[PC Game] Bioshock Infinite (beware of spoilers)

Bowielee · Mar 27, 2013

AshburnerX said:
Yes, that's what I mean. We'd better get some story DLC to explain what the fuck was going on with them.

I'd also like to mention that my favorite part of this game is, hands down, the music.

Especially all the 80's-90's remixes that hint at what's going on. I've heard...

- God Only Knows (Beach Boys)
- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Madonna)
- Shiny Happy People (REM)
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
- Tainted Love (Soft Cell or Gloria Jones)

I'm amazed at how many people didn't pay attention to all these subtle clues!

I finished the game tonight. It was just plain fantastic.

Now that I have, I can start clicking on these spoiler tags.

Girls just wanna have fun was Cyndi Lauper, not Madonna.
The twins aren't actually twins. The Lutece man is a male counterpart from an alternate universe that the main world's Lutece brought over with her machine. Presumably her first test case. Most of this is covered in audio logs, so if you skipped them, you wouldn't have gotten that.
The Rapture scene was just plain awesome. I also like how the "constants" match up with the original Bioshock. Man, girl, protector. DeWitt, Elizabeth, Songbird. Jack, Little sisters, Big Daddies.
I do have to say that when they introduced the concepts of alternate realities, I was fairly certain that DeWitt would end up being an alternate version of Comstock.

Frank · Mar 28, 2013

How bout some legit criticisms?

Elizabeth basically being an ammo/health dispenser whenever you needed it was a little easy moding it. My fault for playing on normal I guess, didn't die once. Elizabeth and the Return to Sender vigor meant you were effectively immortal.
Finkton seemed to really drag on for me. I started just rushing through it (I think this is where I missed stuff) and the resolution between Fink and the Vox seemed pointless, especially after what followed.

These didn't detract too much from the game overall. It's fucking mind-blowingly good.

Terrik · Mar 28, 2013

Frank said:
How bout some legit criticisms?

Elizabeth basically being an ammo/health dispenser whenever you needed it was a little easy moding it. My fault for playing on normal I guess, didn't die once. Elizabeth and the Return to Sender vigor meant you were effectively immortal.
Finkton seemed to really drag on for me. I started just rushing through it (I think this is where I missed stuff) and the resolution between Fink and the Vox seemed pointless, especially after what followed.

These didn't detract too much from the game overall. It's fucking mind-blowingly good.

I played through on hard, and boy was that needed. There were parts, like that final airship battle (which I had to do multiple times) that I might have been tempted to lower the difficulty level if she wasn't throwing me ammo.

Frank · Mar 28, 2013

Oh, another thing

Who was near heartbroken in the section in Comstock house where you're climbing it hearing Elizabeth's constant defiance in the face of torture and the stories of how you didn't come and were never going to come to help her? I thought I was going to have to fight Elizabeth or something at the end and was pre-bummed out about the entire thing.

Ravenpoe · Mar 28, 2013

Must... not... read... spoilers.

I'm only to

The Vox Rebellion and the death of Fink

strawman · Mar 29, 2013

I got a new keyboard (logitech G105) and mouse (Logitech G9x) and the difference is amazing! Keep in mind I've been playing on a 13 year old mouse - 100 or so reports a second, and only 200dpi, and I noticed I had to press harder on the keyboard than I wanted (it's a cheap 10 year old keyboard I've used so much that the lettering is rubbing off the keys). The key would go down all the way, but unless I pressed it a bit more it wouldn't always send the key.

So now I can aim significantly more easily than before, and the movement is smooth as glass.

Not only that, but last night I noticed I had been playing without a crash for several hours on medium, so I turned the graphics up to ultra and played another few hours without a crash and the graphics are noticeably better compared to medium. I think my framerate has suffered, but it's easily at or above 50fps the majority of the time, and when I've noticed the framerate it's not stuttering, so it's well above 20 even when it slows down, which is fine for my playstyle. It's at 1920x1200.

Also, playing in a dark room with the backlit keyboard makes the game much more immersive, and the dark parts aren't so dark as to be annoying.

Anyway, if you look at my steam profile it says 35 hours, but I've been leaving the game on overnight to ward off the demons of computer instability, so I haven't actually played for that long.

I'm amazed at how far graphics technology has progressed. Using the sniper scope to zoom in on faces already close to you to check out the skin shows some really excellent progress in duplicating skin tone and how light reflects and refracts off it. Neat, neat stuff.[DOUBLEPOST=1364576652][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, for those that haven't yet connected to me via steam, I don't do much (actually I think my kids use my steam accounts more than I do) but here you go:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/stienman

Dave · Mar 29, 2013

stienman said:
I'm amazed at how far graphics technology has progressed. Using the sniper scope to zoom in on faces already close to you to check out the skin shows some really excellent progress in duplicating skin tone and how light reflects and refracts off it. Neat, neat stuff.

In Borderlands 2 when you carry around a sniper rifle, you can see the terrain reflected in the scope even if you aren't aiming through it. It blew my mind.

Ravenpoe · Mar 29, 2013

Stienman's posts are like watching your child discover gaming. I'm so proud.

strawman · Mar 29, 2013

Finished it. Wow.

Now I can go around and read spoiler reviews and such.

Also I'm going to be interested in playing it again. I believe I got nearly all the voice recordings, but I'm sure I still missed a lot because I don't recall hearing many of the songs mentioned in the credits.

Ravenpoe · Mar 29, 2013

stienman said:
Finished it. Wow.

Now I can go around and read spoiler reviews and such.

Also I'm going to be interested in playing it again. I believe I got nearly all the voice recordings, but I'm sure I still missed a lot because I don't recall hearing many of the songs mentioned in the credits.

A lot of the songs can be easy to miss because they're redone in an old time style, and if you're not listening carefully, just sound like background period music.

Bowielee · Mar 29, 2013

I'll definitely be playing through it again to look back at the story knowing what's really going on.

AshburnerX · Mar 29, 2013

For the songs...

There are 6 I know of, one of which has a cover AND is in the game proper. Without spoiling WHERE they are, I will give you some hints. 2 are on phonographs, 2 are in the background in certain areas, and 2 are actually performed by characters in the game.

If you want to be spoiled, you can just go here and watch them instead.

LittleSin · Mar 29, 2013

Oh god.

Just finished it.

OH MY GOD.

Bowielee · Mar 29, 2013

AshburnerX said:
For the songs...

There are 6 I know of, one of which has a cover AND is in the game proper. Without spoiling WHERE they are, I will give you some hints. 2 are on phonographs, 2 are in the background in certain areas, and 2 are actually performed by characters in the game.

If you want to be spoiled, you can just go here and watch them instead.

I didn't notice at all until I found the recording in the abandoned house where the songwriter mentions the wonderful music that is coming through the rift and how they are all becoming big hits. That's when I noticed that the song on the phonograph was Everybody Wants to Rule the World.

I wasn't familiar with the Beach Boys song and that's played right at the beginning.

Speaking of music, did anyone else play the guitar in Finkerton?

Probably the most moving scene in the entire game, and it's completely off to the side where you didn't even have to go for the main mission. It's stuff like that that really shows that the makers of the game are concerned with creating a fully realized world. This was an entirely scripted scene that could be skipped if you didn't explore.

I also want to know if decisions change anything. For example, the interacial couple that you can chose to hit with the baseball or not shows up later in the game and thanks you if you chose not to throw it.

Also, does the choice of which design to chose for Elizabeth's necklace mean anything?

ScytheRexx · Mar 29, 2013

Bowielee said:
I also want to know if decisions change anything. For example, the interacial couple that you can chose to hit with the baseball or not shows up later in the game and thanks you if you chose not to throw it.

The developers have said they didn't want the choices to drastically change the game. Most of the choices just lead to light differences in dialogue or later scenes, like no matter if you get stabbed in the hand or pull a gun on the ticket clerk, Elizabeth will always run and be pissed at you. When you meet up with her again, however, the dialogue changes to either Booker saying that "Drawing first is better then not being able to draw at all" or if you get stabbed in the hand Booker says "I won't let anyone get the drop on me like that again" with the added bonus of Elizabeth bandaging your hand.

Another example is that if you "spare" Slate, once you get to Finkton you run into him again during the prison search, but he has been lobotomized and just sits in a chair silently.

No idea if the necklace changes anything other then cosmetics throughout the rest of the game, since you can see her wearing it all the time.

AshburnerX · Mar 29, 2013

Decisions...

The ones that I can remember are...

The Interracial couple: Saving them gets you a clothes drop. Random, like all of them.

Brooch: It changes Elizabeth's model, but I think that is it.

Slate: If you don't shoot slate, he shows up later in the prison in Finkton. He's been interrogated by Finkton's guys and won't respond to you because he's basically shattered at this point. Turns out killing him may have saved him some misery.

Shooting First at the Ticket stand: Shooting first makes the fight easier and keeps you from hurting your hand, I think. Neither has much effect in the scheme of things.

After that you have the dimension hops and your decisions don't matter anymore because of the jumping shit.

Bowielee · Mar 29, 2013

AshburnerX said:
Decisions...

The ones that I can remember are...

The Interracial couple: Saving them gets you a clothes drop. Random, like all of them.

Brooch: It changes Elizabeth's model, but I think that is it.

Slate: If you don't shoot slate, he shows up later in the prison in Finkton. He's been interrogated by Finkton's guys and won't respond to you because he's basically shattered at this point. Turns out killing him may have saved him some misery.

Shooting First at the Ticket stand: Shooting first makes the fight easier and keeps you from hurting your hand, I think. Neither has much effect in the scheme of things.

After that you have the dimension hops and your decisions don't matter anymore because of the jumping shit.

I wasn't meaning big huge changes, but changes at all. Sounds like it's about what I thought. Which is fine, because the narrative is so tight that there's no way they could/should have made any major changes to it. It sounds like you kind of hated the ending.

Bones · Mar 29, 2013

I am playing it on hard this first time, after that I wont be bothering again with anything but easy so I can enjoy the story.

AshburnerX · Mar 29, 2013

Bones said:
I am playing it on hard this first time, after that I wont be bothering again with anything but easy so I can enjoy the story.

Hard is fine right up until near the end, where the difficulty curve goes out the window because of a single enemy type (that you thankfully only need to fight a few times). Your going to be very frustrated later.

Ravenpoe · Mar 29, 2013

I just finished it...

....................................................................

..............................................................................................

Wow.

Bowielee · Mar 29, 2013

AshburnerX said:
Hard is fine right up until near the end, where the difficulty curve goes out the window because of a single enemy type (that you thankfully only need to fight a few times). Your going to be very frustrated later.

I assume you're talking about the ghost Lady Comstock. I HAAAAAAATED her. The only times I died outside of not being able to identify where I was being attacked from were the fights with her and the airship final fight due to the generator being destroyed.

Terrik · Mar 29, 2013

Bowielee said:
I assume you're talking about the ghost Lady Comstock. I HAAAAAAATED her. The only times I died outside of not being able to identify where I was being attacked from were the fights with her and the airship final fight due to the generator being destroyed.

That stupid generator. I thought at first I should perch on top with a sniper rifle, but when the mecha-Lincons starting coming out, I said screw all this crap, picked up a rocket launcher, blasted away, picked up the Gatling gun, and started throwing fire everywhere. The whole battle was a blur

Bowielee · Mar 30, 2013

Terrik said:
That stupid generator. I thought at first I should perch on top with a sniper rifle, but when the mecha-Lincons starting coming out, I said screw all this crap, picked up a rocket launcher, blasted away, picked up the Gatling gun, and started throwing fire everywhere. The whole battle was a blur

I didn't have much problem with the mecha-patriots, the best thing I did in that game was upgrade the electric power to jump to other targets. I was able to disable the entire crew and pick off the mecha-patriots. Using lightning was also the only way I was able to be able to circle around back to shoot them in the gear for extra damage. Zap- few shotgun blasts to the back and they went right down.

Oh, just in case anyone else was as dumb as I was until the very end. If you use your posession power on the vending machines, they spit out money. Didn't know that till towards the very end. I would have been able to do my upgrades WAY earlier had I known that.

Terrik · Mar 30, 2013

Bowielee said:
I didn't have much problem with the mecha-patriots, the best thing I did in that game was upgrade the electric power to jump to other targets. I was able to disable the entire crew and pick off the mecha-patriots. Using lightning was also the only way I was able to be able to circle around back to shoot them in the gear for extra damage. Zap- few shotgun blasts to the back and they went right down.

Oh, just in case anyone else was as dumb as I was until the very end. If you use your posession power on the vending machines, they spit out money. Didn't know that till towards the very end. I would have been able to do my upgrades WAY earlier had I known that.

WAIT WHAT

Ravenpoe · Mar 30, 2013

It's only really worth doing after you get possession for less. You don't get a whole lot of money doing it early.

AshburnerX · Mar 30, 2013

Yeah, you need Possession for less unless you know where to find a bunch of salts. It's nice but not great.

Bowielee · Mar 30, 2013

It really helped me out towards the end. But I literally went through a good 90% of the game using only the machine gun and sniper rifle. But that's pretty much how I play most shooters. Machine gun for close quarters, Sniper for hot death from above.

Terrik · Mar 30, 2013

Bowielee said:
It really helped me out towards the end. But I literally went through a good 90% of the game using only the machine gun and sniper rifle. But that's pretty much how I play most shooters. Machine gun for close quarters, Sniper for hot death from above.

I used the sniper rifle and the hand cannon mostly

ScytheRexx · Mar 30, 2013

I had a pretty good combo of the Shotgun/Carbine. Shotgun was what I used most of the time, frantically looting everything in sight during combat to make sure I kept my ammo up any way possible. The Carbine was more for sniping now and then, or when the shotgun ran out of ammo.

For Vigors, I used them pretty much as I got them, but once I got Charge I pretty much gave up on all the others. Charge was so amazing. I fully upgraded it right after getting it, which not only gave some nice area damage, but made me invulnerable for a short time. During a fight I would just start out by obliterating the heavy hitters with a charge and a few shotgun blasts to the head, and then skyhook off the faces of everyone else. That horror sound that plays when you execute someone is now ingrained into my head, as is all of Elizabeth's gasps of disgust she blurts out when I hook a guy through the chest and launch his bloody corpse into the nearby bakery.

For gear, to better work with charge, I used Burning Halo (melee attacks light enemies on fire), Pyromaniac (AoE burn most of the time when someone melee strikes me), Brittle-Skinned (melee causes vulnerability) and finally Fit as a Fiddle (so that those times I did die, I would be up to full strength instantly)

When fighting turrets or larger enemies like Patriots, I used Return to Sender, because seriously nothing beats just absorbing all of a Patriots bullets and then sending a huge ball of death screaming back at him.

What was everyone elses favorite vigor?

Bowielee · Mar 30, 2013

In the beginning, I used Murder of Crows with the upgrade where if someone died while being attacked by crows, it created a new crow trap. It was awesome for any area where you were funnelling people through because they'd pop the trap, then I'd snipe them, which would lay another trap, and so on, and so on.

Late game, I switched to Shock Jokey with the chain lightning and stun duration upgrade. Like I said earlier, it made the patriots easy to kill by shocking then getting up behind them with the heater or shotgon and shooting out the gears, all the while anything around them is being stunned by the chain.

Terrik · Mar 30, 2013

I fully upgraded the fireball so it would explode with even more mini-explosions and combined with the tempest hat and sniper/hand cannon that take out an enemy in a single shot (most of the time), I could chain explosions across an entire room. It was even more effective if I set a trap first.

The crows kicked ass too. Some of the later powers came too late for me to really want to upgrade them because I was too focused on fully upgrading one or two powers + my weapons. Money was spare WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW I COULD GET FREE MONEY FROM THE VENDORS.

Bowielee · Mar 30, 2013

Only way I found out was watching a quick look. Ryan Davis turned to Jeff Gerstman and said, hey, you can possess the vendors and get money, and I was like "WHAAAAAAAT??????" (I was already 2/3rds of the way through.

Frank · Mar 30, 2013

Man, that was the first thing I did when I got possession in the beginning of the game was test it on a vending machine.

You only get 5-15 eagles though so, considering how expensive possession is through most of the game, not all that worth it.

Bowielee · Mar 30, 2013

It would have helped me a lot, I always found myself about 50 eagles short whenever I'd happen upon an upgrade station. Salts aren't that hard to come by, so this would have been extremely helpful.

Frank · Mar 30, 2013

So, I'm speculating here,

Comstock's wife, I'm gonna assume is also Anna's mother in the Booker realities given how much she resembles Anna/Elizabeth. Her constant is a real kick in the mouth of shitty fate. Die in childbirth, or be murdered for not being able to keep her mouth shut about Comstock's sterility and his lies about the baby.

ScytheRexx · Mar 30, 2013

Frank said:
Comstock's wife, I'm gonna assume is also Anna's mother in the Booker realities given how much she resembles Anna/Elizabeth. Her constant is a real kick in the mouth of shitty fate. Die in childbirth, or be murdered for not being able to keep her mouth shut about Comstock's sterility and his lies about the baby.

Not like it matters all that much now, unless we take the scene after the credits as an indication that Booker and Anna/Elizabeth still exist in one final complete reality. Considering Booker is drowned at the baptism, that means he will never go on to meet the woman that would become Anna's mother.

Also, did anyone tear up at the scene where you relive the memory of trying to get back Anna from Comstock? As a new father of an almost 6 month old boy, the idea of giving away my child and watching them disappear from my life was a bit hard to handle.

strawman · Mar 30, 2013

ScytheRexx said:
Not like it matters all that much now, unless we take the scene after the credits as an indication that Booker and Anna/Elizabeth still exist in one final complete reality. Considering Booker is drowned at the baptism, that means he will never go on to meet the woman that would become Anna's mother.

Also, did anyone tear up at the scene where you relive the memory of trying to get back Anna from Comstock? As a new father of an almost 6 month old boy, the idea of giving away my child and watching them disappear from my life was a bit hard to handle.

I had to choke back a few tears as well.

I need to play it a few more times, or at least review the ending because your supposition is desirable, but given the overall timeline I'm not sure it's possible.

as an unreliable narrator known to generate new memories to assuage his guilt, I wouldn't be surprised if this was little more than a dream. However, it seems to be one of those scenes dropped in there that allows the audience to choose their ending depending on their beliefs, or desires.

On the other hand, he is dead, and his daughters disappeared after his "death". So perhaps this is yet another possible reality - the one where he didn't give away his daughter, nor try to save her from himself. Yet he now "remembers" everything.

So it almost seems like one could believe the idea that if you eliminate all the bad possible universes, the only one that's left is the best one, despite having no mother.

Still seems like it violates the usual causality paradox that happens when people time travel.

Still puzzling it out, but as I think about it I think the answers were in the game, I just wasn't paying attention because I wasn't expecting such an involved story.

Lots more playing to do.

Or I could wait, I suspect someone will eventually create a timeline with loops to show how things occurred.

Chad Sexington · Mar 30, 2013

It takes all of the willpower to not click all these spoiler buttons. I don't even know why I keep coming into this thread.