That's really bugging me as well.
Bioshock Infinite | Official Spoiler Thread |
- Thread starter BruceLeeRoy
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That's really bugging me as well.
Jack Scofield
Member
Not really. They're there for gameplay reasons and have no explanation within the game itself (aside from the absurdly vague "Fink saw them through tears." Which still wouldn't make sense, since Plasmids required sea slugs, which I assume are lacking in Columbia).
World-building is something Infinite really struggles with compared to BioShock.
GillianSeed79
Member
They stole them from Rapture or Rapture variants like they stole future music?
Anyway, played the game through a second time (I never do that btw) and there were two things I missed. I totally didn't realize New York in the old Elizabeth timeline was 1984 when it was getting destroyed. Also, at the end your Elizabeth totally doesn't disappear, which leads me to believe the theory that you don't actually prevent Comstock from existing and there's the whole post credits thing. Lastly, I really think the randomized gear hurts the experience. The first time I played the gear worked well with my mix of vigors and firearms approach, so I got the blood to salts and extra damage for headshots early and it was awesome. My second playthrough was pure vigors and only a few upgraded weapons, but most of the random gear ending up being heavily focused on melee and ammo stuff. It really didn't jive with my play style at all. I really wish they cut the gun upgrades or had them hidden like gear while letting you purchase the gear upgrades. I hardly used most of the gear, because there a handful that are just insanely good.
Jack Scofield
Member
If you draw your gun, you don't get stabbed, and for the remainder of the game your hand looks normal (with the AD initials). Directly after that fight, Elizabeth heals your hand if you were stabbed. If you weren't stabbed, the scene plays out exactly the same way, only Elizabeth dabs blood off your brow instead of working on your hand. Everything she tells you is identical in either version, I think.
Just (literally) got done with the game. (put Monster hunter on hold for 2 days) and then read through this thread.
I Love the story.
I love this thread.
I love all of you.
Thank you to everyone who helped contribute to this thread.
The story and this thread made me feel like a kid again, looking up at the stars and wondering how far "it" really goes and then hitting that wondrous cusp where your mind is unable to imagine or contemplate further and you are left in awe.
Thank you, this is what gaming can be. What it can do.
EDIT:
HOLY SHIT! I GET BIOSHOCK 1 FOR FREE.
Hahaha this post is awesome.
An yeah, if you haven't tried bio1, you shouldn't definitely give it a go.
All the scenes are the same with or without the bandage. It's cosmetic like Liz's choker.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
How the heck could you have missed it your first playthrough...
JetBlackPanda
Member
My buddy had no idea what happened in this game and when I explained the end to him he didn't believe me.
He beat it in about 7 hours and brushed the voxophones aside.
Now he can't stop telling me how bad the game is because the story has plot holes and you have to assume everything for any of it to make sense.
Sad for him, it all pretty much made perfect sense to me.
He beat it in about 7 hours and brushed the voxophones aside.
Now he can't stop telling me how bad the game is because the story has plot holes and you have to assume everything for any of it to make sense.
Sad for him, it all pretty much made perfect sense to me.
It's quite easy to miss actually, did the same. I backstepped away from the console instead of turning around, and all I saw was a bunch of people shooting at me when I turned around.
that's incredibly unfortunate
It's more a shame that audio logs essential to understanding the story are optional, and some in out of the way places.
you could say the same about bioshock 1 for what it's worth....
Gamer @ Heart
Member
I found everything but the ones in captains quarters at the very end of the game and they helped very little in understanding the story. The ones that hint toward the true nature of the story have so little context when I first hear them that they only really have effect the second play through.
I remember most of bioshocks tapes being centered on specific character moments that tell you more about what happened in that area or the boss around it, not hints at the story as a whole so much. Because that game was more about the story of rapture, its tapes where much more effective to me
I don't think that's true. Most of the audio logs in Bioshock were incidental. You had actual NPCs to tell you what was going on most of the time, primarily Atlas. Most NPCs in Infinity are too busy being cryptic (or crazy) until the very end. Bioshock though had a relatively easier story to tell.
All of Comstock's background is in the audio logs. Everything to do with lady Comstock. The mystery twins are completely explained in the audio logs. Most of the explanations of the tears is in the audio logs. Fink practically doesn't exist without the audio logs. Same with Daisy.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
Yeah, the ones for fink, daisy, and lady comstock I could enjoy and appreciate right then most times. It might be the way my brain processes, but I did not really comprehend what I was hearing from the luteces until the replay really. Comstocks religious babble were totally ineffective for me. I would have preferred more on the street stuff like the wife of the handyman.
Just finished the game in the wee hours of the morning. Great stuff. Pretty much everything has been said already but I can't help but think about this one thing: that the best solution to everything would've been killing the Luteces before they make their discoveries. I mean, the whole Comstock business got resolved but there'll sure be someone else now who will exploit inter-dimensional travel. It can only lead to bad things. Well, maybe some of the DLC will hint at that line of thought.
We are sure actually.
If a Booker has Anna then he doesn't become Comstock in that timeline. It's not impossible given the nature of infinite timelines, but the game suggests that this is a constant.
Estocolmo
Member
Agreed. I think that what makes the voxophones so confused compared to the Audio Diary is that infinitive is about time traveling and dimensions. Which many of the voxophones are about. So much harder to try and figure out what they are about through your first run.
King Beyond the wall
Member
The baptism point is where the booker/comstock decision comes. It is my understanding that Anna was born after this point. Therefore Anna does not exist in the comstock line.
RadarScope1
Member
Finished it a couple nights ago and I've been gorging on spoilercasts, critical responses and now this thread. Love the OP - great work GAF. Haven't read the whole thread, though.
Overall - wow, what an ambitious game. The plot was a bit convoluted and up its own ass there at the end, which made it hard to follow, even though I got more than 65 voxophones. The key point that was lost on me at the time I played the ending was the significance of the severed pinky. I didn't quite get it until I read more of the explainers.
A lot of my criticisms are just echoes of what's already been said even in the last few pages here. Overall I liked the first game much better because it was better suited to the medium and, to me, tried to say something about the nature of games, choice, control, etc. The bottom line for me between the two is this: Infinite could conceiveably be made into a film with more or less the same impact on the viewer at the point of reveal/twist/ending. Bioshock could not be turned into a film and have the same impact on a passive viewer as it does on a player at the point of reveal/twist.
For me, that's it in a nutshell. Not that Infinite is a bad game - at all. Good god, please, let publishers fund more games like this. It's so nice to have a game with a plot you have to chew on, rather than the paper-thin shit that passes for a "story" in most games.
Overall - wow, what an ambitious game. The plot was a bit convoluted and up its own ass there at the end, which made it hard to follow, even though I got more than 65 voxophones. The key point that was lost on me at the time I played the ending was the significance of the severed pinky. I didn't quite get it until I read more of the explainers.
A lot of my criticisms are just echoes of what's already been said even in the last few pages here. Overall I liked the first game much better because it was better suited to the medium and, to me, tried to say something about the nature of games, choice, control, etc. The bottom line for me between the two is this: Infinite could conceiveably be made into a film with more or less the same impact on the viewer at the point of reveal/twist/ending. Bioshock could not be turned into a film and have the same impact on a passive viewer as it does on a player at the point of reveal/twist.
For me, that's it in a nutshell. Not that Infinite is a bad game - at all. Good god, please, let publishers fund more games like this. It's so nice to have a game with a plot you have to chew on, rather than the paper-thin shit that passes for a "story" in most games.
Infinite said something about this as well though?
If Bioshock 1 message was about enslaving the player the game design, than Infinite message is about creating an illusion of choice and creating larger relevance where there should be none (ala Mass Effect)
RadarScope1
Member
It's true, and I probably worded it badly. It's a game about fatalism, and pre-determined outcomes. That in and of itself echoes a lot of what games are these days - merely the illusion of choice in worlds where we think we have control. I just think Bio 1 used the medium itself to greater effect. Again, not that I didn't really like Infinite (and I think I'll like it even more on a second play through - something I rarely do with games).
A quick post script - Something I picked up from a spoiler discussion on a gaming site somewhere that I thought was neat: you could think of the other Bookers and Elizabeths during the lighthouse scene as the thousands of other players going through the game at once. In that way, games as we experience them as individuals on a mass scale ARE like multiverses themselves. I like that.
Also, Infinite contextualized the virtual death and gave meaning to the pattern of repetition followed by variation that is inherent to the medium.
RadarScope1
Member
+1
I really liked that, and it's something BI did better than B1.
HammerOfThor
Member
I just saw a video where Elizabeth opens a tear and brings a cow back to like for something.
When does this happen? I completely missed it :/
When does this happen? I completely missed it :/
It doesn't. Basically everything from that segment was cut, or pieced around throughout the game.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
The door is the entrance to her part of the facility. Lutece gave it to him at the start to help break her out.
Slate I understood as something to help bring bookers past to the fore front that post game fleshes out why one path of his leads to comstock. It is also about pushing the fact that comstock is not a saint and an enormous liar putting into question everything he has done for columbia.
Also, big scenario to end act 1 big.
1) I'm not sure what you mean by "purpose". He's a figure from Booker's past and plants a few seeds that Comstock isn't all that he says he is. The Hall of Heroes was a symbolic location for his last stand.
2) He was given that key when he was sent to the lighthouse.
his memory has him selling anna to robert to later give to comstock.
but my question is always how did comstock know about bookers willingness to sell the baby.
which i rather believe,he sold anna then did the baptism. THEN AFTER YEARS,comstock became sterile.
He was very much interested in getting an heir. We're not told much about the process, but I'm under the impression that he specifically sought out a timeline where he had a child and learned about Our Booker's debts along the way.
The game makes it pretty clear that Anna was born after the baptism. If not, then why would Comstock need to find an heir? The ending can't happen if Anna was born after the baptism either.
Through Voxophone timestamps, we can create a rough timeline of events. We know Wounded Knee was Dec 1890. Early 1893, Comstock is in a relationship with Lady Comstock. By July 1893, he is confirmed to be sterile by Lutece. The post-credits scene has a tearaway calendar blatantly indicating its Oct 1893 (when Booker gave away Anna). Construction on Columbia began in 1893 as well.
In order for the baptism to happen after he gave up Anna, during 1893 Booker had to have been living with Lady Comstock while Anna's mom was pregnant (and then died in Childbirth) all while being a drunken gambler who was petitioning congress to build a giant floating city. Those events occupying two separate universes is more likely.
How did Comstock find Anna? There's no clear answer. There are two things of note though. One Voxophone has Comstock wondering what happens to the sin that is left in the water at Baptism...does it go on living in another world and whatnot. In Comstock's cabin, there was a giant mapping of timelines and branches. Put the two together, it sounds like Comstock spent a very long time mapping out what happened to the various versions of him.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Just beat the game today, and going through all the post-game understanding of what happened. Amazing game, etc.
So my question is this: What was Comstock's relationship to the Letuces? Did Comstock help to enable the Letuces (starting with Rosalind) to do what they did, including making Columbia's levitation possible and the tears?
Does the choice to be baptized which birthed Comstock lead to Columbia's existence in the first place? Does Columbia not exist in the no-baptism/DeWitt timeline, or is there a Comstock-less Columbia floating around there too? How about Letuce experimenting with tears.. will that always happen with or without Comstock?
I'd rather prefer the idea that ending Booker-Comstock/Elizabeth ended the creation of Columbia in the first place. Perhaps the Letuce (female or male) in that world wouldn't have the means to open tears? Feels like it would be all tied up, then. One perfect paradox.
So my question is this: What was Comstock's relationship to the Letuces? Did Comstock help to enable the Letuces (starting with Rosalind) to do what they did, including making Columbia's levitation possible and the tears?
Does the choice to be baptized which birthed Comstock lead to Columbia's existence in the first place? Does Columbia not exist in the no-baptism/DeWitt timeline, or is there a Comstock-less Columbia floating around there too? How about Letuce experimenting with tears.. will that always happen with or without Comstock?
I'd rather prefer the idea that ending Booker-Comstock/Elizabeth ended the creation of Columbia in the first place. Perhaps the Letuce (female or male) in that world wouldn't have the means to open tears? Feels like it would be all tied up, then. One perfect paradox.
That's pretty much what occurs.
Columbia cease to exist, so does that Elizabeth, and that Booker.
Finished, still mulling it over. I get this weird feeling that the overall large-scale story is absolu-fucking-lutely fantastic but the execution is just slightly off.
Personally what I really want to know is how Rapture ties into it, haha. That was definitely the biggest 'what' to me in the game.
Personally what I really want to know is how Rapture ties into it, haha. That was definitely the biggest 'what' to me in the game.
It's in the OP.
But, it was more to drive in the main narrative point of alternate worlds, and the line "There will always be a "lighthouse, a man, a city"
Meaning, there will always be a city like Rapture, or like Columbia, created from the ashes of one man's ideology. Not in just 1 universe, but in an infinite amount of universes.
In the timeline sense?
Well it's believed that Salts were stolen from the concept of plasmids, song bird was created from the concept of big daddy, elizabeth equates to a little sister (the syringe she has), Booker equates to Jack (he has access to the bathysphere indicating he could be tied to ryans blood line since only relatives of ryan were able to operate the bathysphere), and of course comstock would equate to Ryan.
It's unknown how Comstock met Rosalind in the first place. What is known is that Rosalind was capable of suspending atoms before she met Comstock (if the Voxophone timestamps are accurate). Comstock likely didn't help much in the science department, but he was instrumental in getting the US Government to fund Columbia.
So, without Comstock, Columbia cannot exist. At least not in the form we see in game. It's possible some other benefactor stepped up and used their tech to build a floating city. Lutece's experiments with tears could've occurred, as I'm not aware of anything preventing it.
Songbird is like a combination of Rapture tech. He has the body of a Big Daddy with the mental conditioning of Jack. "Would You Kindly" = "C-A-G-E".
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I think there's a missing bit of story here, and I'd like to know it someday. It is interesting how everything that sets up Columbia/tears/Comstock's prophecy and claim to power is actually due to Lutece expertise. Why was DeWitt/Comstock the great beneficiary of this technology, rather than the Luteces? I can understand, due to their personality, they might not otherwise have been pushed to used their tech in such ways, but how was it Comstock that discovered/used them?
I also think "what Lutece would have been without Comstock" is an interesting plot possibility for future DLC or sequels.
I think I know what you mean... Sure, sure, Rapture is an alternate version of Columbia... but the cities were founded decades apart, so it begs some questions.
Clearly there is some time travel involved with the tears. 1. The music "from the future" and 2. The fact that Elizabeth can send Booker back to the baptism. Time might be no object in the way that they are related. Perhaps different timelines might also have different "years" or levels of development, too.
But how Rapture actually related to Columbia in terms of events that did/didn't occur... I think we won't ever know that.. I think right now they'd prefer to make them "thematically" related, rather than actually spell out how they each occurred in relation to one another.
We are, most definitely. She knows the guy for like 3 years and is already willing to steal babies for him?
Without Comstock, Lutece can do, will do, and has done everything. Infinite universes and all that. There's some where she builds a floating city that Theodore Roosevelt uses to hunt animals. There's some where Andrew Carnegie funds it and sets up a more efficient steel distribution system. There's probably some where she just sets up a floating brothel.
The DLC I want to see, more than anything - a Columbia where Booker never even came, where Liz was fully indoctrinated under Comstock, where the Siphon never needed building. A fully powered Liz, hell bent on purging the Sodom below, through all time and space...would make for an awesome boss fight as she summons in all types of crap.
