Sword, key, scroll, and mindbend.
Apr. 18th, 2013 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dotsandlinesFinished Bioshock Infinite.
#1. I probably should be horrified by my early-in-the-game joke about cosplaying the Luteces, before it was at all clear what their relationship was. - They are the game's Greek chorus, a pair of lightly snarky, English, Victorian physicists, male and female. They are a mystery at first, and then present themselves as twins, but what they actually are is alternate universe versions of the same person. Female-version pulled male-version into her universe so they could hang out. So yeah, I should be pretty horrified.
I still like Jay's idea of making a set of bears. They are steampunk quantum physicists; how could I resist?
#2. I partially called the ending, that out of Elizabeth, Booker, Comstock and Songbird, at least two of those would be the same person from alternate universes. I just didn't consider Anna in the mix. I also thought Songbird would be an alternate version of someone, and still think it would be damn cool if he were. I was thinking three versions of the same person, recalling the sword, key, and scroll. I guess Booker could be the key if Songbird is the sword, and Comstock is the scroll (the Word, etc.). But hey, it's an infinite multiverse so my version is also canon WOO!
#3. Unimpressed by the Rapture sequence; I felt it was pandery. Also annoyed about Songbird, especially the fact that they never explained who/what he was (see above). But at least Elizabeth got to take him out.
#4. Speaking of which, quicktime event, when I pressed X to "intervene", I did not mean "curbstomp a dying 80-year-old." I meant, you know, intervene.
#5. Gameplay, meh. I spent the majority of the game with Possession in one hand and the Repeater in the other, hiding behind something. That only failed to work during the Siren fights. I am not one of those gamers obsessed with games being super hard, though. IMO the gameplay got much better between 1 and 2, and then stayed more or less the same for Infinite. If it stays out of my way (check) and does something creative with combat strategy (meh), then I'm content.
#6. The internet is full of "explain the ending" articles. Explain what exactly? Do I expect too much of the game-playing public? Or am I just predisposed to this sort of thing after reading way too much SF and watching Higurashi? I am all about multiverses and junk, after all. I thought it was nifty, stylish, and mildly incoherent, but not hard to understand.
#7. I give Irrational lots of credit for building a characterization arc / relationship like this. The protagonist is out to Protect the Girl, but not in the usual fashion; the barely legal hottie he has been chasing after turns out to be his daughter, raised in an alternate universe. In retrospect, I really should have known. The first two games revolved around the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, figures that were screwed over by larger forces in their world and protected one another because no one else would. (Although I could also get into a giant ramble about how the LS/BD dynamic is imprinted upon them by mad science, thus weakening the game's point. But that's an outdated rant for another day.)
Aaaand that's about it.
#1. I probably should be horrified by my early-in-the-game joke about cosplaying the Luteces, before it was at all clear what their relationship was. - They are the game's Greek chorus, a pair of lightly snarky, English, Victorian physicists, male and female. They are a mystery at first, and then present themselves as twins, but what they actually are is alternate universe versions of the same person. Female-version pulled male-version into her universe so they could hang out. So yeah, I should be pretty horrified.
I still like Jay's idea of making a set of bears. They are steampunk quantum physicists; how could I resist?
#2. I partially called the ending, that out of Elizabeth, Booker, Comstock and Songbird, at least two of those would be the same person from alternate universes. I just didn't consider Anna in the mix. I also thought Songbird would be an alternate version of someone, and still think it would be damn cool if he were. I was thinking three versions of the same person, recalling the sword, key, and scroll. I guess Booker could be the key if Songbird is the sword, and Comstock is the scroll (the Word, etc.). But hey, it's an infinite multiverse so my version is also canon WOO!
#3. Unimpressed by the Rapture sequence; I felt it was pandery. Also annoyed about Songbird, especially the fact that they never explained who/what he was (see above). But at least Elizabeth got to take him out.
#4. Speaking of which, quicktime event, when I pressed X to "intervene", I did not mean "curbstomp a dying 80-year-old." I meant, you know, intervene.
#5. Gameplay, meh. I spent the majority of the game with Possession in one hand and the Repeater in the other, hiding behind something. That only failed to work during the Siren fights. I am not one of those gamers obsessed with games being super hard, though. IMO the gameplay got much better between 1 and 2, and then stayed more or less the same for Infinite. If it stays out of my way (check) and does something creative with combat strategy (meh), then I'm content.
#6. The internet is full of "explain the ending" articles. Explain what exactly? Do I expect too much of the game-playing public? Or am I just predisposed to this sort of thing after reading way too much SF and watching Higurashi? I am all about multiverses and junk, after all. I thought it was nifty, stylish, and mildly incoherent, but not hard to understand.
#7. I give Irrational lots of credit for building a characterization arc / relationship like this. The protagonist is out to Protect the Girl, but not in the usual fashion; the barely legal hottie he has been chasing after turns out to be his daughter, raised in an alternate universe. In retrospect, I really should have known. The first two games revolved around the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, figures that were screwed over by larger forces in their world and protected one another because no one else would. (Although I could also get into a giant ramble about how the LS/BD dynamic is imprinted upon them by mad science, thus weakening the game's point. But that's an outdated rant for another day.)
Aaaand that's about it.
