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[J.W.Crazy]

I feel like the big dissonance came due to the fact that we were killing HUMAN beings.

In Bioshock 1, we KILLED thousands upon thousands of splicers, but no one raised this disonance issue.

I feel same holds true with columbia. If these were just mutants, none of these questions would be raised.

Which brings up the question, are games cornered to having enemies soley be mutants/zombies/monsterous creatures.

Or is there actual room for games to kill human (that isn't a war game)?

I mean it's funny..but in Indiana Jones, this guy killed hundreds of people throughout his treasure hunting adventure, and no one really bats an eye at that. I think it's due to the fact that people realize, it's a fictitious film, and that killing has to happen in some fashion, and really don't pay attention in that regard (similar to Infinite I guess)

I think it's more than just the fact that they're human. In Infinite Booker kills first. He doesn't know whats going to happen when they grab him at the raffle but he decides it's appropriate to jam a spinning hook in someones face. From there he only gets more brutal and the people of Columbia can be seen as defending against his attack for the most part. In Bioshock 1 except for the Big Daddies the enemy attacks first and attacking the Big Daddies gets justified. You're either rescuing the Little Sisters or selfishly harvesting them which negates the dissonance because you're no longer the good guy.

I think lots of games have handled it better. There's still the ridiculousness of one person taking out so many people but the enemies should always attack first. It also comes down to player motivation. If the story is calling you a hero but you're killing people for an unrelated goal or a conflicting goal that doesn't seem worth murdering over it's going to raise some red flags. You could just make the player character a bad guy who doesn't have a problem with murdering people which is what some people claim Infinite does but it's only explained after the fact. Even if on a subconscious level Booker knew who he was it doesn't matter because the dissonance is between the player and the story not the character and the story. Anyone could create dissonance by purposely playing the game with a different motivation but in this case the game gives you a dissonant motivation only to reveal it's withheld information from you.

The idea of Ludonarrative dissonance has been around for a while and has been pointed out in many games. The first Bioshock definitely had it's fair share of accusations. Ludo- comes from ludic which essential means play so it doesn't really apply to movies but there's a lot of criticism for similar ideas in film. When a character's actions don't gel with their motivation it sticks out.

Jon Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE

EDIT: Sorry, I don't remember the timestamp, but I highly recommend this lecture if you enjoy commentaries on the medium itself (which many Bioshock fans seem to).

That's a really good lecture. He says something like "Forty years from now Bioshock won't be held up as one of the turning points in video game design...and if it is I hope I'm not in the industry anymore!" A lot of what Bioshock 1 and Infinite get praised for isn't really video game specific. Movie style narrative is already an art form of it's own. They're good games but they don't really do anything that separates them or pushes the medium forward the way a lot of people claim they do.

 

[Passive Assassin]

I haven't paid attention to these threads in ages. Is there a working theory as to why

Spoiler

Booker never merges with Comstock when he jumps between universes

?



Honestly though, I thought the ending felt forced.

I liked the callback to Bioshock 1, but yeah, it pretty much ended on a whimper.

 

[Sleepy Buddha]

There's no cognitive dissonance like the one some describe in Bioshock Infinite. Only for people who don't understand the plot and the context of the game from the begining.

Booker's no hero, wasn't, isn't, won't be. He's a guy who from the begining is portraied as being nasty human being. A butcher at Wounded Knee, a former Pinkerton who by his own admission was someone workers needed protection from, a drunk and an addicted gambler.

Why is he in Columbia? To kidnap a girl who's a prisoner and take her to some unknown fate, which is presumably very bad based on his description that he has to take her to people you don't want to mess with.

Why is he doing this? To pay of a gambling debt. He's willing to sell out another human he never even met to save his own ass.

How does he do this? The only way he knows, by being brutal and a killer as Slate says.

Even when he finally turns around and decides Elizabeth's fate is more important than his, he can't let go of his ways. He's trying to save her, but the only way he sees to achieve it is to continue being a monster to destroy the other monsters in her life.

And let's face it, even if he's killing other human beings, they're also trying to kill him and drag Elizabeth back to Comstock. Does anyone really believe those zealots would not kill "The False Sheppard" the first chance they got?

There's no dissonance between plot and gameplay. There's only a need for some suspention of belief in the number of enemies you kill (and that's a byproduct of being an action game). But we need that anyway for the world of the game itself.

 

[Guess Who]

Which is exactly my point. Without the Letuces, Comstock doesn't even know Anna exists.

So what? Booker wants to kill Comstock. Killing the Lettuces not only doesn't kill Comstock, Booker doesn't have any hatred for the Lettuces.

 

[madmackem]

Did anyone feel attracted to elizabeth then feel ashamed when you find out its your daughter?, no just me ok.

 

[Red]

Booker was never a hero. There is no dissonance. He starts as an asshole and only becomes an even bigger asshole as more is brought to light. Even at the fork, he takes one of two asshole Booker paths, one involving inculcating a city, one involving daughter selling. There are like, no more morally bankrupt characters in fiction. He just about hits the height of how terrible you can imagine a person to be.


It's part of the theme. By allowing Liz to kill him, he is doing something good, finally breaking the cycle.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

Another good article. Apologies if already posted:

http://kevinjameswong.com/2013/04/08/bioshock-infinite-is-a-metacommentary-on-the-nature-of-video-game-storytelling/

Though I'd say it's a commentary on life itself as well. How many of our choices are illusionary, if not all of them. Aren't we all swimming in different oceans but landing on the same shore?

 

[GRIP]

So what? Booker wants to kill Comstock. Killing the Lettuces not only doesn't kill Comstock, Booker doesn't have any hatred for the Lettuces.

Booker doesn't become Comstock without the Letuces. There is no city in the sky, and there is no Elizabeth without them. My point... get it?

 

[Truant]

Cool little detail I noticed.

The first splicer you encounter in the first game says "Is it someone new?". This is the first thing the preacher says when he sees you in the chapel in Infinite.

Pretty cool.

Also, what controls the Songbird security system? It seems to go off at very conveniently placed story beats without any consistent logic to them.

 

[Trigger]

Booker doesn't become Comstock without the Letuces. There is no city in the sky, and there is no Elizabeth without them. My point... get it?

Booker becomes Comstock because of the baptism. I'm not sure why anyone would argue against that. I thought the game was pretty clear on the matter.

 

[GRIP]

Booker becomes Comstock because of the baptism. I'm not sure why anyone would argue against that. I thought the game was pretty clear on the matter.

No, you're not getting my point. Comstock becomes COMSTOCK, the prophet, because of the Letuces. They drive the entire narrative. Without them, Booker just becomes some asshole religious guy.

Columbia can't exist without them, anna doesn't get kidnapped without them, and Comstock doesn't become a prophet without them.

 

[Sqorgar]

I think it's more than just the fact that they're human. In Infinite Booker kills first. He doesn't know whats going to happen when they grab him at the raffle but he decides it's appropriate to jam a spinning hook in someones face. From there he only gets more brutal and the people of Columbia can be seen as defending against his attack for the most part.

That's why Infinite should've been a stealth game. Booker can still fall back on his violent ways when things go south without single handedly murdering the population of a small city.

You know, it's ironic, but System Shock 2 was more like Deus Ex in that many situations had multiple ways get through it. In Bioshock, your choice is largely reduced to whether or not to harvest the Little Sisters. In System Shock 2 and Bioshock, you are fighting monsters - things which can no longer be considered human. But in Infinite, you will indiscriminately murder thousands of largely innocent people and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[Paganmoon]

No, you're not getting my point. Comstock becomes COMSTOCK, the prophet, because of the Letuces. They drive the entire narrative. Without them, Booker just becomes some asshole religious guy.

Columbia can't exist without them, anna doesn't get kidnapped without them, and Comstock doesn't become a prophet without them.

Someone could've simply taken the Luteces place and helped build the city (Luteces are variables maybe?, or Comstock wouldn't be a prophet in a skycity, but somewhere else and still wreck havoc, with his bigotry and racism.

 

[Grimsen]

The two Luteces are basically interdimensional beings in the game, and seem to exist out of time. Not sure kiling them would even do anything.

 

[ReeseHoward]

I still don't understand why preventing Comstock was so important. They pretty much destroyed thousands of alternate universe because America gets buttboned by Zeppelins in some of them.

 

[spekkeh]

So, but can you kill the Luteces? They're already dead, dying, will die, yet they're still there. Kind of like the Force. Or actually Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen would be a better analogy. They jumped dimensions so often that it seems like like time and space have no meaning for them anymore. Nor for Elizabeth at the end, she could see every door and be in one time zone with seven different iterations of herself without problems; the same kind of hivemind without nosebleeds that the Luteces had. Maybe the same happened to Booker, and that's the reason that post-credits scene he was alive again. On death he wasn't dead, but will die, dying, dead.

 

[spekkeh]

I mean it's funny..but in Indiana Jones, this guy killed hundreds of people throughout his treasure hunting adventure, and no one really bats an eye at that. I think it's due to the fact that people realize, it's a fictitious film, and that killing has to happen in some fashion, and really don't pay attention in that regard (similar to Infinite I guess)

Indiana Jones killed Nazis, and everybody knows they're not human.

 

[The Librarian]

Sorry, they start mentioning infinite possibilities, millions upon millions of doors, and my imagination starts running rampant. Felt like they gave her a superpower and she didn't do much with it, compared to what she could do with it. She wanted to remove all Comstocks from infinite universes...the slippery argument being, why stop there? Why not first locate all instances of Booker becoming an evil jerk? Why not all instances of anyone becoming an evil jerk?

The Luteces, I can accept that they didn't do anything. They only appeared to be able to move through probability space, but lacked the omnipotence (even though they know Comstock = Booker and could probably trace back to the baptism).

Your questions don't make any sense. There's no reason to be concerned with any of that, as it is outside the story.

Wouldn't killing the Letuces be an easier solution than killing Booker? I mean, they are the ones that really set in place the events of the game. Without them, Comstock wouldn't be able to get Anna, and none of the future events would happen. Not to mention that they are the ones behind the technology that allows Columbia to exist. So without them none of this would happen.

I'm not even sure the Luteces are in a state where Elizabeth can even kill them.

If the story is calling you a hero but you're killing people for an unrelated goal or a conflicting goal that doesn't seem worth murdering over it's going to raise some red flags.

But Infinite doesn't call Booker a hero. Booker is a horrible human being whom the player connects with as Booker comes to care about Elizabeth.

There's no cognitive dissonance like the one some describe in Bioshock Infinite. Only for people who don't understand the plot and the context of the game from the begining.

Booker's no hero, wasn't, isn't, won't be. He's a guy who from the begining is portraied as being nasty human being. A butcher at Wounded Knee, a former Pinkerton who by his own admission was someone workers needed protection from, a drunk and an addicted gambler.

Why is he in Columbia? To kidnap a girl who's a prisoner and take her to some unknown fate, which is presumably very bad based on his description that he has to take her to people you don't want to mess with.

Why is he doing this? To pay of a gambling debt. He's willing to sell out another human he never even met to save his own ass.

How does he do this? The only way he knows, by being brutal and a killer as Slate says.

Even when he finally turns around and decides Elizabeth's fate is more important than his, he can't let go of his ways. He's trying to save her, but the only way he sees to achieve it is to continue being a monster to destroy the other monsters in her life.

And let's face it, even if he's killing other human beings, they're also trying to kill him and drag Elizabeth back to Comstock. Does anyone really believe those zealots would not kill "The False Sheppard" the first chance they got?

There's no dissonance between plot and gameplay. There's only a need for some suspention of belief in the number of enemies you kill (and that's a byproduct of being an action game). But we need that anyway for the world of the game itself.

Great post.

 

[legacyzero]

Honestly though, I thought the ending felt forced.

This. I've had some time to think about the ending after completing the game last week.

I might have gone a different way. It's like the ending doesn't mesh with the game. Like it was too far 'out there' even for Infinite's standards. It felt anti-climactic, and didn't get any emotion from me outside of "what the fuck?"

It's like Levine tried to hard to pull a Shyamalan.jpg on us all, and didn't attempt to take the story anywhere but down.

The ending just simply doesn't fit. I was expecting something a little more down to Earth. Literally.

 

[JB1981]

Booker was never a hero. There is no dissonance. He starts as an asshole and only becomes an even bigger asshole as more is brought to light. Even at the fork, he takes one of two asshole Booker paths, one involving inculcating a city, one involving daughter selling. There are like, no more morally bankrupt characters in fiction. He just about hits the height of how terrible you can imagine a person to be.


It's part of the theme. By allowing Liz to kill him, he is doing something good, finally breaking the cycle.

So it's kind of like Looper

 

[Red]

So it's kind of like Looper

That's not a bad comparison.

It's not flimsy redemption, it's a preventative measure to stop a terrible person from doing more terrible things. Both endings achieve the same effect.

 

[spekkeh]

I searched but couldn't find anything, thought this was worth posting if it hasn't been already. I figured it's full of spoilers so this might be the best place for it. It's Bioshock Infinite (part of it anyway) as a text adventure. It's fairly critical of the game...

Bioshoot Infinite +1

Amazing. Also very true.

I enjoyed Infinite but don't think this is too far off the mark. I've seen some backlash against criticism and I don't get it. If you loves games and you want them to be more than toys for kids that get blamed for every tragedy caused by young males you should welcome the kind of criticism Bioshock gets. Obviously a lot of it is hyperbolic but the same is true for some of the praise. Every game that aspires to be more than just a toy should hope people observe it with a critical eye.

I think addressing the dissonance of Booker in the role of hero while being a murderous psychopath is valid. His past is irrelevant because you don't know the full truth of it until pretty much the end of the game. At the start you're killing people with no motivation other than erasing a completely unrelated gambling debt and doing it with ease in gruesome fashion. Even after you become aware of Booker's past as a Pinkerton and some of his involvement in Wounded Knee the dissonance remains because more than ever you're led to believe you're playing the role of the good guy. He's no longer going to give them the girl. It only serves to highlight the inherent flaw of using the player character as an unreliable narrator. The player is being asked to suspend their suspension of disbelief, deny immersion, and acknowledge the player character as separate from the player after the game has taught them to do the opposite. When people talk about Elizabeth they say "She gives money to me," and the game is designed to make them feel that way. It's in first person. You can explain away dissonance after the fact in non-interactive mediums but not in video games. Once it exists the player has already experienced it and it needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. The reveal happens too late in the game to explain Booker's behavior to the player.

I'm not exactly sure the dissonance should be explained right away, Spec Ops played with this well, but I do definitely agree that the motivation wasn't presented strongly enough in the beginning half of the game (all the way up to the Booker as Martyr bit imo, at least then you had some backstory even though it wasn't exactly your own). I think for 60% of the game I was just basically playing it for teh prettys and because people told me the end would be great.

 

[GRIP]

So, but can you kill the Luteces? They're already dead, dying, will die, yet they're still there. Kind of like the Force. Or actually Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen would be a better analogy. They jumped dimensions so often that it seems like like time and space have no meaning for them anymore. Nor for Elizabeth at the end, she could see every door and be in one time zone with seven different iterations of herself without problems; the same kind of hivemind without nosebleeds that the Luteces had. Maybe the same happened to Booker, and that's the reason that post-credits scene he was alive again. On death he wasn't dead, but will die, dying, dead.

Well, why the hell are they untouchable? Everyone else seems to be fair game. Booker, Comstock, Elizabeth... history deals all them a shitty hand. Why are the twins immune to the consequences of their actions?

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I still don't understand why preventing Comstock was so important. They pretty much destroyed thousands of alternate universe because America gets buttboned by Zeppelins in some of them.

Me either. I would've been like, "Hey, let them other alternate universes handle that shit, WE did our part, now let's go to Paris"

 

[spekkeh]

Only for people who don't understand the plot and the context of the game from the begining.

(...)
How does he do this? The only way he knows, by being brutal and a killer as Slate says.

This is weird revisionism, you only meet Slate after butchering 100s of people, almost half way into the game.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Me either. I would've been like, "Hey, let them other alternate universes handle that shit, WE did our part, now let's go to Paris"

Once they destroyed the siphon and achieved their original aim- preventing Apocalyptic America Zone (Bad Future) from happening- Elizabeth's power was unchained, and she could pretty much see everything. So she had no desire to go to Paris, she could see too many dying worlds with their own Old Elizabeths where Bad Future wasn't averted to be able to act as she had.

She probably drowned Booker just so she could stop existing.

 

[Montresor]

I'm about halfway through my 1999 mode run. I killed the first Handyman (Plaza of Zeal, after exiting Chen's shop for the first time) easily, but I cheesed him by luring him to the infamous awning, jumping down, and then safely shooting him while he was immobile.

I have the Wintershield (gives you brief invincibility when you get off or on skylines) so I should be good for the next Handyman fights. But what else should I know about fighting a Handyman? I believe Shock Jockey does not affect them. What about the Electric Punch gear? Are there any good Vigors that are recommended against these enemies?

 

[Trigger]

Well, why the hell are they untouchable? Everyone else seems to be fair game. Booker, Comstock, Elizabeth... history deals all them a shitty hand. Why are the twins immune to the consequences of their actions?

They're "spread across the possibility space". We don't really know what kind of state that's like. You can shoot them in game, but it has no effect. We're still not sure that their current state can even be undone.

As for the bolded, they were murdered by Comstock so they didn't get away unscathed. lol

 

[Jibbed]

Once they destroyed the siphon and achieved their original aim- preventing Apocalyptic America Zone (Bad Future) from happening- Elizabeth's power was unchained, and she could pretty much see everything. So she had no desire to go to Paris, she could see too many dying worlds with their own Old Elizabeths where Bad Future wasn't averted to be able to act as she had.

She probably drowned Booker just so she could stop existing.

Or did she?

On a serious note, question:

If the Letuces can effectively travel at will between dimensions, timelines and whatnot, surely they'd able to foresee the endgame events (Elizabeth unleashed, Booker dead etc)? Are there any hints of this?

I don't really get why they'd bother going through the process 120-something times until Booker did what they needed him to do, when in theory (I know the 'theory' itself is a mess anyway) they could've just used tears/their powers to find a universe where this has already occurred. Or is time something they have difficulty getting around?

My head hurts.

 

[PhoenixSFT]

Well, why the hell are they untouchable? Everyone else seems to be fair game. Booker, Comstock, Elizabeth... history deals all them a shitty hand. Why are the twins immune to the consequences of their actions?

I think there's also no key moment to kill them. Fink could have offed them with their own machine, but that backfired and spread them across the Infinite. They're unkillable now, unless Booker/Comstock is killed at the baptism, which keeps Columbia from ever existing, therefore the Luteces live. Booker and Comstock have an easily definable point where killing them keeps everything from ever happening. I think the Luteces also needed Booker to understand this so Elizabeth can bring him to the original baptism.

 

[The One Who Knocks]

Or did she?

On a serious note, question:

If the Letuces can effectively travel at will between dimensions, timelines and whatnot, surely they'd able to foresee the endgame events (Elizabeth unleashed, Booker dead etc)? Are there any hints of this?

I don't really get why they'd bother going through the process 120-something times until Booker did what they needed him to do, when in theory (I know the 'theory' itself is a mess anyway) they could've just used tears/their powers to find a universe where this has already occurred. Or is time something they have difficulty getting around?

My head hurts.

It seems most likely that their power is different from Elizabeth. While they can freely travel through the timelines they are unable to manipulate and foresee all of them at once as Elizabeth claims she is at the end. As a result, they have to use trial and error to manipulate variables in order to ensure Booker reaches the end (since they are unable to see the consequence of what they change; if they could, as you said, they'd only need one Booker and they would also be able to just erase Comstock from existence themselves). What precisely the Luteces are capable of is never outright stated.

I'm about halfway through my 1999 mode run. I killed the first Handyman (Plaza of Zeal, after exiting Chen's shop for the first time) easily, but I cheesed him by luring him to the infamous awning, jumping down, and then safely shooting him while he was immobile.

I have the Wintershield (gives you brief invincibility when you get off or on skylines) so I should be good for the next Handyman fights. But what else should I know about fighting a Handyman? I believe Shock Jockey does not affect them. What about the Electric Punch gear? Are there any good Vigors that are recommended against these enemies?

If you have Wintershield, as you do, there really isn't more to them. All you need to do is keep jumping on and off, skyline-striking them as you leave. I'm unsure about the Electric Punch gear (is that a season pass/pre-order DLC gear? I'm unsure since I've not encountered one to add shock to melee) but I would imagine that would be good. If you have Brittle-Skin, that will make you be able to take care of them a bit faster and it, combined with an upgraded Charge (at Fink's Office [slightly before it?] you can get a lot of money if you are slightly below the required funds) is a pretty useful combination (although it's mainly for the ghost). Really, all you need is Wintershield as, at that point, it simply becomes a tedious test of endurity as you continually jump on and off, shoot, jump on and off and repeat.

 

[Sleepy Buddha]

This is weird revisionism, you only meet Slate after butchering 100s of people, almost half way into the game.

It's not weird revisionism, all the points I mentioned (and you ommited from your quote) are there from the begining for people to see. Slate just says it openly, but from the begining Booker's clearly no hero or good guy. Slate's also just pointing out the obvious from all his previous experience with Booker, experience he had way before the events of Infinite, since they were both at Wounded Knee and knew each other a long time ago. He's not stating something new.

All you need to do is look at his motivation to go to Columbia. He's not going there selflessly to save Elizabeth from bad people, since he himself says that the people who want her should not be crossed. He's doing it to save his own ass, selling out someone he doesn't even know in the process with no regard for the possible horrible consequences of his actions to Elizabeth.

And who better to hire to carry out such a task with no regard for right or wrong than someone with a history like Booker's? Of course we only learn the details as the game goes along, but from the very begining his motivation is not helping Elizabeth, only himself. He even outright lies to her to get her to come with him.

 

[Apophenia Overload]

Even if Booker is some sort of 19th-century equivalent to Max Payne or Agent 47, it's still really weird that he acts like he's an extra from Manhunt, what with the carving people's faces up with a steampunk pizza cutter. That's just gratuitous.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Or did she?

Oh man, you've beaten it? Haha, next week should be fun.

And I guess she didn't, if you count Anna. :lol

 

[matt360]

There's no cognitive dissonance like the one some describe in Bioshock Infinite. Only for people who don't understand the plot and the context of the game from the begining.

Booker's no hero, wasn't, isn't, won't be. He's a guy who from the begining is portraied as being nasty human being. A butcher at Wounded Knee, a former Pinkerton who by his own admission was someone workers needed protection from, a drunk and an addicted gambler.

Why is he in Columbia? To kidnap a girl who's a prisoner and take her to some unknown fate, which is presumably very bad based on his description that he has to take her to people you don't want to mess with.

Why is he doing this? To pay of a gambling debt. He's willing to sell out another human he never even met to save his own ass.

How does he do this? The only way he knows, by being brutal and a killer as Slate says.

Even when he finally turns around and decides Elizabeth's fate is more important than his, he can't let go of his ways. He's trying to save her, but the only way he sees to achieve it is to continue being a monster to destroy the other monsters in her life.

And let's face it, even if he's killing other human beings, they're also trying to kill him and drag Elizabeth back to Comstock. Does anyone really believe those zealots would not kill "The False Sheppard" the first chance they got?

There's no dissonance between plot and gameplay. There's only a need for some suspention of belief in the number of enemies you kill (and that's a byproduct of being an action game). But we need that anyway for the world of the game itself.

Well said and I agree 100%.

 

[beastmode]

Another good article. Apologies if already posted:

http://kevinjameswong.com/2013/04/08/bioshock-infinite-is-a-metacommentary-on-the-nature-of-video-game-storytelling/

Though I'd say it's a commentary on life itself as well. How many of our choices are illusionary, if not all of them. Aren't we all swimming in different oceans but landing on the same shore?

So it's not a bug, but a feature you say?

Why can't I become a Comstock or a Vox martyr like the game's fiction suggests? Also Ken Levine mentioned story changes being a thing at one point (in 2012, I believe.)

Stanley Parable does this a lot better.

 

[Neiteio]

So this game comes out in Japan with full Japanese voiceovers on April 25. I'm interested to hear what the Japanese voice acting is like. I'm also interested to see how Japan will receive the game. Will its appeal be lost on them? Will they flock to it like some Western wonderland? Will Songbird become a beloved new giant robot and/or Godzilla figure? Will Elizabeth become the Waifu of the Week?

Also, lol:

 

[Neiteio]

This one's not my shot, but holy shit:

 

[J.W.Crazy]

There's no cognitive dissonance like the one some describe in Bioshock Infinite. Only for people who don't understand the plot and the context of the game from the begining.

Booker's no hero, wasn't, isn't, won't be. He's a guy who from the begining is portraied as being nasty human being. A butcher at Wounded Knee, a former Pinkerton who by his own admission was someone workers needed protection from, a drunk and an addicted gambler.

You know that he's a drunk and a gambler who's willing to kidnap at the point you shove a spinning hook in someones faces. That's it. Kidnapping, drunkenness, and gambling are not equivalent to murder whether or not it involves spinning hooks and faces.

Why is he in Columbia? To kidnap a girl who's a prisoner and take her to some unknown fate, which is presumably very bad based on his description that he has to take her to people you don't want to mess with.

Why is he doing this? To pay of a gambling debt. He's willing to sell out another human he never even met to save his own ass.

How is that like shoving a spinning hook in someones face?

How does he do this? The only way he knows, by being brutal and a killer as Slate says.

Again, doesn't happen until after the face hook thing as well as a large number of other killings.

Even when he finally turns around and decides Elizabeth's fate is more important than his, he can't let go of his ways. He's trying to save her, but the only way he sees to achieve it is to continue being a monster to destroy the other monsters in her life.

And let's face it, even if he's killing other human beings, they're also trying to kill him and drag Elizabeth back to Comstock. Does anyone really believe those zealots would not kill "The False Sheppard" the first chance they got?

Yes, because they didn't. Who knows what they were going to do after they arrested him but that's the point. Bookers first instinct was to brutally murder and the game gives no justification for it until the end.

There's no dissonance between plot and gameplay. There's only a need for some suspention of belief in the number of enemies you kill (and that's a byproduct of being an action game). But we need that anyway for the world of the game itself.

There's a lot more dissonance than just Booker's killing. There's Ammo and money laying everywhere but no one seems to notice or care. The entire city is littered with lockpicks for no apparent reason. There are vending machines selling magic and weapons that only Booker uses and they're located anywhere and everywhere including vacation destinations.

It's a compliment that these things get pointed out. It means people are giving Bioshock more credit than other games and it's something that's sorely needed in the games industry.

Amazing. Also very true.


I'm not exactly sure the dissonance should be explained right away, Spec Ops played with this well, but I do definitely agree that the motivation wasn't presented strongly enough in the beginning half of the game (all the way up to the Booker as Martyr bit imo, at least then you had some backstory even though it wasn't exactly your own). I think for 60% of the game I was just basically playing it for teh prettys and because people told me the end would be great.

It doesn't need to be fully explained but Spec Ops: The Line does address it early. You don't need the reveal at the end to know something is going on, the game starts chastising the player way before that.

 

[The Librarian]

This one's not my shot, but holy shit:

http://www.kikoo.pl/var/news_imgs/bioshockir5.jpg[/mg][/QUOTE]
Saved.
[quote="J.W.Crazy, post: 53782245"]You know that he's a drunk and a gambler who's willing to kidnap at the point you shove a spinning hook in someones faces. That's it. Kidnapping, drunkenness, and gambling are not equivalent to murder whether or not it involves spinning hooks and faces.[/quote]
He killed a lot of people at Wounded Knee. Are you just ignoring this part of his past?
[quote]Yes, because they didn't. Who knows what they were going to do after they arrested him but that's the point. Bookers first instinct was to brutally murder and the game gives no justification for it until the end.[/quote]
It's pretty obvious they were going to kill him given Comstock being in control of everything and the culture of the city.
[quote]There's a lot more dissonance than just Booker's killing. There's Ammo and money laying everywhere but no one seems to notice or care. The entire city is littered with lockpicks for no apparent reason. There are vending machines selling magic and weapons that only Booker uses and they're located anywhere and everywhere including vacation destinations.[/quote]
Dear, let's get real now. There's a difference between the story world and the game world, and it isn't that hard to separate the two. Those are to help you have fun and to encourage exploration.

You want to hear another reason for the dissonance? Why is that, outside the crowmen and the firemen, does nobody use vigors in combat besides Booker? It doesn't make sense given the story!

Because they'd be annoying as hell to fight against. There's your reason. C'mon.

 

[Apophenia Overload]

He probably shot them, like a normal soldier. I have done extensive historical research and I'm pretty sure the 7th Cavalry was not armed with steampunk pizza cutters at Wounded Knee.

 

[The Librarian]

He probably shot them, like a normal soldier. I have done extensive historical research and I'm pretty sure the 7th Cavalry was not armed with steampunk pizza cutters at Wounded Knee.

It's heavily implied Booker killed women and children at Wounded Knee too.

Besides, impaling people with your skyhook from a sky-line is a lot of fun!

 

[Apophenia Overload]

Also, people keep on trotting out the "Comstock convinced the religious zealots of his city to kill Booker" reason. It does serve as some justification, but the portrayal isn't even that great. Yes, we see and hear Comstock being an ideologue with a lot of loopy ideas. But we don't see the average citizens of Columbia seeming that way, besides brief moments when they stand down and allow you to freely carve up their faces. The policemen you massacre look like regular old-timey Keystone Kops, and the soldiers look like Tommy Boys. The jump from period era enemies to "ravenous fanatics" doesn't really ever transition. Do they even yell anything Columbia-specific when they're fighting you? Do they shout crusader battle-cries, do they pray for their Prophet to deliver them when they fall? The only thing thing that makes them seem like zealots is that they're mindlessly trying to kill/capture you, with very little disregard for their own safety. But this is a video game, and in a video game, mindlessly swarming enemies does not portray zealotry. It portrays simple A.I.

With Splicers, you could at least see that they are corrupted, twisted, degenerate, warped by plasmid addiction into something more monster than man. The people of Columbia just look like old-timey people with steampunk touches. They don't really act like religious zealots, other than blindly running into your line of fire. And that's sort of lazy.

 

[Haunted]

I do like it when I desperately need some health, a beer, a banana, anything... and have to walk by poorly textured fruit baskets and filled shelves because they're not deemed interactive.

Just reminds you that there's still a lot of room to grow.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I do like it when I desperately need some health, a beer, a banana, anything... and have to walk by poorly textured fruit baskets and filled shelves because they're not deemed interactive.

Just reminds you that there's still a lot of room to grow.

Poor people in the street lookin' starved

trashcans full of sandwiches and money right next to them

/videogames

 

[Najaf]

Finished this one up last night.

Did anyone else here foresee that you were Comstock? It was subtle at first and I was leaning that direction for maybe the last quarter of the game, but I knew the instant Comstock says the line about you undoing yourself.

Also, for as complex as the narrative loop was, I applaud the writing team for closing up most of the holes. Yet, as many here have already mentioned, it is difficult when dealing with the infinity scenario. There were/are/will be so many variables that could have prevented the creation of Comstock while still ensuring Elizabeth's existence.

As a final critique; I feel wholeheartedly that this game would have been better served as an adventure/puzzler game instead of a shooter. The shooting mechanics are mediocre and the fast pace of the action detracted significantly from much of the world. Instead of being drawn into the world, the combat presented a mechanical barrier.

Presenting the world from a puzzle/adventure style, a genre I am a huge fan of admittedly, would have allowed for a sense of consistency and fluidity. Though I realize this is not up Irrational's alley and it would have required a fully different design team and direction from the start.

While not in combat there were sights to be seen for sure, and the game did a good job at deliberately slowing things down or removing combat to allow for that experience. However, I can't help but feel like I missed out on so much when literally running through whole areas guns blazing.

 

[J.W.Crazy]

He killed a lot of people at Wounded Knee. Are you just ignoring this part of his past?

You (the player) don't know about this at the beginning of the game. Booker knowing doesn't matter. The dissonance is between the player and the story, not the character and the story.

It's pretty obvious they were going to kill him given Comstock being in control of everything and the culture of the city.

He doesn't know much about the city or Comstock at that point.

Dear, let's get real now. There's a difference between the story world and the game world, and it isn't that hard to separate the two. Those are to help you have fun and to encourage exploration.

That's a problem. There shouldn't be any separation between the two. That's what creates the dissonance. You shouldn't have to ignore things that don't make sense. There are plenty of ways to include similar elements in games without creating dissonance. They could have simply had NPCs comment on it.

You want to hear another reason for the dissonance? Why is that, outside the crowmen and the firemen, does nobody use vigors in combat besides Booker? It doesn't make sense given the story!

Because they'd be annoying as hell to fight against. There's your reason. C'mon.

That's a problem that others have already brought up and your reasoning for it is terrible. Splicers in Bioshock used Plasmids. C'mon. Why should game developers try?

It's heavily implied Booker killed women and children at Wounded Knee too.

Besides, impaling people with your skyhook from a sky-line is a lot of fun!

Later in the game. After the fact.


The ludonarrative dissonance is best exemplified in Booker's dialouge with Elizabeth. She's watching him brutally murder people. Set them on fire, shock them, shoot them, impale them with the sky hook, all kinds of crazy killing. The he gets cagey about his past. He's done some bad things. Too bad to mention. Later you find out it's not really all that different from what he does throughout the game. In some cases it's not as bad.

 

[RadioactiveLobster]

I beat the game last night. Have briefly browsed the OP but my first thoughts upon beating it was "Holy Shit"

I hadn't made any of the connections that Anna was Elizabeth or that Booker is Comstock until they revealed it.

Perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention to the clues or I just missed them.

 

[Dany]

Is the name Elizabeth said before booker finds her? All the messages says that he has to get the girl. But does anyone say her name before then?

 

[Toa TAK]

Finished this one up last night.

Did anyone else here foresee that you were Comstock? It was subtle at first and I was leaning that direction for maybe the last quarter of the game, but I knew the instant Comstock says the line about you undoing yourself.

That one line was the only time I had a "...Waitasecond" moment. But I quickly forgot about it due the teh actionz and the climax on the airship.

I think it's great when people are able to figure this stuff out miles before the reveal, but I would hate it if I did. I feel like that would ruin part of the fun for me.