Okay, I'm a huge fan of the Bioshock series and I love the first Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite (Haven't played Bioshock 2 for the record, and I don't care too). But with things you love you must eventually notice blemishes here and there. and BOY does Bioshock Infinite suffer from Fridge.
For the record this thread is for the Bioshock Series in general, but I do feel like I need to gripe about a couple of things about Infinite so here goes.
No spoilers ahead
I remember reading somewhere that the original plan for the game was that you were actually going to play as Elizabeth, and use her powers to solve puzzles and try to escape Columbia and sneak your way around the songbird. But then a bunch of college guys complained about it, and they changed it to the shoot em'up that we all know and love.
Am I the only one who thought that would've been more awesome? I would happily play a game where you play as Elizabeth, as apposed to the psychotic, alcoholic, monstrous ex-Pinkerton...
But hey, A game set in first person perspective starring a female protagonist, where you use quantum science to escape from an insane robot? That would never sell.... Especially not well enough to spawn a sequel....
Quote from: Love AwesomeBut hey, A game set in first person perspective starring a female protagonist, where you use quantum science to escape from an insane robot? That would never sell.... Especially not well enough to spawn a sequel....
I think it's possible that would have sold.
Portal sold.
Tomb Raider is huge.
Metroid has done pretty well for itself. I don't think it was just sales that made them go with Booker as the protagonist. And I've heard it said that in part of the upcoming
Burial at Sea Elizabeth will be playable.
[spoiler=Infinite spoilers]Booker did let them do some very interesting things
with Elizabeth and with identity - being simultaneously her father, captor, and rescuer at the same time.[/spoiler]
Quote from: Steerpike
Quote from: Love AwesomeBut hey, A game set in first person perspective starring a female protagonist, where you use quantum science to escape from an insane robot? That would never sell.... Especially not well enough to spawn a sequel....
I think it's possible that would have sold. Portal sold. Tomb Raider is huge. Metroid has done pretty well for itself. I don't think it was just sales that made them go with Booker as the protagonist. And I've heard it said that in part of the upcoming Burial at Sea Elizabeth will be playable.
[spoiler=Infinite spoilers]Booker did let them do some very interesting things with Elizabeth and with identity - being simultaneously her father, captor, and rescuer at the same time.[/spoiler]
Sorry I was trying to sound eye rolling sarcastic through my writing hence all of the ".....". I was referencing Portal there, and I was going to write "just ask Valve... *Drops the mic, walks away*"
Really if Burial at Sea has a cool playable section with Elizabeth, that would make me very happy, but I still feel like a huge opportunity was missed here. That part where you play as Elizabeth has to be very good.
So now that i know you know what we all know...
[spoiler=Infinite spoilers] Understand that when I played ICO it only made me tear up a little, Bioshock Infinite made me cry. I had so much investment in Bookers and Elizabeths relationship, that the scene after the credits made me shed manly, hope filled, tears of joy. Before you point me to Spoony's review, I like hope!!!!! So despite all of the bile I'm about to spew, I love this game, it got a real emotional response.
So here goes.
Out of all the fridge logic that this game evokes, there's one scene that is just unforgivable for me, and completely ruins the narrative for me.
When I first got to the "Bad Future" scene where Elizabeth is old and is attacking New York... I genuinely thought it was the early twenties. I really sincerely thought it was only ten years into the future. "Well how could Elizabeth be that old?" Because Comstock exposed and brainwashed her with a tear machine, and made her deteriorate like he did! It's genius!
Except that someone pointed out it's really 1984...... I could sit here and rant about the sheer illogical stupidity of sending a blimp armada to try and destroy New York in the middle of the cold war, but that would last forever.. Needless to say: F-16, Helicopter, Battleship, laser guided missiles, and nuke > Blimps
So yeah I'm left with no other alternative but to say that Bookers having a heck of an alcoholic fever dream...
[/spoiler]
I'm sorry there's nothing more annoying than a whiny fanboy, and I sincerely like this game. I hate that my brain won't leave that part of the game alone. Everything else was good. The combat was solid (although I kind of agree that it's overdone), and the characters are great, So sorry if I come across as whiny.
Oh my bad!
Quote from: Love of AwesomeI'm sorry there's nothing more annoying than a whiny fanboy, and I sincerely like this game. I hate that my brain won't leave that part of the game alone. Everything else was good. The combat was solid (although I kind of agree that it's overdone), and the characters are great, So sorry if I come across as whiny.
[spoiler=more spoilers]I always figured they had some means of protection for the blimp armada, like some variant of the Lutece Field or even the Return to Sender Vigor, that would deal with missiles and whatnot. I mean, many years have passed and Columbia was already crazy advanced in 1912. I figured they knew what they were doing.
Alternatively, I wondered whether perhaps the whole thing was a kind of suicide attack, like a mass terrorism thing, and old Elizabeth didn't really hope to survive.[/spoiler]
Quote from: Steerpike
Oh my bad!
Quote from: Love of AwesomeI'm sorry there's nothing more annoying than a whiny fanboy, and I sincerely like this game. I hate that my brain won't leave that part of the game alone. Everything else was good. The combat was solid (although I kind of agree that it's overdone), and the characters are great, So sorry if I come across as whiny.
[spoiler=more spoilers]I always figured they had some means of protection for the blimp armada, like some variant of the Lutece Field or even the Return to Sender Vigor, that would deal with missiles and whatnot. I mean, many years have passed and Columbia was already crazy advanced in 1912. I figured they knew what they were doing.
Alternatively, I wondered whether perhaps the whole thing was a kind of suicide attack, like a mass terrorism thing, and old Elizabeth didn't really hope to survive.[/spoiler]
Yeah, I can actually see the logic in that.
However there's one more thing that kind of bugs me (no spoilers). This wasn't like Rapture where a single guy secretly built a city under the ocean. Columbia was a national effort that congress backed. So you'd think they'd demand a copy of the blueprints so if anything goes wrong they'd have a spare, and you would think they'd have built a flying military base to go hunt down Columbia after it went rogue. This was right after the time of Reconstruction so you'd imagine the Federal government would do everything in it's power to make an example out of Comstock.
My guess is taht while they might have the blueprints they wouldn't have had the means - I don't think the exact functioning of Lutece Fields was public knowledge. If you look at aviation technology in 1912, it was pretty damn primitive. That was the first year anyone had used an aircraft to drop a bomb or constructed an all-metal aircraft. In WWI aircraft were used mostly just for reconaissance and a bit of strategic bombing. The fist air-to-air combat was just guys lobbing grenades and using hand-held firearms at each other from their planes. The governments of the time would have been incapable of building a flying military base.
Quote from: Steerpike
My guess is taht while they might have the blueprints they wouldn't have had the means - I don't think the exact functioning of Lutece Fields was public knowledge. If you look at aviation technology in 1912, it was pretty damn primitive. That was the first year anyone had used an aircraft to drop a bomb or constructed an all-metal aircraft. In WWI aircraft were used mostly just for reconaissance and a bit of strategic bombing. The fist air-to-air combat was just guys lobbing grenades and using hand-held firearms at each other from their planes. The governments of the time would have been incapable of building a flying military base.
Except that they could build a flying city. But okay, maybe Lutece's a once in a lifetime genius. But given a about one hundred years no one could crack the secrets about Quantum Levitation? It's kind of a stretch, that's all i'm trying to say.
You know what would've been interesting? Had they told two or three separate but interconnected stories? The game feels like to me they had all kinds of cool ideas but they couldn't figure out how to make it all work together in one story. So why not tell three short stories in the same game? One campaign focuses on Booker and Elizabeth, and the other focuses on the founder/Vox conflicts. Maybe another focuses on the Boxer Rebellion.
I don't know, ICO was actually pretty short in comparison to other games, but I still play it to this day. What would've been wrong with a shorter Bioshock Infinite?
And yes, I know about Burial at Sea. Cool idea.
Quote from: Love of AwesomeExcept that they could build a flying city. But okay, maybe Lutece's a once in a lifetime genius.
Also:
[spoiler]Also, a lot of the other technological advances in Columbia are dervied from glimpses into the future and/or parallel universes. So it makes sense for Columbia to have a huge technolgoical edge over the rest of 1912 - which I figured to be pretty close to "normal" 1912.[/spoiler]
The most irritating thing about Infinite is that:
[spoiler]From the moment Booker steps through the tear and gains the memories of Alternate Universe Booker he is no longer the character we were playing up to that point. Also, why is he not going nuts like everyone else who remembers being dead?[/spoiler]To say nothing of the climax in which:
[spoiler]Elizabeth attempts to stop a character from making a choice by killing an individual who is the direct product of that choice rather than by preempting the choice itself. The game offers no explanation for how killing Booker, who remembers having already made the choice not to become Comstock, could prevent another Alternate Universe Booker from becoming Comstock. Its logic contradicts the expressed sequence of events.[/spoiler]
Quote from: Salacious Angel
The most irritating thing about Infinite is that:
[spoiler]From the moment Booker steps through the tear and gains the memories of Alternate Universe Booker he is no longer the character we were playing up to that point. Also, why is he not going nuts like everyone else who remembers being dead?[/spoiler]
It gets worse the more you think about it...
[spoiler]
If you got the DLC "Clash in the Clouds", once you unlock both of the Lutece Statues, there are a bunch of unused Voxophones from Rosalind. One of them talks about how violently Robert hemoraged after being brought into Rosalind's universe, and she had to use classical music to pull his psyche back together.
So why didn't Anna (Baby Elizabeth) hemorage to death when she wen't through the portal to Comstocks side? A baby losing that much blood would surely kill her.[/spoiler]
Quote from: Salacious AngelTo say nothing of the climax in which:
[spoiler]Elizabeth attempts to stop a character from making a choice by killing an individual who is the direct product of that choice rather than by preempting the choice itself. The game offers no explanation for how killing Booker, who remembers having already made the choice not to become Comstock, could prevent another Alternate Universe Booker from becoming Comstock. Its logic contradicts the expressed sequence of events.[/spoiler]
Okay here's how I think of the time line.
[spoiler]
Bookers life is a tree. It starts out normal, born in the late 1800's, goes to wounded knee, feels bad about it. The tree is growing up normally.
But then he decides to go to a baptism. The tree trunk is beginning to split now.
One branch is Comstock who now shelters his guilt with religion and becomes unhinged.
The other outgrowth is our Booker who remains the same guy, and becomes a Pinkerton so violent that even the Pinkerton's have to throw him out. Then his wife dies in childbirth, and has Anna. He becomes an alcoholic gambler.
Now here's where things begin to go wrong.
Through Lutece's science Comstock is able to come to Booker and buy Anna. Then the tree begins to grow into itself and become mutated.
(http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jun-2012/91319-two_trunk_tree.jpg)
Eventually the tree becomes so gross and disjointed looking that something just has to be done about it.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/06/10/article-0-0C7F704000000578-574_634x430.jpg)
So after the events of the game, and Elizabeth goes super sayan after the Songbird destroys Monument Tower, she can completely see the tree for what it is. and she can pinpoint the area where the tree started to branch out. She now uses her chainsaw (Godlike powers) to whack the mutated tumor off of the trunk of the tree. I don't think Elizabeth eliminated the choice at the Baptism, I think she eliminated the baptism itself. No acceptance or rejection, just flat out eliminates the universe where Booker went to a baptism at all, and therefore cuts off the intertwining branches right at the place where it split and began growing in separate directions.
(http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/OakTreeDown.JPG)
What I think we see at the end of the credits is a Universe where Booker decided not to go to a baptism at all, or at least at that moment, because it doesn't exist anymore.
Or Booker is just waking up from a bad liquor dream, and well decide to throw away the bottle, get his crap together, and reallize that Anna is the most important thing in his life, and to cherish her.[/spoiler]
I prefer the latter, it's more hopeful... and less headachey...
Can we post out of spoilers? Is anyone reading this thread, really, who doesn't want things spoiled?
Quote from: Steerpike
Can we post out of spoilers? Is anyone reading this thread, really, who doesn't want things spoiled?
It seems more polite this way.
I guess, it just seems like a whole conversation of spoilers, and I can't imagine what a person who didn't want things spoiled could be getting out of it :P
I have been reading the thread, but I've only played the first Bioshock, so, personally, I appreciate the spoilerization.
That said, I do admit I'm not getting terribly much out of it, so I could just stop paying attention to the thread too. :grin:
I like the spoilers.
[spoiler]Very clandestine.[/spoiler]
Quote from: sparkletwist
I have been reading the thread, but I've only played the first Bioshock, so, personally, I appreciate the spoilerization.
That said, I do admit I'm not getting terribly much out of it, so I could just stop paying attention to the thread too. :grin:
You know what, you're right, too much attention to Infinite.
So I began replaying the first one on Survivor mode, without vita-chambers, and with the darkness turned all the way down to pitch black. Eventually I had to turn the light back on a couple of notches, because I couldn't see two inches in front of my face. Which you really should do sometime by the way, because the Gatherers Gardens statues look even more horrifying than usual, which I didn't even think was possible...
It's remarkable how will Bioshock has aged. I think the AI in Infnite is going to make that game not age well (along with the buggy plot), but the AI in the first one really works to the games advantage.
Alright, spoilers it is!
My interpretation:
[spoiler]We do not play a consistent Booker throughout the game at all; every time Booker's nose bleeds, those are alternate memories seeping into Booker. Booker's memories are in a constant state of flux. In the very first scene of the game, Booker's memories are already being revised.
When Elizabeth drowns Booker, he is in a state of uncertainty at the moment where he either could be or could not be Comstock. As Comstock espouses in a voxophone: "One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps the swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man." By drowning Booker at the moment in time before he chooses whether or not to accept baptism, Elizabeth destroys both the version that accepted baptism (Comstock) and the version that didn't (Booker); all versions of Booker at the point of baptism at Woudned Knee have been drowned, and the timelines they would spawn are thus aborted. It's not one individual that's drowning at Wounded Knee, it's a multiplicity; all possible Bookers at Wounded Knee are being killed at the same time. We see evidence of this: for example, another Elizabeth/Booker pair wandering the lighthouse/dock labyrinth-of-forking-paths. If I'm understanding Elizabeth and her powers correctly, she's coordinating a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism. As a result, versions of Elizabeth begin winking out of existence. One lingers, perhaps suggesting the possibility of a timeline in which Booker never reached Wounded Knee and never faced the choice of baptism.
If I'm understanding you correctly, SA, your criticism is partly about how this act is presented and the way that the mechanics of time travel seemed changed in the ending scene: that is, at the ending we are not Booker watching his past self from afar receiving or rejecting baptism (or being drowned by Elizabeth), we are actually in the body/mind of Booker/Comstock at the moment of baptism, which jars with the way interdimensional travel has been presented before, where you can meet yourself (or brutally murder yourself!). Is that correct? If so, I chalked this up entirely to Elizabeth's effective near-omnipotence after the siphon's destruction. What we're experiencing at the end isn't a normal "through the tear" form of time-travel but more of a "rewind through time" form. I think, really, the reasoning behind this is to justify the spectacular visual of half a dozen Elizabeths drowning you in first person.[/spoiler]
I love the quotes from the one upper class woman splicer.
"Stop wasting my time, you horrid monster! I'm going to send the boy out to give you a good thrashing!"
Quote from: sparkletwist
I love the quotes from the one upper class woman splicer.
"Stop wasting my time, you horrid monster! I'm going to send the boy out to give you a good thrashing!"
My favorite splicer was the Frat boy Houdini guy down in Arcadia.
"Hey there, beautiful"
Or it's the high school jock one.
"Dad's gonna be so mad at me..."
I've always wanted to see a DLC or some mod that tells the story of a little sister post-Rapture. It would be a first person point and click adventure that shows an ex little sister dealing with her traumas from before she returned to the surface.
Quoteyour criticism is partly about how this act is presented and the way that the mechanics of time travel seemed changed in the ending scene
Spot on. This is as problematic for me as the ending of Mass Effect 3, where an entirely new antagonist/agent is introduced at the climax of the narrative and throws out all the pre-existing rules and expectations created by the events so far. Omniscient/omnipotent super-Elizabeth is pulled out of the writers' butts after the game itself is completed. The major issue is not that it's inconsistent, but that it's arbitrary.
Given that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game
including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.
Quote from: Salacious Angel
Given that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.
I think it depends on what you mean by "Elizabeth not existing". If you mean the shut-in, adorkable twenty year old we all grew to know then yes. But I still maintain that universes exist where Booker never went to a baptism, and just went on to the pinker tons like in the old life, and therefore got married, wife died in childbirth, and Anna is still in his custody.
I should clarify: dimension-hopping Elizabeth does not exist. I doubt that Booker-without-baptismal-choice would still marry the same woman who still dies in childbirth while still producing a child genetically identical to Anna, but it's neither here nor there. What's important is that the Elizabeths that remain cannot create tears and are consequently totally unlike the Elizabeth(s) of the narrative.
I won't speculate whether this constitutes an ontological paradox because that would assume the story has both consistent and intelligble metaphysics.
Quote from: Salacious AngelGiven that drowning Booker in all timelines also retroactively eliminates all the events of the game including Elizabeth existing at all, this all amounts to an obnoxious Shaggy Dog story.
[spoiler]There's some truth to this charge! One way of describing
Bioshock Infinite could be "the most elevated form of the Shaggy Dog story ever conceived." At least so I'd claim. It's also one of the few cases where I feel the
deus ex machina ending is, perversely,
earned. Elizabeth effectively becomes God at the end of the game, but I'd maintain this development isn't actually "pulled out of the writers' butts" but foreshadowed rather strongly, so much so that I'd have been disappointed if she
didn't actualize the divine potential the game invests her with throughout. The first words of the game:
"Elizabeth: Booker? Are you afraid of God?
Booker: No... But I'm afraid of you."
Elizabeth is characterized from the begining as the "Lamb," an obvious reference to Christ; that she sacrifices both herself and her father(s) at the same time furthers the Biblical parallel. The game is suffused with references to her messiahnic potential, with Booker/Comstock playing the role of both God-the-Father (as the bearded, Biblical patriarch) and Satan (the false shepherd), figures which the game deconstructs as two sides of the same coin (coin imagery and doubling being another major motif throughout the game). [/spoiler]
It's all well and good that the ending itself is foreshadowed. Unfortunately, the narrative still fails to make its climax consistent with the events that precede it.
I get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics. It is, indeed, pulled out of a butt.
The fact that the writers forced an ending that was consistent with their symbolic foreshadowing is not the same as those events being logically entailed by their antecedents. Nor is it a substitute for coherence.
Quote from: Salacious AngelI get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics.
[spoiler]I'd argue the inter-dimensional collaboration of the Luteces establish the idea of transdimensional coordination between selves across time and space. We see the Luteces appear and disappear throughout Columbia, having been scattered throughout time and space by Fink's sabotage, and we see and hear them constructing elaborate plans, engineering schemes through multiple realities, from the first scene of the game in the rowboat onwards. I'd argue that Elizabeth's abilities are effectively the same thing writ large.[/spoiler]
Rosalind first encounters Robert by opening up a tear and saying "hello". Prior to Fink's sabotage there is no evidence to suggest that they are anything other than human. After the sabotage, they are not indicated to have done anything like symbolically destroying an ur-event in order to eliminate its possible occurrence anywhere else in the multiverse. Let alone something on a comparable scale.
Quote from: Salacious Angel
It's all well and good that the ending itself is foreshadowed. Unfortunately, the narrative still fails to make its climax consistent with the events that precede it.
I get that Elizabeth was destined to become a God. Unfortunately, Elizabeth's ability to "coordinate a multiplicity of selves across time to destroy every Booker before he accepts or rejects baptism" manifests without reference to the story's established metaphysics. It is, indeed, pulled out of a butt.
The fact that the writers forced an ending that was consistent with their symbolic foreshadowing is not the same as those events being logically entailed by their antecedents. Nor is it a substitute for coherence.
I agree with this. Really the whole game kind of feels like a butt pull. If you go back to the original demo video it was an entirely different game. There was Murder of Crows in the demo, but it functioned differently. It gave you three or four shots of crows, but then you had to go off and find new bottles of vigors to give you more of that ability. EVE- I mean "Salts" were probably added later to make it feel like plasmids. Crowds were supposed to get up in arms whenever you went gun crazy, but in the game, they just stand around with there arms in the air cowering. Elizabeths abilities were different as well. She could shoot lasers out of her hands, she could use telekinesis, and she had control over the weather. And I personally thought the handlebar mustached handymen were cooler.
When you look at what they tried to do in the beginning, with the final product, you're left with no choice but to admit that they had big ambitions and they fell flat, and they took what was left over, and tried to make a decent game... And to be fair, Bioshock Infinite is not a bad game at all, in fact it's pretty darn good. But when I play Bioshock 1, I can't really say that Infinite is as solid or polished. The story of Bioshock 1 is tight and airlock. The more you think about the first game the more brilliant it becomes, the more I think of Infinite, the more it falls apart.
The multiverse is a heavy concept to stick in a narrative of any kind. It should be handled with kid gloves.
The best I've ever seen it handled was Chariots Chariots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPG3eDTy-yo).
... and in my upcoming RPG. /plug
Quote from: Salacious AngelAfter the sabotage, they are not indicated to have done anything like symbolically destroying an ur-event in order to eliminate its possible occurrence anywhere else in the multiverse.
I agree that's the case - Elizabeth isn't exactly the same as the Luteces by any stretch. But the Luteces give precedent to the idea of someone being scattered thoughout time and space and collaborating across dimensions.
I loved the original Bioshock as well, but I probably like Infinite slightly more, even if it's sometimes a bit bewildering.
Quote from: Steerpike
I loved the original Bioshock as well, but I probably like Infinite slightly more, even if it's sometimes a bit bewildering.
You know, I kind of feel the same way. My favorite anime of all time is Castle in the Sky, and it inspired me to become an artist, and I loved the idea of a game set in a flying city, but that it was going to be a Bioshock game? Sign me up! I still feel like the game had too much going on for its own good though.
Another big thing I don't like about Infinites story is how little the environment tells the story. Just going through Rapture and looking around you, you can see the big picture. This place was Ultra-capitalist, then superpowers got on the market, and everything went to heck. Then the plot got more filled out with audio logs. With Infinite....
"Yeah we've got enough fireworks to blow Peking up... Again!"
I'm sorry, Peking? Did you guys go to war with China? What did China do? What did you blow them up with? Dynamite, cannons, does this place have lasers or something I'm not seeing? Where you there for the war? How do you feel about it all?
If you had no prior knowledge of the Boxer Rebellion, then this game left you in the dust.
With all of the people just standing around looking at you, they should at least have them talking about things that would help you fill in the blanks about this world.
There are some instances of this, but not nearly enough. There should be mothers and widows weaping over lost loved ones at Peking, or even the men that you killed in this game. There should be way more talk about the dangers of Karl Marx and the radical Vox Populi, so on and so forth.
I thought between the Hall of Heroes and the various video kiosks they did a decent job of explaining the Boxer Rebellion to people, and we do see some pretty serious cannons at a couple points in the game, although it might have been good to see more.
Quote from: Steerpike
I thought between the Hall of Heroes and the various video kiosks they did a decent job of explaining the Boxer Rebellion to people, and we do see some pretty serious cannons at a couple points in the game, although it might have been good to see more.
And that's the thing, I wanted to learn more about Columbia, but the game didn't bother to make much of a culture for this world, other than "these guys are racist jerks".
Also, do you guys think I write too much in my posts?
How'd you mean? I think you write a proper amount...
Certainly racism was emphasized, but I personally thought the game did a good job of stressing some of their other values: their views on American exceptionalism, their intense religiosity, their reverence for the founding fathers. The semi-contradictory mix of fanaticical, Evangelical Christianty and laissez-faire capitalism struck me as very true to the period.
Quote from: Steerpike
How'd you mean? I think you write a proper amount...
Certainly racism was emphasized, but I personally thought the game did a good job of stressing some of their other values: their views on American exceptionalism, their intense religiosity, their reverence for the founding fathers. The semi-contradictory mix of fanaticical, Evangelical Christianty and laissez-faire capitalism struck me as very true to the period.
You know, this is one of the things that I think is very brilliant about the game. I'm a Classical Liberal (Ye Olde Libertarian), and I've actually read the Founding Fathers, and studied what they tried to do with the American Revolution. And from my personal studies, I'm under the impression that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and
especially Benjamin Franklin would all be rolling in there graves if Columbia were a real thing...
Yeah, Jefferson would have been pretty annoyed at being depicted as what amounts to a saint. A hairsbreadth separated that guy from atheism, and he really hated priests.
Quote from: Steerpike
Yeah, Jefferson would have been pretty annoyed at being depicted as what amounts to a saint. A hairsbreadth separated that guy from atheism, and he really hated priests.
I won't get into Thomas Jefferson's theological preferences (it's still being debated by historians to this day), however I think its pretty safe to say that Benjamin Franklin was a skeptical theist, and he wrote down this before he died.
[ic]
You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it.
Here is my creed.
I believe in one God, the creator of the universe.
That he governs by his providence.
That he ought to be worshipped.
That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.
That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.[/ic]
Needless to say the Cult of Columbia pretty much spat on Benjamin Franklin's grave.
The most interesting of which is the fact that you don't even worship "God" in Columbia, you're worshiping Comstock...
Okay, so here's a thought, if we here at the CBG had to build a Bioshock from the ground up, what would we do differently?
I've heard that there are only two more places the Bioshock games could go at this point, underground, or in space (not counting SystemShock).
What do you guys think?