In the scene where Elizabeth attempts to bash Booker's head in with a book, the book in question is has the title "The Principles of Quantum Mechanics" by Rosalind Lutece. This is symbolic of how the game literally beats the crux of its narrative into your head.
Eh, that's not too unusual for a game dealing with philosophical questions. The issue the game has is that it doesn't really deal with Quantum Mechanics at all, it deals with Fate. But rather than stick with the unending question of "All things end the same, it's how Fate works," it pretends it's about the possibilities of everything we know about Quantum Mechanics. It pretends it's a game about Science and Science Fiction, but instead it's a game about philosophical questions--but it doesn't answer or explore those questions in a satisfying matter. It just pretends to be deep.
i suppose it requires the same suspension of disbelief that ADAM and its sluggish origins demand during bioshock 1 - it violates biology in a science-fiction way in the same way that this game violates quantum mechanics in a science-fiction way (i.e. loose basis on known science, but altered to suit the narrative) and as such, i don't know why one would consider this a bad thing, if the first game gets a pass.
@@jamjox9922 a game can’t pretend to be about science or science fiction. It either is or isn’t. The first game bioshock is science fiction and the second game is as well but it’s mixing in a whole bunch of other things that don’t work well and ignoring topics that story itself brought up itself on its own. It’s just not well written enough for people to praise on anything that’s it’s trying to say or do because it’s not doing it well.
“He makes no attempt to cover up his hand...” THANK YOU. That was the first thing I was basically screaming at Booker for the very first time I played the game. I even looked around to see if there was some kind of interactable medkit or something.
*It's as if he was in a perpetual hangover since the day he gave up his daughter to some scientific freaks. It could be that his being brought to the island impacted his mind enough that he lost common sense.*
Because it's smarter that way? Shut up it's the best game ever because thinking about stuff! Have you ever think about things? No! Because game! The best one and this is it! I'M SMARTER THEN EVERYONE!!!!! HAHAHA!
Oh god yeah. I don't even hate this game but the fans push me to that point almost. A game should make you think already, and if you are going to have a story it should compliment the gameplay. In Bioshock 1 I feel like I make the choices because there are actual results. I kill little sisters I get more atom but I feel more devious because I'm killing something that may be pychotic but it isn't the little sister fault, and the fact that I can save them make me feel evil. Endings change as well depending on what you actually do. Infinite just tells a liner story that takes away interaction far to often to tell you a story. Telling a story in a game is fine but you need to tell it along with the gameplay or else you miss the entire point of a game. A player has control they hold a CONTROLLER. Let me have my own story, I want to feel like Doom Guy or Batman, I don't want Doom Guy or Batman to tell me a story and if I did I'd watch a movie. Shoving story in my face and ignoring the gameplay aspects to tell that story, is completely missing the point of the media of games.
I'm currently playing through Wolfenstien: The New Order. This is my 3rd play through of it and while there are plenty of cut scenes I still feel like I am BJ. I am killing all the Nazi's and BJ is my avatar. I make certain choices and they affect my game and I feel responsible. If I was able to choose to give away Elizabeth or keep her I'd feel responsible, I was the one who did that not Booker. But instead I watch some character do stuff which I might of cared about in a film but I'm the one playing the game and I feel like I'm just watching a failed alcoholic be a raging murderer who gave away his daughter and should feel bad because I should like him.
The weird thing is a morality system was cut from the final game. Originally, they were planning on having Elizabeth's powers be more insane and OP, but using them drained her physical health. A player who used her powers every fight would have Elizabeth coughing and shivering, and that would affect your relationship with her throughout the game and by the end. No game has really done this and it's disappointing that they stripped it from the game.
So they wanted to use a system similar to the system in Silent Hill 2? Depending on how the player treats Maria, changes the way the game ends. Little touches that, while the player may not be outwardly thinking of them, lead to different endings. Damn, I really wish they would've stuck with that, it would've made different playthroughs genuinely interesting.
Booker looking at the sign of the false shepherd and seeing that the “A.D.” is a bad thing and not covering his hand up reminds me of that Garfield Meme image from the animated show which shows that Garfield is seeing a sign of himself with a X around him and saying, “hm, I wonder whose that for?”
To me it seems like Bioshock Infinite tried to use the aesthetics of the game to disguise the shallowness. Like by making it look a certain way and feel a certain way, it distracts you from the fact that nothing is really happening. It's an illusion of depth that fooled everyone. I can respect the game's aesthetics and ambition and just about nothing else.
llucllumador people really gotta fucking stuff using that word and the asinine context surrounding it. It’s a failed story that wasn’t thought out so well. That’s it.
@@Gadget-Walkmen Pretentious - attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed. Yeah that sounds like Bioshock Infinite.
poisonsquid37 I don’t like even like bioshock infinite’s story but just against people who are using that word because there’s nothing wrong with trying to tell something with deeper meaning and purpose. I most certainly think the narrative fails at it completely but there’s nothing wrong with attempting to such thing.
Anonymouse Overmouse I’m just against using that word because people throw that term around (all with some other terms used as buzz words) so much I can’t take them seriously and it makes it sense as if any story that is trying to take itself seriously by those who just throw the word around casually and it hinders story telling greatly and makes it seem every narrative has to be cartoony, silly or filled to the brim with humor to avoid being called that term by people. There’s nothing wrong with a story trying to be philosophical, deep, or trying being meaningful in any way while taking itself seriously with no real humor like 2001 space odyssey, shadow of the colossus, Birdman, and Gattaca. The narrative has to make sense, be consistent and know what the hell it is trying to say which infinite does not but the most I’d say is that it horribly fails what it is trying.
+slvcobra1337 Which is odd because they were willing to get Tarantino levels of f**ked up; melee kills are disgustingly brutal. This subject isn't something you can half ass, which they did.
I think that its all a "go big or go home" scenario. If you're gonna portray racism in your game, don't treat it lightly. That just ruins the entire thing. Show me some black people getting lynched or thrown in jail, and then I will put this game in my hall of fame for having the balls to portray racism to the fullest extent. Don't appeal to the pc crowd when tackling issues, as that makes everything worse.
yeah, and as much as I like BioShock 1, it seems to show a very simplistic libertarian world, so they could focus on the story, which is good, but I found it annoying where alot of people say BioShock one directly refutes ayn Rand. I feel that the creative director or irrational games, ken Levine sees a possible good idea for a game but goes incredibly simple so he can focus on his story, rather than just saying "they want free will" or "their not that prejudice becuase bla bla"
@@eudaemon4931 It didn't sell well. Actually it's very likely Prey didn't even remotely cover its budget. Really sad, considering how much love went into it. One of my favorite games for sure.
Mostly because of the Prey 2 incident. Prey 1 was a shooter that got some decent success and there was going to be a sequel to it called Prey 2, which was supposed to have parkour elements somewhat simialer to inFAMOUS except in First-person along with a massive open world that you can explore as an intergalactic bounty hunter. Then Bethesda bought the original studio and fucked said studio in the asshole so hard it had severe hemorrhoids and tore it's asshole apart. Prey 2 was then cancelled. Then Bethesda gave the "Prey" ip to Arkane and then they made a Half-Life/System shock like game that used the same name. Fans got pissed and never looked back. The reason why it doesn't get as much recognition and plenty of hate.
"Perhaps it has to do with game journalists of today having to justify their own existence by evangelizing games like Bioshock Infinite as mature storytelling" Wow.
Aeterna this is why Matt is so fucking brilliant. he doesn't sugar coat anything, he's just straight to the point, no matter how brutal the truth may be. fucking love this man
Adam Sessler in a nutshell! Seriously watch his review of this game. I like Sessler he is a smart guy, but he doesn't get game design and rather just spew BIG words.
Gargamel Le Noir Agree, that introductory scene in the Fair was actually a pretty clever tutorial. Too bad the game never stopped being a carnival shooting gallery with hamfisted dialogue being repeated over and over again.
Gargamel Le Noir The aesthetics of the game blew me away. The story and gameplay was terrible. The music, characters and rare scary moments were great, but there was not enough and it disappeared up its own arse
Machiner6 This /\. Battleship Bay was great fun, Elizabeth and you have fun looking around, listening to the music. It was great. Then you enter HOH and it turns into 'shoot the baddie a million times'. It really dragged after that.
Scratch that, I think the drop off point is entering the first alternate Columbia. All chances of finding out more about the place the way it was MEANT to be seen are gone, and you're only stuck puzzling over the time-space shenanigans to actually be caring about what's in front of you.
To bring this around full-circle, the Baseball scene demonstrates this game enforcing completely unnecessary context sensitivity because they don't trust the player to understand the choice presented unless it is broken down into a transparent binary.
When I first played the game about a year ago, I pressed the button to throw the baseball at the guy, not seeing the prompt and just assuming I could aim the baseball at him. I reloaded the recent save to see if I missed anything but it was just the prompt. It never occurred to me until this video that some people might’ve thought it was impossible to throw the baseball at the guy if not for that prompt. On one hand, it gives a clear moral choice for the player to make. On the other, it underestimates the player’s intelligence. The binary-choice might make sense in isolation or on paper, but in practice, allowing the player to aim the baseball at whoever they want is objectively and clearly better.
The ending is actually even worse than how you explained it. Taking a version of Booker from the future and bringing him to the past to kill him then wouldn't retroactively erase his existence at all. It would just kill a single version of future Booker that was never even Comstock. It'd be like traveling back to dinosaur times and being eaten. You wouldn't erase your past self, just end the life of one future self.
No you don't understand, it works because [Quantum Mechanics]. They said Quantum Mechanics, that's a big fancy sciencey term, so you know it's smart and legit.
@@TiomesTheOne I think the fact you had to stoop to CoD of all games to find an example to compare this game's story to in a favorable light speaks for itself. What exactly does Infinite innovate? The ability to carry only 2 guns? The ability to run out of ammo every fight? Less build options? More linear environments? Blowing its budget on first person cutscene spectacles that stopped being impressive years ago? God awful boss fights? Well I guess it has that in common with BS1.
There's a plot hole in this game that I've never seen anyone mention. When you travel to the Revolution universe, Elizabeth is continually treated as if she is the Elizabeth from that universe. Even Comstock treats our Elizabeth like she's the one from his world, even though Booker never rescued the Elizabeth from that universe, so Comstock should still have her. Songbird treats our Elizabeth like she's from it's universe too. So the question is, where the fuck is that Elizabeth? Did she escape, did she vanish from existence? Did she read the script and see she wasn't needed for the game? Was this game written by a hack? If you remove the alternate universe crap, and add in a single scene of the revolution starting, the game literally solves half of its plot holes. The revolution is simmering at the beginning of the game, and halfway through the war begins. Booker rescues Elizabeth in the beginning of the game, and Comstock gets her back later on. There's no more confusion. Instead, alternate universe hijinks ensue, another Comstock gets her, and the Elizabeth from that world is never heard from, creating one of the most annoying plotholes.
Good catch, that's actually a HUGE plot hole in the grand scheme of things. I agree that the multiverse narrative just massively over-complicated what could have been a great Bioshock. I was hoping that they would expand on the choice system by allowing you to see both sides of Columbia and choose what side to support, culminating in deciding the fate of the city. But instead I get fed a bunch of bullshit and the choice system is dropped entirely in favor of said bullshit.
I had a question about something too, earlier Elizabeth was in her tower drawing the Eiffel Tower in Paris to tear into it perhaps, question is, how the fuck did she know about Paris since she was raised in an isolated tower?
@@xxCrimsonSpiritxx she read books, that's actually explained. But the shit about she missing from other dimensions really is a plot hole. I hadn't thought of that.
@Claire Bear THANKS SO MUCH for bringing that up again ... this is exactly, what I was aksing myself already on the FIRST PLAYTHROUGH!! ... --...-- .... disappointing, no mentioning in the game WHATSOEVER!! on mutiple occasions, similar things were out ...
Elizabeth's super power is literally opening plot holes in the story. They transverse universes to complete a simply fetch quest because they're so stupid they didn't think about how they were going to transport a pile of guns. Then they go to a universe where they already delivered the guns, so everything that happened in the previous universe was pointless. See how fucking stupid this sounds when you actually type it out? It almost seems satirical but the horrible truth is that someone thought this was clever
The times have changed, that’s for sure. But context matters in language. I think that in the context, it was OK to use the word, it obviously wasn’t ill-meaning.
@@Moegivesmelife Literally nothing would have changed whatsoever if he said "The N-Word" instead of using the Hard R multiple times, you do not have to say the word to make a point about it, you can just use the very well known term for it "The N-word" nobody is gonna be confused and say "why does he think they should be saying Nipple?" We all know what "the N-Word" refers to, he did not have to actually say it
@@JowoeBunchaNumbers That is fair. While I personally think that it was acceptable to say it in that specific situation and context, I think it would have been better to not say it directly, as people are, rightfully, sensitive about the subject matter.
@@JowoeBunchaNumbersyou are just brainwashed to be offended by that word. 10 years ago a thing called context existed. Now your brainwashed mind is trained to go crazy anytime you hear the word, even with no racism implied. We’ve made progress as a society on a lot of things, but we’ve totally digressed when it comes to being offended over words, without thinking about context
I will never understand how killing Booker from a single timeline is supposed to erase all instances of the two in the multiverse, especially considering he wasn't even the original Booker from that timeline. Even if they did kill the Booker from that timeline all that would happen is a new timeline where the two didn't exist would be created, I don't see how it would affect the other versions of themselves from other timelines. Tl;dr the writers don't have any idea how alternate universes work and got lost up their own asses with pretentious symbolism.
The game actually shows us 3 more "copies" of Booker and Elizabeth in the end, when you're walking on a dock and see multiple "reflections". So, we know for a fact more timelines were created, meaning that at least one Elizabeth doesn't drown Booker. The last scene where another Booker is still alive (and possibly a baby Anna) also shows Elizabeth's plan was never going to work. Then, the Burial at Sea DLC SHOWS us her plan didn't work! This is the worst, most pretentious and illogical ending I've ever seen in any media. I don't think you could write something worse if you tried.
@@aleciad7218 See, that just pisses me off. Because as fucking stupid and nonsensical as Infinite's plot is, at least at the end according to what they tell you, Booker's sacrifice saves the multiverse from a racist tyrant. It's contrived, it makes no sense, I hate it, but at least it was all _for_ something. The DLCs just say "Yeah, actually none of it mattered, all those sacrifices, literally the entirety of the main game, did not matter a single bit. You might as well have not played it, nothing mattered." Fuck *right* off with that shit!
Regardless, the main thing that bothers me is what's even the point? Once you bring multiverse theory into the game then who cares if you win or lose, live or die? Who cares which Booker does what? I think it's just silly to make the main narrative theme of the game something that undermines the entire value of everything you do in the game. System Shock 1 and 2, BioShock 1 and 2 were all narratively better games. Also, it's much better to have an actual map than linear paths that unlock one after another. Also they absolutely chickened out when it came to the Vox Populi. Originally they could be seen brutally executing innocents and it seemed nuances who was the actual bad guys. Once the game released it had shifted to a much more clear and obvious narrative of oppression and overt racism. Andrew Ryan in Bioshock 1 actually made good points and had a functional philosophy.
When the designers asked the question "How do we make sure that the players like this character?" whomever answered the question with "Lets make her throw money at the player!" should have been laughed at, not taken seriously.
@@orc001 it means she doesn't exist in the context of the story either, Matthew makes the point in the video, enemies never go after her, shes almost completely ignored by the people who have been raised to see her as a literal messiah, and they make it feel like Elizabeth is a tangential part of the story, only relevant when the camera is actively on her. If she were more like Ashley from resident evil, but with better AI anywho enemies who might grab her and run off instead of trying to kill Booker, then tried to get her to an area where it'd result in failure if she was lost, maybe it wouldn't feel like she just blinks in and out of everyone's conciousness as the plot or action demands it.
@@zamb4010 Her power is literally the ability to go to different dimensions. It is critical to the story. Anytime someone could harm her or capture her, she could just be in another dimension. I think it works well
"It's not a good father-daughter bonding story either..." It's funny that you would say that, because there is a game that WAS a good father-daughter bonding story: Bioshock 2. Subject Delta and Eleanor's relationship felt far more realistic, thematically satisfying, and genuinely emotional to me than that of Booker and Elizabeth. It's a shame that game got thrown under the bus just cause it wasn't written by Ken Levine.
EonKool I think the main problem with it was that it is easily the shortest of all the bioshocks and feels just like an xpac to the orginal game as opposed to an actual sequal
Trendydwarf Really? I'd have to disagree in that regard. Personally, I beat Bioshock 1 in about 6-7 hours, whereas I completed 2 in about 9-10. I felt that Bioshock 2 improved on a lot of gameplay mechanics that made the game more fun than 1 and especially more fun than Infinite. I really don't give a shit about story in videogames, but even I can see that it's much more simple and effective than the needlessly convoluted story of Infinite.
EonKool How did it take you longer, it only had nine levels compared to the firsts 14 levels. And what gameplay mechanics did it improve on other than than not having to switch between plasmids and weapons
When I played Infinite for the first time I was 12 years old, back when games could appear more engaging and intense by just having a mature rating slapped on the box. Bewitched by this, the appearance on the songbird Freaked me out the most where I dreaded a direct confrontation with the mighty mechanical beast. So when the game revealed that I would gain the power I once feared it felt, for lack of a better word, badass. This, having a crush on Elizabeth (thought it was cool that she could take care herself while also helping out during the course of battle), and thinking the story was really profound (because I didn't get it) solidified Infinite as my 2013 game of the year. Decided to test out my seemingly rock solid 12 year old interpretation by playing through Infinite again in retort and... well... I miss the old days.
i felt this almost the same exact way. Thought it was amazing as a kid but finding it pretty terrible as an adult. At least I was able to enjoy actual "profound" game stories back then, and now i can tell between spectacle and an actual good story
An understandable experience, you both grew up and learned to see through the bells and whistles. Funnily enough, Razbuten recently did a video on this very learning experience, but seemed to have learned much less than you about the value of growing up.
+theboomandbang1 Can we travel to that universe and play it then? Cause I really want to play the masterpiece version of this game that we were promised.
2 was an example of fixing things instead of removing them, specifically with hacking, remote hacks made hacking machines easier, and the hacking minigame wasn't nearly as repetitive. I usually hacked every security camera I came across and just let the bots take care of the splicers.
"Perhaps it also has to do with games journalists of today having an insecure need to justify their existence by evangelizing games like BioShock Infinite as mature storytelling." Wow, just wow. Bullseye. Those people will place the most mediocre shit on the highest pedestals. Almost a decade later and that statement is still very relevant.
Games journalism in general has been conditioned over the past decade to value "mature" narratives over the gameplay that those narratives are meant to supplement. The game industry has pushed the idea of a split between narrative and gameplay, and that kind of thinking holds the medium back from achieving what an interactive medium is capable of when it comes to storytelling. In a desperate plea to seem as valued and respectable as other, older mediums, they've shunned the unique strengths that it holds.
Honestly this problem extends to consumers too. A lot of people genuinely cannot believe that some games aren’t perfect or that they don’t deserve above a 7. Most journalists do try to justify themselves by evangelizing these games upon release but the ones that actually don’t do that when something drops are chewed up and spat out by consumers. I still remember the absolute bile and doxing that hit the Gamespot reviews that gave Cyberpunk a 7 upon release, only for people to lose their hype a day later. It’s a self fulfilling cycle where journos feel like they have to worship a game, either to establish credibility or to avoid getting their careers ruined, and then consumers who hear these reviews feel like a series HAS to be perfect or that to think that a game isn’t good is a moral failing that must be punished.
@@looinrims There's also no way to skirt around it without saying it since n-word can just be reffering to negro but saying nigger clearly points it out.
M O E * N E E T we’re talking about 19th century American ideas too, to sugarcoat it like they did leads to what Matt said in the video, it makes this racist place more appealing than it should be in reality
I am not exaggerating when i say this is the greatest gaming critique i have ever seen, this video alone will make me view and judge games differently from now on.
I love the idea of "you don't like it cause you didn't understand it". Cause multiverse/alternate timelines/infinite timelines is some of the easiest shit to understand
Actually so easy that people to this day praise story of Bioshock Infinite, especially in Steam reviews. Funny enough same people never can mention specific details about the story and why they did like it. Hmmm, its almost like they forget about how bad and generic it was especially with that crappy rushed plot twist and plot dump at the end.
Multiverse is a noob trap for storytellers. It seems to provide infinite possibilities and massive complexity. Instead, unless you really know what you're doing, you'll spread your story thin across an infinite surface area that has far too many holes for you to ever comprehend, let alone fill.
@Jacob Wood Definitely no. It was pretentious, boring and the regenerating shield made it stupidly handboldingly brain-dead to play. Also having the highest difficulty as pre order insentive was just stupid. The normal mode was a joke and the highest one aswell.
I don't know actually, something i really hated was how much the DLC wanted to tie to the first game, since the infinite realities thing makes all Elisabeth's actions in burial at sea meaningless
@@Stefanoabed05 The infinite reality thing really threw me off. If there are infinite realities, that means there's a reality where Booker kept Elizabeth. Or maybe there's a reality where Booker was successful taking Elizabeth to France. There might even be a reality where Booker did the baptism but he chose a different path instead of becoming a tyrannical leader. It's really so convoluted and it gives me a headache. I never understood why killing that Booker would erase them from all possible timelines and realities.
"I like things that make me feel stupid" - Ken Levine on how he got the idea for Infinite's story "So deep, video games are finally art! " - Video game journalists
Super APM it may be a generic zombie apocalypse story but I got to admit that it's way of telling it is quite good especially with the voice acting. But yeah if it wasn't for the story then the game wouldn't be getting this much praise. And yeah this game is WAY too overhyped and I wish Sony can give some of their other franchises some love like twisted metal and ape escape for example.
I'm so happy you brought up the grandfather paradox cause I always use that for this game's ending and people just say "Oh, you just don't understand it." No, I understand it, its why it makes no f****** sense!
+Zevran08 I loved bioshock infinite and I agree with you. It was one of the first things that came to mind when I finished it (specially how drowning Booker wouldn't fix anything), but I got what they were trying to do with the ending and it was quite nice, only not really well thought out.
But what if the baptism happened after she was already born? The grandfather paradox literally doesn’t work here, and I’m sorry to say it, but you legit don’t understand. This isn’t an example of the grandfather paradox. Say you travelled back in time and killed your father when you were 10. Thats wouldn’t stop you from existing cause you’d have already been born.
@@irony8908 Fair enough, but Elizabeth mentions constants and variables in that final sequence. Booker's baptism within the game is considered to be the birth of Comstock. Therefore I think that's one of the constants. Booker getting baptized after Wounded Knee always results in the creation of Comstock in this universe. So the game is consistent with its logic on that point at least, even if it's a little convenient about it.
"The subject's mind will struggle to create memories were there aren't any" They never explained why that was, when Booker travels to the other Columbias he gets the memories of those Bookers instantly. That explanation just exists as a handwave to being able to have a twist at the end. Wouldn't it be more interesting if Booker actually becomes aware that he is Comstock from the beginning and the conflict with his relationship wit hElizabeth comes from that knowledge instead of some hamfisted, 80s children movie style misunderstandings and cutscenes removing player agency? But I forgot, the game is high art, the plot holes are meaningless because art.
this is to be expected considering there were essentially 2 versions of the game. the first version - shown in trailers and teasers - was a lot more open world and had a story that focused on horror/insanity, general xenophobia, and supernatural themes rather than race issues or quantum theory. then they decided to scrap the whole thing and build it from the ground up to be more of a conventional shooter and force a bullshit narrative that would connect it with Bioshock. that's why so many things feel oddly underused or out of place- because they were originally made for a different type of game and story.
They could have kept the racial theme. I think it's important to explore the issue of race in America and how it has touched on every facet of society at one point or another. However, as said in the video, Bioshock Infinite doesn't really do that theme effectively since the game becomes much more focused on its sci-fi narrative about infinite worlds, and because they never show the really fucked up shit slavery involved beyond simply forcing black people to scrub floors for no money and throwing baseballs at interracial couples. It's classic "have your cake and eat it too" - they want to have a mass-market appeal game that won't offend people _too_ deeply by showing graphic depictions of the abuse and torture suffered by black slaves, but they also want to preach a point about how evil racism is. They never actually manage to demonstrate that point though because they never do anything that would warrant an emotional response other than the Surprise! Racism! bit at the raffle.
That’s what they get for trying to make a game that would have system requirements rivaling the new half life: Alyx, the developers may have been ambitious but they were stupid Great games have been made out of hellish developments and complete rebuilds, like the first two Halos, call of duty 4, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, it’s no excuse for making things like Elizabeth’s inconsistent characterization, the plot holes, the stupid mission structure, and the gameplay problems like the Ghost Fights
Serious question for you: Did the racial elements of the game do "anything for you" in regards to the story? Like, I take it from your comment that you considered it almost juvenile and ham fisted, would that be a correct guess? I'm just curious if the game ever had any moments where you felt it was, I guess, "handled appropriately" to benefit the elements of the story?
Yeah, I hated what they did. They were offensive enough to offend modern people, and not offensive enough to show the true horrors that happened back then. Basically they hurt everyone.
I think tiptoeing around the issue is more insulting. People seem to have a real problem with telling the difference between depiction and appreciation
Bioshock Infinite: "Being dead in one reality makes you crazy in all others!" Bioshock Infinite: "Comstock being dead in one reality doesn't change anything!" How the fuck does such a glaringly obvious plothole get through?
@@Predator20357 Elizabeth creates the other realities from scratch and she is still a beginner at doing this. The first reality she creates when reaching the weapon smiths tools is a very amateur attempt at creating a new reality which results in messed up people having memories of multiple realities. Her next attempt works a lot better but some people were still ill afflicted by this debilitating state. Why is she amateur at making rifts after all this time? The Siphon device destablizes her abilities so she was never really able to practice at her full potential until late in to the game.
@@Nicholas_Steel So the Realities don’t actually exist outside of Elizabeth and are only there because of Elizabeth, is that what am I understanding? Or are you saying that while Elizabeth was warping realities, she accidentally caused a mistake where the Arms dealer got the memory of the dead one out into him as well as others?
@@Predator20357 The way I see it, she merges realities. There's a couple of lines of dialogues during the whole Arms dealer thing where she talks about her ability being "wish fulfillment". She was talking about how it would be good for a revolution to happen, and sure enough the next universe they jump to is one with a revolution ongoing. So I believe she's essentially slamming two different timelines together, and the people that are dead in one and alive in another get caught in this in-between state where they experience both realities at once. That's what I got from it, anyway.
Resident Evil 4 absolutely SUCCEEDS in escort missions in my opinion. I love how the girl locks behind Leon when he aims and when he's not aiming there's a balance of her following you but also a fair risk of her being taken away because of the excellent enemy A.I.
You have to remember Resident Evil 4’s gameplay enables that, at the expense of player control, by design mind you but the control it isn’t as fluid as shooters around it, where escort missions are mostly found Half Life 2 did it best by making the companion useful without arbitration, and advanced ai compared to the enemies and in general the industry, Alyx’s AI shits on ai in some games in the 8th generation, while still vulnerable to the more dangerous enemies but not the cannon fodder units, however similar to RE4 she sticks close to the player
It seems that the main problem with BioShock Infinite is that the scenes were written before the story, and the reason for scenes happening was crudely shoved in. Like Booker and Elizabeth going to another dimension to get tools for the Vox. Its a cool scene I guess, but the justification for it even being there was hastily shoved in and doesn't make any logical sense.
+Sanic Speed You might have a point, and it's easily imaginable that this is how many of the scenes happened. However, I don't mind stuff like that. In a videogame, I can enjoy spectacular and fun set-pieces, even if they don't link to the over-all plot, much more than I could in e.g. a movie. Not sure why, probably because games exist for gameplay first, story second, while movies exist mainly to tell a story. It's the same with e.g. "Uncharted 3". The entire chapter on the harbor with all the ships, and the ship-sinking in the end does absolutely nothing for the plot and is only there because the writers thought of the set-piece first, and how they can connect it into the story second... but because it's fun to play (at least for me it was), I don't mind that it is there.
You know what I generally didn't care for about Elizabeth, in the scene where you're trying to buy tickets, and it turns out to be a trap, as soon as the situation goes sour whether by you pulling your gun 1st or not, the enemies will try to kill you, but as soon as you defend yourself, Elizabeth takes off running and then chastises you for being a terrible person. If the outcome is the same regardless of the choice you make, then they shouldnt have you choose at all, as it becomes ultimately meaningless.
"Infinite" gives me alot of "Fallout 4" Flashbacks... Less Meaningfull Choices, if any at all. Bland Characters that are just one-note cliches. Interesting World, that was never used to it's full potential. Gameplay focused on First Person Shooting, because FPS Games sell alot.
Yah, sorry but what you are saying isn’t clicking with me, Fallout 4 definitely doesn’t feel like Infinite as at most, they deal with what is supposed to be human and what isn’t, not poorly showing infinite. I feel like Fallout 4 done everything 3 done and better besides the dialogue system (four vague buttons that can range from good Will to jackass)
Why did Elizabeth kill Booker thinking that it will end Comstock? There will be a million million other universes where she never killed him and therefore her effort would have been futile? There will always exist a universe where Booker never got killed and if that universe exists then it leads to more universes where Comstock could have existed. The whole game feels nihilistic. No matter what, there will always remain millions of universes where everything that happened in the game to stop Comstock was meaningless
Josef Stalin the game thought that if you killed him in the past then he'd never exist in the future but that in on itself creates a paradox. if he died in the past and no longer existed in the future then there'd be no reason for elizabeth to return to the past to kill him because he wouldnt have existed. its like a mutation of the grandfather paradox. That, along with what i said where even if elizabeth killed him in 1 universe there'd be an infinite number of other universes where comstock or booker is alive. Multiverse theory states that if anything can happen, it will happen. Elizabeth wanted to remove comstock entirely but obviously this is impossible because there'd always exist an infinite number of universes where hed still be alive
***** the developers dont understand that the whole idea of the multiverse theory states that anything that is physically possible will happen in one way or another. its a massive plothole that has no excuse other than the fact that they dont know what theyre talking about lol
It just gives them an excuse to get away with bullshit logic and allows them to throw whatever they like into the game without needing to explain it: "Oh, this key just magically appeared in my hand, but that's because of the multiverse and infinite possibilities. Ho hum, lets move on with the adventure and try not to hurt our brains thinking about it."
The story was okay for the first half but it totally lost is when they went to another parallel universe where Chen Lin supposedly wasn't dead... excuse me what the fuck!? The story basically ENDS there because now they just left behind EVERYTHING, all the logical consequences of all that had happened before no longer mattered because they're in another universe where you have had no influence on that universe before, anything could be different and you basically have to start a new story from scratch. Nothing can make sense any more. Monument Island tower was destroyed when you "rescued" Elizabeth which sent songbird and Comstock after you... but that's in that universe you left behind. Now you're in another universe with another Comstock, another Songbird, another Fitzroy another everything. In Booker's original universe, as far as anyone knew Booker and Elizabeth went down into the basement of the Good Time Club and disappeared without a trace never to be seen again. And within 25 minutes of jumping from one universe to another you jump to YET ANOTHER universe in a stupid attempt to move some equipment! Surely it should be obvious that if you go into another universe then WHY ARE THEY STILL TRYING TO GET DAISY HER GUNS!?!? That's a deal he made with a Daisy in another universe. This is the point in the game it became impossible to be invested in the story, you couldn't care if they were able to get the guns to Daisy or not, it had all become so detached from the driving plot. Really... what was driving the plot forward? At one point you're attacked by a Zeppelin and you destroy the Zeppelin by boarding it... you destroy an airship, to get guns, to satisfy a revolutionary, who then might give you an airship as a reward?!?! WHAT?!? The drive of the plot then become bizarre. I mean it settles on trying to grave rob Lady Comstock's remains to get her fingerprints as apparently the only way to get into comstock house and that was the only way to stop Songbird. And this implausible decision was apparently predicted by Comstock who set a trap only to extract Elizabeth's power. Except why is Songbird after them? Songbird was after them 2 universes back because in that universe Elizabeth was taken from the tower by Booker. But that didn't happen in this universe, Booker went to monument island and found it empty. It's a narrative nitpick that songbird is extremely infrequent in the story, so often you're walking around in the open without a care in the world that Songbird might swoop by and see them. But it's not a thematic nitpick that the songbird has such a small presence, you often forget Songbird is even in the game and there's very little real interaction. Annoyingly HALF of the story of the game is told... after the game is over. Seriously, after winning the fight on the airship to destroy the siphon that's the last of the gameplay and the plot summary of what happens after that point is as long as all the plot summary BEFORE that point and says so much of what you thought happened before... didn't. So much was a false memory. The "ending" of Bioshock Infinite isn't so much the ending. The ending is the entire story. You can't have all your plot development in a 15 minute unskippable cutscene/scripted-sequence at the end. PS: the political commentary was mostly half baked. The idea of Fitzroy not being a true believer but just framed for a murder and opposing comstock because of that is amazingly apolitical, Fitzroy never quotes Marx or any other socialist theory, the entire revolution seems to be founded on a personal vendetta and a fight for survival. Why couldn't Fitzroy be a real socialist revolutionary and she's framed for the murder because she wants a workers revolution, rather than her wanting a workers revolution because she's framed? Despite Elizabeth being saturated in racist literature she has no racist preconceptions.
This is what happens when the story writers care more about "muh occupy walstreet durrrrr" than the actual story. And yes, this game came put arpund the time of occupy walstreet
@@xedrickOG "This is what happens when the story writers care more about occupy walstreet" Uhh no, because the game doesn't have any ideology from the "revolutionaries" they go straight from "I don't like the status quo" to massacring people.
@@Treblaine but alot of them had that occupy walstreet mindset. These people ignored the real history of commie revolutions. Hence why these revolutionaries have no ideology. They dont truely understand their own ideology hence why they couldn't adequitely write it in. The occupy walstreet bit ties into why the writing sucked because that is the writers ideological influences seeping in, rather heavily i might add.
the ending of the story was an unlettered, rushed mess. in the course of 5-10 minutes they spam every single type of "plot twist" imaginable at you as if the ending of the game was an abortion of 3 different shitty boardroom ideas for what the "plot twist" was going to be. barely any plot development until the end, and then they spam everything at you in a rush at the end, because it was very rushed. and if you ever critique the ending, people assume you didn't understand it. infuriating.
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Bioshock Infinite is trying to tell one story and play a different game is an absurd display of Ludonarrative dissonance. (Which shouldn't be surprising since the first game was the one that coined the very term) Gameplay: The Vigors give you superhuman powers and abilites that in the hands anyone could cause anarchy or the downfall of society (case and point the first game) Story: The Vigors have zero impact on the story. Story: Elizabeth has spent her entire life locked away in a tower, never going outside or mingling with others. Gameplay: Elizabeth somehow knows how to handle herself in a gunfight despite having zero outdoor experience. As the video stated: Story: The focus for Comstock would be trying to get Elizabeth back after she's escaped the tower Gameplay: The soliders completely ignore Elizabeth and just try to kill Booker Gameplay: The game offers a few moral choices that the player has to make a split decision of what to do. Story: The do bugger all, best you get with them are one scene that doesn't affect the main story at all. Story: Songbird being designed like a boss character, very imposing and he's legitimately very terrifying. Gameplay: You don't get to fight him, that would have be soooooo damn satisfying. Gameplay: The only boss fight in the game is against Elizabeth's Ghost mother Story: A Ghost? Really Story: Whenever Booker goes down there's a scene where Elizabeth is frantically struggling to get him conscious again Gameplay: When Elizabeth is not around he gets back up anyway. Story: Its established that if someone dies in one timeline they go crazy and frequently phase in and out of existence in another as shown by Chen Lin. Also In one timeline Booker dies Gameplay: This never happens to Booker, (or Comstock for that matter) And that's not even counting the numerous story inconsistencies the game has, The first tear we see Elizabeth open is to Paris, and yet not once does she and Booker use one of these to escape Columbia. Serious ANYWHERE would be better for them to be than in Columbia where everyone is trying to kill them, it COULD have been established that they didn't want to divert off their universe, yet later they start travelling to other universes with no second thought. But it seems that the only reason that doesn't happen is because the designers don't want you to leave Columbia cause it LOOKS PWETTY.
TheDuckClock Good analysis. Infinite might have worked better if it were made from a fresh perspective instead of being restricted to the confines of an established IP.
honestly if Elizabeth was as you described how you'd expect her to be I think i would have sympathized with her situation a lot more. imagine how crushing it would be to tell this young scared girl who's for the first time in her life is having real hope of finally going to Paris and being free just to tell her that you're taking her to New York instead because of a debt.
Or if you know that the Luteses just revealed the truth as they got onto the airship. Not what happened with Elizabeth knocking Booker out just to keep the plot going longer
"You mean instead of Paris, I get to go to the Big Apple? Oh boy! I can't wait to see the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty!" I don't think it would crush Ellizabeth to find out that she's going to go to a different magnificent, famous city. It's not like NYC is Flint or Detroit.
@@timothyfinch7295 Because this game is perfect and is above your puny mortal mind ability to comprehend it. (obvious sarcasm, im just pissed at all the praise i heard about this game for the past 10 years or so.)
The most infuriating thing I have ever experienced is when I tell people who like this game that I dont like it, and they all default to, "It's because you dont understand it." Nah, bitch. It's the other way around.
That’s the response you get when you tread on any sacred cow, really, not just _Bioshock Infinite._ There are a lot of pretentious people out there who cannot argue when their opinions are challenged, so they throw out limp accusations like “you just don’t get it” to make you go away.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien Sounds like bullshit, really. Nobody's dying on any hill to defend Infinite. Almost everyone were quite underwhelmed by that game. NOW, if you talk smack about the marvel universe, then holy shit, everyone drops whatever they're doing and goes full-throttle nerd-rage. You'll have 40+ adults going absolute apeshit.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien That fallacy is called bulverism. It's the act of someone preemtively deciding you to be incorrect, and without exploring any further context, explaining why you are incorrect. Pretty infuriating way to argue.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien I allow myself to disagree, Infinite is a pretty impressive game - even if different from the original idea. While Bioshock (the original) may be considered a game about choice and agency, Infinite is about stripping the player from agency utterly. Scenes and details are well planned and, in the fair scene part, the idea is quite interesting. In Infinite you have characters that have prescience, a city that should not exist and a, generally speaking, broken reality deemed to disappear. It might be that you don't get it, after all? And yea, the gun gameplay is not great - but vigor combinations are and, personally, I quite loved the sky-hook. Bioshock 2 has a quaint story in comparison, Bioshock Infinite dares to be quite esoteric.
I'm surprised he never mentioned Bioshock 2's hacking as a contrast. It's hands down the best: ranged, real-time, and is actually somewhat challenging. The hacking in 1 and Infinite are zero challenge whatsoever. It's a bloody shame Bio2 was completely swept under the rug, it was the best of the series gameplaywise.
I remember getting shitted on hard when I told people I didn't like this game. Seeing my veiwpoints so succinctly explained here was literally cathartic. Thank you.
The irony of the detractors in the comments is that the Burial at Sea DLC proved you right about infinite universes still existing. The game agreed with you.
That's not really irony. The developers backtracking everything in the face of overwhelming criticism is hardly a good thing. A story should be enjoyable and complete in and of itself, it should not require supplementary material to make sense.
But what if you don't buy or play the DLC? So basically, it never happened anyways. Yeah, you shouldn't relegate important story or lore into the DLC. Its like Star Wars now, wanna know more "important" lore points? Read the books! You'll know it there!
To add on "the game is a FPS because they sell" The creators of the game chose the most generic cover for the game possible: jsut Booker standing with a gun over his shoulder looking down, behind an explosion. Many were pissed at this. The dev's excuse? Because it was "ironic." or some shit like that. They were so certain that no one would buy their game because it didn't look like another CoD clone.
+Jeremy Comans actually he specifically said it was to attract the bro/frat crowd because fans of the series would already be interested. that was in an interview late 2012 or early 2013.
+MarcsterS Ken Levine said he did that because that cover sell. He wouldn't cripple the game's potential sales with a cover made just for the fans since hundreds of people worked on it. And the cover was reversible, with the alternate design being chosen by the fans, with the other options avaiable as a download.
+Bestgameplayer10 I don't think the op meant that ANYthing other than fps would be better - but that choosing fps specifically was a mistake. Well, not for sales, but it's not like the combat served the story or the world as much as it did in the first two games.
Honestly wish I would've seen this 3 years ago. I thought I was the only person that felt this way about the game. I remember being so dissapointed after beating it.
Literally 99% of my friends and favorite reviewers praised the game like the 2nd coming of Christ himself, so I bought it. I felt cheated after the end. I was seriously just sitting on the plane flight I had bought the game for thinking "I spent $15 for a game I just finished in a plane flight from the U.S to India?" It wasn't a bad game, it was just a disappointing one, and I wish all the people who were so busy praising it would have at least tried to critique it better.
i remember being dissapointed pretty much the entire time playing it, i have no idea why i actually played it through to the end...so much of it felt like a chore to get through due to the repetitive, bullet sponge enemies and limited weapons to use. The first game absolutely destroys this one.
I remember when this game came out, the incredibly positive reception made me feel like I was going crazy. Then I found this video and watched you do an excellent job of highlighting the many flaws contained within. I guess in that way, I should be grateful to the game. Almost five years later and I'm still around, which I can't say of many other channels.
For real, what a disappointment. I remember seeing only the first gameplay demo from 2010 and waiting from then for it to come out. When it was finally announced to come out in 2013 I thought "Well, having seen that gameplay in 2010, I understand why they took so damn long to finish it, can't wait to see Rapture in the sky, fight those psycho citizens and that giant bird that sounds like a Big Daddy", then I bought it and, damn, the feel of wasting 75€ due to false advertisement from 2010 (Then I saw the recent trailers and understood it was my fault since I just saw the one from 2010 and stop, because I did not want to "Ruin my Hype" since game trailers were starting to spoil the story back then).
The more time that passes from Matthew's reviews the better they get. Not even 2 minutes in is Matthew already discussing incredibly delicate topics with unmistakable directness to prove his point. Dancing around the subject of racism is what racists do, the word nigger or nigga, in and of itself is not racist, but rather its application and the willingness for someone to use it to demean or belittle others. Any word can be used to debase or downplay the success of others, but some clearly have history attached to them. We should be careful in the words that we use when conversing with others but if we actively choose to erase the history and pretend it doesn't have it is distasteful and disrespectful. Matt is so sick.
@@mayonnaise3959 No, not at all. If he says N Word to describe such sensitive topics then that defeats the purpose of having a meaningful discussion. Matt has balls, that's all I was saying.
White boy says n word with hard r "He has such tact and grace it's absolutely brilliant he's like a Shakespearean poet in how delicate and precise his language is" Bitch shit the fuck up, this is a trash video and you're a trash person
I know I shouldn't hold Watchmojo list to any high standard but the amount of people that agree that this is the best video game story ever disappoints me.
***** Who ever said that? When were they born? Because I can't tell you the best video game story ever, but KotOR 1 is leagues better than this game in every way, and that was a 2003 d20 role-playing game in third person. Game of the Year too, and not by my words alone.
+Silly Ellie It certainly is an incredible game with a fantastic story, I won't deny that. However, your opinion that it is the absolute in gaming, story-wise and more, is subjective. You can keep it, and I won't change it, but I must respectfully disagree. I couldn't tell you my favorite game because I love so many, but I love Dark Souls 1's approach to narrative lore and the like.
Common Rider Shaded i know it is but it was the first game that ever got me into story in games (at only 6) so is very special to me i love ds1s world and lore but i didnt really like the story it wasnt bad but was nothing special but of course the gameplay makes up for the story
Silly Ellie Fair enough. I can get that. KotOR 1 ad 2 hold special places in my heart similarly to your love of MGS 3. As for Ds1, the story had a notion that not most got, and had to be pieced together, especially with the endings. The world itself was amazing to me. I loved the npc quests so. The gameplay is indeed a set reason as to love from its fans.
"I wouldn't much care, I'm not into jewelery" This is why I love your videos, there's the right blend of facts, opinion, and your own personality that makes it such an entertaining blend.
This was a bit eye opening and despite already kind of disliking Infinite already, your examination and overall set of points helped me realize I have no reason to like this game at all.
It sucks even harder if you loved the first two. They actually made you think, while this game was aimed to the lowest common denominator. That's why it got showered with praise. The masses of dumb and brainwashed populace saw the alternate dimensions and 'themes' it had and did with it like what they did with Gone Home or Dear Esther. Turned a pretentious mess of a game into a critically acclaimed 'masterpiece'.
Tbh, I barely noticed the inconsistencies until I watched this video. I didn't consider it a masterpiece by any means but now I do think it's a bit pretentious.
albinomonkey27 I was actually hyped for the game for a long time, pretty much since its 1st announcement. Them feels. I remember in one of the early gameplay videos from 2011 they showed the characters walking pretty calmly through the city populated by the rebels and you could choose to attack them or not. Now, when you go to the exact same location in the game, the moment someone sees you, hoards of the rebels will attack you mindlessly. You know, now that Ken Levine has left Irrational games, maybe just Maybe, this means that he reliazes that Infinite was a disaster and is going to make more System shock- like games . I actually read somewhere that he is starting a small company to make smaller games ... I dunno ,maybe this was his master plan to get some money from Infinite and then start a new company and make more "hardcore" games with a smaller profit
Filo127 I really hope so. But I think he just bit off way more than he could chew. Parallel dimensions are a VERY complicated thing to write a story around, and Infinite shows how people just want to go with the belief of "Oh, a parallel dimension! I understand how Quantum Physics work now!" Virtue's Last Reward is the only game I can think off that actually did the Other Worlds theory correctly.
" in Burial at sea dlc chapter 1 elizabeth is seen in a rapture-esque timeline killing remaining bookers so yes the drowining does not fix everything " Cool, I'm glad everything that happened in the base game literally was pointless and accomplished nothing. What a fucking brilliant move.
@@Shenaldrac Oh yes because something that happens to complement something else completely ruins everything that you (cuz if you are countering me I assume youwere defending the video's position) were critiquing regardless. Can we just stop pivoting or moving goal posts? It's impossible for any game to meet your "well refined" and oh so amazing "narrative standards". We have a thesys saying the finale is pointless cuz it assumes everything is fixed and the video creator would like to see a more nuanced and balanced take on it. To which I , a fan of the game, say: well if you get the burial at sea 1 dlc you can get this nuanced and more complete take on what happenes after the loop is established. And in cometh the iron clad logicer saying "im glad it makes the ending pointless"...noone can win with you guys is that it? just say "ermimimi i dont like the game cuz i didnt feel anything and im making up bullshit reasons to take it down since so many people like it".
My main problem with the story (aside from the fact that the writers don't understand the concept of causality), is that in rapture, Objectivism has benefits. The entire city of rapture was BUILT under objectivist ideals, the fall of rapture shows the negatives. In BioShock 2, it shows how when objectivism fails, socialism tends to take root in the disenfranchised, and that there are benefits to this, but also costs. In BioShock infinite. "Racism and religious xenophobia are bad, mmkay." Not to mention, BioShock 1 and 2, might be fantastical, people running around with super powers, BUT, it all felt like it could happen. Andrew was a rich billionaire with an ego problem. I could see him trying to build a city in the sea, and having the resources to do it. But Comstock?
Yes, Columbia isn't real like rapture was, finished the tree games this month for the first time( yes I have a lot of time) and the worst, most stupid story was infinite by far, completely broken plot with the dimensional travelling and a broken world that I couldn't get into
David Louis agreed.. the story in bioshock 2 was horrible compared to bioshock 1 and infinite.. the "protect the little sister while she gathers adam" "minigame" was absolutely stupid as well..
I really wish they just focused on how society was during the industrial revolution and how overboard things can get when they're in a setting like Columbia. Rather than bullshit like time traveling, quantum mechanics, and paradoxes. You know, stuff KEN LEVINE HIMSELF ADMITTED HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. Why the hell did he go this route? Just like how Bioshock 1 focused on the idea of how far things can go in a society from the 50's (in which people thought they were invincible. They thought smoking was healthy for you, after all) that isn't bounded by morality. You would think the reputation Levine received from his previous games would make him feel confident about focusing controversial topics that relate to the 1900s. Instead, it was just sci-fi jerkoff that makes almost no sense. It's a real shame, and I'll admit I fell for the hype. Also, if anyone wants to REALLY get depressed over this whole thing, google the Bioshock Infinite artbook, specifically the enemy section. You'll see all the awesome enemies they cut out. Instead, we get angry soldiers and wooden robots.
I agree. Infinite feels like two games mashed together. There's the Bioshocky societal game, and the Life is Strangey time-traveling game. Neither of them are fully expanded upon here, and it just doesn't work.
I get the idea of wanting to explore new ideas. No creative wants to become "That guy that makes X". It can also have a bad look on you as a creator, when to the eyes of the public, your only ever chasing your former glory. If anything, scrapping the ham-fisted real-world message to focus on a more high-concept sci-fi premace, using parallel worlds to explore the many ideas that opens up with full commitment would have been the one I'd have rather seen. In other words, I didn't really wanna see another Bioshock game. Bioshock 1 was just fine on it's own. It didn't really need a sequel in the longrun.
GhenryPerez I agree for the most part of your comment, but the themes of the first bioshock were a little more specific. It was more of a condemnation of Randian objectivism than “the 50s” mindset
What's funny is that the more likely situation is that people like it because they don't actually understand it rather than not liking it because they don't understand it. I remember really loving it back then, and now, looking back after having seen works that do actually involve time travel and multiple worlds theory in an accurate way, I can see that it's a mess.
Crazy how brainwashed everyone is to get so offended by that word. 10 years ago a thing called context existed, now your brain goes wild when you hear the no no word. We’ve gone back
@@BLUEPELICAN234 people did give a f 10 years ago. Just not the demographic of people watching this video. Trust me. 10 years ago no white TV critic or widely watched talk show personality would have gotten away with it either. On the bright side games have become even more mainstream. That comes with a broader audience full of people who might be offended and actually say something about it.
Introduce a complex idea, with complex problem but don't actually fallow through and instead solve the complex problem with a overly simple solution. See this makes the player feel smart without actually testing his intelligence. So now people think the game is smart because it has ideas above there knowledge. (If u actually understand multiuniverse theory like the guy in this vid you will find the game to be lacking intelligence)
Couldn't agree more. At first I thought that my own understanding of multiuniverse theory was flawed, until I found this vid and read the comments. Now I get why the game confused me so bad; it's not my understanding of the theory, it's their application of the theory that's flawed. What I understand now is they were trying to explore two completely different and mutually exclusive ideas. On the one hand, they try to say that choice doesn't matter because whatever choice you make in this reality, another version of you makes a different choice in an alternate reality. But then they try to sell the idea that choice doesn't matter because all choices lead to the same fate, which is the exact opposite of what multiple universe theory states. Which leads to the confusion because the story tries to say both are true and neither is true at the same time.
Dude, your critique of bioshock infinite was spot-on. This is the ONLY review I've found that calls it out for what it is: a mediocre game. I'm surprised you didn't address the in-game currency and how tedious it is to endlessly scavenge containers to maximize your character. Also, the random generating of enemies from the first two games was abandoned for scripted battles, which reduced the challenge significantly.
GhenryPerez after you originally clear an area, enemies will randomly spawn in after you leave. I think this is what he means. There is no such thing as a completely cleared area if it ever had enemies in it for the most part in those games
MLG Oatmeal The story is realy that mediocre, the ending is most likely put together in one last night in pub before closure. Or maybe not, because that late night time in pub you get ten time better ideas, that are so insane, that it actualy make sence. Even if i compared ot other famous mainstream multiverse adventures, mainly Golden Compas trilogy and Stephen Kings Dark Tower (that went pretty much south after Wolfs of Cali), these two being the mainstream, using popular science, they were done right to most extent, and have very few spare wooden legs you can beat them with after the plot crumble down if you dig too deep
Yep the infinite timelines is what killed the story for me, too. Had they stuck with two separate timelines they could have made it work. But wanting to have infinite possibilities but also have a definitive ending is wanting to have a cake and eat it, too, and the worst thing is - it works, because people either don't get why this is flawed, or they don't want to get it. I personally really wanted to love the ending so I tried to find good rationalizations why the end does work - like, there is perhaps a "relevant subset" of timelines which represents Bioshock Infinite, and these are the ones we see snuffed out by the drowning scene in the end. But.. it just doesn't hold water. This was actually the reason why I never bothered with Infinite DLC (which as I heard puts an additional spin on things). I don't like "pretend clever". I'd rather have a more simplistic, dumber plot which works, then a supposedly sophisticated and complex one which completely disintegrates upon closer scrutiny. Still, I can't say I find Bioshock:Infinite to be a bad game. It's just... a bit overhyped.
I have an explanation for that plot hole, but its's really stupid. All I got is that Liz was so mad with anger she didn't stop to think about her plan.
Holy shit, you're right -- I never thought about that. The story is actually a two-universe story, not infinite. That's why the ending pretends Elizabeth's solution works. If it was a Back to the Future type story but with two branching universes alone, the ending works. Why in the world did it become infinite?
As a huge Metroid fan it struck me immediately. It was a cool part on Elysia that let you travel around the flying buildings but they don't overstay their welcome. I don't really like that Infinite made it such a huge part of the game. They felt useless, honestly and the thrill wears off quickly.
I think the hype around Infinite highlights a few interesting things about how games are being developed and received: a) how dull, shallow, boring and uninteresting the majority of mainstream triple-A games has become, especially in the shooter genre, that a seemingly deep and complex game like Infinite shines so bright. b) many people are actually tired of dumb shooters which don't even try or pretend to be complex. Hence people are drawn to Infinite since it appears to be smart as long as you don't dig too deep. c) video game journalists have backed themselves into a corner by dishing out high ratings for even the dumbest and dullest games such as Call of Duty so that when a (seemingly) more complex and interesting game as Infinite comes along they have to praise it even higher in comparison. d) people are easily blinded by flashiness. The main redeeming quality both the original bioshock as well as infinite have are the atmosphere and aesthetics. Even though the gameplay is mind-numbingly boring and the story is presented in such an unappealing and confusing way, I liked them both, especially the first Bioshock, because of it's style and flavour. Sad thing is, both games could have been so much better than they eventually were.
Thing is CoD sells on the strength of its multiplayer, so trying to take it on like that was an exercise in missing the point. Saying you play CoD for the SP story is like saying you read Playboy for the articles.
I admire Matthew for the point he makes at 1:32. It's the same problem I had with Red Dead Redemption 2 - developers are so disingenuous when it comes to racism. They want to be able to have the audience rally around them when it comes to victimization but as far as actually depicting said racism on screen is concerned, they shy away from it because they don't want to 'offend' anyone.
its either super romanticized or with a hero twist, like this isnt racism, its just assholes. I saw more racism on harry potter with the mud bloods than any black vs white videogame or story.
i also absolutely respect the hell out of Matthew for that as well. he knew how he'd come across and what type of reactions he might receive for saying it, yet he did it anyway for the sake of being upfront and genuine about a real issue in a game, that wasn't at all genuine about its themes and how it portrayed them. like most video games that try tackling the topic
@@zackie8172 Yes, and everyone in the game disparages those who say it those few times, NOT something that the normal citizen would do in 1899 United States. That's the entire point. To show it all.
"Perhaps it also has to do with games journalists of today having an insecure need to justify their own existence by evangelising games like bioshock infinite as mature storytelling." Now that's a sentence right there, holy fuck dude, knocked it out of the park. I don't think I've ever heard a more efficient echo chamber participant assassination.
Yea it felt more thematically grounded for Bioshocks 1&2 to be FPS. Murderous super-junkies and the dark, oppressive setting would definitely call for the player needing to defend themselves by slaughtering their way through. With Infinite you come across as a murderous psychopath in between every plot-dense set piece, which just feels odd.
28:48 _“The only reason for Bioshock Infinite to be a first-person shooter is because that’s what sells.”_ That, and branding. Past _Bioshock_ games were first-person shooters, so this one is too. Branding explains why a lot of these issues are here. Why do plasmids exist in Columbia? Why are there audio logs randomly strewn about the place? Why is Columbia an airborne city anyway? Not because it aids the story or the gameplay, but just because the previous installments had them.
Essentially yeah, but the thing is that's how a series works. Using previous mechanics and systems from the previous titles, however I find Infinite had back peddled way too much. They could've done something interesting with vigors, but it's explained that they are essentially the same thing with production and gathering. Gunplay should've added the earlier demos system of "knowing when to shoot" Letting you choose conflict or not, of course adding more depth to an already bland choice mechanic. As for the air born city? Looks great don't get me wrong, but there's not really and advantage to it being in the sky besides those short war scenes and science being away from global eyes. I don't remember how they get material for their platforms ever being mentioned, do they have private mines on the surface? Do they do dealings or trade with the surface?
Infinite doesn’t really have a reason to be called a bioshock game though besides saying “hey rapture was in the game for 2 seconds” and “we have a horrible dlc that ruins the first two bioshock games”
+´Tomas Muir Pander is an awfully harsh word. I would think it's only reasonable that a game in a series keep the core gameplay elements of the previous entries.
Ben Wasserman There is no mechanical reason for vigors to exist in the game. The entire connection with Rapture is pointless and tacted on for the sake of including a reason for "Bioshock" to be used in the name.
Pseudo Lain Maybe not in the infinite world, but it was still brought over from the Bioshock world. Plus if you haven't noticed Infinite is a reverse parallel to Bioshock. Plus I'm in a minority that places this at #1 so save your arguments, I'm still gonna defend this game
Bioshock Infinite: The game which teleports you to a dimension where your allies hate you any time it gets dangerously close to telling an actual story.
15:00 is the most obnoxious thing ever. I hate when people try to tell me I dont get time travel or parallel universes when saying that the ending is simply badly done.
I am surprised that a deeply conservative christian society allowed the vigors to exist in the first place. Society like that must have considered the vigors black magic and research of them must have been a serious offense (remember the witch trials?). It would fit the narrative much better if the vigors were in fact something forbidden and villified that you need to discover and get access to first in the darker corners of the city and which could get you in trouble, once somebody saw you using that. The only way to include them into the narrative would be to point to the aspect of racism and say that the society saw vigors as a way to improve the racial qualities (which could be further supported by depiction of blacks being punished for trying to use those things, intended only for the ruling race by the establishment). That would have worked as well. Jeez, we could re-write the plot together.
It all depends on how they flavor it. If you had a Pentecostal revivalist invent it he might call it a “gift of the Holy Spirit” or something. They’d take it as evidence that Columbia’s prosperity was desired by God Himself. Thing is they kept much of the Protestant imagery vague, likely to keep the target on American racial attitudes rather than calling out any Protestants themselves. I can’t even remember if Jesus was ever mentioned once, though my memory of the game is very rusty.
I feel like the praise for the story it gets kind of stems from critics that play dull, meaningless stories in many boring, bottom of the barrel modern game schlock, they're starved from something that has even just a thin veneer of a mildly intelligent plot. I'm not saying tht excuses anyone, from the game developers or the critics, it's just something I figured I'd point out. When you're forced to live on hamburger for months on end, and then someone throws you a kind of tough and crappy steak, you might mistake the steak for being a much higher-quality product than it actually is. Other than that, I agree with everything. The gameplay appeals to the lowest common denominator, the plot has its head shoved firmly up its own ass, and there are plot holes all over the place. In fact, the most fun I had with infinite is the lost at sea second dlc where the focus is on stealth and you play as Elizabeth with no reality-breaking tear powers. It felt like a return to form with a total overhaul of the mechanics, which I liked a lot more than the main game, where all of your questions about the mechanics can be summed up with the phrase "in service to the brand."
For people who claim to not buy into the marketing of the game and all the fuss, they tend to create their own fuss and froth over it. The lack of nuance in admitting that a game can be partly good and partly flawed escapes them every time.
Great critique but this is where I’m glad I’m a simpleton when it comes to deeper analysis. It helps me enjoy things more, but I can also appreciate videos such as these which dig deep. Thanks Matt!
Cough The Elder Scrolls and Fallout cough (i will say it loudly... fuck Todd Howard and Bethesda Game Studios, Skyrim and Fallout 4 were dumbed down to the bottom floor and still those games got critical acclaim...)
i run around compulsively eating cakes and hot dogs out of bins
All the time. Ain't no pizza like a bin pizza.
Yes. Reminds me of how kids back in the day used to scratch old chewing gum off the ground cuz they couldn't afford to buy their own.
This is so cool.
You’re basically a raccoon with a gun
Yeah, played the game, not interested in anything other than stealing other people’s’ food. Dishonored is more of my jam, that game is so much fun.
Game has nice clouds 10/10
Yeah
To be fair the clouds are pretty nice
@@jandcstopmotion7774 The clouds are at least a 8 out of 10 in the cloud rating system
@@slothbaby2104I agree
In the scene where Elizabeth attempts to bash Booker's head in with a book, the book in question is has the title "The Principles of Quantum Mechanics" by Rosalind Lutece. This is symbolic of how the game literally beats the crux of its narrative into your head.
Eh, that's not too unusual for a game dealing with philosophical questions. The issue the game has is that it doesn't really deal with Quantum Mechanics at all, it deals with Fate. But rather than stick with the unending question of "All things end the same, it's how Fate works," it pretends it's about the possibilities of everything we know about Quantum Mechanics.
It pretends it's a game about Science and Science Fiction, but instead it's a game about philosophical questions--but it doesn't answer or explore those questions in a satisfying matter. It just pretends to be deep.
@@jamjox9922 Well said. Also gameplay wise Bioshock 1 was much better as well imo.
i suppose it requires the same suspension of disbelief that ADAM and its sluggish origins demand during bioshock 1 - it violates biology in a science-fiction way in the same way that this game violates quantum mechanics in a science-fiction way (i.e. loose basis on known science, but altered to suit the narrative) and as such, i don't know why one would consider this a bad thing, if the first game gets a pass.
@@madcourier6217 the first game doesn't get a pass
@@jamjox9922 a game can’t pretend to be about science or science fiction. It either is or isn’t.
The first game bioshock is science fiction and the second game is as well but it’s mixing in a whole bunch of other things that don’t work well and ignoring topics that story itself brought up itself on its own.
It’s just not well written enough for people to praise on anything that’s it’s trying to say or do because it’s not doing it well.
“He makes no attempt to cover up his hand...”
THANK YOU. That was the first thing I was basically screaming at Booker for the very first time I played the game. I even looked around to see if there was some kind of interactable medkit or something.
*It's as if he was in a perpetual hangover since the day he gave up his daughter to some scientific freaks. It could be that his being brought to the island impacted his mind enough that he lost common sense.*
No seriously, why didn't he cover his hand?
Because plot convenience
Because it's smarter that way? Shut up it's the best game ever because thinking about stuff! Have you ever think about things? No! Because game! The best one and this is it! I'M SMARTER THEN EVERYONE!!!!! HAHAHA!
Tom Atkinson Basically what all fans that defend the game are like
Oh god yeah. I don't even hate this game but the fans push me to that point almost. A game should make you think already, and if you are going to have a story it should compliment the gameplay. In Bioshock 1 I feel like I make the choices because there are actual results. I kill little sisters I get more atom but I feel more devious because I'm killing something that may be pychotic but it isn't the little sister fault, and the fact that I can save them make me feel evil. Endings change as well depending on what you actually do. Infinite just tells a liner story that takes away interaction far to often to tell you a story. Telling a story in a game is fine but you need to tell it along with the gameplay or else you miss the entire point of a game. A player has control they hold a CONTROLLER. Let me have my own story, I want to feel like Doom Guy or Batman, I don't want Doom Guy or Batman to tell me a story and if I did I'd watch a movie. Shoving story in my face and ignoring the gameplay aspects to tell that story, is completely missing the point of the media of games.
I'm currently playing through Wolfenstien: The New Order. This is my 3rd play through of it and while there are plenty of cut scenes I still feel like I am BJ. I am killing all the Nazi's and BJ is my avatar. I make certain choices and they affect my game and I feel responsible. If I was able to choose to give away Elizabeth or keep her I'd feel responsible, I was the one who did that not Booker. But instead I watch some character do stuff which I might of cared about in a film but I'm the one playing the game and I feel like I'm just watching a failed alcoholic be a raging murderer who gave away his daughter and should feel bad because I should like him.
They shouldve just gone to Paris.
Id play that game
Riddle me this Booker: who was in Paris?
The weird thing is a morality system was cut from the final game. Originally, they were planning on having Elizabeth's powers be more insane and OP, but using them drained her physical health. A player who used her powers every fight would have Elizabeth coughing and shivering, and that would affect your relationship with her throughout the game and by the end. No game has really done this and it's disappointing that they stripped it from the game.
This is so smart, and I wish they implemented this in the game.
Well Infinite feels you're and idiot who needs their hand constantly held
Alot like mass effect 2's idea of reusable thermal clips
Why was it cut?
This sounds amazing
So they wanted to use a system similar to the system in Silent Hill 2? Depending on how the player treats Maria, changes the way the game ends. Little touches that, while the player may not be outwardly thinking of them, lead to different endings. Damn, I really wish they would've stuck with that, it would've made different playthroughs genuinely interesting.
Booker looking at the sign of the false shepherd and seeing that the “A.D.” is a bad thing and not covering his hand up reminds me of that Garfield Meme image from the animated show which shows that Garfield is seeing a sign of himself with a X around him and saying, “hm, I wonder whose that for?”
Booker: "This sign can't stop me because I can't read!"
To me it seems like Bioshock Infinite tried to use the aesthetics of the game to disguise the shallowness. Like by making it look a certain way and feel a certain way, it distracts you from the fact that nothing is really happening. It's an illusion of depth that fooled everyone. I can respect the game's aesthetics and ambition and just about nothing else.
yeah, pretentious basically
llucllumador people really gotta fucking stuff using that word and the asinine context surrounding it. It’s a failed story that wasn’t thought out so well. That’s it.
@@Gadget-Walkmen Pretentious - attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed. Yeah that sounds like Bioshock Infinite.
poisonsquid37 I don’t like even like bioshock infinite’s story but just against people who are using that word because there’s nothing wrong with trying to tell something with deeper meaning and purpose. I most certainly think the narrative fails at it completely but there’s nothing wrong with attempting to such thing.
Anonymouse Overmouse I’m just against using that word because people throw that term around (all with some other terms used as buzz words) so much I can’t take them seriously and it makes it sense as if any story that is trying to take itself seriously by those who just throw the word around casually and it hinders story telling greatly and makes it seem every narrative has to be cartoony, silly or filled to the brim with humor to avoid being called that term by people.
There’s nothing wrong with a story trying to be philosophical, deep, or trying being meaningful in any way while taking itself seriously with no real humor like 2001 space odyssey, shadow of the colossus, Birdman, and Gattaca.
The narrative has to make sense, be consistent and know what the hell it is trying to say which infinite does not but the most I’d say is that it horribly fails what it is trying.
"You can't be politically correct and portray a story like this at the same time."
holy fuck has there ever been a more accurate statement than this?
+slvcobra1337 Which is odd because they were willing to get Tarantino levels of f**ked up; melee kills are disgustingly brutal.
This subject isn't something you can half ass, which they did.
I think that its all a "go big or go home" scenario. If you're gonna portray racism in your game, don't treat it lightly. That just ruins the entire thing. Show me some black people getting lynched or thrown in jail, and then I will put this game in my hall of fame for having the balls to portray racism to the fullest extent.
Don't appeal to the pc crowd when tackling issues, as that makes everything worse.
yeah, and as much as I like BioShock 1, it seems to show a very simplistic libertarian world, so they could focus on the story, which is good, but I found it annoying where alot of people say BioShock one directly refutes ayn Rand. I feel that the creative director or irrational games, ken Levine sees a possible good idea for a game but goes incredibly simple so he can focus on his story, rather than just saying "they want free will" or "their not that prejudice becuase bla bla"
Jackson Huffstutler show me some black ppl getting lynched our or jailed. That really would have done it for you? wow
Reality sucks. Its not enough to just reference something.
Half-Life 2's "pick up that can" moment did perfectly what Infinite's baseball scene failed to do
Now get out of here.
Hehehegh
When my sister showed me Alyx, I spent hours throwing cans at pidgeons, by virtue of their existence, my playful imagination, and lack of limitation.
Half-Life 2’s opening in general is amazing. Only played it once but remember every moment.
@@crimsonlanceman7882 And then he kindly goes on to register your labor
Would you kindly pick up that can?
Meanwhile Prey 2017 basically went unnoticed by the same people telling me Infinite was a masterpiece
-_-
Matthew really liked that one.
That’s interesting, I thought people generally loved Prey.
@@eudaemon4931 It didn't sell well. Actually it's very likely Prey didn't even remotely cover its budget. Really sad, considering how much love went into it. One of my favorite games for sure.
Mostly because of the Prey 2 incident. Prey 1 was a shooter that got some decent success and there was going to be a sequel to it called Prey 2, which was supposed to have parkour elements somewhat simialer to inFAMOUS except in First-person along with a massive open world that you can explore as an intergalactic bounty hunter.
Then Bethesda bought the original studio and fucked said studio in the asshole so hard it had severe hemorrhoids and tore it's asshole apart. Prey 2 was then cancelled.
Then Bethesda gave the "Prey" ip to Arkane and then they made a Half-Life/System shock like game that used the same name.
Fans got pissed and never looked back. The reason why it doesn't get as much recognition and plenty of hate.
@@eudaemon4931 Not everyone likes a game that borrows it's name from an aborted I.P.
"Perhaps it has to do with game journalists of today having to justify their own existence by evangelizing games like Bioshock Infinite as mature storytelling"
Wow.
sizzle sizzle, am i right?
Fucking absolutely savage. I love it.
Aeterna this is why Matt is so fucking brilliant. he doesn't sugar coat anything, he's just straight to the point, no matter how brutal the truth may be. fucking love this man
Brutal. Savage. Rekt.
Adam Sessler in a nutshell! Seriously watch his review of this game. I like Sessler he is a smart guy, but he doesn't get game design and rather just spew BIG words.
I played the entire game and felt that it peaked when you first enter Columbia, and went downhill when you grab the baseball.
Gargamel Le Noir Agree, that introductory scene in the Fair was actually a pretty clever tutorial. Too bad the game never stopped being a carnival shooting gallery with hamfisted dialogue being repeated over and over again.
Gargamel Le Noir The aesthetics of the game blew me away. The story and gameplay was terrible. The music, characters and rare scary moments were great, but there was not enough and it disappeared up its own arse
Gargamel Le Noir I thought it dropped when you enter the Hall of Heroes. Once you leave Battleship Bay, this sense of enjoyment flat out vanishes.
Machiner6 This /\. Battleship Bay was great fun, Elizabeth and you have fun looking around, listening to the music. It was great. Then you enter HOH and it turns into 'shoot the baddie a million times'. It really dragged after that.
Scratch that, I think the drop off point is entering the first alternate Columbia. All chances of finding out more about the place the way it was MEANT to be seen are gone, and you're only stuck puzzling over the time-space shenanigans to actually be caring about what's in front of you.
To bring this around full-circle, the Baseball scene demonstrates this game enforcing completely unnecessary context sensitivity because they don't trust the player to understand the choice presented unless it is broken down into a transparent binary.
When I first played the game about a year ago, I pressed the button to throw the baseball at the guy, not seeing the prompt and just assuming I could aim the baseball at him. I reloaded the recent save to see if I missed anything but it was just the prompt. It never occurred to me until this video that some people might’ve thought it was impossible to throw the baseball at the guy if not for that prompt.
On one hand, it gives a clear moral choice for the player to make. On the other, it underestimates the player’s intelligence. The binary-choice might make sense in isolation or on paper, but in practice, allowing the player to aim the baseball at whoever they want is objectively and clearly better.
The ending is actually even worse than how you explained it. Taking a version of Booker from the future and bringing him to the past to kill him then wouldn't retroactively erase his existence at all. It would just kill a single version of future Booker that was never even Comstock. It'd be like traveling back to dinosaur times and being eaten. You wouldn't erase your past self, just end the life of one future self.
"It'd be like traveling back to dinosaur times and being eaten." LMAO
No you don't understand, it works because [Quantum Mechanics]. They said Quantum Mechanics, that's a big fancy sciencey term, so you know it's smart and legit.
Imagine talking about time travel like it’s science
@@Bhubnipz
But we're traveling through time right now.
OooOOOoOo, science!
@@TiomesTheOne
I think the fact you had to stoop to CoD of all games to find an example to compare this game's story to in a favorable light speaks for itself.
What exactly does Infinite innovate? The ability to carry only 2 guns? The ability to run out of ammo every fight? Less build options? More linear environments? Blowing its budget on first person cutscene spectacles that stopped being impressive years ago? God awful boss fights? Well I guess it has that in common with BS1.
There's a plot hole in this game that I've never seen anyone mention. When you travel to the Revolution universe, Elizabeth is continually treated as if she is the Elizabeth from that universe. Even Comstock treats our Elizabeth like she's the one from his world, even though Booker never rescued the Elizabeth from that universe, so Comstock should still have her. Songbird treats our Elizabeth like she's from it's universe too. So the question is, where the fuck is that Elizabeth? Did she escape, did she vanish from existence? Did she read the script and see she wasn't needed for the game? Was this game written by a hack?
If you remove the alternate universe crap, and add in a single scene of the revolution starting, the game literally solves half of its plot holes. The revolution is simmering at the beginning of the game, and halfway through the war begins. Booker rescues Elizabeth in the beginning of the game, and Comstock gets her back later on. There's no more confusion. Instead, alternate universe hijinks ensue, another Comstock gets her, and the Elizabeth from that world is never heard from, creating one of the most annoying plotholes.
Good catch, that's actually a HUGE plot hole in the grand scheme of things.
I agree that the multiverse narrative just massively over-complicated what could have been a great Bioshock. I was hoping that they would expand on the choice system by allowing you to see both sides of Columbia and choose what side to support, culminating in deciding the fate of the city.
But instead I get fed a bunch of bullshit and the choice system is dropped entirely in favor of said bullshit.
Punished 'Venom' Stanni
I had a question about something too, earlier Elizabeth was in her tower drawing the Eiffel Tower in Paris to tear into it perhaps, question is, how the fuck did she know about Paris since she was raised in an isolated tower?
@@xxCrimsonSpiritxx she read books, that's actually explained.
But the shit about she missing from other dimensions really is a plot hole. I hadn't thought of that.
@Claire Bear THANKS SO MUCH for bringing that up again ... this is exactly, what I was aksing myself already on the FIRST PLAYTHROUGH!! ... --...-- .... disappointing, no mentioning in the game WHATSOEVER!! on mutiple occasions, similar things were out ...
Elizabeth's super power is literally opening plot holes in the story. They transverse universes to complete a simply fetch quest because they're so stupid they didn't think about how they were going to transport a pile of guns. Then they go to a universe where they already delivered the guns, so everything that happened in the previous universe was pointless.
See how fucking stupid this sounds when you actually type it out? It almost seems satirical but the horrible truth is that someone thought this was clever
+MrZurata To be fair, the majority of the game's audience deemed it clever. So it's mission accomplished for the devs, sadly.
It's like the Inception of video games except the movie got the important stuff right.
I always wondered what happened in the universe they left. Sinds the guns never got delivered.
Agreed. This is the part where the story really started crumbling.
She's like void in incredibles 2 except for the plot
Sort by top: people commenting on the review and giving their thoughts.
Sort by new: HE SAID THE WORD
The times have changed, that’s for sure.
But context matters in language. I think that in the context, it was OK to use the word, it obviously wasn’t ill-meaning.
@@Moegivesmelife Literally nothing would have changed whatsoever if he said "The N-Word" instead of using the Hard R multiple times, you do not have to say the word to make a point about it, you can just use the very well known term for it "The N-word" nobody is gonna be confused and say "why does he think they should be saying Nipple?" We all know what "the N-Word" refers to, he did not have to actually say it
@@JowoeBunchaNumbers That is fair. While I personally think that it was acceptable to say it in that specific situation and context, I think it would have been better to not say it directly, as people are, rightfully, sensitive about the subject matter.
@@JowoeBunchaNumbersok Nigga
@@JowoeBunchaNumbersyou are just brainwashed to be offended by that word. 10 years ago a thing called context existed. Now your brainwashed mind is trained to go crazy anytime you hear the word, even with no racism implied.
We’ve made progress as a society on a lot of things, but we’ve totally digressed when it comes to being offended over words, without thinking about context
I will never understand how killing Booker from a single timeline is supposed to erase all instances of the two in the multiverse, especially considering he wasn't even the original Booker from that timeline. Even if they did kill the Booker from that timeline all that would happen is a new timeline where the two didn't exist would be created, I don't see how it would affect the other versions of themselves from other timelines.
Tl;dr the writers don't have any idea how alternate universes work and got lost up their own asses with pretentious symbolism.
The game actually shows us 3 more "copies" of Booker and Elizabeth in the end, when you're walking on a dock and see multiple "reflections". So, we know for a fact more timelines were created, meaning that at least one Elizabeth doesn't drown Booker. The last scene where another Booker is still alive (and possibly a baby Anna) also shows Elizabeth's plan was never going to work.
Then, the Burial at Sea DLC SHOWS us her plan didn't work!
This is the worst, most pretentious and illogical ending I've ever seen in any media. I don't think you could write something worse if you tried.
It works because Elizabeth is Time God and she says it will work. Stop trying to think and just blindly swallow what the game tells you!
@@aleciad7218 See, that just pisses me off. Because as fucking stupid and nonsensical as Infinite's plot is, at least at the end according to what they tell you, Booker's sacrifice saves the multiverse from a racist tyrant. It's contrived, it makes no sense, I hate it, but at least it was all _for_ something.
The DLCs just say "Yeah, actually none of it mattered, all those sacrifices, literally the entirety of the main game, did not matter a single bit. You might as well have not played it, nothing mattered." Fuck *right* off with that shit!
That’s the thing tyler, IT DOESNT KILL ALL OF EM, CUZ BURIAL AT SEA EXISTS. SO THE ENTIRE ENDING WAS POINTLESS LOLLLLLL
Regardless, the main thing that bothers me is what's even the point? Once you bring multiverse theory into the game then who cares if you win or lose, live or die? Who cares which Booker does what?
I think it's just silly to make the main narrative theme of the game something that undermines the entire value of everything you do in the game. System Shock 1 and 2, BioShock 1 and 2 were all narratively better games. Also, it's much better to have an actual map than linear paths that unlock one after another.
Also they absolutely chickened out when it came to the Vox Populi. Originally they could be seen brutally executing innocents and it seemed nuances who was the actual bad guys. Once the game released it had shifted to a much more clear and obvious narrative of oppression and overt racism. Andrew Ryan in Bioshock 1 actually made good points and had a functional philosophy.
When the designers asked the question "How do we make sure that the players like this character?" whomever answered the question with "Lets make her throw money at the player!" should have been laughed at, not taken seriously.
I think they made her a mysterious, attractive woman who you never have to feel like is dragging you down in a fight. And they succeeded.
@@orc001 yeah, and you also never have to feel like she actually exists
@@MacMan2152 you mean a fictional cartoon animated character in a dystopian video game in the sky?
@@orc001 it means she doesn't exist in the context of the story either, Matthew makes the point in the video, enemies never go after her, shes almost completely ignored by the people who have been raised to see her as a literal messiah, and they make it feel like Elizabeth is a tangential part of the story, only relevant when the camera is actively on her.
If she were more like Ashley from resident evil, but with better AI anywho enemies who might grab her and run off instead of trying to kill Booker, then tried to get her to an area where it'd result in failure if she was lost, maybe it wouldn't feel like she just blinks in and out of everyone's conciousness as the plot or action demands it.
@@zamb4010 Her power is literally the ability to go to different dimensions. It is critical to the story. Anytime someone could harm her or capture her, she could just be in another dimension. I think it works well
"It's not a good father-daughter bonding story either..."
It's funny that you would say that, because there is a game that WAS a good father-daughter bonding story: Bioshock 2. Subject Delta and Eleanor's relationship felt far more realistic, thematically satisfying, and genuinely emotional to me than that of Booker and Elizabeth. It's a shame that game got thrown under the bus just cause it wasn't written by Ken Levine.
+scottski02 The game got thrown under the bus for multiple reasons, not because it wasnt written by ken levine
+Trendydwarf It didn't have a 2deep4u story like Bioshock 1 or Infinite. People like to feel smart even when what they're playing isn't.
EonKool I think the main problem with it was that it is easily the shortest of all the bioshocks and feels just like an xpac to the orginal game as opposed to an actual sequal
Trendydwarf Really? I'd have to disagree in that regard. Personally, I beat Bioshock 1 in about 6-7 hours, whereas I completed 2 in about 9-10. I felt that Bioshock 2 improved on a lot of gameplay mechanics that made the game more fun than 1 and especially more fun than Infinite. I really don't give a shit about story in videogames, but even I can see that it's much more simple and effective than the needlessly convoluted story of Infinite.
EonKool How did it take you longer, it only had nine levels compared to the firsts 14 levels. And what gameplay mechanics did it improve on other than than not having to switch between plasmids and weapons
This review ages like fine wine.
Matthew's old shouty delivery sure hasn't
@@CaptainHandsome :( thats not true man; why you gotta do my mans matt like that?
@@CaptainHandsome I like his angry voice.
How did it age well, may I ask?
Wheres his ds3 review
When I played Infinite for the first time I was 12 years old, back when games could appear more engaging and intense by just having a mature rating slapped on the box. Bewitched by this, the appearance on the songbird Freaked me out the most where I dreaded a direct confrontation with the mighty mechanical beast. So when the game revealed that I would gain the power I once feared it felt, for lack of a better word, badass. This, having a crush on Elizabeth (thought it was cool that she could take care herself while also helping out during the course of battle), and thinking the story was really profound (because I didn't get it) solidified Infinite as my 2013 game of the year. Decided to test out my seemingly rock solid 12 year old interpretation by playing through Infinite again in retort and... well... I miss the old days.
i felt this almost the same exact way. Thought it was amazing as a kid but finding it pretty terrible as an adult. At least I was able to enjoy actual "profound" game stories back then, and now i can tell between spectacle and an actual good story
An understandable experience, you both grew up and learned to see through the bells and whistles.
Funnily enough, Razbuten recently did a video on this very learning experience, but seemed to have learned much less than you about the value of growing up.
I was 14 when I played it and had the exact same happen to me , i thought Elizabeth was the most beautiful woman ever 😆
Maybe in another universe this is a masterpiece.
How was that? Too cheeky?
+theboomandbang1 Can we travel to that universe and play it then? Cause I really want to play the masterpiece version of this game that we were promised.
***** Well this game was delayed three times, do you know if the main story and gameplay would of been very similar to the first bioshock game?
+theboomandbang1 Just look up the 2010 demos for this game to see what it could have been.
'Twas just cheeky enough.
Grumpy has gone all 'Gangsta'
I liked hacking in Bioshock 2, it was short and simple.
2 was an example of fixing things instead of removing them, specifically with hacking, remote hacks made hacking machines easier, and the hacking minigame wasn't nearly as repetitive. I usually hacked every security camera I came across and just let the bots take care of the splicers.
I actually like BioShock 2 the most.
Also, it's Venezia, not Venice
So we both JoJo and Bioshock fans..?
M A R R Y M E
Yeah the hacking mini game in Bioshock 2 was a big improvement.
Bioshock 2 gets a bad wrap, the DLC for that game was amazing and it refined most of the clunk in bioshock 1
"Perhaps it also has to do with games journalists of today having an insecure need to justify their existence by evangelizing games like BioShock Infinite as mature storytelling."
Wow, just wow. Bullseye. Those people will place the most mediocre shit on the highest pedestals. Almost a decade later and that statement is still very relevant.
Games journalism in general has been conditioned over the past decade to value "mature" narratives over the gameplay that those narratives are meant to supplement. The game industry has pushed the idea of a split between narrative and gameplay, and that kind of thinking holds the medium back from achieving what an interactive medium is capable of when it comes to storytelling. In a desperate plea to seem as valued and respectable as other, older mediums, they've shunned the unique strengths that it holds.
Honestly this problem extends to consumers too.
A lot of people genuinely cannot believe that some games aren’t perfect or that they don’t deserve above a 7. Most journalists do try to justify themselves by evangelizing these games upon release but the ones that actually don’t do that when something drops are chewed up and spat out by consumers. I still remember the absolute bile and doxing that hit the Gamespot reviews that gave Cyberpunk a 7 upon release, only for people to lose their hype a day later.
It’s a self fulfilling cycle where journos feel like they have to worship a game, either to establish credibility or to avoid getting their careers ruined, and then consumers who hear these reviews feel like a series HAS to be perfect or that to think that a game isn’t good is a moral failing that must be punished.
6 years later: OMG HE SAID THE N WOOORD
dont worry he got the n word pass
The Irish are the white n-words. We get Carte Noir.
I’m glad he did, ignoring the stigma against the word and using it as a word rather than an insult
@@looinrims There's also no way to skirt around it without saying it since n-word can just be reffering to negro but saying nigger clearly points it out.
M O E * N E E T we’re talking about 19th century American ideas too, to sugarcoat it like they did leads to what Matt said in the video, it makes this racist place more appealing than it should be in reality
I am not exaggerating when i say this is the greatest gaming critique i have ever seen, this video alone will make me view and judge games differently from now on.
Either this game was rushed out the door, or Ken lost his touch.
The problem was the limited tech of the consoles, the first alfa versions where literally chocking the current gen consoles.
***** Yeah, better hardware leads to better storytelling
sarcasm
Robo Gorbachev Better hardware would allow an open world with better game mechanics that could help in convening a better story.
@@Guciomexcept the first bioshock managed to tell a way better story with same hardware
@@TheDezedez In claustrophobic locations. Not to mention at it's time, Bioshock was cutting edge graphic design.
I love the idea of "you don't like it cause you didn't understand it". Cause multiverse/alternate timelines/infinite timelines is some of the easiest shit to understand
Actually so easy that people to this day praise story of Bioshock Infinite, especially in Steam reviews. Funny enough same people never can mention specific details about the story and why they did like it. Hmmm, its almost like they forget about how bad and generic it was especially with that crappy rushed plot twist and plot dump at the end.
Multiverse is a noob trap for storytellers. It seems to provide infinite possibilities and massive complexity. Instead, unless you really know what you're doing, you'll spread your story thin across an infinite surface area that has far too many holes for you to ever comprehend, let alone fill.
My question is, if the game didn't have the Bioshock label on it would it have been successful at all?
@Jacob Wood Definitely no. It was pretentious, boring and the regenerating shield made it stupidly handboldingly brain-dead to play. Also having the highest difficulty as pre order insentive was just stupid. The normal mode was a joke and the highest one aswell.
I don't know actually, something i really hated was how much the DLC wanted to tie to the first game, since the infinite realities thing makes all Elisabeth's actions in burial at sea meaningless
@@Stefanoabed05 The infinite reality thing really threw me off. If there are infinite realities, that means there's a reality where Booker kept Elizabeth. Or maybe there's a reality where Booker was successful taking Elizabeth to France. There might even be a reality where Booker did the baptism but he chose a different path instead of becoming a tyrannical leader.
It's really so convoluted and it gives me a headache. I never understood why killing that Booker would erase them from all possible timelines and realities.
ehhh no
Replying 1 year later to say no chance
"I like things that make me feel stupid" - Ken Levine on how he got the idea for Infinite's story
"So deep, video games are finally art! " - Video game journalists
The last of us, nuff said
The last of us story isn't much better.
Cameron Crawford I'm not being a fanboy or anything, but can you please care to explain to me why?
+Stephen Aderanti its extremely generic, cliched and predictable.
Super APM it may be a generic zombie apocalypse story but I got to admit that it's way of telling it is quite good especially with the voice acting. But yeah if it wasn't for the story then the game wouldn't be getting this much praise. And yeah this game is WAY too overhyped and I wish Sony can give some of their other franchises some love like twisted metal and ape escape for example.
I'm so happy you brought up the grandfather paradox cause I always use that for this game's ending and people just say "Oh, you just don't understand it." No, I understand it, its why it makes no f****** sense!
+Zevran08 I loved bioshock infinite and I agree with you. It was one of the first things that came to mind when I finished it (specially how drowning Booker wouldn't fix anything), but I got what they were trying to do with the ending and it was quite nice, only not really well thought out.
But what if the baptism happened after she was already born? The grandfather paradox literally doesn’t work here, and I’m sorry to say it, but you legit don’t understand. This isn’t an example of the grandfather paradox. Say you travelled back in time and killed your father when you were 10. Thats wouldn’t stop you from existing cause you’d have already been born.
@@nathangomez4409 technically speaking, it does affect you, time and space are linked, not separate
@@xxCrimsonSpiritxx Can you elaborate on what you actually mean?
@@irony8908 Fair enough, but Elizabeth mentions constants and variables in that final sequence. Booker's baptism within the game is considered to be the birth of Comstock. Therefore I think that's one of the constants. Booker getting baptized after Wounded Knee always results in the creation of Comstock in this universe. So the game is consistent with its logic on that point at least, even if it's a little convenient about it.
Funny how going back to these old videos makes it feel like Matthew is yelling at me.
Y' gone soft??
It's actually refreshing to meet another person who understands that Bioshock Infinite was a LOT dumber than most people believe it is.
No
@@sasaider3711 Yes
@@emperorgameling5064 No, but no
@@sasaider3711 Yes, but yes
@@emperorgameling5064 No, no no
"The subject's mind will struggle to create memories were there aren't any"
They never explained why that was, when Booker travels to the other Columbias he gets the memories of those Bookers instantly. That explanation just exists as a handwave to being able to have a twist at the end. Wouldn't it be more interesting if Booker actually becomes aware that he is Comstock from the beginning and the conflict with his relationship wit hElizabeth comes from that knowledge instead of some hamfisted, 80s children movie style misunderstandings and cutscenes removing player agency?
But I forgot, the game is high art, the plot holes are meaningless because art.
this is to be expected considering there were essentially 2 versions of the game. the first version - shown in trailers and teasers - was a lot more open world and had a story that focused on horror/insanity, general xenophobia, and supernatural themes rather than race issues or quantum theory. then they decided to scrap the whole thing and build it from the ground up to be more of a conventional shooter and force a bullshit narrative that would connect it with Bioshock. that's why so many things feel oddly underused or out of place- because they were originally made for a different type of game and story.
They could have kept the racial theme. I think it's important to explore the issue of race in America and how it has touched on every facet of society at one point or another. However, as said in the video, Bioshock Infinite doesn't really do that theme effectively since the game becomes much more focused on its sci-fi narrative about infinite worlds, and because they never show the really fucked up shit slavery involved beyond simply forcing black people to scrub floors for no money and throwing baseballs at interracial couples.
It's classic "have your cake and eat it too" - they want to have a mass-market appeal game that won't offend people _too_ deeply by showing graphic depictions of the abuse and torture suffered by black slaves, but they also want to preach a point about how evil racism is. They never actually manage to demonstrate that point though because they never do anything that would warrant an emotional response other than the Surprise! Racism! bit at the raffle.
That’s what they get for trying to make a game that would have system requirements rivaling the new half life: Alyx, the developers may have been ambitious but they were stupid
Great games have been made out of hellish developments and complete rebuilds, like the first two Halos, call of duty 4, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, it’s no excuse for making things like Elizabeth’s inconsistent characterization, the plot holes, the stupid mission structure, and the gameplay problems like the Ghost Fights
@Ian Nordin very good point.
@Christopher Marlowe Said like a true generic white male.
@@ZangetsuDDR Said like a true racist.
I'm a black man and when I played this game I was wondering what happened to the real racism
Serious question for you:
Did the racial elements of the game do "anything for you" in regards to the story? Like, I take it from your comment that you considered it almost juvenile and ham fisted, would that be a correct guess? I'm just curious if the game ever had any moments where you felt it was, I guess, "handled appropriately" to benefit the elements of the story?
Yeah, I hated what they did.
They were offensive enough to offend modern people, and not offensive enough to show the true horrors that happened back then.
Basically they hurt everyone.
same here, actually. it really stuck out to me
I think tiptoeing around the issue is more insulting.
People seem to have a real problem with telling the difference between depiction and appreciation
So, can you give Matthew a n-word pass before people try to cancel him?
Bioshock Infinite: "Being dead in one reality makes you crazy in all others!"
Bioshock Infinite: "Comstock being dead in one reality doesn't change anything!"
How the fuck does such a glaringly obvious plothole get through?
Also it makes no sense about why being dead in one reality affect other people, how does these Alternate Universes work and why?
@@Predator20357 Elizabeth creates the other realities from scratch and she is still a beginner at doing this. The first reality she creates when reaching the weapon smiths tools is a very amateur attempt at creating a new reality which results in messed up people having memories of multiple realities. Her next attempt works a lot better but some people were still ill afflicted by this debilitating state.
Why is she amateur at making rifts after all this time? The Siphon device destablizes her abilities so she was never really able to practice at her full potential until late in to the game.
@@Nicholas_Steel So the Realities don’t actually exist outside of Elizabeth and are only there because of Elizabeth, is that what am I understanding? Or are you saying that while Elizabeth was warping realities, she accidentally caused a mistake where the Arms dealer got the memory of the dead one out into him as well as others?
@@Predator20357 The way I see it, she merges realities. There's a couple of lines of dialogues during the whole Arms dealer thing where she talks about her ability being "wish fulfillment". She was talking about how it would be good for a revolution to happen, and sure enough the next universe they jump to is one with a revolution ongoing. So I believe she's essentially slamming two different timelines together, and the people that are dead in one and alive in another get caught in this in-between state where they experience both realities at once. That's what I got from it, anyway.
Resident Evil 4 absolutely SUCCEEDS in escort missions in my opinion. I love how the girl locks behind Leon when he aims and when he's not aiming there's a balance of her following you but also a fair risk of her being taken away because of the excellent enemy A.I.
+ShellofaMan12 Or the player shoting at her for mistake.And you can also order her to hide in some places.Thou her character is still anoying as hell.
Vena Retro oh right that too. you're so right!
yeah and her voice can be hard to take seriously
ShellofaMan12
LEON!
+ShellofaMan12 and don't forget armor Ashley^^
You have to remember Resident Evil 4’s gameplay enables that, at the expense of player control, by design mind you but the control it isn’t as fluid as shooters around it, where escort missions are mostly found
Half Life 2 did it best by making the companion useful without arbitration, and advanced ai compared to the enemies and in general the industry, Alyx’s AI shits on ai in some games in the 8th generation, while still vulnerable to the more dangerous enemies but not the cannon fodder units, however similar to RE4 she sticks close to the player
It seems that the main problem with BioShock Infinite is that the scenes were written before the story, and the reason for scenes happening was crudely shoved in. Like Booker and Elizabeth going to another dimension to get tools for the Vox. Its a cool scene I guess, but the justification for it even being there was hastily shoved in and doesn't make any logical sense.
+Sanic Speed
You might have a point, and it's easily imaginable that this is how many of the scenes happened.
However, I don't mind stuff like that. In a videogame, I can enjoy spectacular and fun set-pieces, even if they don't link to the over-all plot, much more than I could in e.g. a movie. Not sure why, probably because games exist for gameplay first, story second, while movies exist mainly to tell a story.
It's the same with e.g. "Uncharted 3". The entire chapter on the harbor with all the ships, and the ship-sinking in the end does absolutely nothing for the plot and is only there because the writers thought of the set-piece first, and how they can connect it into the story second... but because it's fun to play (at least for me it was), I don't mind that it is there.
+Sanic Speed I didn't know that. That is just storytelling done wrong. No if's and's or but's.
+Sanic Speed Uncharted 3 did something similar (narrative written around setpieces), and what an oddity that turned out to be.
You know what I generally didn't care for about Elizabeth, in the scene where you're trying to buy tickets, and it turns out to be a trap, as soon as the situation goes sour whether by you pulling your gun 1st or not, the enemies will try to kill you, but as soon as you defend yourself, Elizabeth takes off running and then chastises you for being a terrible person. If the outcome is the same regardless of the choice you make, then they shouldnt have you choose at all, as it becomes ultimately meaningless.
"Infinite" gives me alot of "Fallout 4" Flashbacks...
Less Meaningfull Choices, if any at all.
Bland Characters that are just one-note cliches.
Interesting World, that was never used to it's full potential.
Gameplay focused on First Person Shooting, because FPS Games sell alot.
Oh you’ve been brainwashed too
Yah, sorry but what you are saying isn’t clicking with me, Fallout 4 definitely doesn’t feel like Infinite as at most, they deal with what is supposed to be human and what isn’t, not poorly showing infinite. I feel like Fallout 4 done everything 3 done and better besides the dialogue system (four vague buttons that can range from good Will to jackass)
Why did Elizabeth kill Booker thinking that it will end Comstock? There will be a million million other universes where she never killed him and therefore her effort would have been futile? There will always exist a universe where Booker never got killed and if that universe exists then it leads to more universes where Comstock could have existed.
The whole game feels nihilistic. No matter what, there will always remain millions of universes where everything that happened in the game to stop Comstock was meaningless
+ShyanTheLegend I'm more curious as to why she thought that killing someone from the future in the past would have any effect on the future
Josef Stalin
the game thought that if you killed him in the past then he'd never exist in the future but that in on itself creates a paradox. if he died in the past and no longer existed in the future then there'd be no reason for elizabeth to return to the past to kill him because he wouldnt have existed. its like a mutation of the grandfather paradox.
That, along with what i said where even if elizabeth killed him in 1 universe there'd be an infinite number of other universes where comstock or booker is alive. Multiverse theory states that if anything can happen, it will happen. Elizabeth wanted to remove comstock entirely but obviously this is impossible because there'd always exist an infinite number of universes where hed still be alive
ShyanTheLegend Indeed, Ken levine doesn't seem to understand neither basic time travel or what the word infinite means.
*****
the developers dont understand that the whole idea of the multiverse theory states that anything that is physically possible will happen in one way or another. its a massive plothole that has no excuse other than the fact that they dont know what theyre talking about lol
It just gives them an excuse to get away with bullshit logic and allows them to throw whatever they like into the game without needing to explain it: "Oh, this key just magically appeared in my hand, but that's because of the multiverse and infinite possibilities. Ho hum, lets move on with the adventure and try not to hurt our brains thinking about it."
"This is, no exaggeration, the worst cop out I've ever seen."
Have you ever seen Doctor Who?
lol, that's so true!
I guess BioShock Infinite is the Doctor Who of video games!
***** I actually like Doctor Who though, especially the Tom Baker years.
It wasn't a cop out, they established the idea of some things always staying the same at the very beginning, remember the coin flip?
Oh yeah because Dr fucking Who is a realistic portrayal of multiuniverses and time travel.
The story was okay for the first half but it totally lost is when they went to another parallel universe where Chen Lin supposedly wasn't dead... excuse me what the fuck!? The story basically ENDS there because now they just left behind EVERYTHING, all the logical consequences of all that had happened before no longer mattered because they're in another universe where you have had no influence on that universe before, anything could be different and you basically have to start a new story from scratch.
Nothing can make sense any more. Monument Island tower was destroyed when you "rescued" Elizabeth which sent songbird and Comstock after you... but that's in that universe you left behind. Now you're in another universe with another Comstock, another Songbird, another Fitzroy another everything. In Booker's original universe, as far as anyone knew Booker and Elizabeth went down into the basement of the Good Time Club and disappeared without a trace never to be seen again. And within 25 minutes of jumping from one universe to another you jump to YET ANOTHER universe in a stupid attempt to move some equipment!
Surely it should be obvious that if you go into another universe then WHY ARE THEY STILL TRYING TO GET DAISY HER GUNS!?!? That's a deal he made with a Daisy in another universe. This is the point in the game it became impossible to be invested in the story, you couldn't care if they were able to get the guns to Daisy or not, it had all become so detached from the driving plot. Really... what was driving the plot forward?
At one point you're attacked by a Zeppelin and you destroy the Zeppelin by boarding it... you destroy an airship, to get guns, to satisfy a revolutionary, who then might give you an airship as a reward?!?! WHAT?!?
The drive of the plot then become bizarre. I mean it settles on trying to grave rob Lady Comstock's remains to get her fingerprints as apparently the only way to get into comstock house and that was the only way to stop Songbird. And this implausible decision was apparently predicted by Comstock who set a trap only to extract Elizabeth's power.
Except why is Songbird after them? Songbird was after them 2 universes back because in that universe Elizabeth was taken from the tower by Booker. But that didn't happen in this universe, Booker went to monument island and found it empty. It's a narrative nitpick that songbird is extremely infrequent in the story, so often you're walking around in the open without a care in the world that Songbird might swoop by and see them. But it's not a thematic nitpick that the songbird has such a small presence, you often forget Songbird is even in the game and there's very little real interaction.
Annoyingly HALF of the story of the game is told... after the game is over. Seriously, after winning the fight on the airship to destroy the siphon that's the last of the gameplay and the plot summary of what happens after that point is as long as all the plot summary BEFORE that point and says so much of what you thought happened before... didn't. So much was a false memory. The "ending" of Bioshock Infinite isn't so much the ending. The ending is the entire story. You can't have all your plot development in a 15 minute unskippable cutscene/scripted-sequence at the end.
PS: the political commentary was mostly half baked. The idea of Fitzroy not being a true believer but just framed for a murder and opposing comstock because of that is amazingly apolitical, Fitzroy never quotes Marx or any other socialist theory, the entire revolution seems to be founded on a personal vendetta and a fight for survival. Why couldn't Fitzroy be a real socialist revolutionary and she's framed for the murder because she wants a workers revolution, rather than her wanting a workers revolution because she's framed? Despite Elizabeth being saturated in racist literature she has no racist preconceptions.
This is what happens when the story writers care more about "muh occupy walstreet durrrrr" than the actual story. And yes, this game came put arpund the time of occupy walstreet
The Dlc's are more horrible.
@@xedrickOG "This is what happens when the story writers care more about occupy walstreet"
Uhh no, because the game doesn't have any ideology from the "revolutionaries" they go straight from "I don't like the status quo" to massacring people.
@@Treblaine but alot of them had that occupy walstreet mindset. These people ignored the real history of commie revolutions. Hence why these revolutionaries have no ideology. They dont truely understand their own ideology hence why they couldn't adequitely write it in. The occupy walstreet bit ties into why the writing sucked because that is the writers ideological influences seeping in, rather heavily i might add.
@@xedrickOG Occupy Wallstreet was nothing but rhetoric and this game was everything but that.
Hi twitter
the ending of the story was an unlettered, rushed mess. in the course of 5-10 minutes they spam every single type of "plot twist" imaginable at you as if the ending of the game was an abortion of 3 different shitty boardroom ideas for what the "plot twist" was going to be. barely any plot development until the end, and then they spam everything at you in a rush at the end, because it was very rushed. and if you ever critique the ending, people assume you didn't understand it. infuriating.
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Bioshock Infinite is trying to tell one story and play a different game is an absurd display of Ludonarrative dissonance. (Which shouldn't be surprising since the first game was the one that coined the very term)
Gameplay: The Vigors give you superhuman powers and abilites that in the hands anyone could cause anarchy or the downfall of society (case and point the first game)
Story: The Vigors have zero impact on the story.
Story: Elizabeth has spent her entire life locked away in a tower, never going outside or mingling with others.
Gameplay: Elizabeth somehow knows how to handle herself in a gunfight despite having zero outdoor experience.
As the video stated:
Story: The focus for Comstock would be trying to get Elizabeth back after she's escaped the tower
Gameplay: The soliders completely ignore Elizabeth and just try to kill Booker
Gameplay: The game offers a few moral choices that the player has to make a split decision of what to do.
Story: The do bugger all, best you get with them are one scene that doesn't affect the main story at all.
Story: Songbird being designed like a boss character, very imposing and he's legitimately very terrifying.
Gameplay: You don't get to fight him, that would have be soooooo damn satisfying.
Gameplay: The only boss fight in the game is against Elizabeth's Ghost mother
Story: A Ghost? Really
Story: Whenever Booker goes down there's a scene where Elizabeth is frantically struggling to get him conscious again
Gameplay: When Elizabeth is not around he gets back up anyway.
Story: Its established that if someone dies in one timeline they go crazy and frequently phase in and out of existence in another as shown by Chen Lin. Also In one timeline Booker dies
Gameplay: This never happens to Booker, (or Comstock for that matter)
And that's not even counting the numerous story inconsistencies the game has, The first tear we see Elizabeth open is to Paris, and yet not once does she and Booker use one of these to escape Columbia. Serious ANYWHERE would be better for them to be than in Columbia where everyone is trying to kill them, it COULD have been established that they didn't want to divert off their universe, yet later they start travelling to other universes with no second thought. But it seems that the only reason that doesn't happen is because the designers don't want you to leave Columbia cause it LOOKS PWETTY.
TheDuckClock Good analysis. Infinite might have worked better if it were made from a fresh perspective instead of being restricted to the confines of an established IP.
+TheDuckClock Ludonarrative Disonance.A term from hipsters for hipsters.
You don't understand that term and overuse it like many others.
honestly if Elizabeth was as you described how you'd expect her to be I think i would have sympathized with her situation a lot more. imagine how crushing it would be to tell this young scared girl who's for the first time in her life is having real hope of finally going to Paris and being free just to tell her that you're taking her to New York instead because of a debt.
Or if you know that the Luteses just revealed the truth as they got onto the airship. Not what happened with Elizabeth knocking Booker out just to keep the plot going longer
"You mean instead of Paris, I get to go to the Big Apple? Oh boy! I can't wait to see the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty!" I don't think it would crush Ellizabeth to find out that she's going to go to a different magnificent, famous city. It's not like NYC is Flint or Detroit.
Imagine taking her to Paris and showing that the City is not that great as romanticized version presented in books or movies.
Why the Luteces kept the charade going instead of just re-explaining things to Booker once his mind was clear from the dimensional leap is beyond me.
@@timothyfinch7295 Because this game is perfect and is above your puny mortal mind ability to comprehend it. (obvious sarcasm, im just pissed at all the praise i heard about this game for the past 10 years or so.)
"That's the Plot. I understood it and I didn't like it." Lmao
The most infuriating thing I have ever experienced is when I tell people who like this game that I dont like it, and they all default to, "It's because you dont understand it."
Nah, bitch. It's the other way around.
I'm 2 years late but very true.
That’s the response you get when you tread on any sacred cow, really, not just _Bioshock Infinite._ There are a lot of pretentious people out there who cannot argue when their opinions are challenged, so they throw out limp accusations like “you just don’t get it” to make you go away.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien Sounds like bullshit, really. Nobody's dying on any hill to defend Infinite. Almost everyone were quite underwhelmed by that game.
NOW, if you talk smack about the marvel universe, then holy shit, everyone drops whatever they're doing and goes full-throttle nerd-rage. You'll have 40+ adults going absolute apeshit.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien That fallacy is called bulverism. It's the act of someone preemtively deciding you to be incorrect, and without exploring any further context, explaining why you are incorrect. Pretty infuriating way to argue.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien I allow myself to disagree, Infinite is a pretty impressive game - even if different from the original idea. While Bioshock (the original) may be considered a game about choice and agency, Infinite is about stripping the player from agency utterly. Scenes and details are well planned and, in the fair scene part, the idea is quite interesting.
In Infinite you have characters that have prescience, a city that should not exist and a, generally speaking, broken reality deemed to disappear. It might be that you don't get it, after all?
And yea, the gun gameplay is not great - but vigor combinations are and, personally, I quite loved the sky-hook.
Bioshock 2 has a quaint story in comparison, Bioshock Infinite dares to be quite esoteric.
I'm surprised he never mentioned Bioshock 2's hacking as a contrast. It's hands down the best: ranged, real-time, and is actually somewhat challenging. The hacking in 1 and Infinite are zero challenge whatsoever. It's a bloody shame Bio2 was completely swept under the rug, it was the best of the series gameplaywise.
Its sad that no one talks about and refuse to give it some attention
2 unfortunately felt like a mod rather than a proper sequel.
Bioshock 2 is garbage
@@AsteroidSpy LMAO no it's not. It Is a good game. Not even close to "garBaGe" at all. Bioshock is just underrated and needs more appreciation.
@@Golem29 How? Bioshock is underrated and still an amazing experience. It only really feels like bioshock DLC at worst but it's still a great game.
0/10 not enough racism
Download the uncle ruckus mod
I remember getting shitted on hard when I told people I didn't like this game.
Seeing my veiwpoints so succinctly explained here was literally cathartic.
Thank you.
"shat on"
I wish you had also talked about how the multiple dimension things makes the actions and characters of each dimension less important.
This was wonderful.
@DrTheKay 150
Didn't expect to see you here
DouchebagChocolat yyyy
I miss you :(
Ticklemonster you watch his twitch? i archive them.
The irony of the detractors in the comments is that the Burial at Sea DLC proved you right about infinite universes still existing. The game agreed with you.
That's not really irony. The developers backtracking everything in the face of overwhelming criticism is hardly a good thing. A story should be enjoyable and complete in and of itself, it should not require supplementary material to make sense.
But what if you don't buy or play the DLC? So basically, it never happened anyways. Yeah, you shouldn't relegate important story or lore into the DLC. Its like Star Wars now, wanna know more "important" lore points? Read the books! You'll know it there!
The irony of this comment is that Burial At Sea was as big a steaming pile of shit as the base game regardless, so nobody cares.
To add on "the game is a FPS because they sell"
The creators of the game chose the most generic cover for the game possible: jsut Booker standing with a gun over his shoulder looking down, behind an explosion. Many were pissed at this. The dev's excuse? Because it was "ironic." or some shit like that. They were so certain that no one would buy their game because it didn't look like another CoD clone.
+Jeremy Comans actually he specifically said it was to attract the bro/frat crowd because fans of the series would already be interested. that was in an interview late 2012 or early 2013.
+MarcsterS Ken Levine said he did that because that cover sell. He wouldn't cripple the game's potential sales with a cover made just for the fans since hundreds of people worked on it. And the cover was reversible, with the alternate design being chosen by the fans, with the other options avaiable as a download.
+MarcsterS It had to appeal to the bro audience.
Why does that matter? If they made it a third person shooter, it wouldn't change anything other than having cinematic cutscenes
+Bestgameplayer10 I don't think the op meant that ANYthing other than fps would be better - but that choosing fps specifically was a mistake. Well, not for sales, but it's not like the combat served the story or the world as much as it did in the first two games.
Honestly wish I would've seen this 3 years ago. I thought I was the only person that felt this way about the game.
I remember being so dissapointed after beating it.
I was also slightly disappointed and let down when I first completed it as well.
Yeah man... everybody but one of my friends thinks I am a crazy man for saying it was crap.
I know that feel xD
Literally 99% of my friends and favorite reviewers praised the game like the 2nd coming of Christ himself, so I bought it.
I felt cheated after the end. I was seriously just sitting on the plane flight I had bought the game for thinking "I spent $15 for a game I just finished in a plane flight from the U.S to India?"
It wasn't a bad game, it was just a disappointing one, and I wish all the people who were so busy praising it would have at least tried to critique it better.
i remember being dissapointed pretty much the entire time playing it, i have no idea why i actually played it through to the end...so much of it felt like a chore to get through due to the repetitive, bullet sponge enemies and limited weapons to use. The first game absolutely destroys this one.
I remember when this game came out, the incredibly positive reception made me feel like I was going crazy. Then I found this video and watched you do an excellent job of highlighting the many flaws contained within. I guess in that way, I should be grateful to the game. Almost five years later and I'm still around, which I can't say of many other channels.
For real, what a disappointment.
I remember seeing only the first gameplay demo from 2010 and waiting from then for it to come out.
When it was finally announced to come out in 2013 I thought "Well, having seen that gameplay in 2010, I understand why they took so damn long to finish it, can't wait to see Rapture in the sky, fight those psycho citizens and that giant bird that sounds like a Big Daddy", then I bought it and, damn, the feel of wasting 75€ due to false advertisement from 2010 (Then I saw the recent trailers and understood it was my fault since I just saw the one from 2010 and stop, because I did not want to "Ruin my Hype" since game trailers were starting to spoil the story back then).
The more time that passes from Matthew's reviews the better they get. Not even 2 minutes in is Matthew already discussing incredibly delicate topics with unmistakable directness to prove his point. Dancing around the subject of racism is what racists do, the word nigger or nigga, in and of itself is not racist, but rather its application and the willingness for someone to use it to demean or belittle others. Any word can be used to debase or downplay the success of others, but some clearly have history attached to them. We should be careful in the words that we use when conversing with others but if we actively choose to erase the history and pretend it doesn't have it is distasteful and disrespectful. Matt is so sick.
Did you just call him a racist?
@@mayonnaise3959 No, not at all. If he says N Word to describe such sensitive topics then that defeats the purpose of having a meaningful discussion. Matt has balls, that's all I was saying.
@@kylefields3951 ok
You didn't get the memo that context doesn't matter anymore? To use the niggerword is comparable to, nay, WORSE than, murder.
White boy says n word with hard r
"He has such tact and grace it's absolutely brilliant he's like a Shakespearean poet in how delicate and precise his language is"
Bitch shit the fuck up, this is a trash video and you're a trash person
I know I shouldn't hold Watchmojo list to any high standard but the amount of people that agree that this is the best video game story ever disappoints me.
***** Who ever said that? When were they born? Because I can't tell you the best video game story ever, but KotOR 1 is leagues better than this game in every way, and that was a 2003 d20 role-playing game in third person. Game of the Year too, and not by my words alone.
Common Rider Shaded MGS has best story, also MGS3 is the best game
+Silly Ellie It certainly is an incredible game with a fantastic story, I won't deny that. However, your opinion that it is the absolute in gaming, story-wise and more, is subjective. You can keep it, and I won't change it, but I must respectfully disagree. I couldn't tell you my favorite game because I love so many, but I love Dark Souls 1's approach to narrative lore and the like.
Common Rider Shaded
i know it is but it was the first game that ever got me into story in games (at only 6) so is very special to me i love ds1s world and lore but i didnt really like the story it wasnt bad but was nothing special but of course the gameplay makes up for the story
Silly Ellie
Fair enough. I can get that. KotOR 1 ad 2 hold special places in my heart similarly to your love of MGS 3. As for Ds1, the story had a notion that not most got, and had to be pieced together, especially with the endings. The world itself was amazing to me. I loved the npc quests so. The gameplay is indeed a set reason as to love from its fans.
Bioshock Infinite's working title was "Time Shenanigans".
Columbia's original name was "Shenanagonia".
@@Scroteydada Brillant and true.
Oof, should have stick with it, makes way more sense.
When you realize 2013 was 10 years ago
Are you dumb? 11
The take on the multiverse theory in this games has always been my pet peeve, you explained it exactly how I've always viewed it.
"I wouldn't much care, I'm not into jewelery" This is why I love your videos, there's the right blend of facts, opinion, and your own personality that makes it such an entertaining blend.
This was a bit eye opening and despite already kind of disliking Infinite already, your examination and overall set of points helped me realize I have no reason to like this game at all.
It sucks even harder if you loved the first two. They actually made you think, while this game was aimed to the lowest common denominator. That's why it got showered with praise. The masses of dumb and brainwashed populace saw the alternate dimensions and 'themes' it had and did with it like what they did with Gone Home or Dear Esther. Turned a pretentious mess of a game into a critically acclaimed 'masterpiece'.
Tbh, I barely noticed the inconsistencies until I watched this video. I didn't consider it a masterpiece by any means but now I do think it's a bit pretentious.
albinomonkey27 I was actually hyped for the game for a long time, pretty much since its 1st announcement.
Them feels. I remember in one of the early gameplay videos from 2011 they showed the characters walking pretty calmly through the city populated by the rebels and you could choose to attack them or not. Now, when you go to the exact same location in the game, the moment someone sees you, hoards of the rebels will attack you mindlessly.
You know, now that Ken Levine has left Irrational games, maybe just Maybe, this means that he reliazes that Infinite was a disaster and is going to make more System shock- like games . I actually read somewhere that he is starting a small company to make smaller games ... I dunno ,maybe this was his master plan to get some money from Infinite and then start a new company and make more "hardcore" games with a smaller profit
Filo127
I really hope so. But I think he just bit off way more than he could chew. Parallel dimensions are a VERY complicated thing to write a story around, and Infinite shows how people just want to go with the belief of "Oh, a parallel dimension! I understand how Quantum Physics work now!"
Virtue's Last Reward is the only game I can think off that actually did the Other Worlds theory correctly.
Well, as long as a UA-cam video told you what to think...
in Burial at sea dlc chapter 1 elizabeth is seen in a rapture-esque timeline killing remaining bookers so yes the drowining does not fix everything
Although that DLC to some people just ruins more of the narrative of the game series.
She’s wasting her time as there is infinite universes, it’s like a man trying to drain a sea by shooting the ocean floor.
@@Ajourneyofknowing yeah it basically brings down the first game in a vain attempt to bring up Infinite.
" in Burial at sea dlc chapter 1 elizabeth is seen in a rapture-esque timeline killing remaining bookers so yes the drowining does not fix everything " Cool, I'm glad everything that happened in the base game literally was pointless and accomplished nothing. What a fucking brilliant move.
@@Shenaldrac Oh yes because something that happens to complement something else completely ruins everything that you (cuz if you are countering me I assume youwere defending the video's position) were critiquing regardless.
Can we just stop pivoting or moving goal posts? It's impossible for any game to meet your "well refined" and oh so amazing "narrative standards". We have a thesys saying the finale is pointless cuz it assumes everything is fixed and the video creator would like to see a more nuanced and balanced take on it. To which I , a fan of the game, say: well if you get the burial at sea 1 dlc you can get this nuanced and more complete take on what happenes after the loop is established.
And in cometh the iron clad logicer saying "im glad it makes the ending pointless"...noone can win with you guys is that it? just say "ermimimi i dont like the game cuz i didnt feel anything and im making up bullshit reasons to take it down since so many people like it".
My main problem with the story (aside from the fact that the writers don't understand the concept of causality), is that in rapture, Objectivism has benefits. The entire city of rapture was BUILT under objectivist ideals, the fall of rapture shows the negatives. In BioShock 2, it shows how when objectivism fails, socialism tends to take root in the disenfranchised, and that there are benefits to this, but also costs. In BioShock infinite. "Racism and religious xenophobia are bad, mmkay." Not to mention, BioShock 1 and 2, might be fantastical, people running around with super powers, BUT, it all felt like it could happen. Andrew was a rich billionaire with an ego problem. I could see him trying to build a city in the sea, and having the resources to do it. But Comstock?
Yes, Columbia isn't real like rapture was, finished the tree games this month for the first time( yes I have a lot of time) and the worst, most stupid story was infinite by far, completely broken plot with the dimensional travelling and a broken world that I couldn't get into
And even though I think bio2 is shallower in it's critiques, at least it isn't as on the nose as bio infinite
@@vitorschein8073 I honestly like BioShock 2 more than Infinite.
@@wumpus976 so do I, for both gameplay and story, 2 all the way
The hacking thing was fixed beautifully in Bioshock 2.. but no one cares about that game.
That's because Ken Levine's name isn't attached to it.
Yes, lets just completely forget how hammered in the story was, and just remember one fucking small mini game replacement!
David Louis agreed.. the story in bioshock 2 was horrible compared to bioshock 1 and infinite.. the "protect the little sister while she gathers adam" "minigame" was absolutely stupid as well..
David Louis Lets also ignore the fact that the story was still decent and the fact that it had the best combat in the series.
Brandonious15987
The combat was really boring. As a game, I don't see how it gets higher than a 6/10 without the story.
I really wish they just focused on how society was during the industrial revolution and how overboard things can get when they're in a setting like Columbia. Rather than bullshit like time traveling, quantum mechanics, and paradoxes. You know, stuff KEN LEVINE HIMSELF ADMITTED HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. Why the hell did he go this route?
Just like how Bioshock 1 focused on the idea of how far things can go in a society from the 50's (in which people thought they were invincible. They thought smoking was healthy for you, after all) that isn't bounded by morality. You would think the reputation Levine received from his previous games would make him feel confident about focusing controversial topics that relate to the 1900s. Instead, it was just sci-fi jerkoff that makes almost no sense. It's a real shame, and I'll admit I fell for the hype.
Also, if anyone wants to REALLY get depressed over this whole thing, google the Bioshock Infinite artbook, specifically the enemy section. You'll see all the awesome enemies they cut out. Instead, we get angry soldiers and wooden robots.
I agree. Infinite feels like two games mashed together. There's the Bioshocky societal game, and the Life is Strangey time-traveling game. Neither of them are fully expanded upon here, and it just doesn't work.
I get the idea of wanting to explore new ideas. No creative wants to become "That guy that makes X". It can also have a bad look on you as a creator, when to the eyes of the public, your only ever chasing your former glory. If anything, scrapping the ham-fisted real-world message to focus on a more high-concept sci-fi premace, using parallel worlds to explore the many ideas that opens up with full commitment would have been the one I'd have rather seen. In other words, I didn't really wanna see another Bioshock game. Bioshock 1 was just fine on it's own. It didn't really need a sequel in the longrun.
GhenryPerez as a sub, I'd love to see you make a video about this
GhenryPerez I agree for the most part of your comment, but the themes of the first bioshock were a little more specific. It was more of a condemnation of Randian objectivism than “the 50s” mindset
The vigor junkies that resembled the splicers were my favorite scrapped enemies for sure
What's funny is that the more likely situation is that people like it because they don't actually understand it rather than not liking it because they don't understand it.
I remember really loving it back then, and now, looking back after having seen works that do actually involve time travel and multiple worlds theory in an accurate way, I can see that it's a mess.
‘my usage of the word may ruffle some feathers’ to put it lightly dude holy shit
I see he ruffled your feathers
Crazy how brainwashed everyone is to get so offended by that word. 10 years ago a thing called context existed, now your brain goes wild when you hear the no no word. We’ve gone back
It was 10 years ago and his point still stands that there this weird pseudoslavery/pseudoracism thing with the game that just doesn’t quite feel right
10 years later lol
@@BLUEPELICAN234 people did give a f 10 years ago. Just not the demographic of people watching this video. Trust me. 10 years ago no white TV critic or widely watched talk show personality would have gotten away with it either.
On the bright side games have become even more mainstream. That comes with a broader audience full of people who might be offended and actually say something about it.
Introduce a complex idea, with complex problem but don't actually fallow through and instead solve the complex problem with a overly simple solution. See this makes the player feel smart without actually testing his intelligence. So now people think the game is smart because it has ideas above there knowledge. (If u actually understand multiuniverse theory like the guy in this vid you will find the game to be lacking intelligence)
Couldn't agree more. At first I thought that my own understanding of multiuniverse theory was flawed, until I found this vid and read the comments. Now I get why the game confused me so bad; it's not my understanding of the theory, it's their application of the theory that's flawed.
What I understand now is they were trying to explore two completely different and mutually exclusive ideas. On the one hand, they try to say that choice doesn't matter because whatever choice you make in this reality, another version of you makes a different choice in an alternate reality. But then they try to sell the idea that choice doesn't matter because all choices lead to the same fate, which is the exact opposite of what multiple universe theory states.
Which leads to the confusion because the story tries to say both are true and neither is true at the same time.
Labeling the highest difficulty "1999 mode" and stating that it would be similar to System Shock 2 was downright insulting.
Let's be honest, if Elizabeth had a health bar nobody would finish the game
Man this game got forgotten so quickly. That's probably the most damning review of it.
Not true
Dude, your critique of bioshock infinite was spot-on. This is the ONLY review I've found that calls it out for what it is: a mediocre game. I'm surprised you didn't address the in-game currency and how tedious it is to endlessly scavenge containers to maximize your character. Also, the random generating of enemies from the first two games was abandoned for scripted battles, which reduced the challenge significantly.
watch totalbiscut's review
GhenryPerez He was probably referring to the big daddies' tendency to wander around the level so you didn't always fight them in the same place.
GhenryPerez after you originally clear an area, enemies will randomly spawn in after you leave. I think this is what he means. There is no such thing as a completely cleared area if it ever had enemies in it for the most part in those games
Watch a flimsii review
MLG Oatmeal The story is realy that mediocre, the ending is most likely put together in one last night in pub before closure. Or maybe not, because that late night time in pub you get ten time better ideas, that are so insane, that it actualy make sence. Even if i compared ot other famous mainstream multiverse adventures, mainly Golden Compas trilogy and Stephen Kings Dark Tower (that went pretty much south after Wolfs of Cali), these two being the mainstream, using popular science, they were done right to most extent, and have very few spare wooden legs you can beat them with after the plot crumble down if you dig too deep
Yep the infinite timelines is what killed the story for me, too. Had they stuck with two separate timelines they could have made it work. But wanting to have infinite possibilities but also have a definitive ending is wanting to have a cake and eat it, too, and the worst thing is - it works, because people either don't get why this is flawed, or they don't want to get it. I personally really wanted to love the ending so I tried to find good rationalizations why the end does work - like, there is perhaps a "relevant subset" of timelines which represents Bioshock Infinite, and these are the ones we see snuffed out by the drowning scene in the end. But.. it just doesn't hold water.
This was actually the reason why I never bothered with Infinite DLC (which as I heard puts an additional spin on things). I don't like "pretend clever". I'd rather have a more simplistic, dumber plot which works, then a supposedly sophisticated and complex one which completely disintegrates upon closer scrutiny. Still, I can't say I find Bioshock:Infinite to be a bad game. It's just... a bit overhyped.
Same here. If the was game simply a tale of them getting to either Paris or New York I wouldn't have minded that.
Can I get you a beer? You sound like you need a beer after that.
I have an explanation for that plot hole, but its's really stupid. All I got is that Liz was so mad with anger she didn't stop to think about her plan.
The Elizabeths that dissapeared could be that drowning Booker could have a slight effect on some multiverses, but not all of them.
Holy shit, you're right -- I never thought about that. The story is actually a two-universe story, not infinite. That's why the ending pretends Elizabeth's solution works. If it was a Back to the Future type story but with two branching universes alone, the ending works. Why in the world did it become infinite?
7:57 there is something about Matthew saying "utterly atrocious" that is so magic.
at least in Resident Evil 4, mostly an escort mission, the enemies would try to carry Ashley away as she was vital to their plan.
does nobody really notice the skylines were ripped from metroid prime 3...?
nobody...?
+Navy Zerimar (Inlikeflynn) Kind of thought that after going back and playing metroid prime 3 again, but just brushed it off as mere coincidence.
As a huge Metroid fan it struck me immediately. It was a cool part on Elysia that let you travel around the flying buildings but they don't overstay their welcome. I don't really like that Infinite made it such a huge part of the game. They felt useless, honestly and the thrill wears off quickly.
The first time I played any Metroid Prime game was long after finishing Infinite. After reading this comment, I realised just how similar they are.
I think the hype around Infinite highlights a few interesting things about how games are being developed and received:
a) how dull, shallow, boring and uninteresting the majority of mainstream triple-A games has become, especially in the shooter genre, that a seemingly deep and complex game like Infinite shines so bright.
b) many people are actually tired of dumb shooters which don't even try or pretend to be complex. Hence people are drawn to Infinite since it appears to be smart as long as you don't dig too deep.
c) video game journalists have backed themselves into a corner by dishing out high ratings for even the dumbest and dullest games such as Call of Duty so that when a (seemingly) more complex and interesting game as Infinite comes along they have to praise it even higher in comparison.
d) people are easily blinded by flashiness. The main redeeming quality both the original bioshock as well as infinite have are the atmosphere and aesthetics. Even though the gameplay is mind-numbingly boring and the story is presented in such an unappealing and confusing way, I liked them both, especially the first Bioshock, because of it's style and flavour.
Sad thing is, both games could have been so much better than they eventually were.
So sad....
Thing is CoD sells on the strength of its multiplayer, so trying to take it on like that was an exercise in missing the point. Saying you play CoD for the SP story is like saying you read Playboy for the articles.
I'm still of the opinion that Bioshock 2 is the best in the series
@@samaelmalkira9420
If the series doesn't include System Shock 2 I agree.
glad i felt like watching more of your older stuff this was great
I admire Matthew for the point he makes at 1:32. It's the same problem I had with Red Dead Redemption 2 - developers are so disingenuous when it comes to racism. They want to be able to have the audience rally around them when it comes to victimization but as far as actually depicting said racism on screen is concerned, they shy away from it because they don't want to 'offend' anyone.
Gamers discover empathy
rdr 2 drops the nword multiple times tho
its either super romanticized or with a hero twist, like this isnt racism, its just assholes. I saw more racism on harry potter with the mud bloods than any black vs white videogame or story.
i also absolutely respect the hell out of Matthew for that as well. he knew how he'd come across and what type of reactions he might receive for saying it, yet he did it anyway for the sake of being upfront and genuine about a real issue in a game, that wasn't at all genuine about its themes and how it portrayed them. like most video games that try tackling the topic
@@zackie8172 Yes, and everyone in the game disparages those who say it those few times, NOT something that the normal citizen would do in 1899 United States. That's the entire point. To show it all.
"Perhaps it also has to do with games journalists of today having an insecure need to justify their own existence by evangelising games like bioshock infinite as mature storytelling." Now that's a sentence right there, holy fuck dude, knocked it out of the park. I don't think I've ever heard a more efficient echo chamber participant assassination.
Yea it felt more thematically grounded for Bioshocks 1&2 to be FPS. Murderous super-junkies and the dark, oppressive setting would definitely call for the player needing to defend themselves by slaughtering their way through. With Infinite you come across as a murderous psychopath in between every plot-dense set piece, which just feels odd.
+Ziltoid TheOmniscient I don't even mind it being an FPS but it could've been a better FPS.
Yay
28:48 _“The only reason for Bioshock Infinite to be a first-person shooter is because that’s what sells.”_
That, and branding. Past _Bioshock_ games were first-person shooters, so this one is too. Branding explains why a lot of these issues are here. Why do plasmids exist in Columbia? Why are there audio logs randomly strewn about the place? Why is Columbia an airborne city anyway? Not because it aids the story or the gameplay, but just because the previous installments had them.
Essentially yeah, but the thing is that's how a series works. Using previous mechanics and systems from the previous titles, however I find Infinite had back peddled way too much. They could've done something interesting with vigors, but it's explained that they are essentially the same thing with production and gathering. Gunplay should've added the earlier demos system of "knowing when to shoot" Letting you choose conflict or not, of course adding more depth to an already bland choice mechanic. As for the air born city? Looks great don't get me wrong, but there's not really and advantage to it being in the sky besides those short war scenes and science being away from global eyes. I don't remember how they get material for their platforms ever being mentioned, do they have private mines on the surface? Do they do dealings or trade with the surface?
Infinite doesn’t really have a reason to be called a bioshock game though besides saying “hey rapture was in the game for 2 seconds” and “we have a horrible dlc that ruins the first two bioshock games”
The vigors are really just there to pander to fans of the previous games.
+´Tomas Muir
Pander is an awfully harsh word. I would think it's only reasonable that a game in a series keep the core gameplay elements of the previous entries.
+´Tomas Muir
If they're trying to pander by randomly including one element in a really shitty way... they're doing a terrible job
+´Tomas Muir Ummm, if you played the DLC's, you'd know that it's not just there to pander. There's actually a link between the vigors and plasmids
Ben Wasserman
There is no mechanical reason for vigors to exist in the game. The entire connection with Rapture is pointless and tacted on for the sake of including a reason for "Bioshock" to be used in the name.
Pseudo Lain Maybe not in the infinite world, but it was still brought over from the Bioshock world. Plus if you haven't noticed Infinite is a reverse parallel to Bioshock.
Plus I'm in a minority that places this at #1 so save your arguments, I'm still gonna defend this game
Bioshock Infinite: The game which teleports you to a dimension where your allies hate you any time it gets dangerously close to telling an actual story.
15:00 is the most obnoxious thing ever. I hate when people try to tell me I dont get time travel or parallel universes when saying that the ending is simply badly done.
I am surprised that a deeply conservative christian society allowed the vigors to exist in the first place. Society like that must have considered the vigors black magic and research of them must have been a serious offense (remember the witch trials?). It would fit the narrative much better if the vigors were in fact something forbidden and villified that you need to discover and get access to first in the darker corners of the city and which could get you in trouble, once somebody saw you using that. The only way to include them into the narrative would be to point to the aspect of racism and say that the society saw vigors as a way to improve the racial qualities (which could be further supported by depiction of blacks being punished for trying to use those things, intended only for the ruling race by the establishment). That would have worked as well. Jeez, we could re-write the plot together.
It all depends on how they flavor it. If you had a Pentecostal revivalist invent it he might call it a “gift of the Holy Spirit” or something. They’d take it as evidence that Columbia’s prosperity was desired by God Himself.
Thing is they kept much of the Protestant imagery vague, likely to keep the target on American racial attitudes rather than calling out any Protestants themselves. I can’t even remember if Jesus was ever mentioned once, though my memory of the game is very rusty.
@@Scatmanseth Jesus gets mentioned like twice, and I think both times were by black people in the game and not native Columbians.
Yeah conservatives don’t even trust vaccines why would they be ok with vigors
Played BioShock Infinite once. Never had the urge to play it again. The original BioShock is one of my favorite games of all time.
I feel like the praise for the story it gets kind of stems from critics that play dull, meaningless stories in many boring, bottom of the barrel modern game schlock, they're starved from something that has even just a thin veneer of a mildly intelligent plot. I'm not saying tht excuses anyone, from the game developers or the critics, it's just something I figured I'd point out. When you're forced to live on hamburger for months on end, and then someone throws you a kind of tough and crappy steak, you might mistake the steak for being a much higher-quality product than it actually is.
Other than that, I agree with everything. The gameplay appeals to the lowest common denominator, the plot has its head shoved firmly up its own ass, and there are plot holes all over the place. In fact, the most fun I had with infinite is the lost at sea second dlc where the focus is on stealth and you play as Elizabeth with no reality-breaking tear powers. It felt like a return to form with a total overhaul of the mechanics, which I liked a lot more than the main game, where all of your questions about the mechanics can be summed up with the phrase "in service to the brand."
I love comments like this. It shows the exact opposite side of the extreme when it comes to hating and loving this game.
For people who claim to not buy into the marketing of the game and all the fuss, they tend to create their own fuss and froth over it. The lack of nuance in admitting that a game can be partly good and partly flawed escapes them every time.
This analysis is a masterpiece all on its own.
Great critique but this is where I’m glad I’m a simpleton when it comes to deeper analysis. It helps me enjoy things more, but I can also appreciate videos such as these which dig deep. Thanks Matt!
'yes, thank you for this critique, a lot of other franchises are guilty of dumbing down and stripping out features instead of looking for solutions.
Cough Mass Effect Cough
Cough The Elder Scrolls and Fallout cough (i will say it loudly... fuck Todd Howard and Bethesda Game Studios, Skyrim and Fallout 4 were dumbed down to the bottom floor and still those games got critical acclaim...)
I found it a little ridiculous when Bioshock Infinite got 10s on many publications.