Bioshock Infinite

[Xanatos]

I was really looking forward to this game being huge Bioshock fan and all, and after great reception by both reviewers and players, plus all this talk about it's kick ass ending, I must say I'm more excited than ever. I began my playthrough several hours ago, I'm not really that far so all I can say Columbia looks gorgeous, as Rapture in original Bioshock it will leave you with great first impression. Also, using vigors is kinda fun.


I'll certainly have more to add later on, you feel free to discuss anything related to Bioshock Infinite.

[loaf]

I was looking forward to buying this game. Then I remembered how I felt the same way about Bioshock and when it came out basically I was slightly disappointed. So I'm probably not going to buy Infinite. All I read that made me thing was cool was that the chick helps you find ammo because at one point in Bioshock 1 I just ran around with my wrench.

[Rowan]

I am almost at the end (i can tell and had a look at walkthrough chapters to verify) and I gotta say that its not just a game, but an experience. The city of columbia floating in the sky in the 1910's is about as steampunk as it gets, but its beautiful and so very interactive. I found myself spending more time looking at things and exploring than I did following the game through, which at the point im at now, has probably contributed an extra 4 hours (which is a lot). Elizabeth is gorgeous and her character is above all, very interesting. She interacts with the environment in a very human way in the way that she looks curious toward things and often goes off to inspect and let you know if she finds anything that might be of use to you; a very useful feature for those hard to find lockpicks.

"Here, I found some cash"

A gorgeous girl with a nice bust who gives you ammo and money and picks locks into vaults full of silver.

Wife material.

[Odin1199]

Who's hotter, Lara from Tomb Raider or Elizabeth. I want a detailed and thorough explanation as well.

[Dawezy]

She is handy when you run out of bullets / get low..

"Hold F to catch ammo"

And bam, theres a fresh fillup.. same applies to your HP and Salts too she throws stuff at you when they are down. Also revives you when you get owned.

Diggin' this chick

Even with the game on the settings as low as I have them - since my computer is getting old and alot of "modern" games tend to start to lag at 1920x1080 with details up high - it is gorgeous, trying to get the achievement on all the gun types so then I can chill on the Carbine and Pistol.. prefer those 2 but I don't gain anything by just using them for the entire game, need a bit of variety. I feel as though I have done the game a disservice by not playing the previous 2 titles though, I think that I should d/l and install them sometime in the near future and go through them to get a bit of a background to all of this..

[DragonHeart]

I've been hearing so much about this game lately. Actually a friend of mine at work absolutely loves this game and he's not a huge fan of the first two. I'm kind of wondering how stand alone it is, should I decide to pick it up. Will I be totally lost or is it one of those where it's not necessary to play the previous two cause it explains what you need to know? Scouting around for a new game since I'm almost done with Tomb Raider, heh.

[Xanatos]

I've been hearing so much about this game lately. Actually a friend of mine at work absolutely loves this game and he's not a huge fan of the first two. I'm kind of wondering how stand alone it is, should I decide to pick it up. Will I be totally lost or is it one of those where it's not necessary to play the previous two cause it explains what you need to know? Scouting around for a new game since I'm almost done with Tomb Raider, heh.

There's no need to play it's predecessors first, as far as I know it has nothing to do with previous games as far as setting, story and characters go. This is one of few FPS games where you play it for it's atmosphere and story so I highly recommend you buy it.

[Odin1199]

Game reviews seem very promising. How much replay value does the game have and how many hours does it take to completely beat it? When I pick up a game, I want it to last.

[Rowan]

Just completed it. There will be no spoilers, so read on. I have to admit, the ending confused me, so I went online and read up about it. In my mind, it was partially what I had assumed I thought the ending to be, but what else which was explained, was something that had never even considered to me and something in which I feel there were answers to questions, that never got asked. Its like it suddenly made up a whole bunch of shit.

I am disappointed to say the least, I feel cheated in the sense that I feel the game tried WAY too hard with the story/ending and made it overly confusing for no apparent purpose.

That's just my opinion, i feel its gonna be rejected by many who "weren't confused at all"

I was initially engrossed with the graphics, characters and game-play, but when the buzz wore down and it was time to rely on story to carry me through, It was like being dragged through mud and dropped completely before the finish line.


Update:

*Major spoilers below*

After having some time to think about it and process it and also realise the intense similaraties between the game and the movie "The Butterfly Effect" , I have come to realise that the story is incredibly similar, if not a complete rip of the movie the butterfly effect. The way his nose bleeds when he tries to recreate memories that never existed, the way every choice creates multiple dimensions with infinite possibilties, that all lead to the same conclusion, the missing link being elizabeth, the one who could alter and tear through these dimensions and time itself, was able to prevent the scenario by eliminating the choice. I found that interesting, but full of plot wholes nevertheless. I just didnt think the story needed such a complex theme. I would have been happy if I saw them get together and go off to paris, that game warranted that kind of ending considering the relationship the two built up from (completely disregard the final 30 mins where we find out elizabeth is his daughter, annabelle Dewitt) which is carved into his hand.

anyway, 8/10.

[Xanatos]

Elizabeth's charming, beautiful, most importantly, helpful. Everything she does is so cute, even when she's mad at you, she knocks me down with a wrench and I'm all like... awww, she's so cute.

EDIT: MILD SPOILERS below..

You know, this kinda reminds me of Final Fantasy IX. Going to kidnap the princess just to find out she wants to be kidnapped all along, taking over a ship, Elizabeth experiencing things she only read about in books, her parent wants to use her power, last but not least as Garnet she even cuts her hair at one point as a sign of change.

[Xanatos]

I apologize for double post, but I just finished Bioshock Infinite so naturally I have few things to say...

SPOILERS

The way his nose bleeds when he tries to recreate memories that never existed

His nose bleed has nothing to do with him recreating memories that never existed, rather tears or dimensions if you will in which he's dead in one way or another, thus his nose bleed only twice, first time in tear where he's Vox Populi's dead hero, second when he kills Comstock or to be more precise himself. Remember what Elizabeth said about that female soldier with nose bleed first time you go through her tear, she's alive but she remembers being dead (you pretty much killed her) thus her nose bleeds.

EDIT: I totally forgot the last nose bleed which funny enough is at the very end, in other words Rowan was head on.

Personally, I love the end, though to be honest well done twists have always been my weakness. It kinda reminds me of Looper. The part with Rapture from original Bioshock was a pretty great fan service if I may say so. I found Bioshock Infinite to be thoroughly enjoyable with Elizabeth as it's strongest point, my only complaint are gears which were pretty much useless.

[che]

I wanted to be critical of this game, as it is worthy of a critical evaluation. First of all, I just beat it. There will be spoilers below.

Just to get this out of the way, because it's kind of the least important thing for me because the overall gameplay was great. I think there could have been more puzzles in the game. At the beginning in the lighthouse you have a puzzle to do by ringing the bells a certain number of times. Albeit extremely easy, I thought it was a warmup of what was to come. The only other puzzle I remember was in the bank where you find a code and open another room of the bank. Oh well, I enjoyed all the vigors and gear combinations etc.

I absolutely loved the voxophone's addition to the story. I am a story-oriented player in games like this. So I probably would have went straight to find out what happens next if it weren't for the voxophones. It made me explore the game more and experience more of the atmosphere, and it wasn't annoying for me. It completely added. Coming across the tears with 80s music Fink jacked from other times was hilarious. Loved it all.

As for the story, I thought it was genius, if I may be so bold to say. I wanted to be critical and really find things to bitch about because that's what I do, but I can't. Everything made sense, and I didn't believe there was really any holes in the plot. Would love to discuss any questions people might bring up as I am open to the fact that there might be (whether on purpose or a mistake in the writing).

Also, I'm not sure if anyone has been introduced to this yet, but:

MAJOR SPOILERS GTFO!!!!!!!

Apparently when you arrive in Rapture in Infinite, in the scene where Songbird dies to the pressure of the water, he lets out a scream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsjYmlnP1a4

this same scream can be heard in BioShock 1, at 0:14 in this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpmvkZ6TIMk

Now, I think it's not confirmed whether that sound is in the original or it has been added in the new PSN version of the game. So not sure if it's intentional, or how intentional it is. Also, here is another vid of the same area but with more screams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZFc0Kf0Xbk

For me, it's possible that it's looped and added in the new version so it's extremely intentional and recently done so you can hear it. But maybe it's just ambience. Either way, it's still cool because in the ending Rapture exists in Infinite and it's awesome to think these two stories are happening at the same time.

For the record I would like to state that I thought the ending was the best it could have been, and maybe they did end up in Paris in one world. A world where there was no Booker who sold Elizabeth. They may not have gone through the Columbia or events in the game, but they could have made it to Paris in another universe happily ever after as daughter and dad. Which is great, because I was jealous of the sex-candy Booker as competition to my girl Elizabeth (before I found out their relation to each other). She's mine......waiting in Paris for me.

edit: Oh, I also forgot to include maybe the most important reason I wanted to post. Here is a link to another forum where a guy did a very thorough writeup, including timelines and spreadsheets and all sorts of ****ing spoiler-fied shit to feed your mind: Bioshock Infinite | Official Spoiler Thread | - NeoGAF

[Pete]

Spoilers.

I absolutely loved everything about this game. In preparation for Infinite, I rallied the first two, and I have to say that I'm so so so glad that I did. It didn't really make a huge difference and had no bearing on the game, but it was an awesome bit of fan service to go down to Rapture.

However, seeing this really made me wonder a bunch of things. What if Booker became Andrew Ryan in another world and instead of creating Columbia, he created Rapture? Maybe Elizabeth in Columbia turns out to be the little sisters of Rapture, and Songbird is the Big Daddies.

It's all relative under the idea of a man (Booker/ Jack) is brought into a world (Columbia/ Rapture), created by an idealistic madman (Comstock/Ryan). Under varying circumstances he has to rescue someone with special powers (Elizabeth/ Little Sisters- sidenote, look at how similar they look!), while they are protected by very tough and powerful creatures, involving human experiments in a suit (Songbird/ Big Daddies). On top of that, all the protectors know is only to protect their girl. There's very little in the way of a human element to them, aside from Delta in Bioshock 2, but that's a different circumstance. You're also introduced to "powers" via salts or plasmids, which were created to make life easier in general.

Plus you also have the civil wars between splicers and non, and the Vox and everyone else.

Or maybe a better anaology would be Sofia Lamb and Eleanor to go with Comstock and Elizabeth...

Also in reading some things on wiki, apparently the developers left a file dormant that implies that Delta is intended to be Eleanor's biological father in BS2. It wasn't that Johnny Topside actually banged Eleanor, but rather that after he was thrown in jail, she needed a man's genetic material to create her. One more little link.

I know it's such a small part of the game, but it makes so much sense. PLUS, if you remember in Bioshock 1, early on in the game, bathysphere travel is limited to ONLY Andrew Ryan. Jack, the protagonist from BS1 was able to use it, since he was of the same DNA. Booker is also able to activate the bathysphere at the end of Infinite.

Just thoughts for everyone!

[Xanatos]

I was a huge advocate of Booker/Andrew Ryan theory myself at first, and while I do believe these two are somehow related I highly doubt Booker's indeed Andrew Ryan. First of all the age doesn't match, secondly Andrew Ryan is actually a Russian (born there as well) originaly known as Andrei Ryanofksi.

One thing I found interesting about Bioshock Infinite, acording to Fink the technology behind vigors and songbird came/was taken from another dimension and judging by appearance and usage of both it came most certainly from Rapture.

[Pete]

Well, my only counters to that argument would be that:

When you first see Elizabeth, she opens a tear to the future, where you see Return oof the Jedi playing in a theatrer not far from the Eiffel Tower. To me, that means she has access, or at least there are tears that go into the future.

There's also a point in Finktown where Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit, Fortunate Son, was playing in a factory, before you enter the tear to find Chen Lin alive. That song was from 1969, as a protest of sorts to the Vietnam War Draft. What was cool though, was that in a voxophone, it was revealed that Fink would travel into the future to steal things like this, as it plays in an a capella version on one of the radios during the revolt, where it's revealed that Booker died as a vox hero.

It makes me think that maybe he was 'reborn' as Andrei Ryanofski, as he was reborn into Comstock

[Xanatos]

SPOILERS

It makes me think that maybe he was 'reborn' as Andrei Ryanofski, as he was reborn into Comstock

Booker DeWitt was reborn into Zachary Hale Comstock via baptism, after the "Battle of Wounded Knee", up to that point Comstock shares identical backstory as our Booker DeWitt where Andrew Ryan does not, meaning he had to be Andrei Ryanofski right from the start, from the very birth, and that sounds highly unlikely.