BioShock Infinite: Infinite Spoilers!

Wow, finally getting around to watching this. This is about the time when I joined the site and held off on watching because I did not want to spoil the story for myself.

Just beat it for the first time. I really loved it. I miss you Ryan.

Just finished the game yesterday so now I can finally watch this. Good discussion. Love Ryan.

I'm replaying this game again because I just got a new PC and I must say watching all this is wonderful. I miss Ryan a lot

Glad I'm watching this is such a timely manner... great discussion. Looking forward to Ryan's sequel prediction of BioShock Xfinity with Comcast as the antagonist.

Just finished Bioshock Infinite so I would finally watch this, definitely bittersweet seeing Ryan again.

I'm guessing this was a big preview of a significant part of Game of the Year discussions.

I just finished Bioshock Infinite, then got ready to queue up all the spoilercasts I'd had to duck out of. Then I realized Ryan would be in this and started crying.

Just played through this and never picked up any of the music stuff they mention in the video. But the story felt largely not that well explained to, wish more of it was explained outside the audio books, from listening to this it seems nearly everything needed to understand story is in these.

@gerhabio: The majority of the people I talked to that played the game beat it not knowing you could grapple to the other zeppelins until they read it online after beating it (or after failing to beat it and giving up and looking online for help).

I mean think about it: they introduce the mechanic once about 15 hours earlier, and then never have you use it again. Thinking in video game logic, a player would just assume it was a one time set piece, not a teaching moment to introduce you to a more general mechanic.

I could be wrong but I think the ending we saw here was slightly different than the one I played. In this one Booker said "No, I'm both." during the baptism. But I think when I played it, Elizabeth looked at me at said "No, he's both" instead. Interesting.

"Did he just get a dismount point on that zeppelin?" "Yeah, that must be a glitch"

Are you guys high? You do that earlier in the game. In hard mode, it is absolutely imperative to sabotage the zeppelins from the inside, lest you waste precious songbird that should be used on smaller rocket aircraft and approaching patriots.

I take issue on Patrick's complaint about Bioshock having to be a "violent shooter". As Jeff said, if there is a happy middle ground between shooter and point and click adventure, what is it? So it's not your job to figure out that problem, but it is your job to point out that it's a problem? It's just so much easier to sit back and call out problems rather than come up with solutions. Sure, nobody is paying you to design video games, but they are paying you to comment on them intelligently. Why not challenge yourself and offer up better ideas if you find issue in something. If not, you're a part of the "self fulfilling prophecy".

Personally, I take the inverse of Patrick's comment. My problem is that I don't think a creative figure like Ken Levine should be forced into making something in a way he doesn't want to. I always favor creative freedom over financial gain, but I'm a consumer. At the end of the day, if the publisher isn't happy, the game doesn't get made at all. I'm really happy Infinite got made. It's not an easy situation.

Anyway, this was a great video. I loved having Vinny play the end without the others being able to constantly stopping him to point out some random thing. It was so much more natural this way. Also, what a fantastic game. Parts of the end story are a bit sketchy logic wise, but that's standard fare for story/dimensional play. You always know a game is great when it can bring out this sort of commentary.

@pimpsahoy: I hope so please

Just finished Infinite and this was a great show to come back to, at first I was like meh, Inception + Lost = Bioshock Infinite but I liked hearing about the discussion of what could've been more, it made it more fascinating hearing everyone futz it out.

Jeff doesn't like Weezer's Pinkerton? Jeff, who hurt you?

And you ever notice how Jeff interrupts Patrick pretty much every single time he's well into saying something insightful?

Vinny acts the exact same way I do during important scenes.

Wow, just getting to watch this now, and they really did NOT get the ending, except for Brad.

Yeah, except this is Vinny knowing full well he's on camera with a bunch of people watching and probably wants to entertain as his producer instincts tell him to. Who knows how Vinny plays games when he's not making something for GiantBomb.

I thought it was odd that only Brad latched onto that. It isn't like the story was at all coy about the fact that this was THE point of change, not just one potential outcome.

Not to mention the fact that he seems to find narrative paramount in most games he plays. So weird!

Yeah it's a shame for him... I always play 'with' the game.

The set up with Vinny playing and the crew chatting about it was great though. :)

I was surprised that none of them talked about using traps. Finishing the last battle on hard shock traps were key. I used them to slow down the patriots and enemies while I could focus Songbird on the white zeppelins. Still on hard those patriots take a ton of bullets to go down. I loved the traps after a while on hard.

Patrick (as many others) mentioned the rumored Songbird cry in the original BioShock. Although I haven't heard anyone else mention the decor in the lighthouse from the first BioShock.

I think BioShock: Infinite is a great bookend to the BioShock series, and a great bookend to this current console generation. Hopefully this isn't the last of the *Shock series. Maybe the next cycle we will see a SystemShock 3?

Finally just finished this game! Now I can watch this, two hours you say? Let's do it.

Contextualized.

It's really hard to not post a last fight strategy.

Possession and Shock Jockey all the way. Fully upgraded Possession is great on the rocket launching enemies, and Shock helps with crowd control. Sniper rifle isn't bad against the Motorized Patriots as long as you don't look down the sight. It's also excellent against the early waves, when it's just generic Vox.

There, I posted it.

What I took from the "Infinite Lighthouses" and "Infinite Realities" was that every person that plays through Bioshock Infinite is actually playing it simultaneously with everyone else, making it this pan dimensional multi-player game.

So if you could see far enough during the lighthouse scene, you could see the actions other people took on their play through of the game.

Whether it's what they wanted you to realise or not, I thought that was a pretty cool little idea

I loved how this video was put together. Having the guys comment on the game live while one of them is in another room finishing it is pretty clever. It would be awesome for this to be a regular feature on the site.

I'm glad it wasn't just me who struggled on this last battle for a little while. I got very frustrated.

I never imagined that Rapture was Columbia in another reality after watching this for the second time. lol.

Handymen fall over in like 10 seconds with Charge fully upgraded. Also, spamming the energy core with Return to Sender charges, Winter Shield as gear, Possession for Less, Shock Jockey made the final battle a one time thing, with no deaths on 1999 mode.

He will become Comstock. Elizabeth can not just create tears to other universes, but also time. This is very clear the first time you see her opening a tear to Paris. There are cars driving and Return of the Jedi is advertised on a cinema.

She took Booker back in time to the place where a Booker became Comstock. There are different universes, but they are connected. By taking him to that time and killing him, he cannot become Comstock at that specific point.

Brad was completely right that there is not just one universe created good by this action, but all Comstock's everywhere have never been born because of this. Elizabeth already explained Comstock being dead didn't matter, because he lived on in infinite other universes. She even clearly says they need to kill Booker to avoid Comstock ever being born in every universe right before they drown him.

I was kind of surprised Brad was the only one who understood this. It's pretty clearly explained.

Either way, yeah. Booker rejected the baptism so he didn't become Comstock. But Elizabeth took him to the place and time where he did accept it and drowned him before he could.

so uh, why does elizibeth kill the booker thats experienced all this stuff? he's clearly not going ot become comstock. wouldn't you have to kill past book, the one way back then? also if there are infinite universes as the game is so fond of pointing out, whats the point of killing one booker? and again, why kill the booker who's clearly not going to become comstock.

also, if booker never becomes comstock then elizabeth could never go back and kill booker to prevent him from becoming comstock so then he would become comstock, so then elizabeth could go back and kill booker, but then it resets. its a stupid paradox loop. the story is a paradox loop, you're not preventing anything. its ultimately completely pointless.

time travel plots are stupid, i dont know why this is so praised story-wise.

I agree with Brad completely on the ending and didn't see what the other guys were saying (around 30 minutes at least). I think they made it pretty clear that they were trying to fix the Comstock problem for good. I didn't get any implication that it was going to continue in the other realities. That's what sat bad about the ending for me.

I did have it, but I got it from a certain part of the game where you had to make a decision. There are not too many of those (two or three?); it's the one where you're at a counter and the guy makes you wait. You get to decide to wait or be aggressive or whatever.

I waited patiently. It resulted in the guy stabbing me in the hand. I liked the bandage though.

It's a video game?

@saik0u: When you're at that ticket counter early on where the guy is calling a hit on you and you're asking for gondola tickets, if you demand tickets instead of pulling your gun, he stabs you in the hand. After that part, there's a really tender scene of Elizabeth ripping off a part of her dress to wrap your hand in.

I don't know if i just didn't notice while playing, but i cant seem to remember having that bandage on my hand that Vinny had. Is this something that can change, or did i just not pay enough attention during my own playtrough ?

Man, the ending totally mindfucked me. Wonderful game, though.

Also, I enjoyed that when people speak to you they call you Dewitt, which sounds identical to "do it" which turns several of the things they say into commands similar to phrases that might in other universes include the phrase, "would you kindly." I don't think it was intentional, but still interesting.

The part that really killed me about watching the songbird death was, as it was dying, a little sister was mourning a dead big daddy behind it in the distance.

That's completely addressed in the game. The Lutece twins are in fact male/female versions of each other.

I found it kind of funny that the crew reacted like people in the comments do on Quick Looks.

Anyone poke at the idea of the lucette twins not being twins- but rather a male and female version of the same person?

@patrickklepek or anyone. I'm at the End of Wolves in the Dark Tower...Should I keep going after what was talked about during this show??

I Just finished this game like not even 5 mins. ago... and I can see where BRad was coming from onthe podcast last week... you need awhile to digest everything that happened,but wow...I kinda saw theBooker/Comstock connection, but HOW they connected the dots, man... wow... I need a moment.

Finally finished this last night. Really don't know where Brad was coming from - I thought the idea that Booker/Comstock's entire life swings on him having a religious experience to be totally believable. Him being absolved of his sins and then set on a righteous religious path puts his past and future in an entirely different light. Religious experiences can be powerful things, especially when accompanied by prophetic vision and his obviously increasing megalomania.

And it's not like Booker showed that much empathy to anyone besides Elizabeth or otherwise spoke out against the racism/class warfare in Columbia. As the player we were disgusted by the dark aspects of the city, but I don't recall those translating to Booker. He was just a cold-blooded man on a mission for almost all the game, coming to terms with his guilt but also fully acknowledging the need to do some terrible things.