I devoured BioShock Infinite in what, for all intents and purposes, could be called one sitting. I did get up about halfway through and drive down the street for some fast food takeout that I ate while watching Archer — you know, just for a massive palate-cleansing dose of cognitive dissonance — but otherwise it was an early-morning-through-late-evening furious run of 13 hours.
There are no shortages of BioShock Infinite reviews, so I will spare the world yet another one that tells you what you already know. Infinite is phenomenal, and you should buy it and play it. What I do want to talk about, and only briefly at this point, is what the game made me think about on a higher, conceptual level as I played and finished it.
This is a land of what I call the “gray spoiler,” the sort of spoiler that isn’t an explicit recounting of key story beats, but an area where if you think hard enough on the subject you might glean the shape of the story and as a result the directions it might go during its many twists and turns. For example, knowing that Darth Vader is Luke’s father is an explicit spoiler, however knowing that the story of Star Wars is, at least in part, about a son’s fight to redeem his father, might lead you to guess in the right directions. This discussion will lean to the latter part of that example, and thus should be avoided entirely by those who have not played or do not wish to risk spoiling the terrific overall story of Bioshock Infinite.
Do we understand one another? Good.
To me, what is genuinely impressive about the nature of Infinite’s story is how wide the net is cast, and how full the bounty it ultimately catches. There is no way to encapsulate a definitive statement on what Infinite is about, certainly not in the same way that you could haphazardly reduce down many of the themes of the first BioShock to being about Objectivism, though I actually think that is overly reduced, because Objectivism itself holds so many ideas within its confines.
In fact, I’d say where BioShock is a look at the tenets of a philosophy described and encapsulated within a story (specifically Objectivism within the stories of Ayn Rand), Infinite is Irrational’s stab at creating its own philosophy within its own story. In other words, instead of trying to deconstruct what Rand did, it is trying to replicate it with its own philosophical ideas, though it's probably not as concerned as Rand was with whether you agree with those philosophies.
I say this because Infinite contains a multitude of ideas or inferences about everything from race, to religion, to the metaphysical, to free will in the multiverse.
Where a lot of people, I think, have gotten hung up on the setting and the idea that Infinite is a criticism on American exceptionalism, I actually just see that as a context to create an isolated playground to explore broader ideas. After all, the America of Atlas Shrugged is there to serve the ideas contained within the Objectivist agenda.
I feel it necessary at this point to offer a brief word on authorial intent; specifically that I don’t care much about it. It could entirely be that anyone associated with actually making the game may look at the above and the content to come, and to think, “We didn’t mean to do any of that stuff.” That’s the beauty of art to me, that authorial intent is completely isolated and separate from the way media is received. So, to me, the question of what Ken Levine and his team meant to say with their story is far less interesting than what I and other players in the narrative interpret it to say. After all, a word is irrelevant in a speaker’s mouth. It only gains value in what the listener hears.
Anyway, I’m not ready to start the Cult of Irrational and proclaim Infinitism some new philosophy to which I should subscribe. But I do think there’s a very interesting way that Infinite ends up talking about not only our place in the world, but the agency we have over that place. I’m going to tread close to the spoiler line here, so beware for a few sentences — but in the very first scene, Infinite lays out an interesting question that you only realize much later. Booker DeWitt does not row. Why? Because he doesn’t.
The language of that segment is both very simple and very complex. There is an underlying question that I think isn’t clearly answered, which is whether he does not row because he chooses, or because the universe chooses him not to.
I think this is the part where religion comes in, and there’s a very good reason that the City of Columbia is so devout. If you look at religion in Infinite, it is not specifically any one religion — though it squares with the general trends of 1912 America, which is to say Protestant leaning. Infinite almost has its own independent religion, where the Prophet is a sort of deific figurehead protecting the Lamb and his followers from evil as manifest in the form of the False Prophet, or specifically, the player.
But ultimately Infinite resolves itself in a way that removes the mystery and divinity of that religion, which is interesting, because I think that by taking that approach, Infinite’s critique of religion as an ideology is defanged. After all, you can only understand that which seems divine in the game with extraordinary knowledge that, while not explicitly unknowable, for all purposes is unattainable by almost anyone. It does not paint the followers of the Columbia mystical vision as stupid, though it does cast them as unwittingly manipulated, which still could be seen to indict the institution of religion in a way, because in the end the foundation that the religion is built on has nothing to do with any kind of god. It has to do with very, very complex science, and people who manipulated that science to make it seem mystical.
That is not to say that the game is anti-religious. In fact, I don’t know in the end whether Infinite really says anything about capital-G-God, or whether he exists or doesn’t. It speaks only to the finite construction of religion within the terms of the one created in the game, and which is a knowable, finite thing. Infinite doesn’t really say, if you believe in God then you are misled, but that these people who believe in this god have been fooled.
In the end, Irrational's creation walks the fascinatingly fine line of critiquing corrupted institutions while not blaming the often innocent or at least misled followers of those institutions. After all, the thing about The Prophet in Infinite is that, by any reasonable measure to a citizen of Columbia, he is one in what seems every legitimate way.
So in the final quick and dirty analysis, I think if I were to distill Infinite down to a few words, the most obvious would be redemption. The game oozes redemption at every corner, though I think the corollary to that is equally true, which is that Infinite is also very much about corruption. It is manifest in the very deterioration of the city around you, as well as some of the institutions that slide from one role to another. Even within the way Elizabeth discovers her own abilities, it is evident that imparting a singular will upon the world, even with seemingly pure intent, ultimately corrupts and undermines the very things she wants to preserve.
It doesn't simply leave it at that, a surface statement that sounds suspiciously like "power corrupts, and absolute power ..." yada, yada, yada. Without diving too much into the ending, I think what it really is saying is that ignorant or cynical power naturally corrupts. There is this undercurrent, in the story of redemption, in the story of corruption, in the story of the religion, that knowledge unbinds us. It does so often with unflinching and uncompromising results, but power throughout this game lies in those who "know," and the way to undermine or co-opt their power is to also know, or even know more.
Or, perhaps, that is simply me projecting my desire onto the story I've been told. There's a lot of meat to gnaw at, but in truth not a very clear message to take away without unpacking Infinite's substantial baggage. That's good, though, I think. If nothing else it warms my heart to have a game worth thinking about, even if Ken and his team ultimately do hold the trump cards, because they are the ones who know.
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While it's a neat idea, it doesn't really hold up. Mostly because:
That would be all very good, except for one MASSIVE glaring problem:
Spoiler tag didn't work on that picture, heavy..
Again, this isn't an isolated thing:
At this point, any justification starts going the "Star Trek rationalization" route. If you twist things enough, you can justify it, but it's not really necessary. The alternative is also quite simple: It looks cool.
[spoiler]Did we not discuss this? I totally thought we did and kind of took this as a given when I reached the end (and had been thinking it was all some brain trip Matrix or Alice in Wonderland style before the end).
My favorite bit of evidence that you are the last in a long line of attempts, though, was the sandwich board for heads or tails, though it also raises the question of how many different worlds have they tried this in? IT couldn't all be happening in the same Columbia or that place would have long ago been abandoned as a war zone.
"What forest are you talking about?! I can't see anything with all these trees in the way!" ~Farscry
We can agree to disagree. I would, personally, chalk up the minor inconsistencies to the fact that the development team was human and had a game to ship.
Sure, though I would point out that
Yeah, the worst thing about those soldiers?
Heh, could do this forever with all the loopholes in this game, but here:
Redemption? Really? I saw no redemption in the story, just a kind of nihilism.
"Manure seems to be the most effective means of assassination."--Deadmonkeys
Otherwise, my thoughts on that particular aspect can be found here, as Valmorian and I have already had some discussion on the matter. SPOILER WARNING, of course.
Yep. If there were a "good" ending, we'd all have reloaded until we achieved that version of the story.
And Sophocles. What Lara is objecting to is what's at the heart of tragedy in Western canon. That heart was also relegated to morality tales for the better part of two millennia, though, as it tends not to jive with humanist notions that we can, through force of intellect and will, strive against the gods and subvert fate. For the most part, we've gone with stories where the hero (yeah, generally a while male between 20 and 40) can and even ought to win.
But Bombsfall and Sleipnir got into that, too. I'm just ... trying to round things out?
Really, I wish I had organized a huge GWJ writers event where we all talked about it in type. I think that could have been awesome, and I am filled with regret that I can't go to some alternate dimension where I had my act together.
Anyway, Dorkmaster shares my views on the infinities stuff as it relates to the game's design and BS1. Even the "open" areas of the game are shot through with being on-rails and going in circles.
I think that if you're going to talk about remorse and possibility within the context of American exceptionalism, it's hard not to have the Great Awakenings play some role in that. They play a huge part in North American protestantism and populism.
What I'm saying is that we have a lot of smart people in here and I love that, but I also wish I'd had the foresight and wherewithal to get some of this fascinating discussion up in OPs.
And that's the weakest part of the whole game. Which is a problem, since it's the most game-like part of the game.
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
When you believe you are a monster, you will tend to behave like a monster.
In this case, "monster" could also be "videogame protagonist." Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
I actually had two playthroughs of Mass Effect for this exact reason: I had Big Dumb Paragon Shepard that had no idea what would happen later, and just made the best decisions he could, given what he knew.
Then I had Smart Renegade FemShep, who was eerily prescient in her decision-making throughout.
So when I finished ME3 the first time, I hated it. But I figured that it was because it was Big Dumb Shepard. I started replaying with FemShep, and started reading online, only to find out that Dumb and Smart Shepard both end up in the exact same place, with the exact same choices, and that nothing you did in the game really mattered.
I dropped it there, and haven't played it since.
If we had multiple endings in Bioshock, I'd have explored most or all of them, but the 'canon' one for me would have been the first playthrough. Subsequent ones would be wish fulfillment playthroughs, never quite as real as the "truth".
So I have thoughts about this sort of thing, in various games.
1) If there's no systematized difference at the end, does that mean nothing really mattered?
2) Is it valid for players to not be able to change the fate of the universe, but still be asked to make decisions with shorter-range ramifications?
For BSI in particular: Given an infinite number of Bookers and players, if all games were interconnected, would not the end result have been an inevitability?
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
Well, even navigating whatever possibility space has been created, you can argue that 'nothing matters' because it's all been pre-scripted. But it has the same basic impact on me that the Choose Your Own Adventure books did; my particular playthrough was unique, and given the really long series in at least that one set of White Wolf books, it might be that most longer playthroughs eventually become unique. You will usually miss many things in each book on each playthrough, and the outcome of each book could vary quite wildly, from total failure to resounding success. That was a good mechanic, and it's still a good mechanic in electronic form.
Now, imagine how people would have reacted to the White Wolf books if, at the end of the series, you had a final set of three choices that could only result in three endings, period, none of which had anything to do with anything else you'd encountered along the way, and were not influenced in any way by your stats or what you'd found or what path you'd traversed to get there, and all the choices were deeply unpleasant in some way, even the putatively 'good' option. People would have been pretty pissed off about that. Why did they even bother keeping track of all that stuff when none of it made any difference?
B:I isn't as frustrating and disappointing as those games; it's more an on-rails story, where you're just going and doing things because that's all that's allowed. You don't really have choice, and the game even kind of rubs that in. That's an okay mechanism, if you aren't pounding into players' heads that Everything You Choose Matters.
My particular gripe is that the story was remarkably unfulfilling; anything could have happened at the end, with a rationale every bit as valid. Nothing that happened in the game led to that specific conclusion in any particular way. There was no real reason for anything to have happened, no particular connection between the story and the outcome. That's why the game vaguely reminds me of Mass Effect. It was a neat journey, I suppose, but if the destination sucks, it really casts a pall on the journey, yanno?
Well, it's valid in the sense that it can be done, as it was in Mass Effect. But, while perfectly valid, it was very stupid to do that in a game that was supposed to be about choice.
I can't parse that question. I recognize the words, but the ideas are coming out as nonsense; if all games were interconnected? What? How would that happen, and why would it matter? And this undefined... thing... whatever it is, would have forced some kind of conclusion?
I just can't make heads or tails of that question. I feel like you just asked me about purple giraffes changing lightbulbs, and what the inevitable outcome would be on rice production in China.
Sorry, I got ahead of the conversation by linking other universes to other players' games.
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
I offer to you that choices might still matter even if they don't result in changed circumstances at a broader level. I think this is a particular problem that narrative-based games run into, as they both offer a notion of choice and volition while still restraining those choices and the potential ramifications of those choices.
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
I don't buy that criticism of the Mass Effect 3 ending at all. Just because all playthroughs end in the same event, doesn't mean its meaning is fixed. Changing the context changes the meaning of the event too.
Do you read Sutter Cane?
Mass Effect spoilers:
I don't believe that attempts to change the ending necessarily soil what the ending was.
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
Do you read Sutter Cane?
Oh, they broke my belief in their universe completely in that last ten minutes. It was obvious at that point that they never really knew where they were going, that they were just making everything up as they went, like Lost. It was never a real place, there was never a real rules system, it was all bullsh*t, all the time.
The retconning just made that even more obvious.
B:I reminds me of that a lot. I find it much less frustrating, nowhere near the epic-scale failure of the ME storyline, but it's fairly similar in that there was never any coherent reality underneath what was going on, no rules system that Levine had to follow.
Broke your belief, or just made you not want to believe it anymore because it didn't go a way you wanted?
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
*Gasp*
You mean
Rules and logic aren't the most important thing in storytelling. It's true that you can't have omnipotent protagonists, because then when character A wants B, there is absolutely nothing to stop A getting it, but it's also true that drama is more important than logic. Regarding BInfinite:
Do you read Sutter Cane?
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