After Bioshock 2 ended on such a high note, I wasn't expecting Bioshock Infinite to go backwards in time. The story last left us with Eleanore in the 1960s, and now I'm in the 1910s with someone named Booker. Booker seems to be a detective following a lead on a missing person, and quickly finds and infiltrates a closed society living in a floating city.
I feel like I'm playing Myst. Whereas Myst was bizarre and empty, this city is crowded with NPCs, bizarre, and empty. I thought the underwater schizo-tech city of Rapture was a gut-wrenching suspension of disbelief, but this floating city is an evisceration. Not only that, there seems to be a hint of plasmid magic here, in the form of vigors and salts, which shouldn't be discovered until decades later in Rapture.
I was just starting to get used to the world of Bioshock 1 and 2, and this feels like this reboot into an alternate timeline . I don't know what to feel, and I'm trying to reserve judgement, but I am disappointed. When you add in that this seems to be the worst console port yet, I feel despair.
2015.02.11
I was always a bit uncomfortable with all the religious trappings of Bioshock 1 and 2, but here they are laying it on with a trowel. The first thing you need to do to get past a checkpoint is get baptized. Then you're infiltrating some society based around a cult-like worship of some prophet.
Everything is all sunshine and roses until the slave auction, or raffle. So much for a stealth operation, now its run and gun time. The game mostly unsubtly prompts you to keep after the girl. The girl looks kind of like Eleanore from Bioshock 2, as does the giant angel statue towering over everything. Maybe Eleanore traveled back in time, and tried starting her own Rapture in the clouds? On to the next chapter.
What is this little Cthulhu ragdoll I keep finding?
Various propaganda posters refer to the angel girl as The Lamb, a phrase you heard a lot in Bioshock 2.
A statue dedicated to John Wilkes Booth, I guess that explains why there is still slavery in the 1900s. Apparently the Order of the Raven doesn't mind its mascots crapping all over everything.
These exposition kinetescopes scattered throughout the land sure are useful for learning bits and pieces of backstory... wait a second, is that Sofia Lamb standing there, in the movie about strange anomalies in the city? Did they both come back in time together? Or maybe Eleanore chased her here? Can't wait to find out what's going on.
Moving further in, more and more images of what looks like Eleanore. Siphons... I've been wondering where these people are getting plasmids and ADAM from - Eleanore had a very high level, and added more when she absorbed Delta. Prophet Comstock calls her Elizabeth, oh well, there goes that theory.
Escorting Elizabeth through various dangers and obstacles feels a little like The Last of Us. Sometimes when Booker responds to something Elizabeth says or does, it sounds just like Joel. I'm not really interested right now in which game came first.
Can I really only carry two weapons at a time? Interesting choice for this game, considering its everything and the kitchen sink heritage. Its too bad my inventory screen shows, and therefore spoils, all possible weapons. Looks like weapons can be upgraded - does that mean I'm stuck carrying around that particular weapon? Because right now I'm swapping out various weapons to try them out.
I forgot to mention something from the escape from Elizabeth's prison. While in progress, you are harassed by what seems to be a large dragon, but eventually you get close enough to see that it is a giant robotic raven. That seems to be the inspiration for the strange little stuffed animal.
I'm walking around the resort, and everyone is oblivious to the fact I have long guns out; I really like games that let you holster. Why isn't the city in lockdown? Or at least the radio should be sending out alerts constantly. Do they think we're dead?
Elizabeth can open portals to other worlds, she calls it a tear. Ever since I first saw her do it in her prison, I had some idea that's why the game is called Bioshock Infinite, for infinite dimensions in a multiverse. But if she can open portals, and even pull things through, why can't she just leave? Are there limits on size?
2015.02.12
2015.02.15
The rapid estrangement and rapprochement between Joel and El- I mean between Booker and Elizabeth seems necessary, but a little forced.
I love that the portals to other dimensions are a little random, and sometimes you even get a little glimpse of what might be our world (Return of the Jedi, Creedence Clearwater Revival). I am a little concerned that *spoiler for Battlestar Galactica reboot* that we might get an All Along The Watchtower ending, which would be absolute bullshit.
I've been meaning to mention this for some time, but traveling around by hanging off a hook at high speed is hardly plausible for people like Booker and the soldiers and police, but it makes no sense for Elizabeth. She's been locked in an apartment all her life, and suddenly she has the strength and resolve to hang from a hook at literally break-neck speeds at great heights?
I really like that alternate timelines and worlds have been introduced, and you the player are traveling into them. This is one of my favorite things in this whole series this far. So much potential, I can't wait to see what they do with it. Maybe I should temper my expectations.
More parallels with the ending of BSG, with the weird mystery couple that can enter the story whenever they feel the need. And another person singing a song they shouldn't know.
2015.02.17
I like where the story is going as I learn more about Lutece (who I originally thought was Sofia Lamb from the second game). Still, it offends everything we know about science and technology that you can just tell 19th century people, hey, quantum physics!, and suddenly you have flying cities.
This game is easy, even on Hard difficulty, except for Handymen, who are monstrously overpowered. They can move very quickly and can jump to any height, so you can not get away from them. They can deny you use of the skyway hook system. And they have a ton of hp and armor, and are only weak in one spot, which is hard to get a lock on, and none of your weapons are very good against.
OK, next time around a different strategy, and it was almost easy.
In most FPS RPG, I tend to like the revolver and shotgun, or whatever's closest to it. I've also really been liking the carbine, which is a nice mix of everything, but getting too underpowered later in the game. Running around with the the high-end revolver, called handcannon for some unstated reason, just feels right for Booker. I'm still switching amongst and learning the weapons. There are so many, I'm still trying to figure out a few.
I was just starting to get used to and liking this inter-dimensional aspect of the game, but the Lutece stuff keeps getting weirder, and now I'm fighting the Elizabeth's mom in spectral form, who is busy raising the dead against me. Not sure what to think of this, but things are moving too fast to judge.
2015.02.18
I've already invoked spoilers, but now I claim double spoilers.
The confrontation with Comstock doesn't make sense. Of course you expect him to say something to make Elizabeth fly off the handle again, but the best he could come up with is the thimble on her finger? For Booker to go murderous isn't that much of a stretch, especially considering all he's been through to get to this point, but Elizabeth doesn't really try all that hard to stop him. Hopefully it will make more sense in time, the way Ryan's murder (from Bioshock 1) didn't.
The fight on the deck of the zeppelin is long and tough and there's a low hp object to defend. Kind of boring. Tried twice, taking a break.
Thinking about it some more, I like the resonance of the great bird coming to Elizabeth's defense once more, but shouldn't this ship have some anti-air guns on it?
I'll try defense on Hard once or twice more, but its not really all that interesting, so I'm ready to ratchet down to Medium. There's probably some optimal pattern of heavy weapons and plasmids to use to get to the end, but I don't know how many times I want to go through this long sequence to learn it.
As usual when I say things like that, I sail right through it.
And from there, you're on rails to the ending. I'm glad I sat through the credits, because there's a little bit more at the end.
I'm resisting going straight to the internet, I want to work through this a bit for myself. I don't like the ending, and I want to know why. I don't mind and ending where our hero has to sacrifice himself to right some wrong, or so that someone he loves can go on, or to otherwise snatch victory from defeat. Those are all acceptable endings to stories. But this doesn't feel like that.
I don't accept that DeWitt is Comstock, insofar as they are saying that that literally. Maybe more like DeWitt played a role in the evil that was Comstock, and he removing DeWitt somehow breaks that chain that turns Anna (DeWitt's daughter?) into Elizabeth.
The game looks and feels like it has a powerful ending where you realize the consequences of your actions catching up to you, but it does not bear inspection. As a theory, it doesn't even mostly explain what is going on in this multiverse.
Also, Elizabeth seems all to happy to push the story cart down the rails its on, as if she can't wait to drown her father (the way DeWitt drowned Comstock), and just get it over with. I think that's what's bothering me. Mechanically, most things just click into place and the story trundles along, but it betrays all the emotional resonance that has been building up until now. The DeWitt and Elizabeth that have been portrayed this far suddenly start acting out of character,
And what does Elizabeth even want to see happen out of this? Its not like DeWitt is suddenly going to turn into Comstock, figuratively or literally.
I wonder what is the significance at the beginning of the game of choosing the bird or the cage. Maybe nothing. OK, let's go to the net, and see what others have said.
Looking at the official site, there are three DLCs out!
OK, read the wiki, it maintains that some Bookers took the baptism and became Zachary Comstocks in their respective universes. A bunch of Elizabeths from various universes gather to drown him, he lets them, and Comstock never comes to be. This is bullshit on multiple levels. Baptism doesn't turn you into a whole 'nother person, as I understand it you get a spiritual reboot, but you are still you. Its not like the procedure lobotomizes you or brainwashes you, and the Comstock and Dewitt are just fundamentally different people. Sorry, no sale.
Also, wouldn't all these Elizabeths have to drown all the Dewitts in each of their perspective universes? When they drown a Dewitt, that Elizabeth should dissapear, but the rest should remain. They can then take the suffocation train to the next Dewitt, drown him, another Elizabeth pops out of existance, and move on. Only the last Elizabeth needs to do the fell deed on her own. Still not buying it.
Dissapointed that they couldn't have written a tighter ending, but I'm not all that mad. Right now I'm just really enjoying "Will The Circle Be Unbroken". That was a really special, if out of nowhere, moment in the game, like finding an easter egg in a game, and yet there was something sincere about it. Now I'm reading more about it, and listening to it on YouTube, looking for violin version.
2015.02.19
Now that I've slept on it, I'm trying to summarize what I think of Bioshock Infinite, but I keep stumbling over what I want to say about the whole series, and that is for another post. All I can be sure of right now is that I feel empty about it, something like dissapointed or underwhelmed, but neither of those entirely. Sometimes when I finish a work of text, video, or game I will miss those characters or their world intensely for a while, and for some of the better ones it can taper off over a long time, sometimes over a lifetime. While I was inside the game I was deeply interested in where Elizabeth and Booker were going, and something about the ending just broke that connection, to the point where they're just gone.
I have a bunch of things to say about this game, but they are so mixed in with the rest of the series they will have to go together. Time to move on to the series review.
