So is it worth it?
It's getting rave reviews all over the place, esp. for its world design, but I'm holding back for a sale. :)
It might be a while before you find it in the 99 cent bin.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 27, 2013, 02:13:11 AM
It might be a while before you find it in the 99 cent bin.
It will probably take me that long to get around to buying a computer which will run it.
It can hardly run on my comp, but as far as art direction and writing it's the most impressive game I've ever played.
I think the ending just gave me a stroke.
Well, I don't that.
If you have the cash and hardware, get it asap.
Quote from: fahdiz on March 27, 2013, 02:17:22 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 27, 2013, 02:13:11 AM
It might be a while before you find it in the 99 cent bin.
It will probably take me that long to get around to buying a computer which will run it.
I don't condone doing it but you can find a refurbish PS3 for cheap almost anywhere.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 28, 2013, 09:10:26 AM
If you have the cash and hardware, get it asap.
Are your pants a dairy factory? :)
Quote from: Grey Fox on March 28, 2013, 09:12:07 AM
Quote from: fahdiz on March 27, 2013, 02:17:22 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 27, 2013, 02:13:11 AM
It might be a while before you find it in the 99 cent bin.
It will probably take me that long to get around to buying a computer which will run it.
I don't condone doing it but you can find a refurbish PS3 for cheap almost anywhere.
The boy has a PS3 but keeps it up in his room.
You can share then :)
I YouTubed the ending and read an article that describes the story pretty well. Seems interesting but not earth-shattering and genre-defining like a lot of reviewers are saying. Also the gameplay looks boring.
I'll probably pick it out of a bargain bin or steam sale in 9 months or so. I still haven't played Bioshock 2 yet.
No worries Funk, you won't have to wait 9 months. 66% off at the Steam Summer Sale if not it'll be cheap on Amazon.
Quote from: Grey Fox on March 28, 2013, 11:55:41 AM
No worries Funk, you won't have to wait 9 months. 66% off at the Steam Summer Sale if not it'll be cheap on Amazon.
I think that's what I may do. One thing I noticed from the first Bioshock was that the actual shooting, (you know, the main aspect of the game), was only mediocre.
Quote from: FunkMonk on March 28, 2013, 11:41:26 AM
Seems interesting but not earth-shattering and genre-defining like a lot of reviewers are saying.
You simply cannot trust professional game reviews at all. If one of them gives a major studio release a bad review, said studio will pull advertising from their sites. :sleep:
Quote from: FunkMonk on March 28, 2013, 11:41:26 AM
I YouTubed the ending and read an article that describes the story pretty well. Seems interesting but not earth-shattering and genre-defining like a lot of reviewers are saying. Also the gameplay looks boring.
"I saw the ending of a movie adaptation of Anna Karenina. It seemed interesting, but kind of the same as Madame Bovary, and really not medium-defining. Also suicidal women are such a cliche for a novel."
Quote from: Queequeg on March 28, 2013, 07:50:00 PM
Quote from: FunkMonk on March 28, 2013, 11:41:26 AM
I YouTubed the ending and read an article that describes the story pretty well. Seems interesting but not earth-shattering and genre-defining like a lot of reviewers are saying. Also the gameplay looks boring.
"I saw the ending of a movie adaptation of Anna Karenina. It seemed interesting, but kind of the same as Madame Bovary, and really not medium-defining. Also suicidal women are such a cliche for a novel."
Odd that you'd make that up as comparable given that a youtube video of gameplay is probably not that different from actual gameplay...where as a movie and novel are different animals.
I don't think watching a 380p YouTube video does real justice to BioShock Infinity.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 28, 2013, 07:50:00 PM
Quote from: FunkMonk on March 28, 2013, 11:41:26 AM
I YouTubed the ending and read an article that describes the story pretty well. Seems interesting but not earth-shattering and genre-defining like a lot of reviewers are saying. Also the gameplay looks boring.
"I saw the ending of a movie adaptation of Anna Karenina. It seemed interesting, but kind of the same as Madame Bovary, and really not medium-defining. Also suicidal women are such a cliche for a novel."
Having not played the game I can't knock it, but gameplay videos can give people reasonable expectations of what the game is like and if they'll enjoy it or not.
I've seen opinions arguing that the story is either super incredible or mildly interesting. To be honest I am not as interested in stories for FPS games as I am interested in the actual gameplay. The story could be the second-coming of Dostoyevsky but if I fucking hate the gameplay then I'm never going to finish the damn thing anyway and it's a waste of my money.
I'm happy for you that you really enjoyed the game. I am going to wait for a good sale and pick it up for $10 or $15.
It's just a game.
Quote from: Ed Anger on March 28, 2013, 08:07:42 PM
It's just a game.
It's not just a game, it's a way of life.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 28, 2013, 08:05:36 PM
I don't think watching a 380p YouTube video does real justice to BioShock Infinity.
Who watches 360p youtube videos?
woa, good game!
Psellus, what's your take on the ending? Did he do it?
I'm 90 minutes in, but loving it (haven't picked up Elizabeth yet). Runs beautifully on max settings. Arriving in New Eden really instilled a sense of wonder . . . which turned to disgust in the baseball raffle scene.
I need to get a better comp. The animation is extremely choppy unless I set it to Very Low.
And Tamas, what do you mean?
Quote from: Syt on March 31, 2013, 12:24:30 AM
I'm 90 minutes in, but loving it (haven't picked up Elizabeth yet). Runs beautifully on max settings. Arriving in New Eden really instilled a sense of wonder . . . which turned to disgust in the baseball raffle scene.
That was done perfectly. The fact that they were singing Goodnight, Irene somehow made it even creepier.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 31, 2013, 10:06:25 AM
I need to get a better comp. The animation is extremely choppy unless I set it to Very Low.
And Tamas, what do you mean?
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
At the end, your guy determines do do something, to prevent the stuff from happening. But the act is not explicitely carried out.
[spoiler]I think it is. The various Elizabeths disappear one by one, meaning that he has accepted his fate and dies. Though apparently there's an after-credits sequence that I missed during my first playthrough.[/spoiler]
Also, that was just about the saddest end of any game I've ever played.
[spoiler]disappearing? when?[/spoiler]
Quote from: Tamas on March 31, 2013, 12:15:16 PM
[spoiler]disappearing? when?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]At the very end, in the river, there are half a dozen Elizabeths and they start disappearing one by one.[/spoiler]
[spoiler] in the baptising memory? didnt notice that! did you select the cage as her necklace in the early game, or the bird? I wonder whats the significance with that [/spoiler]
[spoiler]"The entire universe hangs on one, single event: a baptism. In one universe, Booker refuses, flees, and never returns. In another, he comes back, he enters the water, and he is reborn a different man: the madman Comstock."[/spoiler]
:huh:
What's so confusing?
Quote from: Queequeg on April 03, 2013, 10:15:55 AM
What's so confusing?
[spoiler]was The Main Evil guy literally your character from a parallel reality?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I mean, the "Cornstock is here" line was odd at the baptism scene at the end, but I didn't think of this[/spoiler]
Quote from: Tamas on April 03, 2013, 01:06:35 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 03, 2013, 10:15:55 AM
What's so confusing?
[spoiler]was The Main Evil guy literally your character from a parallel reality?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]That's what makes the ending so amazing. Let me explain it, just because it's fucking awesome.
The Infinite universe presupposes the third type of parallel universes structure shown in this video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ywn2Lz5zmYg) Now, look at that bracket structure, and think of the left-right axis as time, and up-down as the new universes created. Tears in the Infinite universe can go through all of them; to both new universes, and just to different periods of time. So the tear where you hear CCR could be a tear to either the late 60s of that world (this would be left-right travel), our late 60s because something is different about our timeline (up-down travel), or an alternative 1960s (travel on both axes). Elizabeth is able to go both left-right and up-down.
Now, in the universe where our Booker DeWitt comes from, Booker was so distraught over his role in the Wounded Knee massacre that he once considered being baptized in a new (Mormon?) faith, but our Booker hightailed it. This Booker eventually gets married, and his wife dies upon delivery of Anna-Elizabeth. Our Booker is an alcoholic and a gambler, and sells Anna DeWitt to the (pre-Godlike) Luteces and Comstock. Now, Comstock WAS baptized, and instead of dealing with the guilt of Wounded Knee with liquor and gambling, he rationalizes it in a crazy, racist perversion of Christianity and American founder-worship. Sadly for everyone, the crazy unleashes a kind of genius, and he allies with a young, pre-"magical" Robert Lutece (or her alternative universe opposite, Rosalind Lutece, depending on the universe) in creating Columbia and developing dimensional gates. However, the continued exposure to Lutece's devices leaves DeWitt sterile and (ultimately) dying of cancer, so in order to have a child he steals DeWitt's baby. Anna-Elizabeth has been exposed to this her entire life, so maybe she's different, and the two Luteces have some kind of a Dr. Manhattan moment where they gain the ability to be anywhere, anytime, ever.
So the moment Comstock separates from DeWitt is the baptism. Therefore, when Anna-Elizabeth is at the full extent of her power, she is able to travel all the way left to the separation of the two identities, and kill Comstock before he wrecks havoc upon the multiverse. However, killing DeWitt-Comstock at this date damns Anna-Elizabeth to non-existence in every timeline known in the game. Columbia never exists because Comstock doesn't, but because post-aborted baptism DeWitt doesn't exist neither does the version of Anna we know of. Anna and Booker are kind of, well, Quantum Jesus on multiverse Golgotha. It's really fucking neat. This final sacrifice (and it's Christian symbolism) is hinted at throughout the game-Elizabeth is always the "Lamb of Columbia", and she 'dies' to save Columbia from it's sins. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]Did the religious symbolism just ruin the game for you, Tamas?[/spoiler]
I compared the plot to Inception in a tweet I sent to Kevin Levine about how it's simultaneously extremely elegant and a nice commentary on it's own artform, but I think I might have sold it short. The game has a lot more emotional heft, and the ending is a lot more interesting.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 03, 2013, 02:25:34 PM
[spoiler]Did the religious symbolism just ruin the game for you, Tamas?[/spoiler]
no, why would have it done so?
Ok, just finished the game. I think my head hurts a bit.
[spoiler]I always find intersecting/alternate realities fascinating, though it always comes with a naggling gripe: how do we determine that one reality is superior to another, or which is the right one (we presume, of course, the one we're in, but that makes it likely that other reality-egos view it the same). Also, I have trouble wrapping my head around how an act in one intersection of realites (killing Booker/Comstock) wipes the event from all (Infinite - hence the title) realities. At any rate, it doesn't spoil my suspension of disbelief.
Also, first hint for me at alternate realities: the first tear Elizabeth opens to Paris, showing the marquee for Revanche du Jedi (Revenge of the Jedi), an alternate title that Lucas scrapped in favor of Return of the Jedi (Retour du Jedi). :nerd:
I think I missed a few voxaphones, because the Lutece's backstory isn't quite clear to me - there's stuff hinted at the brother understanding what it's like to die, or (the way I understood it first) Rosalind being Elizabeth's mother, from the ones I found? And yes, I did understand that they're the same person from alternate realities.[/spoiler]
Anyways, how did I like it? It was a blast. The game is beautifully designed, with the main forces being Languish inspired, it seems - a floating city in the sky that has seceded from the U.S., based on Southern ideals, with inferior races/working classes oppressed? Hell, key characters are even named Lettuce Lutece! :P On the other hand the revolutionaries, led by Ide, if he was a black woman.
Where Tomb Raider went for realism, Bioshock goes for a more stylized, almost Pixar-like approach with lots of attention to detail and some of the most marvelous set pieces I've seen in any game. I suck at action games, so mid game I had to switch from Medium difficulty to Easy (which is depressing, when most sites recommend playing on Hard, because Medium is too easy for average action gamers).
There's so many design bits to gush over, from billboards, to chats of people, to songs, statues, bits and bobs, really, that I could go on and on about them. They really set the stage, and revisiting areas with some changes applied after major plot turns was pretty cool. The Washington-Bots with their quote-spewing were rather amusing. :lol:
Special mention goes to Elizabeth - a truly well designed character, intriguing, eminently likable and actually useful in battle, and not a liability. It's weird to say that about a video game character, but I really cared about her and her fate in the end.
[spoiler]After the reveal that Booker is Comstock, some stuff made much more sense. Like the bit with the "traitor" Slate, that I considered contrived exposition at the time (that Comstock wasn't at Wounded Knee, and that he was a fraud, and that Booker did some pretty bad stuff at the time), but which suddenly made sense - Comstock wasn't there, Booker was (and Slate remembered him). Also, it suddenly made sense why Comstock would know so much about Booker (like the AD brand that was advertised as sign of the False Shepherd at the beginning of the game) - helped, obviously, by the Lutece experiments.
Going through Comstock's abandoned house in the alternate 1980s (snowfall) was actually pretty creepy and messed up. Then again, so was Songbird. I thought the final big battle on the airship (before destroying the "cage" wasa tad too long. It was epic seemed to go on forever and ever, and without Elizabeth constantly throwing me ammo and salts, I doubt I would have made it.
I liked that they didn't really pull their punches and went full Bolshevik revolution with the Vox Populi uprising, though I thought Fink's/Fitzroy's end was rather anticlimactic and didn't carry the emotional weight it should, even though it means a major step in Elizabeth's character arc.[/spoiler]
Overall, very happy with the experience; I thought I saw the plot headed in a few clichéed directions during the gameplay, but fortunately that didn't happen. I avoided spoilers as far as I could before and during playing the game, so I cam into it pretty fresh and unprepared (except the basics, like setting and main characters). If I had one criticism of the game it would be that it sometimes felt too hectic, with sometimes the action getting in the way of the plot pacing, but it's pretty negligible; also, the fights were a bit cartoony at times.
Anyways, I need to order my thoughts a bit, been rambling a fair bit there. All I can ay at this point is: wow. I rarely buy FPS (because I suck at them, and they need to offer something "special" to get me interested, usually a somewhat decent plot - SpecOps: The Line and the latest Tomb Raider come to mind. But I think story wise Bioshock Infinite really blows them out of the water.
Oh, and a more in depth explanation of the ending (obviously spoiler heavy), and why it's a bittersweet happy end:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/28/understanding-bioshock-infinites-ending-ending-explanation/
Another interpretation, but I think he overdoes the political analysis:
http://peripsuche.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/bioshock-infinite-thematic-analysis.html
[spoiler]"Lots of Elizabeths appear and they proceed to drown Booker, presumably in the Baptising basin. After he dies we see all of the Elizabeths disappear."
I didn't see that! At least I can't remember. I just saw the view from under the water (seeing nobody as I recall), then credits rolled. WTF[/spoiler]
[spoiler]as awesome the story as it clearly is, as with any time and/or dimension travelling piece, it isn't exactly fault-proof. How can you kill off Comstock from INFINITE number of worlds? Just because you do a dimension where Booker is killed before Comstock could born, there would still have to be dimensions where this death does not happen. Or is it explicitly stated somewhere, that if Elizabeth opens up something, the stuff happening there happens in all infininte number of dimensions?[/spoiler]
[spoiler] wait, so those elizabeths in the water, disappearing, which I didnt see for some reason (maybe because of the pirated version? :P) symbolized that all possible comstock-y dimensions' elizabeths killed off their Bookers to stop Comstock from appearing? Neat [/spoiler]
[spoiler]Yep, the Elizabeths all disappeared bit by bit. After the LOOOONG credits comes a short scene with you back in your office/apartment with a child crying from the little room. As the first link says, it makes sense, because only the baptized Booker got killed off. The one who decided not to go through with it should still exist and now gets a shot at redeeming himself with his daughter Anna (which in turn means that Elizabeth as we know her never existed . . . but I'm too lazy to figure out that paradox. Still, she (and probably Robert/Rosalind Lutece) are outside the quantum mechanics of our world (or at least seem to have full knowledge of all possible permutations ["I can see all the doors"]) that I suppose you can argue that she has the ability to pick the one moment/possibility that will eliminate a myriad other possibilities.[/spoiler]
Anyways, I will need to replay this game at some point to see what I missed (I think I collected only a bit more than half of the voice recordings), and how the puzzle pieces fit together in hindsight.
Possibly the ultimate explanatory thread?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=533205
Spoiler heavy, goes without saying.
Well, I bought it last night. I guess I'll start today.
The game is kinda intense. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 06, 2013, 07:38:46 PM
The game is kinda intense. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
So it's a Bioshock game.
Well it hasn't started to discrediting Berkut's ideas, so not yet.
Finished it. Liked it. :thumbsup:
I've been playing Bioshock 1 again on the weekend. I understand that it has a big fan base, and I can see why. However, while I loved the setting and back story, I'm not a big fan of survival horror (still, one of the few games of that ilk I actually finished, which speaks for its themes and setting), so the game didn't rank too high on my person list of top games. Also, I thought the story was much more conventional, despite [spoiler]the big twist in the middle (which fit the noir setting for me): kill bad guy who turned utopia into hell - realize you've been played by your supposed ally all along - go and take revenge[/spoiler].
While in Infinite there's a general feeling where the journey goes, [spoiler]it's not till the very end when all is wrapped up, leaving a bigger impact than Bioshock 1's big mid-game twist, at least for me[/spoiler].
I liked Infinite a lot better in that regard - the story feels a lot more emotional - not least thanks to Elizabeth. There's few other characters in games that are so specifically designed to get the player attached to them and emotionally involved, and I hope other designers take note.
Finally, where Rapture is designed to be scary, claustrophobic and weird (with some signs of former glory), Columbia is made to be dazzling and majestic - almost literally a piece of America as Heaven (and hell as it later turns out), idyllic, pristine and wholesome. Arriving feels like stepping through the Pearly gates; arriving in Rapture and especially the Medical Pavillion (my favorite level of the game, design wise) is like stepping into a horror movie.
Beat the game. Kinda saw the last big twist way off when I was met Slate. I think that's a the problem when you try to follow up one big twist with another. Everyone is expecting it. Several things kinda went unexplained to me though. I don't know how you guys black everything out.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2013, 10:12:53 PM
Beat the game. Kinda saw the last big twist way off when I was met Slate. I think that's a the problem when you try to follow up one big twist with another. Everyone is expecting it. Several things kinda went unexplained to me though. I don't know how you guys black everything out.
With the [sp
oiler][/sp
oiler] tags.
[spoiler]Does this really work?[/spoiler]
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2013, 12:45:34 AM
[spoiler]Does this really work?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Yes[/spoiler]
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2013, 12:45:34 AM
[spoiler]Does this really work?[/spoiler]
Yes, yes it does. Okay.
[spoiler]I was kinda hoping there would be an explanation on why I had magical powers. I also kinda thought that ending verged into the self-indulgent as well. I did like how several modern songs were rearranged for 1912. Like a Beach Boys hit arranged for a barbershop quartet :lol:[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Yeah, the in-game explanation is that the composer stole the music through tears (like the tears where we hear modern music in Paris, or the one with Fortunate Son). The magical powers come from the vigors, not from yourself. They're the Columbia equivalent of Rapture's plasmids, only that much fewer people seem to use them (for whatever reason - too expensive for the Average Joe?).
The ending was indeed self-indulgent. They constructed their alternate realities and were obviously very proud to show off how it all tied up. Any inconsistencies can be waved away with "Elizabeth = Godlike", so she could correct all realities.[/spoiler]
As said above, this link cleared up any questions I still had after the game:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=533205
[spoiler]Yeah, I knew that I got magic powers from vigors, but I didn't know where the vigors come from. Not only that, but everyone (including Dewitt), just shrugs them off. I wondered if they were a result of the "siphon" used to control Elizabeth, but nobody ever said that. Overall it was a good game. I liked it better the Bioshock (which was a mediocre shooter with a great story and atmosphere). I suppose they left some things open for a sequel (which Bioshock did not). I did like how extra lives were handled, and how the Lucare siblings kept count by asking you to flip a coin in the beginning. Still it felt like a lot of things were cut out. For instance there is a cowboy hunter type who you hear recording from, but never meet.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Ah, I see what you mean with the vigors. I agree, some more explanation on that would be good. The best I could find is this from Bioshok wiki
http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Vigor
In one of the Voxophone recordings, Jeremiah Fink mentions a brilliant biologist he's observing through a tear. This could be a nod to Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, which in turn would imply that Fink may have drawn inspiration from Tenenbaum's work on Plasmids, or possibly used it as a basis to create Vigors.[/spoiler]
There's three story based DLC scheduled at the moment.
I have to say I'm most surprised that they didn't include a multiplayer mode which seems almost mandatory these days.
On other thing I liked about the game is how it captured the beauty of the pre-war world. While the world did have it's ugly spots (which the game magnifies to a great degree), it there was a great deal of beauty, grace, ingenuity, and optimism. Whatever the flaws of the people 100 years ago, they didn't deserve the war and revolutions that laid ruin to so much.
[spoiler]In fact the Vox Populi revolution reminded of some of the things I read about the Russian revolution soldiers would nail shoulder boards to the bodies of their officers or when the Tashkent Soviet decided to nationalize women. [/spoiler]
Started playing again.
[spoiler]It's an interesting experience now going in and getting all the double meanings in the opening bits - the Lutece's dialogue, the inscriptions on walls, the baptism bit where the priest (the same, btw, who did the "original" baptism) explains that you can enter Columbia only through baptism etc. There's plenty double entendres nw that you know where it ends. Somehow, knowing how the story goes makes it seem actually more tragic to me.[/spoiler]
Also, a screenshot. Not really a spoiler as it's at the very beginning of the game. Those statues look creepy.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F6976%2F2013041000001.jpg&hash=715f1eebf5503f0065da335d4e2f6aec77c5922d)
Came across this "Employees Only" area in a shop with a surly proprietor. It's creepy and depressing at the same time.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg716.imageshack.us%2Fimg716%2F8234%2F2013041400001j.jpg&hash=80bd53c773a6a888f31fc4a4abb929c323f49799)
Bioshock vs. Quantum Mechanics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EfdfBF1Covw)
I like it when sexy girls with British accents speak science to me. :wub:
:wub:
Finished my second playthrough. Still loving it.
Got around to finishing it. Self-indulgent and inconsistent ending.
Started playing it last night.
Lack of a discrete save game function is INFURIATING. :mad:
Trailer for the next DLC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpgvZay10jE
Finally played it all the way through. Much better done than I expected. Although, shit, it must have been wearing constructing all the fictional racism.
7,49€ on steam
Is it worth 7,49€ ?
I've heard it is, I bought it, but haven't played yet.
Yes. Nice setting and mouthfeel. Purely as a game I find it meh.
I had fun with it. I like flying around on skyrails shooting lighting at people.