Everyone realizes this is the same plot as Bioshock 2 right.

I mean there is a bunch of ridiculous time travel bull shit, but there are so many parallels between the games it's kind of fucking stupid no one is talking about it.

They even call Elizabeth "Lamb".

Your daughter fucking kills you at the end.

It's really funny to watch everyone praise the shit out of Infinite but whenever Bioshock 2 is brought up it's still "Oh that game, well it still doesn't matter. We have a real sequel now."

Well okay then.

No one wanted or played Bioshock 2, so no one cared.

Bioshock 2 was "YOU ARE THE BIG DADDY!" You have a drill now! Hit right trigger for gun and left trigger for FUCKING DRILL! It's like Bioshock but RAD.

Weren't people mostly complaining about Bioshock 2's gameplay and Rapture again and not the story?

I wouldn't know because i didn't play it but of everything bad i heard of it, i don't recall much talk about the story.

Yeah, but Bioshock Infinite is incredible and BIoshock 2 is okay.

@psylah: @toowalrus:

Did you play Bioshock 2? It was actually a really good game.

@pr1mus:

Bioshock 2's gameplay was better than the original's.

And Infinite's.

@lordxavierbritish: I played it. I thought it was a fine game, but definitely not on the same level of Bioshock & Infinite. I only played through Bioshock once, when it came out, and I feel like I remember everything about it. I played through Bioshock 2 more recently and... it just wasn't that memorable.

It's not exactly the same thing. The combat and upgrades felt better in Bioshock 2 than Infinite if you ask me but the story wasn't told nearly as well. That "plot bullshit" you speak of in Infinite is important to the whole story and actually makes it stand out from other games.

I think Bioshock 2 has it's place in the universe and it did a few things better than the Levine games. It is kind of unfortunate that people dismiss it so easily as it was a decent game - it just didn't feel different enough and everyone was expecting an amazing twist in the story which never came.

It's not time travel and not bullshit.

But yeah, it's the same plot - which makes absolute sense. I actually love that this is some sort of vindication for 2.

Really interesting point, hadn't though about this. Although I'm sure Infinite has an "infinite" number of subtleties and nuances that all come together in the overall story to blow Bioshock 2 out of the water. Not hating on 2, I just think it's pretty damn hard to stand up to Infinite. Total mindfuck of a story, and this is coming from a guy that was expecting a LOT considering all the review praise it got.

I don't remember much about Bioshock 2 other than that i didn't care much for it once i was done with it.

That being said, i didn't really care for Infinite's ending...

Also, someone who's beaten the game, can you answer this for me?

1892

EDIT: The Wounded Knee Massacre happened in 1890. So it couldn't have been more than a year or so.

@mrfluke: I wanted a new Bioshock game.

Instead I got Bioshock 2 in the sky.

It's not really the same plot at all. I hope you have more evidence besides those two claims cus one of them is already incorrect (Delta dies due to injuries from the blast and his shattered bond with Eleanor at the end). Besides, BioShock 2 was about a Big Daddy trying to reach his Little Sister (who could possibly be his actual daughter) and teaching her through his actions along the way. I don't think Infinite's plot is anywhere close to that once you look past the obvious BioShock template.

The weekly turn-around time on this 'shitting on the new AAA-hotness' is getting quicker. I can hardly stay in-touch with the movements of the Internet nowadays.

So the new city, new characters, new gameplay mechanics, and entirely new plot devices weren't enough to justify this release? You were signing up for a 'Bioshock'-branded game. You should expect some things to stay similar.

@thunderslash: Sofia Lamb who is Eleanor's mother, and the leader of a fanatical cult, and who was rejected by the people in power because of her ideas is trying to turn her daughter into a horrible super being and you have to save her from a life of seclusion and torture at the hands of her own parent.

Oh wait that's not the same at all.

@lordxavierbritish: Comstock was trying to suck all of the super being out of Elizabeth. You can't get more opposite than that.

@thunderslash said:

But it is the same template - a father goes to a city to save his daughter from a crazed parent figure trying to turn her into a super-being. It fits the idea that the multiverse behaves in patterns. The similarity is undeniable and deliberate. A lot of Infinite's plot points are directly borrowed from BioShock 1 & 2, like Booker and Jack having false memories or Ryan and Comstock murdering their lovers due to them making a move against them. It serves and reinforces the idea that the multiverse has constants and variables.

Seriously, go visit the discussion thread.

@lordxavierbritish: Yes I did, as a matter of fact it's free on PS+.

The gameplay in Bioshock 1 was terrible as well, so playing through 2 was even more painful knowing that I was in for more of the same.

@lordxavierbritish: That is a subplot of Bioshock Infinite, not the entire plot. You're complaining about not getting a "Bioshock" game, so I'm curious, how do you define what is and is not Bioshock? I figured the creator of the game would know, but I guess not.

I really like Bioshock 2 (I even created a review here on Giantbomb a couple years ago). Some people thought it was a cash grab by 2K but it told a compelling story within Rapture with some really well-drawn characters. It also had a superior ending than the original Bioshock.

I think Infiniti has some thematic overlap with Bioshock 2 (at the core, both are stories of a father and a daughter; both have a girl being experimented on) but not much else. Bioshock 2 is a linear story of the further collapse of Rapture after Ryan and Fontaine are gone. Infiniti is a metaphysical story of choice and unintended consequence.

I'm not convinced that Bioshock 2 influenced anyone at Irrational during the creation of Infiniti.

I think it's quite deliberate how much Infinite copies it's predeseccors. It's sorta the whole point of the game the way I see it. And ye, the reception of this game has been quite puzzling to watch.

It sounds like the story is a lot like Bioshock 2 but "good" instead of "fucking horrible."

@jacksmedulla:

I never said Ken Levine didn't know what a "Bioshock" game was.

He quite obviously does, because he played Bioshock 2 and put the story in his own game.

You also realize that the "whole time travel bullshit" is why Bioshock Infinite is better, right?

exactly to both your points @project343

and with that im off this thread.

bye-bye!

Like I said, that obvious BioShock template. Andrew Ryan was also crazy leader that secluded himself and created his own little utopia for likeminded people. Then you have Jack, his bastard son whose age is in the single digits and yet he looks old enough to be an adult because of genetic splicing. And in the game you can choose to save all those Little Sisters, giving them a better life in the end. Don't forget that in all the games the protagonist starts off with false memories/amnesia..

Edit: Eleanor is totally more badass than Elizabeth BTW.

@ghostiet: Yeah, I'm aware of that.

I'd argue they're why it's worse.

The original Bioshock was so good because it managed to create an incredibly compelling world and characters in a semi-grounded setting. Bioshock Infinite threw all logic out the window and turned what could have been an interesting story into bull shit time magic.

As someone who loved the shit out of Virtue's Last Reward and Steins;Gate I found all the multiverse and time travel elements of Infinite's plot to be ridiculous and poorly written. I'd argue why but I'm not going to get dragged into a five page forum argument over my opinions.

Ken Levine preemptively protected himself from this complaint by acknowledging it and making it a large part of the Infinite storyline. Meta.

I guess its not okay to find flaws in games anymore

Spoilers during this so read with caution.

It's been a while since I played Bioshock 2 and honestly I was just trying to plow through it since I didn't think it was that good, but the reveal of Infinite and the twists is what makes people like it. 2 may of had a similar final one note (I honestly don't remember if you are right) but yea it's not memorable and was not executed as well as Infinite. And there are other plot points besides "dying from daughter" like the reveal of Comstock and all the time travel and how it turns the Bioshock universe on it's head with the lighthouse so I really don't think it is the same at all, but that is the beauty of how people interpret stories.

The story beats themselves don't really matter that much; but the storytelling does. Similarly, the game mechanics themselves don't matter that much, but gameplay does. Bioshock Infinite is a very well-told story, and, while I can't make the comparison myself since I haven't played Bioshock 2 myself, I'd imagine the argument is that Bioshock Infinite is a better-told story than Bioshock 2.

Plus, the game even directly addresses it's story beats being similar to the original games. It's not like anyone's trying to hide it.

@psylah said:

I not only played Bioshock 2, but I liked it more than the original and continue to fucking adore that game. The shit that people gave it was fully unwarranted beyond being whiny fuckstains.

Unless there is a big plot twist at the end; I don't think so son.

That is a very ridiculous statement. It is our brains job to find patterns, it helps us remember things, helps us make sense of things, it allows us to learn etc. Every story if cherry picked or distilled down can be called derivative or copy cats but this is how culture works, nothing is original. What we need to take into consideration in this case is not how the story is told or what story is told but why is this story is being told.

I can't talk much for Bioshock 2 as I haven't played it but Infinite has a lot to say about the medium it is apart of, the very nature of games, user agency and the nature of sequels. It also tells us an excellent empathetic story, but more importantly it has commentary that is more meaningful than that. Just as art always has been used to do.

That is why people are talking about and are more engaged in Infinite. It's great that you obviously quite like Bioshock 2 but instead of saying that it did this first, instead tell us why we should care that it did this first.

I guess...but that makes me wonder if lordxavierbritish thinks steaks and cupcakes are the same. They are practically the same thing since they involve cooking and result in something you want to eat, correct?

@dylabaloo: You can't say I'm cherry picking if you haven't even played the game and don't know the story.

Bioshock Infinite is a game that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's a story about a father and his daughter taking place in a fantastical city of no importance to the actual plot with haphazard pseudo-science thrown in to make people think it means something.

If Irrational had just distilled the story down and focused on the father and daughter, if that is truly what they wanted to do, and not tried to live up to Bioshock and Rapture we might have had a game that could actually be called art.

RABBLE RABBLE RABLLE

I remember literally nothing about Bioshock 2's story, other than you played as a Big Daddy at one point.

I loved all 3 Bioshock games. I love Rapture to death, so I certainly didn't mind to have a BETTER understanding of the city with Bio 2, which refined the gameplay of the first one.

@lordxavierbritish:

I am really sick of the inevitable parade of people after every successful, universally praised game comes out saying variations of

"This is game is terrible, everyone that likes it is crazy. EVERYONE ELSE IS WRONG AND I AM RIGHT!!!".

No one has to like any particular game, even if it's almost universally loved, but just accept that most people like it and you're in the minority and stop trying to convince everyone that you are the only one that really understands just how bad it is.

@lordxavierbritish: Well here's an idea, if you don't want to get "dragged into a five page forum argument over [your] opinions", don't start a forum thread discussing your own fucking opinions.

Don't be a dick and post spoilers in the title. Also, as soon as they used the word lamb, that thought crossed my mind.

Anyway, I played BioShock 2 right before Infinite, and I really enjoyed it - even if it was a more-of-the-same type of game. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I did like BioShock 2 more than Infinite (?), there's perhaps a certain over-the-top-convolutedness to BioShock Infinite. It's kind of like the difference between 999 and VLR.

@ll_exile_ll: I never said the game was terrible.

Just because I don't think it's a masterpiece doesn't mean I think it's bad.

@jacksmedulla: Your advice has been taken into consideration. Know that it will be put forth towards and debated over by a formal council consisting of no less than 500 individual members including financial and public relations advisers representing a few dozen multimillion dollar corporations as well as several well respected ambassadors of various royal families before being hastily discarded without regret or remorse.

I guess you missed the part about the multiple realities being filled with the same constants and many different variables (an infinite amount you could say.) The plot of the game is itself a commentary on how the game has the same plot as the other bioshocks (lighthouses, saving girls, monstrous protectors, crazy abilities...) It's intentionally this way.

@benny: If I wrote and presented a book about a universe that was nearly almost exactly the same as Lord of the Rings but said it was in a different reality with similar constants I would be laughed out of the room.

I for one don't find a meta-commentary about how the writers couldn't come up with something original to be particularly compelling, but then again I have very high standards.

@lordxavierbritish: No totally, I was disappointed with the story too because I feel time travel has been seriously done to death lately and I'm starting to feel like pinning everything on twists makes games like this a bit of a slog sometimes. It's a problem with games in general though in that they feel the need to make everything revolve around some universe changing event rather than the characters.

Like I said above, telling a good story has barely anything to do with the story beats themselves. What makes a good story? Wit. Metaphor. Rhetoric. A bullet-point list of what happens in LOTR is not LOTR. A story that is essentially LOTR but told in a different, unique style would not necessarily be laughed out of the room in the same way that the millions of retellings of Journey to the West aren't. A cover of a song isn't worthless because it has the same notes in the same order.

There are a grand total of like two similarities, bravo.