joevonzombie
Buried alive in Golgotha
In all fairness, most of the people who allegedly practice this stuff don't really understand how it works either.
Thoughts on the Bioshock series?
- Thread starter YeeCop
- Start date
In all fairness, most of the people who allegedly practice this stuff don't really understand how it works either.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
It is, in fact, quite disappointing Comstock's "God supports me in whatever shit I do because GOD" is the Christianity of many today...and yesterday.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
I didn't like the characters or plot of the main game and I thought the story of the DLC was just rancid horseshit.
Prone Squanderer
A bit of a Sillius Soddus.
I liked the first Bioshock, never played 2 and I've played Infinite. I liked Infinite's opening sequence where you walk around Columbia but didn't much care for the story, especially near the end since I feel it doesn't make sense. I also liked the guy who used the time tears to steal modern songs and make them his own.
I still prefer System Shock 2 though.
I've never played Amnesia, though I've watched playthroughs of it. Honestly I'd say SOMA is Frictional's best game.
I still prefer System Shock 2 though.
I've never played Amnesia, though I've watched playthroughs of it. Honestly I'd say SOMA is Frictional's best game.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
I didn't notice any real character arcs unless you consider the princess dressing up in a different outfit and cutting her hair a "character arc". The ending where Booker drowns is retarded. The end of Bioshock Infinite was just there to be deep and use the "constants and variables" nonsense, don't know why he didn't just off himself at the beginning of the game.
I mean they could've made her reclusive and introverted at first when you save her, unwilling to open up to you. Then have her open up to you over time and maybe have her attitude change towards you depending on how you treat her.
I mean they could've made her reclusive and introverted at first when you save her, unwilling to open up to you. Then have her open up to you over time and maybe have her attitude change towards you depending on how you treat her.
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CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
You mean like the part where she forgives her insane mother, the part where she stabs someone, the part where she gets tortured for years, the part where she tries to help the revolution but finds out they're a bunch of murderous psychos? I mean a LOT of stuff happens to Elizabeth to the point of treating her like a punching bag.
Yeah, it was stupid.
That would be the opposite of her character arc in the fact she ended up traumatized, barely able to speak, and disgusted by Booker to the point she wants to kill him.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
I think you are engaging in a bit of overcrediting the story. The narrative never even tries to frame Booker in a negative light, even as you just turn into a parody of the Doom guy, Booker and Elizabeth even have that song duet and in the DLCs Elizabeth remembers him as her best friend and the game always makes sure to make every person Booker has to kill into cartoonishly evil moving targets, they never attempt to humanize any of the carnage.
If they were trying to make a statement on violence they really failed at conveying anything deeper than a Doom campaign, and Doom doesn't even bother with the whole "having a message" thing.
If they were trying to make a statement on violence they really failed at conveying anything deeper than a Doom campaign, and Doom doesn't even bother with the whole "having a message" thing.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
She was forced back to life as a siren and basically formed off of Elizabeth's emotions on her.
Right how "deep", she stabbed someone who was trying to kill her what a shock.
I'm talking about the story arc in the game not whatever happened outside of the game. I'm talking about what is currently happening in the game.
That boils down to needing a new enemy to shoot at and I think you're looking more into this than even the developers did. They were cartoonishly evil. I mean don't they at one point see Booker alive and say "Hey you're dead but somehow alive so now we have to kill you to make sure you have a new variety of enemies to kill".
She was living in a tower which is bound to make someone reclusive not to mention how many people did she come into contact with during her stay in the tower? If she was introverted this could've bothered to show SOME character development but of course putting a lot of the story into audio logs would be a better solution since you have things to kill.
joevonzombie
Buried alive in Golgotha
I loved my time with SOMA, but the game would have been better off had it just been a first person adventure game/walking sim. The stalker escape elements really felt out of place where in Penumbra, it felt natural. That alone is what makes Penumbra Black Plague their best game to me. I think Frictional has solid ideas, but their attempts to solve the genre's large problems tend to lead to larger issues.
Which is why one could argue Ken Levine knew what he was doing with that element of the story, I don't necessarily believe that, but I could see the argument being made.
D
Deleted member 93956
Guest
- Where are we told that? The old war buddy of Booker seems alright despiting being filloed with hatred to any other race than Bald Eagle.
- Oh wow, isn't that EVERY other action protagonist, ever? Putting a sticker on a template character doesn't make it unique. If say, you turned his head to the PILES of corpses he's leaving behind, or at the consequences of it, then the player could even be moved. But Booker won't. Because his sole objective is to protect Elizabeth, and she'll climb onto him like a puppy, nevermind how much drama there is, she sticks to you like a bad smell which drops consumables making her invaluable, then neccesary. if he was abusive, he could slap and hit Eli at the minor noise she made complaining, or be more visceral when fighting. Hell, he could even get drunk at Columbia itself and get ambushed because of that, showing how self destructive he is. He does all kind of things and going through self sacrifice; not jumping off Columbia in a glider as soon as the game starts, thus taking him to a road of pain; using all kinds of dangerous chemicals, and getting shot at around 95% of the time just to save Eli. If he was such a selfish prick he would be GLAD Elizabeth was gone when she goes away for a time.
- "Death is the only way" is shorthand ending for any redemption story. Yes, there's some shock value to it, but it's not fridge horror or even that smart.
- "People are bad" NOOOOO WOW I'M HEARTBROKEN
You know, now I understand your take on character development. For you, it's "shit happens to them". That explains a lot of things.
Character Development isn't a bio with SHOCKING things happening in it. A lot of things can happen to someone and not have impact in them. The definition of "Development" is: "the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced" .
I'm gonna make an example of caharacter development, very simple.
Imagine that there's a happy married couple. But another man, say a judge or a man in power, falls in love with the wife and so gets the husband, of lower class, to prison or exiled accused of fake claims. The years pass and the widow and the judge have grown together and have had a child. The wife knows nothing and has almost forgot his past companion, due to those claims being of terrible nature, say, rape and murder. While the judge remembers what he did every day, yet keeping appearances. One day, the ex husband comes back (no need to even explain what) once the child is about in age to go to school. His objective is to recover his wife, and have payback on who sent him away. The thing is, once he's faced with the family, he's not the same person. He wasn't driven by righteousness or love, but by anger, as that's what is easier to hold on to for that long. His wife doesn't recognize him, the kid doesn't know him and the judge is dying inside but keeping the facade. You can end this story however you want. What matters is that these characters CHANGED through the course of the story, not a half measure at the end, or phoning it in at the start. We could say that for all of them, the husband being sent away was the turning point for them.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Uhm, what the hell are you talking about Walpknut? The narrative constantly frames Booker as an awful person. He's an awful person because he IS Comstock and that's why he has to die.
Comstock claims to be the hero of Wounded Knee (the infamous RL massacre) while Booker's Old War Buddy is pissed at him because he doesn't remember Comstock there. That's because he remembers Booker there (and Booker hasn't been artificially aged by the Tears ala Comstock). Booker's whole self-hatred is based on the fact he's a man who participated in the massacre.
As for character development -
Elizabeth goes from a shy, introverted, idealistic Disney Princess to a traumatized broken omnipotent demigoddess who will kill her father-figure to destroy Columbia and prevent Comstock's insane Millennialist plan from happening.
Booker goes from a selfish gambler here to kidnap Elizabeth to someone who comes to terms with the crimes he committed and being willing to die to achieve penance for them.
You are reaching SERIOUSLY to say that's not a character arc. I mean, how does one even pretend Elizabeth doesn't get all shellshocked and crazy?
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Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
That's a plot twist at the end. Up to that point every person Booker kills is always cartoonishly evil and explicitly stated and framed as unredeemable.
And if the only reason he is awful and has to die is because an alternate version of him is evil then that's some pretty spotty logic, morality and Narrative.
Is the moral that atoning for past actions being impossible and suicide being the only cure for mistakes? Because that's some fucked up Nihilist shit.
Also Elizabeth is not Shy and inteoverted. She is always dancing and talking to people first time she's out of the tower. That's actually hiw an Extrovert acts.
Big No
Watch as I open and close this door
The infinite possibilities aren't really infinite like the story claims either. Not a single universe has Booker defeating Songbird in combat apparently because "he always stops you". Like, not a single universe defies this? Not even a universe where Booker is like Robocop or something and has a Mega-Man blaster he could use?
I'm going on Rick & Morty's variety of infinite universes here, but what about a universe where Songbird is made of wooden sticks and four feet tall? Booker could burn him and stomp him down. After all, it is said several times that there's "infinite possibilities", so that'd mean there'd HAVE to be a universe with stick Songbird.
I mean, it's not really infinite possibilities the way it is now. "Infinite" means there's no limit, literally anything goes. The way Bioshock portrays it is more like a fuckton of possibilities with a hard limit.
I'm going on Rick & Morty's variety of infinite universes here, but what about a universe where Songbird is made of wooden sticks and four feet tall? Booker could burn him and stomp him down. After all, it is said several times that there's "infinite possibilities", so that'd mean there'd HAVE to be a universe with stick Songbird.
I mean, it's not really infinite possibilities the way it is now. "Infinite" means there's no limit, literally anything goes. The way Bioshock portrays it is more like a fuckton of possibilities with a hard limit.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
That makes no sense to kill himself, people can change and while realizing something in the past he had done was wrong it doesn't mean killing himself. I mean what is that going to achieve besides making him look like a retard? Besides Comstock is another him(cause that's a thing
) so it's not really "his" actions but the actions of another him. If killing himself means undoing everything he had done then that's again some shitty writing.
BigGuyCIA
Yer fond of me Lobster!
I only played the first two. I really liked the first one and thoroughly enjoyed the second one. Not really sure why I skipped out on 3 but something tells me I did myself a favor.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
That makes no sense to kill himself, people can change and while realizing something in the past he had done was wrong it doesn't mean killing himself. I mean what is that going to achieve besides making him look like a retard? Besides Comstock is another him(cause that's a thing
Killing himself only makes sense in the ludicrous time travel plot which kind of undermines the racism and classcism element of the story. But yes, shitty writing is why he commits suicide so he can retroactively erase all the Comstocks from reality as well as Bookers.
Except it doesn't work unless you assume the final scene after the credits is Booker in Heaven rather than an alternate reality because....why not.
Oiye.
I don't even LIKE Bioshock: Infinite all that much. I just like Booker and Elizabeth and the setting. The plot is shit.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
Wait then shouldn't Booker cease to exist after killing Comstock?
BigGuyCIA
Yer fond of me Lobster!
Wait then shouldn't Booker cease to exist after killing Comstock?
Isn't the Booker you play from a parallel timeline?
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
My opinion on the plot can be summarized by Bruce Willis here.
0:14
But the short version is that Booker and Comstock are two people from parallel timelines that broke off from the same event: Booker getting baptized or not at a fundamentalist religious sect's revival. Prior to the event, Booker was a Metis scout for the US Calvary and participated in Wounded Knee--murdering lots and lots of innocent women and children in hopes of impressing his white associates.
The Booker who was baptized believed he was cleansed by Jesus and could do no wrong so he went on to found Columbia based on the racist classicist beliefs he tried to follow while a member of the US calvary. He took the name Comstock to go along with being reborn. Eventually, Comstock funded Rosalind Lutece who developed universe-jumping technology (who eventually met her alternate self who was a man).
The Booker who refused baptism went on to join the Pinkertons, became a drunk, and then sold Elizabeth as a baby to a universe-hopping Comstock. However, Elizabeth gets her pinky cut off in the portal and this gives her vast cosmic powers because....reasons.
Elizabeth's power inspires Comstock to believe she's the messiah and he plans to use her to wipe out all sinners on Earth as only Columbia is saved by God. It will take awhile for her power to grow and Comstock puts her in an inhibitor so he can keep her under control until she's an adult. To that end, he keeps her in a tower and studies her scientifically until he kills Rosalind and Robert Lutece in order to make sure they can't stop his plans for Multiversal genocode.
EXCEPT Rosalind and Robert become immortal quantum ghosts instead because...reasons. So, they go to Booker Dewitt the guy who sold his daughter and recruit him. His memory is fucked up, though, because going through multiple quantum realities makes you crazy and confused. It caused Comstock to become an old man prematurely and makes Booker subceptible to suggestion that he represses his memory of selling Elizabeth and is told he's actually kidnapping her to pay off gambling debts.
After going through multiple realities where they find out Booker usually ends up dying and Comstock eventually brainwashes Elizabeth into wiping out Earth, Booker finally corners Comstock and murders him by drowning him in a baptismal font--still unaware he's Comstock's alternate self. Elizabeth's power reaches the point she learns the truth, however, and that Booker and Comstock are one in the same.
Elizabeth believes that as long as a single Comstock exists in any reality, he will corrupt his Elizabeth and use her to wage war on the Multiverse. So, in order for Comstock to die, he must be prevented from ever existing. Booker agrees to murder Comstock in his crib, not yet realizing that he's Comstock until Elizabeth takes him to the baptism and he agrees to die in the past (Elizabeth drowning his past self) that kills all Comstocks everywhere.
But also all Bookers.
Which is stupid and bullshit science fiction.
However, because of it, Columbia never exists, Elizabeth disappears from all realities but one because she's an immortal quantum goddess, and Booker wakes up with his baby daughter.
If you care enough, here's the fifteen minutes of nonsense.
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MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
From one of the many universes. If I recall correctly cause it has been a long time, when Booker drowned in the "current universe" all the Elizabeths disappeared which means all of the Comstocks and Bookers must've disappeared. Not like the game made any sense to begin with.