Quantum Theory and Racism: Bioshock Infinite [VLP]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Quantum Theory and Racism: Bioshock Infinite [VLP]

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

PizzaThief posted:

Fun fact: At the "Heads or Tails" bit, parts of their dialogue and the exact number of ticks on the board are verbatim from the opening of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. As an actor and theater guy, that made me happy.

That said, I love this game. It is incredibly well executed and the acting is phenomenal. I'm looking forward to the rest!

I'm a theater person...and I totally missed that one. :aaa:

Then again, it's been nearly 8-9 years since I've read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

DukeofCA posted:

The recurring man and woman remind me strongly of the two gophers from Looney Tunes with their back-and-forth and the way they bounce off each other's sentences.

I also see a little of Statler and Waldorf in them, seeing as how they seem to provide side commentary on the action in the game. Just with reduced amounts of snark.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 04:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 01:23

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Starhawk64 posted:

Fun fact: Troy Baker also voices Male 1 from Saint's Row 3 & 4. Yes, you can now imagine Booker DDTing the Columbian police while shouting "Murdertime Funtime!"

Troy Baker has done so many similar roles in recent years that you can sub in those characters for Booker and it'd pretty much be the same thing; gruff, snarky and a bit of a hardass.

Well, except maybe Shadow Kanji, Schneizel or Espio. Those three are very different from Troy's usual type of character.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 20:52

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Internet Kraken posted:

I'm confused, Comstock knew exactly what you were coming here to do? Then why the heck didn't he have a huge portion of his army stationed at monument island ready to kill you? The place being completely abandoned is just weird.

I think it was a case of Comstock investing too much in the last line of defense, the Songbird. He let there be a heavier human presence at the fairgrounds/entrance to Columbia, then figured that he'd lure Booker into a false sense of security on Monument Island, then let the programming (if you can call it that) of the Songbird do the heavy lifting...er, smashing. Instead, Booker and Elizabeth escape the Songbird (barely) thanks to both Booker's tenacity and a giant dose of plain dumb luck. I'm willing to bet Comstock's firing off several new swear words off-screen right now at this development because of his over-confidence.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2013 03:09

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Ekster posted:

I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure if someone stabs you through the hand it becomes physically impossible to do much of anything what with cut tendons and everything. Guess Booker isn't a sissy like the rest of us and sucks it up like a man.

Not to mention Booker also did the one thing you should never do when treating a stab wound: remove the bladed object yourself. What people forget about wounds like Booker's stab wound is that the knife acts as a plug for the blood flow, preventing you from bleeding out. However, Booker has removed the knife for what has to be roughly 10-15 minutes before Elizabeth manages to patch him up, all while doing stuff like holding and firing a gun, running at top speed and generally staying in motion. And then there's WHERE Booker gets stabbed to take into account, the middle of the hand. That's not only where important hand muscles are located, but veins for blood to the fingers. In short, Booker should have some amount of blood loss AND significant nerve/muscle damage from that wound and not just that small patch of blood on his palm we see, because there is no possible way for a stab like the one Booker got to miss EVERYTHING important in the hand.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 00:20

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

CuwiKhons posted:

To be fair, Booker pretty much had to remove the knife - it was pinning his hand to the desk and he needed to be able to move.

True, I will give you that. But yeah, the only reason Booker's hand isn't a complete lifeless mess is because of Video Game Science and Logic^TM.

That's not going to stop me from joining Shyrka in wincing at every time Booker slams his injured hand on a button, though.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 00:52

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Flesnolk posted:

Am I the only one who finds it weird that Booker tells Elizabeth the same thing twice, and the first time she doesn't react at all but the second's when he gets brained with a wrench? Not that I blame her for reacting that way the second time round, but it seemed strange that it comes after having had the exact same conversation and having shrugged it off.

I think it was because Booker explained it in a different way the second time. The first time, Elizabeth interpreted Booker's claim as "Oh, you are in debt to someone and by getting me out of Columbia you're debt-free? Okay, I'll come along." Her naive interpretation is how Booker got away with it the first time. The second time, Booker flat out said, "YOU are what'll clear my debt, not the whole rescue part. You specifically." Plus, she thought Booker was a rescuer who uses a very violent manner of escape, but actually cared about her as a person. Now she realizes that all he cares about is dropping her off in New York and moving on with his life, and wants nothing to do with her again. So yeah, it's part Booker didn't fully explain the situation and part Elizabeth brushed off the first explanation with a heavy dose of naivete.

Shyrka posted:

It would have been really easy for him to say, "You think we can cross the Atlantic on this amount of gas, sister? We need to go New York to fuel up/get passage on a boat!"

Either that or "C'mon, haven't you always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty?!"

Or a more sensible one: "You want to show up in Paris wearing the same smelly clothes you'd be wearing for about several days while we travel? I sure as hell don't."

# ¿ Oct 22, 2013 23:33

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Amidiri posted:

"There's going to be a revolution just like Les Miserables!"

What, a completely failed one where everyone involved dies?

resurgam40 posted:

That's exactly what I said the first time around. You really ought to finish the books you read before comparing them to real life situations, missy.

As much as I want to pin that line on Elizabeth's naive outlook on things, I cannot let the writers of the game off the hook for that line either. There are a lot of people who only know Les Miz from the landmark Broadway musical (that changed content to make the ending more bittersweet than depressing) and have never touched the original book, so they think it all ends like the musical version. As such, you get lines like that one which just make theater people like me laugh out loud and say "Yeah....about that..." and hand over Victor Hugo's original novel where it lives up to its name of "The Miserables".

Seriously, if anyone in this thread has not read Victor Hugo's original novel, I can tell you that it is leaps and bounds way more depressing than the musical version. The :smith:

emoticon would be more of a Cliff Notes-type summary of the book.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2013 22:44

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Captain Bravo posted:

BOOKER.

YOU NEED A ZEPPLIN.

YOU ARE INSIDE A ZEPPLIN.

WHY DID YOU BLOW UP THAT ZEPPLIN, AFTER YOU DEFEATED EVERYONE INSIDE!?

No. He wants the First Lady airship, not a run-of-the-mill zeppelin.

Basically, Booker doesn't want a Crown Victoria...he wants a Porche 911.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 00:59

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

LashLightning posted:

I like Booker's reaction to the ghost, it's almost deadpan.

To be fair to Booker, had I experienced that whole sequence as he did, I can assure that is how I'd react to Lady Comstock's ghost.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2014 01:54

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

VostokProgram posted:

It's odd that Booker doesn't try to search the guy for identification or even take the bag off his head. I would think a private detective would be a little more inquisitive. But then he might know more at the beginning of the game than we do.

Crime scene contamination and possibly avoiding getting framed for the murder.

Booker had no proof that whoever tortured the lighthouse keeper wore gloves, so if he touched the bag on the keeper's head, Booker would leave his fingerprints on it. As a result, whoever investigated the scene would assume that Booker may have lied about "just finding the body", potentially leading to Booker being falsely accused for a crime he didn't commit.

Booker may not be a good cop, but he at least has some smidge of common sense.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2014 21:18

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Did the menu get zoomed out in rendering or was that a YouTube thing? Usually, I can read the transcripts, but this time they were zoomed out to the point where it was hard to see the text on the Voxophones.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 00:13

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

I like this section. Not just for the atmosphere, but for the whole setup for the section. In the past, when Booker and Elizabeth would enter a tear to a parallel world, it was to try and get to a point in time where an event didn't happen (Chang's death, for instance) in order to possibly change the present. Here, we see a different path: what happens when Booker actually fails at protecting Elizabeth from Comstock, and sweet merciful Christ does it go badly. :stare:

That said, I can see why some people would consider this a stealth section. The Boys of Silence (something that feels like it just walked out of a Silent Hill game) are one reason. The other reason being the limited ammo drops from dead enemies, and the weapons that are lying around mostly being the pistol and the Hand Cannon/revolver, thus forcing you to conserve ammo if you are using other weapons like the Shotgun or the Carbine.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 03:44

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 01:23

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Neruz posted:

And that's just the beginning, judging by that tornado tear she opened Elizabeth may well be capable of wiping entire cities off the map by 'summoning' natural disasters into the middle of them and she is now clearly angry, before she was cheerful and restrained but now she is pissed off and if you arent afraid of an angry god (which is effectively what she is) then you are an idiot.

Or she could just open up tears to previous historical disasters. Remember, this is 1912, only 6 years after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, something that would definitely be fresh in Booker's mind thanks to the press coverage of the time. Elizabeth can open up a tear and drop someone right as the San Andreas fault opens up or into the old Palace Hotel as it burns to the ground. Hell, nearly 30 years ago in-game was the eruption of Mount Krakatoa, one of the most severe volcanic eruptions in recorded history. But then there's what fellow poster my dad just said above: if Elizabeth can imagine it, she can potentially open a tear to the reaches of outer space and send some poor fool to die orbiting Venus or Jupiter.

In short, Elizabeth may not have the physical strength and combat experience that Booker has, but her ability (and most importantly, the potential of her ability) more than makes up for or even surpasses Booker's experience in spades. And that is more terrifying than fighting an ex-U.S. Army soldier/ex-Pinkerton/private detective using the power of Vigors, a Sky Hook and whatever guns he can find lying around.

# ¿ May 25, 2014 02:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Quantum Theory and Racism: Bioshock Infinite [VLP]