BioShock Infinite

[SethMode]

I beat it on 360 and never had an issue with the autosave feature either. Every time I quite it was literally 1 minute prior. Guess I got lucky.

[Twigg4075]

I beat it on 360 and never had an issue with the autosave feature either. Every time I quite it was literally 1 minute prior. Guess I got lucky.

Apparently so because Bill and Christguz played on 360 and had the same issues. I've only play about 1 1/2 hours so far and I think it only auto-saved three times in that time span.

[Twigg4075]

This auto-save is fucking horrible. I'm about 3+ hours in. Just got to Soldier's Field. I needed to jump off so I could get ready for work and the game went easily 45 minutes in between saves. I kept saying "Ok, I'm sure it will save here." Nope. Fuck this shitty save system. I have no idea how anyone could be ok with this garbage after Bioshock 1 and 2 had awesome 'save anywhere' systems. Ay least have the auto-saves be more frequent. My wife just kept sitting there saying "Man, this save system sucks."

I know I'm way early but nothing has really amazed me so far. The graphics are very inconsistent. Some stuff, like the buildings and lighting look great, but then other stuff like chairs and ther environmental stuff look like crap. And even other things like placards on walls look like they didn't even try. They are more blurred and pixelated than PS2 graphics.

I do like how there are all of these ambient coversations going on around you. But on the flip side it's a bit jarring when you walk into a house or other building and encounter someone and there isn't any kind of conversation option. They just stand and stare at you.

Riding on the rails is really cool.

I'm still trying to find good settings for the controls because the default sensitivity (which was already turneed pretty far down) was way too fast for me. I found what a thought was a good setting but if I try to pan the camera while running it feels like I'm driving a car without power steering.

[IamMedellin]

Irrational has been posting some awesome stuff in their Weekly Fan Art Roundup, If I ever get the time id really like to submit something..

http://eyellusive.cghub.com/

http://goshadole.deviantart.com/

[Twigg4075]

I just got the Shock Jockey from the Captain guy.

Since I'm the only person that is still playing this now, I don't think spolier tags are required. Did you guys spare him or kill him? I spared him. Even though he tried to kill me, I'm on his side. Fuck Comstock.

[Swarley]

I just got the Shock Jockey from the Captain guy.

Since I'm the only person that is still playing this now, I don't think spolier tags are required. Did you guys spare him or kill him? I spared him. Even though he tried to kill me, I'm on his side. Fuck Comstock.

Spared

[CCBrink]

Anyone catch this easter egg?

This video shows a bunch of other "easter eggs" including more music ones.

[stevsta]

some great reads regarding the entire story and plot of bioshock

shored up a lot of the questions I had at the end

 

I don't understand the final "baptism" scene. How can it have any effect on how the story ends?

 

I'm going to start this answer by saying that, unless we get word from the people who wrote the story for the game, this question will result in inherently speculative answers. Regardless of what makes sense based on our frames of reference regarding time travel and multiple universes, any of us could be correct. The actual correct answer lies within whatever "laws of the universe" the writers of Bioshock Infinite created.

Multiverse theory posits that, for every decision that is made, it results in a new universe. There's the existing universe, and an alternate universe where another option was taken. You can visualize this as a series of paths which continue to fork at each decision point.



When you hop between "alternate realities", you're actually hopping between universes where different decisions were made. If you change something in one of these alternate universes, it doesn't actually change anything in any of its variants. Traveling between multiverses at the same point in time would be like traveling horizontally across the image above: you see what would have happened if a bunch of different decisions had been made, but you don't affect any of the other branches.

An example: If I killed Comstock in one alternate universe that was formed based on a decision after the baptism, he'd be alive in another alternate that was formed based on a decision after the baptism.

Elizabeth's tears were essentially travelling horizontally across different multiverses... at least, the ones they entered. You do see a few tears that seem to cross time as well (like the Paris tear in her room), but these are colored red and they never enter the red tears.

During the ending, Booker and Elizabeth enter the "lighthouse ocean", which essentially takes them in the space outside of any of these branches. They start going through a series of doors. These doors are doing more than the blue tears did (which allowed them to travel between universes at the same point in time)... they're allowing them to go backwards and forwards in time. In other words, they can travel vertically in the image as well as horizontally.

After going through one of these doors, they travel back to the original baptism, thus becoming PastPlayerBooker. Here, PastPlayerBooker either decides to back out of it or to continue getting baptized. Think of this decision as the bottom point in the image.

When he backs out of it, he follows path '0' and becomes PastPlayerBooker0. Every universe where he never got baptized would be the ones ending in '0' in the image (the entire left side). This represents the Booker Universes. The first time you go back to the baptism, this is the path you see play out.

This decision spawned another universe where he didn't back out of it. This is path '1', where he becomes PastPlayerBooker1. Every universe where he gets baptized would be the ones ending in '1' in the image (the entire right side). This represents the Comstock Universes.

Decisions continue to be made in both universes, thus causing more branches. Each branch, however, shares a single parent point in time: the time when Booker decides whether or not to go through the baptism.

Later, when Booker decides to go back and kill Comstock before he's 'born', they travel through another door and go back to the baptism again (the bottom point).

This time, you begin to see him going down path '1' into the Comstock Universes: he accepts the baptism. However, before any further decisions can be made, the Elizabeths drown him. This action snuffs out the entire set of Comstock Universes (the right side of the image) because it changes the result of the decision: Instead of the baptism decision turning him into Comstock (or PastPlayerBooker1), it turns him into a corpse.

Basically, every Booker that decides to get baptized dies because, at the point of the drowning, Booker has committed to path '1'. However, this doesn't affect any of the Bookers that committed to path '0' (no baptism).

In your question, you posit that this explanation can't be the answer because, by traveling back in time, "PlayerBooker" would see "PastPlayerBooker" and have to kill "PastPlayerBooker" rather than "PlayerBooker". Since they kill "PlayerBooker", they didn't kill the one that makes the decision.

Your assertion that this can't be the case seems hinged on the fact that, by traveling through time (rather than across universes at the same time), you'd be a different physical entity than the PastPlayerBooker.

This would be the case if traveling backward along the forks worked like traveling across them. You're right in that there are tons of Bookers running around at that point in time that are temporal decedents of PastPlayerBooker.

However, when you travel back to the baptism, you're traveling back to a point where those temporal decedents are all the same person: PastPlayerBooker. Until the baptism happens, the multiverses with all the other Bookers that result from the decision don't exist. When you travel back, PastPlayerBooker is PlayerBooker and also Booker100 and also Booker10101, etc (this is confirmed when Booker says "I'm both" in the end). He then decides to undergo the baptism (becoming PastPlayerBooker1), then drowns immediately before he can become any other PastPlayerBooker on the right side of the image.

This is also how, after the credits, you see Booker again, and he heads to the crib to see Anna. What you're seeing is one of the Bookers who spawned from PastPlayerBooker0 (the one who decided not to get baptized) and later decided to do something which resulted in Anna being born.

 

How can Booker and Comstock meet?

What I'm more curious about is how does Zachary Comstock enter Booker DeWitt's world. If the two worlds in which Booker/Comstock exists are completely separate, how did one get into the other?

"One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man."
– Zachary Hale Comstock, "Everyman, All at Once"

"A young Booker participates in the massacre at Wounded Knee and is tramautized by the experience. Booker considers baptism as a means of escaping his sin. In one universe ... Booker refuses, believing that a baptism cannot erase sin. In another universe ... Booker accepts the baptism and is 'born again' as Comstock. The crucial split occurs here. Comstock and Booker both reflect on their actions at Wounded Knee (though nobody remembers Comstock being there since he assumed a new identity, Comstock reflects on his time at Wounded Knee in one of his Voxophone voice records)."*

The baptized Booker DeWitt (now known as Comstock) has funded Rosalind Lutece's (whose research allowed for technology that makes Columbia fly) research of Lutece Fields (which led to the tears), which is how he gleaned through other worlds and where he got his "prophecies". The tears made him sterile and grow prematurely old. This is why Comstock looks way older than unbaptized Booker, even though they should have been the same age, which is 38 during most of the events of the game).

From his "prophecies" he learned that "it is his 'seed' that will essentially bring about the next apocalypse by raining fire on the land below and having Columbia serve as the next 'ark'".*

This made Comstock hatch a plan to take his alternate universe counterpart's (unbaptized Booker DeWitt) baby (Anna/Elizabeth) and groom her to be his successor, with the assistance of and using the technology (tears) made by Rosalind Lutece.

Comstock and Rosalind Lutece was assisted by Rosalind Lutece's alternate universe counterpart, Robert Lutece (same universe as unbaptized Booker DeWitt), who has been able to communicate with Rosalind Lutece by communicating through "Lutece Fields", which he also discovered in his universe.

Booker DeWitt (unbaptized) feeling guilty about the events of the Wounded Knee massacre, dealt with his guilt by gambling. He then built up a huge debt to "people one would not want to owe money to".

To forward Comstock's plan, Robert Lutece approached Booker DeWitt claiming that he will "wipe away the debt" if Booker sold his baby (Anna) to Comstock. Booker DeWitt realizes/remembers in the end of the game that it was Robert Lutece who asked him to "bring us the girl and wipe away the debt".

Booker DeWitt agreed to the terms and gave up Anna to Comstock. (Comstock traveled through a tear to get Anna.) However, Booker tried to stop Comstock from taking Anna in the last minute, but failed to do so. More info regarding this event here: How did Elizabeth lose her small finger?

Why is there a reference to Rapture, from Bioshock 1?

"Rapture story is a variable of this story in an alternative universe, but they're not the same people and not in the same time (by the way, that would put Andrew Ryan in his 90's during the events of the first game, which obviously isn't true). Elizabeth said there's always a man and always a city, but she didn't say it was always the same man and city. There are an infinite number of possible variations of men and cities, each with their own infinite variations. That's the multiverse theory: infinite worlds with infinite possibilities."

Source: comment at Reddit /r/BioShock post, "My detailed ending explanation. My attempt at the most accurate ending explanation/discussion. [Ultimate Spoilers]" by Reddit user, brokenbirthday

"Andrew Ryan is related to Comstock in a universe that plays out with different 'variables':

Throughout BioShock, the bathyspheres are used by Jack as a mode of transportation to travel around Rapture and its 'abandoned' city sections. It is revealed that Jack can use the bathyspheres only because his genetic signature is close enough to Ryan's that the security system doesn't deny him access. Sullivan clearly states this in one of his Audio Diaries 'Sisters, cousins — anyone in the ballpark genetically will be able to come and go as they see fit.'

--- Booker is able to use the bathysphere to reach the surface. This occurs after the civil war when genetic restrictions on Bathysphere travel were put in place to stop rebels/dissidents from escaping."*

"Elizabeth needed a place to destroy Songbird, and the best place would be deep underwater, where he wouldn't be able to survive under immense pressure. This is seen in many of Fink's blueprints concerning Songbird and Songbird's reaction to water, seen the first time he attacks you when you and Elizabeth crash into Battleship Bay.

Another reason is to tie Columbia and Rapture thematically. Rapture, like Columbia, is very much a dystopia, and the game BioShock holds many similarities with BioShock Infinite. This suggests that Rapture is an alternate dimension of Columbia. This is further exemplified when Elizabeth mentions 'There's always a lighthouse, there's always a city, there's always a man"' pointing to the main thematic similarities between both cities, and the overarching themes of the series and possible future iterations of the series."

Source: Reddit /r/BioShock post, "Bioshock Infinite: The Ultimate Spoiler FAQ" by Reddit user, awchern

There had to be a reason why Zachary Comstock did not want Booker Dewitt to capture Elizabeth; he had to label Booker as a false prophet. Was this to keep their society alive (if Booker showed Elizabeth the "truth", would everything they created cease to exist)?

"It is one thing to imagine one's future, and another to see it. I have seen the seeds of fire that will prepare the Sodom below for the coming of the Lord. But Elizabeth shall sow those seeds, not I. I will fall before the job is done...but she shall take up my mantle. The Lord is calling me home. I feel His love in every tumor, because they are the train which takes me to his station. And I go with joy, knowing that Elizabeth will take my earthly place. But the False Shepherd is coming to lead my Lamb astray. I will not board that train until she is safe from his deceptions."
– Zachary Hale Comstock, "A Reward, Deferred"

"And the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great. And He repented He had made man on the Earth." Rain! Forty days and forty nights of the stuff. And He left not a thing that walked alive. You see, my friends, even God is entitled to a do-over. And what is Columbia if not another Ark, for another time?"
– Zachary Hale Comstock, "Another Ark for Another Time"

Comstock has received "a prophecy that it is his 'seed' that will essentially bring about the next apocalypse by raining fire on the land below and having Columbia serve as the next 'ark'".*

Booker DeWitt has seen this event in a dream (New York in flames) and has actually seen it when an older Elizabeth (from an alternate universe where Booker failed to rescue her) showed it to him. The older Elizabeth in that alternate universe was broken by prolonged capture and hopelessness because Booker failed to rescue her, that she gave in to that universe's Comstock's indoctrination. Comstock doesn't want Booker to stop this "prophecy" of his from happening.

What exactly happens in the ending?

This BioShock Infinite Timeline posted in the Reddit /r/BioShock subreddit by Reddit user, haettenschweiler, gives a great explanation of that:

 

What was up with the coin flip question?

These two characters are just checking something regarding Booker.

That "something" is connected to the whole game plot and requires a deep explanation, so unless you finished please don't read the following because of SPOILERS:

Let's start from the beginning: These two characters are the Lutece "siblings"... well, truthfully they are the same person from different dimensions. Rosalind is from the dimension where the game mostly happens; Robert is from Booker's dimension.



They kind of got assassinated to keep the secret of the Elizabeth's origins. It didn't really work since their dimensional machine was involved, in said assassination plot, and instead they became "unhinged" from space & time instead. After getting "unhinged" they regretted stealing Anna (Elizabeth) from Booker and decided to fix it. How? By transporting Booker to the universe where Elizabeth is exactly like in the game.



Unfortunately it didn't go so well and Booker probably died or was unable to save Elizabeth for some reason. So they decided to try again, in another very similar dimension. They did this 122 times... until the Booker the player controls finally did it.



Meanwhile the Lutece "siblings", being the scientists they are, keep doing what scientists do: acquire knowledge by research and testing. So they tested Booker with the coin flip, and by Booker I mean all the "Bookers" they helped to get on Columbia. The result of that coin flip all ended as heads and that is what they recorded on the black board.



On a side note, Robert believes that coin flip would change sooner or later, Rosalind did not. It never changed, not even for the Booker that finally did it. This is one of the "Constants" mentioned in the game ("Constants and Variables").

[Twigg4075]

Serious question. When does this game get good? I think I'm about to meet the arms dealer guy, Chen Li I think his name is. This game has been standard shooter fare to this point.

There are some things that have stood out as just poor/lazy design or just annoyances to me at least.

1) Elizabeth throwing money at you.
Having her throw helpful items during battles is a nice feature but throwing a quarter at you every 3o seconds is annoying and dumb.

2) The totally predictable battles.
I understand that in most game you have a pretty good idea when a battle is about to take place. But when you enter an area in this game and see tears everywhere, gee, I wonder what's about to happen? There is like zero surprise at all.

3) Having only two guns sucks.
Is it more realistic? Absolutely? But why is that the only thing realistic in the the game? I'm constantly trying to figure out what two weapons to hold on to and of course I usually end of having the shittiest weapons I can have for an upcoming battle. This change, along with the lack of a save anywhere feature, are the two biggest omissions between this game and the first two games.

4) Sniper aiming.
For some reason the aiming sensitivity when ADS of a sniper rifle is waaaaaay off. I have the sensitivity turned down really low (which sucks when trying to run and look though), yet when I look trough a sniper scope the thing is flying all over. It's way too sensitive and doesn't correlate at all to the aiming of the rest of the guns. It makes zero sense.

5) Backtracking.
I'm obviously not terribly far into the game but I've put several hours into it and I've already spent what seems like half of that time backtracking. You go all the way through an area to find something (most likely a boss type enemy) and then have to travel all the way back to the start of the area. Maybe that is just a Bioshock staple?

6) Lack of continuity.
Ok, so there is a part where Elizabeth starts pressing Booker about why he's there, what he does, yada, yada. He finally admits to her that he owes a lot of money and agreed to bring her back to his debtor to make good on the debt. She just seems to shrug it off. Then a few hours later you have that scene in the gondola and you tell her the exact same thing and this time she freaks out and starts crying. WTF?!? Then she gets kidnapped which of course helps move along the story. That made absolutely no sense to me.

7) Lockpicks.
Why are these things so scarce yet most decent doors need five of them to open?!?

I will say that meeting up with the Vox finally has made things interesting and I'm hoping the story really opens up from here.

[Swarley]

Serious question. When does this game get good?

[stevsta]

Serious question. When does this game get good? I think I'm about to meet the arms dealer guy, Chen Li I think his name is. This game has been standard shooter fare to this point.

There are some things that have stood out as just poor/lazy design or just annoyances to me at least.

1) Elizabeth throwing money at you.
Having her throw helpful items during battles is a nice feature but throwing a quarter at you every 3o seconds is annoying and dumb.

2) The totally predictable battles.
I understand that in most game you have a pretty good idea when a battle is about to take place. But when you enter an area in this game and see tears everywhere, gee, I wonder what's about to happen? There is like zero surprise at all.

3) Having only two guns sucks.
Is it more realistic? Absolutely? But why is that the only thing realistic in the the game? I'm constantly trying to figure out what two weapons to hold on to and of course I usually end of having the shittiest weapons I can have for an upcoming battle. This change, along with the lack of a save anywhere feature, are the two biggest omissions between this game and the first two games.

4) Sniper aiming.
For some reason the aiming sensitivity when ADS of a sniper rifle is waaaaaay off. I have the sensitivity turned down really low (which sucks when trying to run and look though), yet when I look trough a sniper scope the thing is flying all over. It's way too sensitive and doesn't correlate at all to the aiming of the rest of the guns. It makes zero sense.

5) Backtracking.
I'm obviously not terribly far into the game but I've put several hours into it and I've already spent what seems like half of that time backtracking. You go all the way through an area to find something (most likely a boss type enemy) and then have to travel all the way back to the start of the area. Maybe that is just a Bioshock staple?

6) Lack of continuity.
Ok, so there is a part where Elizabeth starts pressing Booker about why he's there, what he does, yada, yada. He finally admits to her that he owes a lot of money and agreed to bring her back to his debtor to make good on the debt. She just seems to shrug it off. Then a few hours later you have that scene in the gondola and you tell her the exact same thing and this time she freaks out and starts crying. WTF?!? Then she gets kidnapped which of course helps move along the story. That made absolutely no sense to me.

7) Lockpicks.
Why are these things so scarce yet most decent doors need five of them to open?!?

I will say that meeting up with the Vox finally has made things interesting and I'm hoping the story really opens up from here.

shit starts getting real when you have to find chen-li

[Twigg4075]

I know it's been a few weeks since you've played the game but it's been pretty boring and mundane up to the point that I'm at now.

This game is a slow starter for sure. It sounds like AC3 might have some competition.

[jms493]

I could of bet a million dollars twigg would bitch about this game. I hope you hate it.

[SethMode]

I could of bet a million dollars twigg would bitch about this game. I hope you hate it.

This made me laugh out loud for some reason.

A lot of your complaints seem incredibly nitpicky for a guy that is willing to look the other way on some straight up piss poor design in other games. The only issue you have that I found myself commenting something similar was the disconnect of Elizabeth's emotions on the Gondola. And even then, if I recall correctly, the first time his debt is mentioned in regards to her, he's getting her out of the tower to absolve a debt. He doesn't mention anything about taking her to NY to give her up. The Gondola he straight up tells her.

[Swarley]

I think you should have played this game right out of the gate instead of waiting to replay the others. This game has been praised so much since it's release that you've built it up in your head and you seem to be looking for ways to bring it down. It's a pretty incredible games, one of the best I've ever played, and I think you would have felt A LOT different had you not waited so long and heard everybody else's opinions on it.