers and creators, care about instead. Although I can see why someone might be annoyed at the turn where instead of exploring The Founders vs Vox Populli (I suspect this will show up in DLC meh), it is far more interesting to explore Elizabeth and Booker.

And why is the ending unearned? A lot of ends are tied up and arcs are completed at the end where the game "shows your work" as you went along. And why is it a problem that the game points out the attitude of the era but can't address it? I mean it isn't like Booker could do anything to change Columbia let alone Fitzroy's or Comstock's stances.

I don't know what to say to a comment like this. It's like we played two different games.

The game does a LOT of things different that are incredibly rare in the industry.

Firstly, it doesn't spoon feed you it's plot. The only games I know of that do this are Portal 1 and 2, Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Bioshock 1 and Infinite.

Secondly, the concept of the audiologs in the original Bioshock were pretty radical. It wasn't revolutionary as other games had done it before like System Shock and Doom 3, but other games definitely latched on to the concept of having a story tell itself over the player playing the game. Infinite, in it's wisdom, toned DOWN the audio logs instead of having more of them like a lesser developer would do. Instead it focused on having more interaction with the world via your NPC partner.

Thirdly, it can't be stressed how brilliant it was to have Elizabeth hide during combat. A lot of people who aren't designers, in any medium, don't understand how powerful the word "no" is. Sometimes not doing something is far more brilliant than doing it, even if it seems obvious. How many games have been trying to have you play alongside an NPC partner? Dozens stretched over decades? I remember that awful PSX game that was supposed to have you play alongside Bruce Willis trying to solve the exact problems Infinite tries to solve and only now is Infinite making the right decisions regarding a partner. And nitpicks like she teleports around are ridiculous. It's a videogame. That's like those idiots on "movie mistake" websites who write up dozens of minor continuity errors like they have no idea how movies are made.

Fourthly the game makes extensive use out outside information and just assumes you are smart enough to have a working knowledge of the world. How many people had to look up the battle of wounded knee? Or heck, how many kids had to look up the "world's fair"?

Fifth, the game actively talking about racism is HUGE. I mean, I can't even quantify how huge. I'm African American, and I can tell you that I have never in 25 years of playing games experienced a game that acknowledged race. I honestly wonder how many people with Irish decent were taken aback by the anti-irish racism in the game? Many people are very, very ignorant to racism and sexism in America's past.

Sixth, as far as the ending goes, how many videogame endings are one step above "thanks for playing"? Or worse, modern games just up and END abruptly in the middle of the characters doing something so they can sell you the next game. Bioshock Infinite has the best ending of any game I've ever played. It's not that it's the best possible way the game could have ended, or that the game was that great, but in the context of videogames that end, it was spectacular.

Are the Lutece's really brother and sister? It felt like there is an implication that they're actually the same person from different realities. I've read comic books. Some realities have the same people as different genders. It would make sense to team up with yourself to make better science. I might be missing an important story beat or voxophone.

I was thinking the same thing. Inception is not the example you pull for a movie that didn't have anything to say, but I don't want to get into it since this thread is about Bioshock Infinite.

@rockyraccoon37: I think there are two themes in BioShock Infinite's metacommentary. Or at least, there are two themes I can, personally, plainly see and explain:

1. The process of writing a story is a complex one and it creates many incomplete, failed projects until the "perfect", final one emerges - and the final product, even if we may not like it, is ultimately superior to all those others on the account of surviving the writing process and becoming the final product. Look at the game's turbulent development - the final title is almost nothing like what we saw in the final product and many of the shared elements appear, but in different places and contexts. Then take in account the multiple attempts by the Luteces and Booker to fix things, like the martyr!Booker reality, which is completely different from the reality player!Booker comes from. They are imperfect. Failures. They aren't the "real" story, the successful attempt where Booker and Elizabeth fix everything. Perhaps they might have been more appealing in some ways, but they don't matter. The successful attempt trumps them and the ending itself makes them, in the end, irrelevant. Just like all those previous versions of BioShock Infinite.

Let's be real here. Patrick's viewpoints can go up his own ass sometimes, but so can Jeff and Ryan. Plenty of times. Some piece of shit once made a thread about Patrick's father after he passed away, more or less laughing at him. This is going too far. If Patrick really bothers you that much; stop watching and listening to what he has to say. I mean seriously. Find other things to spend your time getting worked up about. Not some video game enthusiast personality, who has literally no baring on your actual life.

/rant

I really don't get your point, no. The thread you talked about had none of that behaviour you describe.

You know, if people say a lot of the same things, and do it for prolonged periods of time, they may a) have a point and b) not be prone to leaving or ignoring content because they've made a conscious decision not to do so. Maybe I'm just nuts.