BioShock Infinite: Infinite Spoilers!

would just like to point this out as probably the worst post i've ever seen on this site.

Good thing Vinny didn't play on hard or that Lady Comstock fight and final battle would have taken forever. Anyway I still think drowning Booker didn't really solve anything, but you can explain away almost anything when multiverese madness is involved. I still enjoyed all the crazy twist and turns at the end though.

I've watched 3 other spoilercasts from different sites and I gotta say this was the absolute perfect way of doing it. Having Vinny play through it made sure that the crew was able to talk about pretty much everything. It also gave us a fresh perspective from Vinny afterwards. Great job guys.

Brad hates the game....I was waiting for Jeff to reach over and give him a nice slap

nailed it

I didn't even realize people complained about the box art until they mentioned it and I looked it up. Oh internet, what won't you complain about.

...but how is the context contextualized, contextually?

All i know is there is stuff and that i missed during my play through and my brain hurt when the game was done trying to wrap my head around the apparent paradox's created. So i am going to start a new play through today hoping with the info i have now i will be better at picking up on the stuff i missed.

Comment of the year

"did not use the rails once here"-jeff.

gross. i bet he used a controller too.

Kind of crazy to me on how down Brad seems to be on the combat, especially considering his fanaticism for Mass Effect. I found the Mass Effect gameplay to be horrendously boring and then paired up with an mediocre story and fair writing. The variety of ways to approach situations in the Bioshock combat made it so I never got tired of it, though I did think it was way too easy on normal (didn't die a single time, didn't fail the zeppelin section at the end, and ended up sort of regretting not ever switching to hard). All of the different power combinations mixed with the rails ended with me very rarely tackling situations in the same fashion; I just never had the feeling that the combat was tacked in to sell copies to a mainstream audience, or a lazy means to have gameplay.

My approach to the story seems fairly similar to Drew's, in just trying to enjoy the story for what it is instead of scrutinizing all of the details that aren't completely fleshed out. I had also figured out that Elizabeth was Booker's daughter really quite early on in the game. Didn't really have much of a concrete reason to believe so at the time, but had the though of, "Oh, she's probably his daughter, isn't she..."

they should do this with more games. Shut a guy in a room , let him play the game and then the others outside talk about it. I really like it.

Just finished the game 5 minutes ago. Good game, but as someone who liked (and in some ways preferred) the pre-Extended Cut ending to Mass Effect 3 I'll never be able to reconcile why people like Infinite's ending and not that one.

Fuck, there's stuff after the credits? I accidentally hit A and it didn't even give me a prompt, just jumped to the Bioshock Infinite logo. I guess I'll never know.

I didn't know what Wounded Knee was when I heard it, it just made think of the level in TMNT in times, somehow not realizing that it was a reference to an actual event.

@marokai Yeh that's why I'm saying I can see his angle on somethings. They do get away with some nonsense with their whole different universe stuff, but what Sci Fi doesn't? He seems to be a little too needlessly blinded by frustration and kind of forgetting what really matters, which is in what the game's story set out to do with it's specific details, did it do it well? Personally I think so.

@boondibis: Hoo, boy. The thing is, if Vinny (or anyone else) didn't have the intended experience during the game, because they were distracted in some scenes or missed stuff - that is a failure on the game's part. If I'm reading a book and I don't like it because I fail to understand some implicit thing - it's the fault of the book, not me. It's definitely harder to do story and scenes in games when compared to books or movies, but it doesn't mean it's our fault if we miss something the creator intended for us to pick up on.

If they wanted to you experience the Songbird death scene the way Brad described it (ie. framed by the window), they should have locked your viewpoint to it. Instead they chose to let you move around, which is what Vinny decided to do - game's fault, not Vinny's.

If they wanted Patrick to witness the God Only Knows music bit, they should've made sure it only triggers in certain moments when it's not possible to miss it.

So either those moments are really important and the developers failed, or they aren't that important (more likely) and are in the game just to provide some flavour and enjoyment to those of us that like to pay attention to every little detail.

Me too, at first I thought that, then I thought, well he's probably Comstock, then I went away from both those things since I couldn't get them to fit at the time, and then in the end I went back to the idea that she was his daughter and was kind of bummed about it since I thought it was the only twist, then they had intercourse with my mind.

@pinefresh said:

I agree with you 100%.

Vinny uses possession a lot. I totally forgot that the grunts take themselves out at the end of possession, that looks to be more useful than I would have thought.

My comment contains spoilers but this is a spoiler video so expect that when you're watching this.

I am a little surprised by how many people are not familiar with the massacre of Wounded Knee, less so about the Boxer Rebellion but both are pretty significant in history as well as interesting to know so definitely read up on those if you're not familiar.

To the conversation about "A man, a city, and a light house" when I first heard that part of the reveal I may have read more into it than they intended (or maybe not I really don't know) but I took it more as a metaphor for video game narrative. There is always a man (metaphor for hero), there is always a city (metaphor for conflict), there is always a lighthouse (I'm a little less certain of this part to be honest but in my reading too much into it definition here I think it is a metaphor for door way to the conflict- justification for your character being there).

Since we are reading into it, if we look at it in this context it feels like it is referencing how we are always playing out the same thing. The doorways are infinite- there will always be a reason a hero needs to save the day and why we will take up the mantle as players. In this way they are not just referencing the first Bioshock but all games you may have ever played, and will ever play.

It was what my mind immediately went to anyway when they spoke of it in the game.

One of the great things about the game, I felt, was how fun it tends to be to speculate about a lot of it's meaning. It's a tad pompous I guess but still fun, in my opinion.

The game felt like there was several of these types of metaphors throughout. There is a bit of criticism on Christianity, for instance (it's not a subtle part of the game) although I suspect that it was toned back a little bit based on feedback Ken Levine had received from staff during development. Just a guess though based on stuff I've read.

Loved this game a lot. I would say even more than Bioshock, but I felt I loved this game for different reasons then I love Bioshock.

@l4wd0g: Ya. I always thought that scene was a reference to the movie Identity which has that exact plot twist.

YES! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS.

Infinite is a really well put together game, I felt such an emotionally attachment to Elizabeth and oddly, I felt kind of attached to the Songbird as well. The songbird was just living out his purpose, which was to protect Elizabeth and by the end it really seemed like the two had really cared for each other all along and the songbird wasn't just this mechanical beast.

Agreed, and I also find people making the comparison to be ridiculous anyways, by the very fact that being a game means it has to deal with game mechanics. Saying that game stories aren't as good as stories in films and books is incredibly unfair because movie and book stories are never forced to revolve around a main character killing hundreds of people over hours or solving inventory puzzles or constantly building units for a war, etc. That kind of puts a limit on the kinds of stories you can tell. If anything, storytelling in games is so good that everyone now is complaining about the cognitive dissonance between playing a likeable person who is also a mass murderer.

The problem isn't bad games writing. The problem is nobody coming up with more interesting game mechanics.

So now you guys know why people whine at you in quick looks all the time. There was a ton of backseat playing.

@boondibis: Why do you even have a premium membership? Buy a chalkboard and some nails, you will clearly have more fun.

Maybe because Infinite spends the entire game from the very first moment setting up things for the ending, while Mass Effect 3's ending comes literally out of nowhere?

Missed the live, but man I am looking forward to it. That game man!

Brad is the worst.

Yeah I know, that would have been so helpful near the end with the rpg/volley gun enemies that soak up tons of bullets. I didn't even think of that and they caused me so much trouble lol. Maybe on my next playthrough.

AUDIO DOWNLOAD

I made one, since I wanted a audio only version.

Download

I used the same bitrate etc as the bombcast and ripped it from the mobile download.

I knocked it down to easy for the last zeppelin battle. Ended up missing the achievement for completing the game on normal.

Highlight of the video: Drew saying "hit em with the one-two punch!" like Atlas.

Also, the bathysphere thing where only relatives of Andrew Ryan happened as a result of the civil war in Rapture.

The 'Infinite' part of Bioshock Infinite is unnecessary to me. Like Vinny alluded to, it just makes anything possible so nothing really needed to make sense...or even really matter to the player. Time/world travel makes things actually less meaningful. The rescuing girl from tyrant who built city in the sky had plenty enough layers and interest for me. All of the extra stuff, especially at the end(even if hinted throughout) diluted my strong attachment and care for the world and the characters.

I have to disagree with Brad about the combat. It's bad standing next to the rest of Bioshock Infinite, but it's got so much going that it overcomes its flaws. There's so much cool stuff to do. The enemy AI is not good, Ryan compared it to Serious Sam which I agree with.

I was all set for a cool spoilercast but then to add Vinny in the other room finishing the game- fucking awesome! Loved the discussion though I was a bit disappointed how it devolved into Vinny play commentary. Other than that though, pretty cool. I feel like I've finally got a handle on the game.

Like Vinny I also originally thought Booker would be Songbird. Having seen that something terrible happens when Anna/Elizabeth is saved, he sought to protect her to ensure that this event never came to pass. I was actually glad I was wrong and never saw the end coming. Songbird was such a well realised character and the moment when you appear through the tear into Rapture my jaw was agape for a good couple of minutes. Absolutely fantastic game and I can't wait for a second playthrough to pick up on all of the Lutece clues.

agreed. you would have made a noble leader for westeros ;(

@roycampbell said:

@pinefresh said:

I didn't even realize people complained about the box art until they mentioned it and I looked it up. Oh internet, what won't you complain about.

omfg

As someone who played as a Renegade character, I spent the whole game watching literally all of my decisions get reversed to fold into the Paragon playthrough, like, "You know how you and the Illusive Man aligned on everything and were best buds last game so you gave him those Reaper parts he wanted? Yeah, well, now you're enemies for no reason. Have fun!"

So I think Mass Effect 3 did a bang-up job preparing me for that piece of shit ending by being a piece of shit game the whole way through.

I'm not trying to be contrary, I just heard others say Songbird was a great character and got to wondering. What exactly was good or realized about its characterization? To me, it acted like a machine- it's in a very binary state of alerted or not-alerted. It didn't even have its own thoughts- it's controlled by various machinery, sounds, etc. To me,. it just didn't seem like much of a character because it doesn't seem to act of its own free will. I would love to hear a deeper discussion on what made Songbird so endearing to others. Hope this isn't seen as being rude.

In the end I just don't like when stories mess with the concept of time because it becomes way too convoluted for me to enjoy. Back to the Future is the only exception.

@nickux: For me, it was that Songbird had this weird, clearly complicated (but mostly in the background) protective relationship with Elizabeth. She could stop him from killing Booker just by telling him that he could take her back and keep protecting her. Didn't even need the whistle tune yet. Then when Elizabeth is old, she says that thing about how Songbird always stops Booker from reaching her, so he's just always around, protecting her.

I wish they had done more with Songbird, but still, by that end scene, I saw him as kind of like a guard dog, very loyal and protective, and then they had that moment in the water where she has to tell him to just let go and accept his death, which is a lot like all the Elizabeths drowning Booker later.

Did I think that was "the best moment in the game" or whatever? No. Honestly, I just think that's just a hipster-y sort of attitude, like "I'm gonna like this thing that's pretty cool but ultimately not as cool as I'm making it out to be." I don't think they build Songbird enough up for that to be "the best moment in the game." It was a great moment regardless and could have been"the best moment in the game," but again, the game didn't earn that distinction. For me at least. Subjectivity and whatnot.

That said, if someone were to tell me that the moment Songbird's death finished and they realized they were in Rapture was the best moment in the game, I'd be like, "Yep, totally. Songbird's death was really cool, but realizing you're in Rapture? Fuuuuuuuck."

What I thought was that it was going to turn out Elizabeth had made Booker from a Tear. The idea crossed my mind when she said what she did was like wish fulfillment so I figured she had unknowingly imagined Booker into reality to come and save her.

Yeah totally, Rapture hit me harder than the songbird thing.

Yup. HOW DARE YOU ENJOY SOMETHING IN A DIFFERENT WAY I DID??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM OUTRAGED THAT THESE PEOPLE WHO ENJOYED THE GAME DID NOT PLAY THE GAME EXACTLY HOW I DID.

I don't really see what you're trying to say, other than in the movie they were lampshading or subverting that trope. Doesn't mean it can't be done well.

And besides, the whole identity of Booker and Elizabeth had been spoiled for me before I even played the game, but I still had my head fucked with by the other twists that they threw in (and did a good job of doing so).

I thought Elisabeth would turn out to be the bad guy ever since I heard that part about the lamb will destroy the world of man or whatever it was and Booker would be the last part of the puzzle to take Elisabeth over the edge into crazy town.

I haven't watched the entire video, I got a question did Booker die at the end cause in a alternate reality he was Comstock or was he young Comstock all along? I guess two question, were the Lutece twins the same person? I thought I heard in a voxophone that Rosalind brought her brother from another reality where she was a man.