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[BellPeppers&Beef023]

OdanUrr wrote...

ithurtz wrote...

Yup, I do get the feeling they bit off a lot more than they can chew. Bioshock's (the original) twist has a very elegant simplicity to it, while they are trying a little too hard here. Then again, nowadays I'm content so long as a video game doesn't pull of a ME3 ending.

What I find odd is that not many reviewers are talking about the ending, or they simply say "brilliant" and move on. Considering that the endings to many blockbuster titles have been somewhat controversial recently (ME3, AC3, ACM, etc.) I would have expected that, for a while at least, the endings to every major release would be subject to intense scrutiny.

Closer scrutiny always bring out holes, so the trick is in masking them. Or thats the way for any game/movie/story that is based on time travel and whatnot, I think. Were it up to me, I would never write any story that revolves around this concept. Way way way too complicated, even in its most basic form.

[VoodooDrackus]

Elizabeth never actually says they are doors to other universes, but other worlds. Granted that is what is implied.

However... the only way the story makes some sort of sense is if they are Time Paradoxes of the same world. Otherwise having Booker killed before being baptized is completely irrelevant. If there are infinite worlds, destroying one Booker who may never have been reborn as Comstock would be completely pointless because you are not in fact destroying the Booker who becomes Comstock. Infinite Bookers still exists somewhere that could also choose to be reborn.

Multiple Universes do not create a ripple effect to other universes. The only way to create a ripple effect is within the same Universe. It does not appear that is what we are to believe in the Infinite Story.

Where the story really makes sense is that Booker created everything we experience and has been wallowing in his own pain for 20 years. He finally comes to term with his downward spiral. But that makes the entire ride shallow at best.

So lets say that the Booker we are playing is the Comstock we kill in the future. Did we not already stop Comstock (our future self). Elizabeth is now free from becoming the person she despises.

Which is odd, since the person she despises tells you how to stop her from doing the horrible things she just did.

Elizabeth insists that she is able to pinpoint the Comstock that needs to be destroyed so that none of deaths that were experienced in the other worlds ever happen. Do we end up embodying the Booker that is going to go through with the baptism or was it always this Booker all along that comes from the future to take the child from himself.


There are plenty of moments in the game/story where it all being in his mind makes more sense than the convoluted parallel world travelling.
At one point a woman calls Elizabeth, Annabelle. Even insists that It is her. Booker constantly relives the baptism, even after ascending to heaven (Columbia). He ends up back at his PI office where someone is banging on his door telling him to bring him the girl wipe away the debt. Every time he dies, he ends up back at his office, unless it is Elizabeth reviving him. That points to him being in his drunken stupor, i.e. all in his mind, wrestling with his demons.


TLDR;
I loved the game, art direction, the details, the whole experience... but the ending was lacking and didn't really resolve anything.

[OdanUrr]

Why couldn't we just go to Paris?

[TheClonesLegacy]

@Voodoo
Actually, if Elizabeth drowned Booker on the first, original universe (Earth Prime) it would presumably create a Time Paradox making it so Earth Prime was erased from both Time and space, thus destroying the whole Bioshock Multiverse, think of it like Earth prime being a big river and all parallel universes being streams that split off from the river, so if the river was removed from existence, the streams would lose their source of water, dry up, and vanish, therefore if that is how the ending was intended to be done, it did resolve everything.

Modifié par TheClonesLegacy, 29 mars 2013 - 02:41 .

[Cutlass Jack]

OdanUrr wrote...

Why couldn't we just go to Paris?

That was the ending I wanted.

I'll be honest, with all the talk of brilliance surrounding the ending I was rather floored at how underwhelmed I was by it. It didnt anger me or amaze me. Just left me with a feeling of 'meh.'

But to its credit, I loved the hell out of every moment til the second Songbird hit the tower. There were so many good memories on the journey I guess I can't complain much about the destination.

Speaking of which, I really expected a reveal that Songbird was really Booker. Which would have made alot more sense than the Comstock thing. Elizabeth being Booker's daughter would have been a good reveal if I hadn't figured it out incredibly early in the game. (Mostly due to simple math involving her age and dates relating to Booker given.)

[BellPeppers&Beef023]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

Why couldn't we just go to Paris?

That was the ending I wanted.

I'll be honest, with all the talk of brilliance surrounding the ending I was rather floored at how underwhelmed I was by it. It didnt anger me or amaze me. Just left me with a feeling of 'meh.'

But to its credit, I loved the hell out of every moment til the second Songbird hit the tower. There were so many good memories on the journey I guess I can't complain much about the destination.

Speaking of which, I really expected a reveal that Songbird was really Booker. Which would have made alot more sense than the Comstock thing. Elizabeth being Booker's daughter would have been a good reveal if I hadn't figured it out incredibly early in the game. (Mostly due to simple math involving her age and dates relating to Booker given.)

Like i said earlier, the emotional payoff is the part where booker rescues elizabeth from comstock. after that, its all kinda mindscrew.

after seeing the multiple elizabeths, the first thing to my mind was Rei from NGE;  anyone who watched it would know

[In Exile]

ejustinp wrote...

People aren't paying enough attention or taking enough time to process what they are being shown.

Our Booker isn't making the choice for the other Booker's, every Booker that did not turn into Comstock and actually managed to rescue Elizabeth is making the same choice, hence why there are other Elizabeth's there. It is a group decision by the Booker's to wipe out the Comstock's. The moment you are seeing is the Divergent moment in which the split happened - it is something that not any one Booker or Elizabeth are experiencing but rather all.

But this explanation is nonsense, for one of two reasons.

Either the multiverse in Infinite is a true multiverse, in the sense that it has a separate universe for every single possibility and combinations of possibilities - in which case there is a universe out there where Booker doesn't go to Wounded Knee ever (as a solider), becomes a degenerate masturbator with a fetish for buckets filled with manure, and still becomes Zachary Comstock, builds Columbia, and starts this whole mess. 

Or alternatively this whole thing is fixed in time, and in every single universe in existence Booker either becomes Comstock or stays Booker, and Elizabeth kills him at that point. And so she wipes herself out of existence, but for some (magic) reason her actions still have an effect on everything, despite being erased from existence. This is literally the killing your own father paradox. 

[IllusiveManJr]

I enjoyed it. I'm not one to overanalyze (spelling?) and knit pick things though.

[VoodooDrackus]

TheClonesLegacy wrote...

@Voodoo
Actually, if Elizabeth drowned Booker on the first, original universe (Earth Prime) it would presumably create a Time Paradox making it so Earth Prime was erased from both Time and space, thus destroying the whole Bioshock Multiverse, think of it like Earth prime being a big river and all parallel universes being streams that split off from the river, so if the river was removed from existence, the streams would lose their source of water, dry up, and vanish, therefore if that is how the ending was intended to be done, it did resolve everything.

I must thank you for having me do a little more research for I have determined that there is no possible way that Ken Levine intended for anything to be interpreted as it all being in his head.

"Many-worlds Interpretation", written by Bryce DeWitt, popularized Hugh Everett's "The theory of the Universal Wavefunction" thesis.
This is your first clue that Levine modeled Infinite after DeWitt's interpretation of the Universal Wavefunction, i.e. Booker DeWitt.

Levine actually took a literal approach to the theory, that the worlds form from a Tree, branching out infinitely for every splitting.
So yes, taking that into account, he is nipping the paradoxes at the root....

However, the act of time travelling back to the root would in turn spawn an infinite splitting of the world before you could stop it, where an infinite amount of Bookers will end up becoming the Comstock that brings about another dismal future.
The only thing that would be accomplished is that Comstock would never be born in a few worlds. But the evil would still occur in other worlds.
In that sense the MWI theory should really look to Weeds instead of trees. Destroy one and another similar world will remain. I mean I guess the same could go for trees. Destroying one tree, does not destroy all trees that are similar. The very act of observing the tree would in turn spawn other trees.

TLDR;
Bryce DeWitt's Many Worlds Interpretation is what Levine hints to us by making the main character Booker DeWitt.

[NeonFlux117]

If your still confused about the ending this is a good vid. The sound is a bit low quality- don't know if he's using fraps and a decent mic or what. But it's still good. He does get a bit excited when talking about string theory and multiverse theories but it's still a good vid.

[Khayness]

ithurtz wrote...

Yup, I do get the feeling they bit off a lot more than they can chew. Bioshock's (the original) twist has a very elegant simplicity to it, while they are trying a little too hard here. Then again, nowadays I'm content so long as a video game doesn't pull of a ME3 ending.

Yeah, BioShock 1 handled the twists better, because after the mindcontrol twist happens, you still have hours to play and the narrative changes according to the reveal. Same reason KotOR's and Jade Empire's twists are still brilliant.

Just think about it how much better Infinite would be if it hadn't dumped all the twists on you in the last 15 minutes when Elizabeth went omnipotent. For example exploring the changed DeWitt/Elizabeth dynamic as a father and daughter in actual gameplay.

Edit: And I felt that Infinite wanted too much in the deconstruction department aswell. Whereas Bio 1 had a neat Objectivism theme, Infinite spread itself too thin trying to mix religious extremism, patriotism, worker rights, exploitative capitalism and freedom fighters together.

Knowing how much Infinite changed during development, I get the feeling the product is still incomplete. Let's hope the DLCs will be awesome, and they won't be just more weapons (which don't change appearance if you upgrade them anymore ) and fancy top hats giving your melee attacks 50% crow flock effect.

Modifié par Khayness, 29 mars 2013 - 11:30 .

[OdanUrr]

VoodooDrackus wrote...

The only thing that would be accomplished is that Comstock would never be born in a few worlds. But the evil would still occur in other worlds.

In a nutshell.

Khayness wrote...

Just think about it how much better Infinite would be if it hadn't dumped all the twists on you in the last 15 minutes when Elizabeth went omnipotent. For example exploring the changed DeWitt/Elizabeth dynamic as a father and daughter in actual gameplay.

That would've been something, having the two characters interact rather awkwardly knowing they're father and daughter.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 29 mars 2013 - 01:39 .

[OdanUrr]

ejustinp wrote...

Elizabeth at the end is essentially God in terms of ability and scope so the rules of the multiverse do not apply to her (...)

If this is the case, our physics go out the window. This undermines the entire parallel-universes plot and its set of "rules" (which have yet to be adequately explained) since, in the end, Elizabeth/God can bend the rules or simply make new ones. It reminds me of a quote from the movie, "Inherit the Wind." In this particular scene Drummond argues with Brady over natural law, to which Brady replies, "Natural law was born in the mind of the Heavenly Father. He can change it, cancel it, use it as He pleases." If that's the case, we're wasting time analyzing an ending that can't be analyzed.

[Luxorek]

Can someone explain to me what does drowning of Booker accomplish at all ? I mean, yeah sure, Comstock will never happen and he will never get Anna/Elizabeth from another universe Booker, but doesn't that mean that Booker [the one who remains Booker] dies as well and won't have any life past that? So in the end, no Booker, no Comstock, no Elizabeth/Anna at all. What does the post credits scene stands for then ? Why is Booker alive ? My mind is collapsing on itself ! Heeeelp !

[BellPeppers&Beef023]

I think the message they are trying to tell us is relatively simple: The one and ONLY way for the possibility of a Zachary Comstock appearing at all is the baptism event; drowning booker at that point has NOT removed all possibilities of him surviving, but it means that there will never be a Comstock in any alternate universe, ever. But then again, time travel is never a simple subject to tackle, with the paradoxes and whatnot, so a simple premise became complicated, fast.

[OdanUrr]

Luxorek wrote...

Can someone explain to me what does drowning of Booker accomplish at all ? I mean, yeah sure, Comstock will never happen and he will never get Anna/Elizabeth from another universe Booker, but doesn't that mean that Booker [the one who remains Booker] dies as well and won't have any life past that? So in the end, no Booker, no Comstock, no Elizabeth/Anna at all. What does the post credits scene stands for then ? Why is Booker alive ? My mind is collapsing on itself ! Heeeelp !

Well, let me see if I can explain it (even if I don't seem to completely understand it myself).

What I think the game is trying to tell us is that the act of drowning Booker (across multiple universes, apparently) collapses all of those universes (an infinite number of them) where Booker would have turned into Zachary Comstock. Unfortunately, I think it also collapses all those universes where Booker would have remained Booker DeWitt (also an infinite number of them). There's a paradox in there somewhere, because Booker must have gone through this crucible in order for Elizabeth to gain the powers that would enable her to drown Bookers across multiple realities.

EDIT: Incidentally, it would also collapse all of those universes (an infinite number of them) where Zachary Comstock isn't evil. However, the game tells us that Zachary Comstock will always be evil in every universe where he will exist (what doesn't square with my understanding of parallel universes).

Of course, you could always circumvent this by saying that an Elizabeth/God who exists outside the multiverse was responsible for this. If this is the case, then Elizabeth/God decided to collapse an infinite number of universes where Booker was offered the chance at baptism but there are still an infinite number of universes where Booker was never offered the chance to be baptized, leaving us in one of these universes in the after-the-credits scene. Let's not dwell on the fact that Elizabeth/God has just murdered an infinite number of people on a whim.

If there is no such Elizabeth/God character then we fall in the paradox scenario I mentioned earlier and the after-the-credits scene is Booker back with Anna at a point where Robert Lutece hasn't yet shown up to reclaim her, but eventually will. This would mean that the "circle" remains unbroken and you're free to play BioShock Infinite as many times as you like with the knowledge you'll be stuck in an infinite loop. So, yeah, in this case, Booker doesn't have a future beyond trying to save Elizabeth over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 29 mars 2013 - 04:23 .

[BellPeppers&Beef023]

It seems like Irrational are going for a hard science fiction regarding the Multiverse theory at first, but it eventually gave way to narrative, becoming more of a soft science fiction. I would also like to think that with the drowning, there are no more Comstocks and Elizabeths, only Bookers and Annas now. Otherwise, it would be a little too grim for my tastes.

[legion999]

OdanUrr wrote...

If there is no such Elizabeth/God character then we fall in the paradox scenario I mentioned earlier and the after-the-credits scene is Booker back with Anna at a point where Robert Lutece hasn't yet shown up to reclaim her, but eventually will. This would mean that the "circle" remains unbroken and you're free to play BioShock Infinite as many times as you like with the knowledge you'll be stuck in an infinite loop. So, yeah, in this case, Booker doesn't have a future beyond trying to save Elizabeth over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Or everytime you play Bioshock Infinite it is a different universe. One where you looked at that poster for one second longer, or used a different gun or tonic on that one person or explored that area first. Each one of these universes with minor changes starts with Brooker/Anna and ends with Brooker/Elizabeth.

[OdanUrr]

legion999 wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

If there is no such Elizabeth/God character then we fall in the paradox scenario I mentioned earlier and the after-the-credits scene is Booker back with Anna at a point where Robert Lutece hasn't yet shown up to reclaim her, but eventually will. This would mean that the "circle" remains unbroken and you're free to play BioShock Infinite as many times as you like with the knowledge you'll be stuck in an infinite loop. So, yeah, in this case, Booker doesn't have a future beyond trying to save Elizabeth over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Or everytime you play Bioshock Infinite it is a different universe. One where you looked at that poster for one second longer, or used a different gun or tonic on that one person or explored that area first. Each one of these universes with minor changes starts with Brooker/Anna and ends with Brooker/Elizabeth.

Why would that be irreconcilable with what I wrote? An infinite loop need not be restricted to a single universe.

[legion999]

OdanUrr wrote...

legion999 wrote...

Or everytime you play Bioshock Infinite it is a different universe. One where you looked at that poster for one second longer, or used a different gun or tonic on that one person or explored that area first. Each one of these universes with minor changes starts with Brooker/Anna and ends with Brooker/Elizabeth.

Why would that be irreconcilable with what I wrote? An infinite loop need not be restricted to a single universe.

Ah I misunderstood what you meant by infinie loop. My apologies.

[VoodooDrackus]

One thing I forgot to mention about Bryce DeWitts "Many-Worlds Interpretation" is that when worlds become entangled, any change to one effects the others. In Infinites case it is the tears that popup between worlds.

So yes, the entangled worlds will no longer have a Comstock.... but because of the MWI theory there will still always be new worlds that are formed which will still have the end result of Comstock's existing (ie DeWitt being reborn). However when Booker kills Comstock he would have also effected all of the entangled worlds... so didn't really need to go any farther than that if it was Levine's intent except to bring home the point about the B DeWitts MWI theory, where Elizabeth talks about doors to many worlds.

When Booker kills Comstock, infinite worlds where Booker killed Comstock that are not entangled with that world will split off from that time. In fact every observation of a point in time in turn would produce infinite worlds.

As OdanUrr has brought up, the actual ending of the game just shows that Booker will forever be stuck in an infinite loop... using Many Worlds Interpretation that will be infinite worlds (paradoxes) produced every time Booker DeWitt goes on the journey to bring back the girl.

Also, if you really think about it, Elizabeth is really a Deus Ex Machina in the end. She is able to erase everything that has ever occurred in any way she so chooses, which begs the question why even have a Booker be the Main Character in the story at all. Just make an adventure game (ala The Longest Journey) where Elizabeth uses Tears in time and worlds to get herself out of the Tower and become a God. If she is able to go anywhere, any world, at any time she is able to alter everything without the need of anyone else to do so. She would be able to go back in time and make it so that she is never taken.

Actually you know what... since Elizabeth is in essence a god at that point she essentially entangles all worlds infinitely and the killing of her father will ensure that Comstock is never born. But again, a Deus Ex Machina ending, more so than another game that actually made me feel something.

[OdanUrr]

VoodooDrackus wrote...

Also, if you really think about it, Elizabeth is really a Deus Ex Machina in the end.

That's how I see it, in which case, I can't understand how most reviewers seem to have missed it. I don't know, maybe we're missing some crucial aspect of MWI that would make it possible for Elizabeth to have pulled this off, or maybe Ken Levine created his own version of MWI, subjected to a different set of rules. In any event, the explanation comes during the last ten minutes of the game so... yeah.

[Fishy]

I don't agree with the ending. Booker did not had to die. Since there's an infinite of ''world''.. Than what does it change killing him ? It's change nothing at all. The only thing that changed in the vast multiverse is another Booker knowing the verity getting killed by his own daugher for no good reason.

Plus Elizabeth personality changed radically toward the end. I hated it. She's not the kind of chicks that would drown a guy that tried to save her. Regardless  of his past action.

Coomstock was dead and Elizabeth was free. Just go to Paris already.

Modifié par Suprez30, 29 mars 2013 - 09:43 .

[Giltspur]

Here's how I think you can explain things.

There are multiple dimensions.  In some Booker gets baptized and becomes Comstock.  In others Booker doesn't get baptized and so there is no Comstock in those dimensions.  In those non-baptism dimensions, Booker has Anna.

In the dimensons that have a Comstock, Comstock becomes infertile.  He travels through a tear to the dimensions where Booker never became Comstock and takes Booker's baby.  And so he's taking a genetic daughter from a version of himself in another dimension.

So about the drowning.  That doesn't kill all Bookers in all dimensions.  That kills the Bookers that accepted baptism.  The Booker's that didn't accept baptism are the Bookers that never become Comstocks.  And since there are no Comstocks, Booker never gives Anna (Elizabeth) to Comstock.

And so the ending you see after the credits is what happens when there's no Comstock to travel through a tear and take Anna.  There are no Comstock Bookers as they get drowned.  There are only Bookers that reject baptism.  And so Booker will raise Anna (Elizabeth) as his daughter.

Modifié par Giltspur, 29 mars 2013 - 10:53 .

[Dune01]

The ending can really be 'explained' by the whole Infinite world theory. You just can't imagine the endless array of possibilities that can and will occur. As the twins said it's more of a question of was, is or will, than how.

Booker(or should I say, all prebaptism Bookers) decides to kill himself before the baptism so Comstock can never ever create Columbia and therefore the whole Bioshock infinite storyline simply ceases to exist. Perhaps, like it never happened. Hence Booker/Anna postcredits scene. Although that would only make sense if Booker had Anna before the baptism. Anyone think that this crude and short explanation makes sense?

By the way, don't you just enjoy it when a book/game(one of the first in my case)/ film makes you think like this?

EDIT: Just thinking a bit more, I now think that Booker by killing himself is actually 'erasing' himself from all the universes. And by doing that, he erased both Anna/Liz, Columbia and the whole Infinite storyline.

EDIT 2.0: Oh god, I don't know what to think anymore.

Modifié par Dune01, 29 mars 2013 - 11:03 .