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S2 Ep64: Bioshock Infinite
74 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they dive into a classic that and inspired Dave's body modification!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction & Overview of Bioshock Infinite
00:00:20
Speaker
Looker, are you afraid of God?
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm afraid of you. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another sound test. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going, Dave? Yep, we're coming in good. So I'm going to have to like pad those out guaranteed. We're going to have to apply some liberty to those and then do compression 100 percent.
00:00:56
Speaker
So anyways, we're talking about Bioshock Infinite, which is a first person shooter call of duty like that.
Game Mechanics & Franchise Context
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah. It's got a lot of squad based combat, which I appreciate for sure. Yeah.
00:01:09
Speaker
For anybody who did not follow, um, the Bioshock one episode, this is canon. It actually is a squad based shooter. Yeah. The DLC, I think established that the full circle. They came back and they're just like, no, no, it was a squad based shooter the whole time. Yeah. There's like a couple of games that have done like incidental multiplayer, but.
00:01:32
Speaker
This isn't one of them. Bioshock Infinite is the third game in the Bioshock franchise. Or second, if most of you are concerned. I enjoyed the second game. So I obviously played Bioshock 1. That was my first experience in the series. And then I heard there was a second one, but everyone said, do not play it. So I did not.
00:01:56
Speaker
Didn't listen to me. I might have also been saying don't play it back then though. So I think you said like, you can probably skip it. Yeah. So I played Bioshock Infinite next when it came out. I was really excited because of how much I enjoyed Bioshock 1. Needless to say at this point, for everybody who follows, I have a Bioshock tattoo. I have like 10 Bioshock art pieces, whether it be in the form of poster, a little song or other shit. Like I got the stuff. Yeah, you got the hoodie.
00:02:27
Speaker
Oh, Mike, I'm going to go grab that. Um, while I grabbed that, I will first say, I was very, uh, excited and anxious for this game because for how much I appreciate the world and lore of Bioshock one, I expected great things out of the.
00:02:45
Speaker
My opinion the canonical sequel. Yeah, other than anything else. It's the next game in a different locale Where Bioshock one took place entirely in rapture? And I was enraptured in that game
00:03:00
Speaker
I'll be right back, guys. Bioshock Infinite takes place in Colombia, which is not much of a spoiler. We're going to spoil everything. It's been six years.
Opening Sequence & Setting in Columbia
00:03:12
Speaker
I guess deal with it longer if you're listening to this podcast in the future.
00:03:17
Speaker
But to basically kick off the infinite experience, you get a quote at the start of the game that essentially says, if a man did not have memories, his mind would create them, and then you're into a rowboat, essentially. Two people in the rowboat with you, they have raincoats on, like classical yellow raincoats.
00:03:44
Speaker
Like they're fishermen's at a wharf. Yeah. Oh, classy coast style. They're just like, can we get him to row? And he's like, Oh no, he, he, he doesn't row. He doesn't row. He doesn't row. Oh, I see. And, uh, yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't make much sense, uh, as you're going through, but these people continue to be weird, essentially through significant amount of the game. But at this point in the game, um, you start to notice.
00:04:13
Speaker
I'm going to jump ahead briefly. Yeah. Uh, you go to this little lighthouse and you kind of go up and explore and they kind of just drop you off and you're like, okay, cool. What? Yeah. Um, and you find like a little post-it note on the door of the lighthouse saying like, bring us the girl, wipe away the debt. This is your last chance.
00:04:34
Speaker
You're like, Oh, cool. So you go into the lighthouse, um, exploring a little bit. You find a dead body. Yeah. Uh, you go up to the top of the lighthouse.
00:04:46
Speaker
You press a couple of levers based on a little cue card you were given It's like a key a sword and a scroll. Yeah. Yeah, so you press them the right order the right number of times and The whole sky which is very cloudy kind of lights up and you hear like these Trumpetous sounds and you're like
00:05:07
Speaker
What but the door opens to the top lighthouse you go in and You get into this barbershop chair. Yeah, and then you get launched in the fucking space. Yeah Not actual space just high above the clouds. That's the next bioshock game in space Pray I'll get I'll get through it eventually
00:05:29
Speaker
But at this point, there's already so many fucking parallels to Bioshock 1. Yeah. Because at the start of Bioshock 1, if I need to remind people. Yeah. It's been a while. You're in a plane and it crashes and then you're in the water and you swim to, oh, a lighthouse, which is the only fucking thing nearby. Yeah.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then you go into the lighthouse and the lighthouse transports you to another world. In the case of Bioshock 1, you take a bathysphere down and you get this cinematic view of rapture. Right. But in Bioshock Infinite, you get launched into the heavens and get this very cinematic view of Colombia. Colombia. The personification of the United States. Not Mexico. Colombia. And if you were confused that it may be Mexico, they'll clear that up.
00:06:16
Speaker
Like very quickly. Yeah. So the other obvious juxtaposition or just point of contrast is in rapture, everything is kind of beaten down and disheveled. As soon as like you land, you're attacked by a splicer. Yep. The lights don't work. It's flooding everywhere. It's a very dark, dim, desolate feel. The thirties, thirties.
00:06:41
Speaker
Dark dark and desolate. I like it. We'll coin that for later. It's a 3d shooter But in Columbia As soon as like you land like there are people everything's very brightly lit and very Ornate and lush and I point out to Jake there's a surprising amount of hummingbirds. Yeah to give you that Everything this is the ideal world. Everything is perfect and peaceful and
00:07:08
Speaker
Yes. And all the people you see are like happy and they don't have any deformities or issues. Like they're just nice people. No obvious mutations on the first people you encounter. And, um, so you're playing as the protagonist Booker DeWitt and Booker has his own, um,
World of Columbia & Protagonist Introduction
00:07:28
Speaker
his own personality that kind of comes through more than the protagonist and Bioshock one did.
00:07:33
Speaker
Well, you actually like talk and do things. Yeah. So I'm, so I'm correct. You were definitely correct. Um, but, uh, he like asks a guy a question. I can't remember the exact question for the first person you run into, but he's basically like, Hey, what's going on here? The guy responds and then Booker realizes like, Oh, I best not ask questions like that. If I don't want to be made.
00:07:57
Speaker
And then they will use terminology like that through the rest of the game like period phrases things like that Which I actually appreciate it helps place it for me Because they're just phrases you don't hear and yeah, I like the turn of the century term phrase. Yeah, exactly. I always have a
00:08:15
Speaker
Basically from Bioshock one like a nice little not nostalgia, but I appreciate some like 1930s shit like the golden age of radio Yeah, and some of those mannerisms and the style listening to Atlas and like his yeah his voice style and things I wouldn't want to live at that time because of you know the blatant racism and other problems
00:08:35
Speaker
which we'll get into speaking of. Yeah. So, uh, first, first place you like distant to send some stairs. Um, I believe there's an opportunity to pick up, pick up a box phone either here or soon, which is just the games, um, audio recordings. Um, and then there's the baptism.
00:08:54
Speaker
The recording may be after the baptism, but it's a large hall, like semi-flooded. I guess people are walking through water towards the center where there's a congregation around this priest and he is calling forth, you know, new, I don't know if converts is the right word, but people to be baptized. Yeah.
00:09:24
Speaker
He also makes a point of saying like he knows that you're an outsider. Yes. And that you're from the world below. Yeah. So that means that this place is obviously separate from standard. Um, let's say 500 elevation earth. It's like, it's 20,000 or 25,000 feet up.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, but like they know of the existence of the world below and they accept people from the world below. Yes, but they Essentially do baptize them and convert them into the world of Columbia and their beliefs and thoughts, etc
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, and Booker's not too excited about the baptism But he goes through with it so he can keep hit keep his cover basically so we can find the girl in my play the debt and I don't think he knows what that means at that point. He's just kind of like This is what I gotta do. Yeah, that's that's that's his job. That's his contract. He's got debt There's a girl if he brings the girl to somebody the debt will be wiped away.
00:10:24
Speaker
There you go. Booker motivation.
Early Plot Points & Social Commentary
00:10:27
Speaker
Um, and the priest, uh, submerges Booker and, uh, baptizes him and the name of the prophet, the founders and the Lord. And, uh, Booker comes back up and the priest is like, I don't know fellow congregation. Uh, it seems like he's still a bit dirty to me and like plunges him back underwater and more or less drowns him like almost drowns him.
00:10:28
Speaker
Oh
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah. That's just kind of like the church being an asshole. Yeah. You're not really meant to like the priest and Booker comments on it. And once he wakes up, there's like statues of the founders, like Ben Franklin, I think holding out like a key or a scroll scroll. And then George Washington's one. Yeah. And he, I think he had the sword and then there's one with, um, the other one we don't care. Yeah. One of the Jeffersons. I don't know.
00:11:24
Speaker
Definitely was not a blank. I can tell you that. Yeah. Yeah. No, this place does not like it for reasons back to the racism, you know, so I Don't want to do a full talk through. Yeah, I don't think we don't need to describe all of it. But After you have your baptism you get to explore the world a little bit more You're kind of going across like these floating platforms in this floating city and they'll kind of like separate and then like reconnect Yes, very dynamic and you kind of go into this fair which is your
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, which is like the whole tutorial level because you can get like a little prop gun and practice using it to Shoot targets are going by yeah, and they're like hey you got to kill these people. They're the enemies of the state are yeah, and you start to see these very early influences of propaganda and other things to try and like
00:12:15
Speaker
kind of massage over that mentality of like, these are us. Those are them. We don't like them. But it's like people who are like bandits and you're like, okay, I get that. And then you get a chance to work with, um, one of the Vigors instead of which are the equivalent of plasmids. Yeah. And it's temporary to the first time you use it for one of the mini games, Bronco.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yes, yeah, and it's like the minigame is a like you have to hit the devil Yeah, and he'll like hide behind furniture and stuff and it's actually a guy it is a guy like a really bulky costume and he's hiding behind like some very antique furniture be like
00:12:58
Speaker
I see you right there And then there was a cardboard cutout of a woman and a baby And so you're like going back and forth across. Yeah, this is just classic games really we all grew up with this But yeah, you can I think you got like a little currency or something if you complete all of the um
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I did the gun challenge and I i've beaten in the past Yeah, but the highest score you can get is 20 and then you get like a purse of money And I got 19 and I was like son of a bitch And I didn't want to go back and actually get the 20. It didn't matter that much. Yeah, um, it's not necessary But I still felt bad that I that I goofed, you know
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, but then you get uh, you get possession which is What is possession do jacob for the possession allows you to progress through the rest of the game Because there's a gate that's locked until you use possession um, but uh possession is just
00:13:55
Speaker
In Bioshock one you had to like hack robots or use a special plasma I think you got from being friendly with the little sisters like helping them out to control robots Possession is the same deal. Just control robots. There's no hacking minigame. It's not just robots. Yeah, it's just it's control target Yeah, that's right
00:14:19
Speaker
Yes, I know there's an upgrade for it later that allows you to do a little bit more with it. I'm trying to remember exactly what the upgrade was. It doesn't really matter. Robots and then eventually people. And the special effect is the people, if they're not like special enemies, like really strong, they'll kill themselves once it runs out. That's their final act of control. They basically like are under your control and they'll fight alongside you. But when they come out of the spell, they're like,
00:14:49
Speaker
Oh my god. I kill Jimmy. He's been my best friend. I've been working alongside him for years. We've gone through a lot of scrapes. And it depends on the weapon they have. They have a gun. They'll shoot themselves. But some of them just have police batons. And they will just beat their fucking skull in. Oh, geez. I didn't see that. Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, I saw that it's not crazy graphic, but it's this is enough to like drive it home They're like I made this person do this and this game is pretty graphic like the melee attacks can be pretty visceral I saw that the the grenade launcher guy would actually like point it down at his feet and just blow himself up
00:15:26
Speaker
It's kind of funny as long as you don't think of them as people. Yeah, it's common when you're like, oh, they're on PCs. It's cool. But I do like the first time you use possession on the robot who's like, you need a ticket to get in here. And it's like, you need a ticket.
00:15:41
Speaker
See you later, and he's kind of like very jolly and jovial you can't see him do with my arms. I'm kind of yeah He's I can't you know my guess yeah It's a hoedown, but then you use possession on him. He's like oh my god. It's you. How did I not even realize? I'm so sorry Commissioner Gordon, please right this way Yeah
00:16:02
Speaker
And then you get into the raffle proper. And you can hear people talking about it beforehand. People are all excited for this raffle to start. And what was funny was when I played through, the guy running the raffle was actually like, now hold on folks. First, let's listen to some music or whatever. And so the music starts up, but I'm just like full on sprinting through this because I'm going for completion, you know, get notes and stuff for the podcast. And I've already done this.
00:16:29
Speaker
So he's like, and let the music start. And then I run into the area and he's like, music's done. Time to run this rap. It was kind of funny. Just cut it off a little bit. You missed the whole big band, I guess. Yeah. Well, there's, there's a part where they block it. Like you talked about the platforms locking. There's, are you talking about the parade that goes through?
00:16:53
Speaker
No, I just meant like the music in general. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then before you actually show up to the raffle, those twins show up and they're like, hey, heads or tails? You're like, ah, it doesn't matter. You can choose heads or tails. Or you don't choose heads or tails. Actually, what's funny is we talked about this a couple of years ago, and I misremembered this again.
00:17:22
Speaker
you're consistent Jacob yeah um but there's uh tally marks for tails and uh there's tally marks for heads and there's no head so far yeah and there's like 122 tails yeah the one person the guy is like wearing the uh like those sandwich boards yeah like a chalk sandwich board yeah yeah and you seal these marks for tails and you flip it and you get tails again
00:17:49
Speaker
And then like they turn and walk away. There's like, see, I told you, but on the back it's even more tallies for tails. Yeah. It's never once been heads. Yeah. And you're like, what? Yeah, it doesn't really mean anything at this point.
Cultural Themes & Booker's Challenges
00:18:01
Speaker
And we will continue to keep you in the dark if this is your first time hearing about Bioshock Infinite for a good 30 minutes. Yeah. I did give him the spoiler warning while you were out of the room. I know you don't like this.
00:18:14
Speaker
So disclaimer, a lot of the games that we cover, um, I usually will suggest, Hey, if it sounds cool, fucking check out the game first. Um, because like we want to talk about the parts that we were excited about, a lot of which will be spoiler material. And I want to take away from your experience by saying, here's all the cool things that happened versus you actually getting to live it out and experience it yourself. Um,
00:18:41
Speaker
We also tell people when it's spoiler free more than the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. And for older games, like who cares? Free game. I feel like in general, this podcast should not be like, Oh, I'm just covering about a new game. Yeah. It should be more so. Like I played that game. Let me hear your thoughts about it. Fuck. Yeah. I was right there with you. Thought the exact same thing.
00:18:59
Speaker
Felt the same thing. So that Sekiro episode we immediately came out with. It's fine. It's fine. So they're basically like, don't pick number 77. Is this note you get? Let's take away telegram. That's what you get. Don't pick 77. Show up to the raffle. There's the guy. There's a woman with a basket full of baseballs. And she's like, take one and pick a number. And he reaches in, Booker reaches in, grabs one.
00:19:27
Speaker
It's a baseball with 77 on it. He was like, ah, and she's like, that's a lucky number. Mr. Sevens. Yeah. A whole two sevens in 1912. And, um, so the guy there, it doesn't matter at this point, but it's Jeremiah Fink. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't realize the announcer was Fink.
00:19:49
Speaker
Who's a character who you see more of later on in the game? And he's like, hey, everybody, thanks for coming out to the raffle. And a girl comes over with like the raffle basket of tickets to pick from.
00:20:04
Speaker
It's like everyone welcome like the isn't she the most beautiful? White woman you've seen yeah, I'm like it's weird to qualify the way to be fair everybody you've seen at this point at the fair Pretty much right yeah, which to be fair anytime I play a game. I'm not thinking
00:20:23
Speaker
I'm expecting like diversity. I'm just like, oh they're NPCs. They're too lazy to model multiple characters or whatever. Yeah, I'm just In my analytical game sense Mike. This is part of the game. Cool. Yeah, but then he says it Yeah, and then you're like hmm And then your number gets picked and you're like, oh cool and he's like you get the first throw and you're like, oh
00:20:46
Speaker
Huh? Yeah. And then they unveil the curtain and this little set piece opens up. Yeah. It's jungle, like traditional racist style, like South Africa depiction, essentially.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah. Whereas the black people kind of look like monkeys and have like bones to their nose and stuff like that. The Disney part, Disney doesn't want to tell you about. It's old school Disney pretty much. And in the center, kind of like tied to a stick is an interracial couple. Yeah. Who I guess got caught and are going to be pummeled to death by baseballs.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, so uh, that's when that's the first time, you know, like this world is surprising idea. Uh, and there is a pause. There's a pause. Like so before Booker gets the opportunity to do anything, um, where he kind of like hesitates, uh, cause Booker's character doesn't seem to be blatantly racist. Like in this way, he's just there for his job, basically.
00:21:48
Speaker
He's not, he's not malicious or he hasn't bought into the Kool-Aid of this, this place. And I remember Fink actually says at this point, he's like, what's the matter, son? Are you taking your coffee black these days?
Gameplay Mechanics & World Design
00:22:00
Speaker
But it was like a light ribbing, like no one would actually do this, but it's kind of like when you make those comments of like a
00:22:12
Speaker
What are you gonna do hit me with your purse when you're talking to a guy and like a hey Quit being such a lady, right? It's like that same type of tone. Yeah He doesn't mean it as an actual accusation at this point and the game actually gives you a choice So you can either choose to maintain your cover by throwing the baseball at them or you can choose to throw it at Fink and
00:22:37
Speaker
This is kind of a fake choice to a certain extent. It does have slight repercussions later, but, um, I think almost all of us until we do our experimental run, choose to like throw it at think, right. Um, and somebody grabs your hand at that point because they've noticed something about Booker, um, that, uh, is weird.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, um, there were some pamphlets earlier or like some posters of You will know the false prophet the false prophet or false shepherd. That's what it was false shepherd by the mark on his hand Yeah, which are like the the carved letters ad mm-hmm, and that's what's on your fucking hand Yeah, and a cop essentially spots it is like what's that about? Yeah
00:23:22
Speaker
So everyone kind of like panics and the cops grab you and you steal this thing from the cop. Mm-hmm and How would you describe this ripping tear
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, not wrong But it's like kind of a grappling hook. Yeah, it's slash gun slash holster that slaps onto your arm Yeah, it's kind of like a hand claw that that spins And yeah, it's your melee weapon for this game. Yeah But essentially they come at you but you turn against them and you put the guy's face in it Yeah, and then you started killing cops for a while It's never too long Killing racist cops, right
00:24:10
Speaker
We've reached we've somehow entered a different area of inappropriate But but yeah, you have to escape basically there's a Escape sequence that's kind of more you just killing waves and waves of police As you make your way through the areas and kind of finally break free but at this point all of Columbia is looking for you like the alert has gone out the false Shepherd is here and
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, and you know what that means but you know that people are not keyed on you. Yeah, so you murder Maybe I shouldn't have carved ad into my hand But Yeah, you then go through like a couple different sequences a bunch of different fights. There's some people who choose to or
00:24:58
Speaker
They'll actually try to hide you from the police for whatever reason when you go through their home They're just like hey, you know, just just get out of here. Yeah, we'll cover for you and the game does a weird thing that I don't see a whole lot of games do and it lets you kill innocent people and
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah, like it doesn't discriminate when you're using your like area of effect abilities if you go to melee you will auto target whoever's like Really close to the reticule so you can hit innocent people Like there's one point where you go into a house and there's a woman police officer. She's giving a description of you. Oh
00:25:34
Speaker
This is the exact scenario I was in. Yeah. Yeah. And you can just sneak by like they don't see you initially. You can just be out of there, run up, fight the cop, leave. You could kill them both. It's like I chose the third option because the cop was evil and the woman was being a snitch. All right. Booker wouldn't stand for that if we know anything about Booker.
00:25:59
Speaker
But yeah, it continues like this for a bit until you end up at Monument Island. Before we jump into that, I also want to say this grappling hook hand that you have changes the gameplay a lot from Bioshock 1 because there are different points on the map level area where you can essentially jump and hook to it automatically. So this might just be like fixed points above, which is you can like jump down and attack people.
00:26:28
Speaker
Or in a little bit, you can jump on rails and kind of like glide along them to like reposition.
Monument Island & Elizabeth's Introduction
00:26:36
Speaker
So it ends up opening the area a lot more as far as verticality and other things. So it's not just, I can go down this hallway to my left.
00:26:45
Speaker
This hallway to my right and everything's kind of angular or corridors in Rapture for obvious reasons. Yeah, because it's under the fucking water If you think about the like sonic adventure grinding rails that just go everywhere It's kind of like that smaller rail, but you can hook to it
00:27:02
Speaker
And go along I've never heard anybody compare Bioshock infinite sonic adventure. Yeah, we're Yeah It's it's really great and the magneticness to like being able to jump to the rails is very forgiving You can kind of just leap 20 feet into the air or if you're falling you can you can like spacebar Get me right over there
00:27:26
Speaker
And then on top of that if you jump off of them you can do like diving attacks you just like Shoop through the air and hit them with the claw essentially like as you land and it will kill basic enemies Yeah, just outright
00:27:39
Speaker
Because you just targets them and then as you're doing the jump thing, they don't move. They're stuck in this kind of blocking their face and chest animation and they're just dead. Yeah. One hit kill. It also like has crazy range. You go like full super saiyan on your way there based off of your forward momentum. You'll like accelerate. So you could be like slow and then do the drop thing and you just zoom right out the guy.
00:28:04
Speaker
And also when you jump off the rails you cannot take falling damage if you choose to jump to a surface so usually you take damage if you fall too far, but He temporarily borrows Chels like long fall boots if you jump off of a rail. It's okay. It's reinforced. It won't shatter your legs. Yeah So another cool thing about this game before we get back to your story is
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah, um who cares about the story of biojock infinite? That's not what I actually really do. Like I I have some gripes with it looking back analytically, but I still fucking love the game so much Um, but throughout the game you can get these upgrades to different Obviously, you can upgrade your weapons and vigors. You can also have different gear. There's like a head piece chest piece leg piece arm piece hats
00:28:50
Speaker
Yeah. But like each one will have like a specific effect. Um, and there are some that are built around, like you get bonuses from going on or off rails. Yeah. So there's one, like if you jump off a rail, you get a movement speed buffer, five seconds. If you jump onto a rail and reload your gun, you do all these things. You're just jumping on and off and like murdering people.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. I remember there was one that gives you like a couple seconds of invulnerability when you jump off of rails. So you're just like initiation. Let's go. Let's go again. Pretty much. It makes that viable, which is kind of funny, but I liked that it gives you the option to have a little bit of a different play style. Yeah.
00:29:30
Speaker
And the shooting feels pretty clean in Bioshock. I didn't really shoot from the rails too much because that sounds difficult. It's really hard. But when you're on the ground, for the most part, it's not too hard to like line up headshots and the guns feel pretty strong. And yeah, they're very similar to previous entries guns overall.
00:29:50
Speaker
But monument island yeah monument islands take the rails long enough you'll end up there and It's an interesting facility the the most telling aspects of it for me where there's these giant like music Speakers essentially like yeah like giant audio speakers and there's visible like waves being pulled into them later you realize there you find it's called a siphon and
00:30:17
Speaker
Um, and then as you make your way through room in room and room clearing out enemies or whatever, um, uh, there's quarantine signs. And the first one's like something like, Oh, this is a 24 hour quarantine. Yeah. If you go beyond this point, you're going to need to be locked down for a whole day. Yeah. And then it's just like, Oh, it was like a 40 hour quarantine or whatever. And then eventually it's like three days of quarantine, uh, at the innermost parts or indefinite, or what was it? What was the last one?
00:30:44
Speaker
Feel like the last one was like 130 day quarantine.
Elizabeth's Role & Songbird
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's it was ridiculous. Yeah, it's pretty crazy But this is where this is where Elizabeth is being held and observed the specimen
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, and we don't know anything about her at this point. We just know that she's the girl the girl So you kind of like go in and observe her because the whole Place is up to be an observatory. Yeah to see what she's up to and see how she quotes progresses Yeah, but also to keep her locked in and not let her know that she's locked in
00:31:21
Speaker
It's got like two-way glass essentially like for all of the rooms that two-way One way there you go. Three-way glass nice We gotta figure out a sub where I can do high five I gotta use my right hand that's that's basically the
00:31:39
Speaker
There we go. It's gonna be it was it's still the whitest of high fives. Yeah, I love them. It's it's a impotent like impotent as that would be the word high five without impact Impactless. Yeah Anyways, Elizabeth It's kind of going about being her jolly self you see through some of the windows that she's essentially a master code breaker at this point. Yeah, I
00:32:02
Speaker
And one of the codes is just like, uh, that she broke was like, it looks very complicated. And it's like, congratulations. You've like discovered the codes and then she just stopped. It's a meaningless message. It's kind of like in, um, the Christmas story, uh, the, the decoder or, um, what was it? Nest quick, oval team, oval team. Yeah. It's like buy more old team. The guy's like, son of a bitch.
00:32:30
Speaker
Pretty much that But yeah, she's been trapped in there. So She discovers these hobbies and just throws herself into books. So she knows how to break code. She knows how to Lockpick and do other stuff. She just had she's just as wealth of information because this is her world and She has books and but by golly she's gonna fucking read them all. Yeah. Yeah, exactly
00:32:57
Speaker
But eventually you break in. You fall in, I guess, through the ceiling. Yeah. Yeah. And she's just like, hold up, hate you with a book, throw a bunch of books at you. And he's just tries to get her to calm down, but they are beset by the bird.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so basically by your hoodie, I would put it on, but it's too warm. Yeah. I was going to say just imagine it looks awesome. Um, whatever it looks awesome to you. That's what it looks like. I can maybe post a picture later, but a few, I don't know. It's, it's on Amazon. Shit. Referral link. This is how we make those podcasts bucks.
00:33:36
Speaker
front of the pocket Thanks Jeff Bezos Anywho She's essentially dealing with this stranger fucking fell through the ceiling hmm who she sees is a threat right?
00:33:52
Speaker
But then she hears a noise and her mood immediately shifts. Yeah, she's not like who the fuck are you as much as like oh Shit. Yeah Because it's songbird and we don't know what that means yet but she's like He's coming. We got a like you can't be here. Yeah, I think that is a busy soup
00:34:12
Speaker
So you started booking it out of the facility. Speaking of booking it, Booker has the key out. This is the interesting thing. This was in his welcome kit that he received on the boat. He actually has the key that he gives to Elizabeth because there's a door that presumably leads out with like this lock on it. And she's just like, what is that? As he hands her the key, opens the door and they can leave.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah, so that's oddly convenient how he was given a thing before being launched in the sky It's like the twins set him up with Exactly exactly what he's exact thing. Yeah Suspicious that's how God works as well right in mysterious ways. He never gives you more than you can handle Never see it coming I
00:35:00
Speaker
Um, so you book it out of there and you essentially keep going up to the top of the tower. Yeah. Uh, you actually get to see these snippets of songbird in that they're giant fucking claw marks in what was like very thick steel and other things. You hear big ass bird noises and you see shadows being just, yeah, just going across your field of view. And you're like, what the actual fuck?
00:35:30
Speaker
It's a giant steampunk bird. That is entirely accurate. And Songbird's goal is essentially to keep Elizabeth there and be like the guardian. Guardian. Guardian. He's surprisingly effective because he's gigantic. He's like two or three stories. He doesn't have ancillary goals. It's all...
00:35:57
Speaker
Keep what was the hot crap camera that this would have been a great 12 heroes. It's from Rick and Morty keep Whoever safe Keep summer safe. Keep summer safe. It's exactly Yeah, it was like the ship yeah, yeah
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, that was not worth the aside. But anyway, so I'm fertile. Just like destroy anything in his way in order to get to Elizabeth, including you. Um, so you die obviously. So, uh, it crashes through. You both are falling through the air and, um, Booker plunges into water, which is interesting given the 25,000 feet up and blacks out.
00:36:42
Speaker
wakes up and Elizabeth is like doing chest compressions to revive him and you had fallen into Battleship Bay which is a really cool idea.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, because again, floating fucking city, um, there's not an ocean, but, um, this specific little set of quotes land, uh, was set up to pump water to essentially facilitate a fake ocean. And once you start to get collected and get your sorts about you, you look around and you see like a 1920s fucking beach. Everybody's in like full ass pajamas and the beating sun.
00:37:27
Speaker
And they have like these lawn chairs and people are just chillin' at the fuckin' beach.
00:37:33
Speaker
I was, I didn't listen to most of what they say, they have a lot of like little conversations you can listen on and on, but when you're like running past, there's a woman who's just sitting there like on a towel or whatever. She's just like, like, like, my sir, I am without escort or whatever. I was just like, is this how people came onto you in like 1912? She's like, why don't you saddle up to me and we'll get some...
00:37:57
Speaker
Caramel corn But yeah Booker's looking for Elizabeth at this point because he she was like hey I'll like I'm gonna go find somebody to help and then leaves him unconscious till he wakes up then when you find her she's off dancing Just doing the I Don't know what you'd call that. I don't know how dancing works to be honest. It's like a jig I
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, like a jig. These people don't care. It's some sort of dance. And it's a simple dance. I don't know. And she doesn't pay attention to you, to Booker. And he's like, hey, let's get out of here. You know, it's time to go. So he's like, let's get you to Paris.
00:38:39
Speaker
Yeah, and that gets her attention because she really wants to go to Paris and We know this because when we're going through the facility, um, you see all these Things and you see that she has like a million fucking Paris posters Yeah,
Elizabeth in Gameplay & Character Development
00:38:53
Speaker
because she's living vicariously through books and stories and things that she's accrued just through information and nothing else my parents because I
00:39:02
Speaker
God fuck, that was so good. Another white high five. There we go. Yeah, that was good.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, I got okay. So anyways, and you go to leave and the twice twins show back up and they're like, Hey, pick a necklace. You can pick bird or you can pick a cage and you're free to pick the cage, but that's weird. You know, a little bit, it's a little bit weird. Who really picks a cage over a bird? Yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
So you pick the bird like a normal person and then she she wears it as a brooch basically And it has very little impact on the rest of the game, thanks for bringing that up check So, yeah God for the sake of time
00:39:53
Speaker
Yes. So a lot of the game... This is a two-hour episode, Dave. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I'm going to cut in the middle. It'll just be like, and now for intermission. And then we'll publish that as a podcast. Then we'll come back and have the second half. It's long intermission, guys.
00:40:13
Speaker
But yeah, a lot of the game is, um, going through stuff with Elizabeth because your goal is to take her back to New York for whoever wants this girl. See your debt can be wiped away. Right. You don't know if their intentions are nefarious or what you're just doing a job, basically. Right. Um, so initially you manipulate her with the intention or the, the guys of saying,
00:40:36
Speaker
Hey, we're going to Paris. Yeah. So you can have her be compliant and not fight you because again, you are still a stranger to this person. Yes. She does not really have a reason to trust you outside of you got her out of the thing. Yeah. So you kind of a friend of circumstance, but you're going through the game. Um, and she thankfully, one of the most important tools that ever came up, came up in a game was, uh,
00:41:02
Speaker
If combat situations, situations break out, you do not have to protect Elizabeth. Yes. It's not an escort mission like in fucking fable. I'm not going to that whole cave, cave troll bullshit again, but she can't die and she will like stay out of the way and she's good, but she will also be like, Oh, Hey, did you shoot a bullet? Do you want some Vamo? Fucking throws ammo at you, right? Yeah. Um, what is your manalo? Your salts. Here you go.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's like I'll go like I'll walk by a vending machine like the vending robots are like
00:41:43
Speaker
Side question. Do you like them better or less than in Bioshock 1? The circus of values. They're voiced by the same guy. Really? So like, I think they're probably pretty equal. They're very, they serve the same role. I don't know if I could rate them. I, I just liked that a little shopkeeper with personality in any game. Yeah. Amo Bandito. I had one here. I would say that for this one, it's like dollar bill and some other ones, but, um,
00:42:12
Speaker
Vinny vigor. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah But yeah, you what you walked next there and she's like how would you like money and we'll throw a coin at you? Which magically duplicates on the the currency in the corner to like for 40 bucks So you're always kind of like supplied throughout stuff with those Elizabeth which is really convenient Because I get myself in bad situations all the time and I'll still scrounge around for
00:42:40
Speaker
Oranges cigarettes money wherever I can find it the necessity. Yeah But it it almost feels moot in the point where like Elizabeth will stock you up every so often. Mm-hmm. It's a moot point
00:42:57
Speaker
We're back to friends. Yeah. Yeah. But she actually knew that as a reference. That's a good joke. Yeah. Um, but she, she pulls a lot of those resources out of, out of thin air, so to speak, because she can open tears in the world. And those are justified. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Oh, that, or she's just like hyper scrounger and see, she, she sees things you can't see. Found things. She, she was like a quantum inventory. I don't know. I don't know.
00:43:25
Speaker
All right, that's a separate thing we ought to talk about. We get a developer, call in developer, tell us how it's implemented in the back. Give us the lore justification for how she finds all this crap. Cause I know she does generate, she does generate weapons that didn't previously exist. Cause if you're running low on like a carbine, she'll be like, here's the trigger. Has my cooldown expired since I gave you an item? If so, throw you a carbine. Yes. Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
Cause she throws you like, she'll throw you copies of relatively rare weapons. If that's what you're using when you run low on ammo, she's just like, ah, the BFG nine thousand. Well, here's another one. Booker catch throw. If only doom had that. Here's the BFG. Oh man. No, she's a super useful in that regard as far as supplying throughout combat and other skirmishes, but it,
00:44:20
Speaker
reduces the difficulty it does but it builds a dependence in a way yes which i think is good as far as like it makes you more invested in the character dynamic yeah because like booker's looking out for her because that's essentially she's his meal ticket right um but like the relationship dynamic changes as i go through like more struggles yeah they help each other out yeah exactly
00:44:43
Speaker
And from a like meta gameplay perspective, that's a powerful effect. If you want people to like a character, make that character useful to you. And just the mechanics of the game itself. Why do you think I love the dog so much in MGS5? It fucking knifed people. This was the whole point with quiet was trying to get people to like quiet. It's like, you don't even need to play the game. That's true. She would describe everybody. Quiet. That's two kills.
00:45:12
Speaker
But I digress. Yeah, she helps you out tremendously. You don't have to worry about her. And she makes the game considerably easier. She supports all play styles because she'll give you whatever resources you're running low on, including money. She supports the capital display style. And it's just it's really useful. I will say as a minor aside, she only provides you resources like that other than money if you're in combat. So there was a time like
00:45:40
Speaker
You use it, you're vigor, right? You like throw flames through your hands or you throw somebody off a ledge or whatever. And you go low on salts, which is your mana essentially. And it's like, she's like, oh, it looks like you're low on salts. I'll throw you some if you accept this prompt, but I just killed a guy who's like, or he's about to die. Combat just ended. And she's like, on second thought, puts the salts away, like in her pocket. She won't throw them to you if combat's done.
00:46:09
Speaker
That's a very minor aside. But long story short, you reach the Aerodrome, the First Lady's Aerodrome, which is capable of actually separating off leaving this cloud city. It's like a very small
00:46:28
Speaker
Zeppelin basically. Yeah, I feel like Zeppelin's the best way to perfectly describe that. It's a Zeppelin. It's like a Zeppelin. A hundred percent like a Zeppelin. Yeah. And Booker's like, all right, let's go to Paris. And he's like turning these knobs and changing the bearing. And she's just like, what are you doing?
00:46:46
Speaker
Because again, she's a smart lady and she knows from reading her various books on geography and maps that you've actually put in the coordinates for New York and not Paris. And she's like, I don't necessarily trust this person so much.
00:47:05
Speaker
So naturally, as one is want to do, she like breaks into tears. She's just crying there, like compromised emotional state. She's this crap again, right? As Booker. Um, everybody's like this and then Booker like goes to console her and she hits him in the head with a wrench. She played us like a dad. We're back. We're back to MGS five.
00:47:31
Speaker
But yeah, so what I really like about this game, and I'd love to just go through like the six hours of dialogue I've had built up in my head for years. But you really get to see them grow both as characters throughout the game.
00:47:47
Speaker
I like that this segue is coming off of her hitting you in the head with a wrench. No, seriously, because she starts off as this innocent person who has their whole world in this one bubble. Yeah. And then they kind of get thrown out of it and like, wow, the world is such a crazy, awesome place. I didn't know so many of these things existed.
Comstock, Society & Racial Themes
00:48:04
Speaker
Yeah. Like she gets to see like dancing and music in real life, in real time. She's like, holy shit. Her words, not mine. So it's just this whole bit of discovery.
00:48:16
Speaker
But then very shortly after, as you are Booker DeWitt, you kill some people who try and grab her. And she's like, you just fucking murdered people. Yeah. You straight up, those people are gone. Yeah. And you're like, I do this all the time. Yeah. She's like, I've got a 400 to kill. I have over 900 confirmed kills. You thought that was bad. Columbia already. Yeah. So at least these ones were police and she's like, hold up. But like, you see her like slowly accept, like,
00:48:47
Speaker
This is a very unfortunate thing, but I Essentially need this guy to kill people yeah, so I can escape mm-hmm
00:48:58
Speaker
So you get to see her mannerisms change over time and how her mind works and thinks based on the situation that they're put in. Yeah. And then Booker DeWitt as well becomes more empathetic, a little more human. Um, but he's also still filled with like a lot of regret for everything that happened before he even got to Columbia, which you learn more about throughout the game. Exactly. And we didn't even fucking talk about Comstock.
00:49:27
Speaker
Right. So he's a guy main character. He's the, um, he's the prophet. He is the prophet. He's the one leading this, uh, this whole endeavor, everybody in the sky, everyone in Columbia, uh, the founder of their religion. Basically he's revered as a literally holy religious figure, uh, him and his wife, the first lady. Um,
00:49:50
Speaker
They have like in some of the portrayals they have the traditional Catholic halo Behind their heads, so you know like you know they're they're yeah full and cool. They're deified. Yeah That's a great word for it. Yeah Thanks disturbed
00:50:06
Speaker
And so he's trying to keep Elizabeth imprisoned here, subjected to the siphon, and he's the one who set this alarm, this word out about the false shepherd that would come to take her. He knew all of this was going to happen. And Booker doesn't understand exactly why. The only rationalization he can come up with is that the people who sent him
00:50:31
Speaker
Set him up to set him up. Yeah, but he doesn't understand why that makes any sense. Like he's just an old Pinkerton detective, you know Why is he important enough? He's just essentially a gun for hire a muscle man. Yeah kind of throwing in a situation but Comstock is the bioshock equivalent of Andrew Ryan where you first initially just see his
00:50:58
Speaker
Face on like a screen. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the first time you really interact with him is You're going around doing all your murder stuff is Booker DeWitt is standard murder and then you get down There's like this whole bunch of dudes like ten dudes and like I can easily just squad kill him I can take some dudes
00:51:18
Speaker
And you jump down and You hear this booming kind of equity voice go like stand down All the guys who were like there with their guns and helmets and shit Just kind of like go down kneel and go in like the full prayer pose. Yep. Now you can kill Everybody's praying
00:51:36
Speaker
Super fun, by the way. Right. But everyone stops fighting. Yeah. They won't fight back. You kind of like walk in and you have like this little mini elevator thing, but there's this giant screen of Comstock's face. Yeah. And he's speaking to you as the prophet and he's like,
00:51:54
Speaker
Listen fall shepherd. You can't you can't come in here and fuck this shit up. Yes verbatim Yeah, he says like That these men are willing to die right now because they know that their eternity is assured Yeah, like they've seen prophecy that they trusted me completely It's a very powerful moment like these people are willing to just throw their lives away Because Comstock tells them to
00:52:23
Speaker
This is a theme that largely continues through most of the series. The Columbia likes Comstock as it turns out. And also Columbia does not like any other race of people who are not white? No. I remember a key thing that I had to take a steam screenshot of.
Vox Populi & Alternate Realities
00:52:42
Speaker
Had to press the old F12 on.
00:52:45
Speaker
Before you get to the the cult of Ravens. Yeah, whatever the hell that is. Yeah, there's a statue of like this George Washington est Person kind of like fending off this snip multi-headed snake. Yeah. What as you going closer you see
00:53:02
Speaker
Very racist depictions of a Jewish guy. Comstock fights the serpent of nations. Thank you. Yep. Um, like, uh, Hasidic curls, very like beak like nose. Right. Um,
00:53:19
Speaker
The tradition is also like a very racist depiction of like a Chinese man as well. And then a black guy as we, as we say that we don't like black people in this game. And it's kind of like, these are the enemies of the state. These are people who are.
00:53:35
Speaker
lower class and we're trying to like take something from us. Yeah. The, the one that, um, there's a lot of racist depictions and, uh, things like that slogans, like, um, there's a washroom for the colored and Irish. That's great. Um, there's slogans about like protecting our race, things like that.
00:53:54
Speaker
And then there's a depiction of John Wilkes Booth as painted heroically, having just slain a devilish-looking Lincoln, because the Emancipation Proclamation, presumably, it's 100%, it's 150% laid on. This is a very, very extreme culture that they developed up here.
00:54:20
Speaker
And you do see black people throughout the game. Yeah. But early on, like when you're going through some of the. I think it's still in Battleship Bay. The black people are the staff. Yeah, they're trying to keep out of the way when they have all these propaganda things like, hey, don't talk to guests unless they talk to you first. Yes. And always be very, very polite. It's like mind your betters. Exactly. It's a whole lot of that. And then you go back around this.
00:54:49
Speaker
It's like side corridor that you're just off the beaten path and there's like a guy who's scrubbing the floor and you just walk by and he's like Kind of like muttering something to himself about like how shitty this state of things are mm-hmm And as you walk by he's like oh don't don't mind me sir. Just trying to I
00:55:07
Speaker
He says, just monkey shines. I remember that term because I love the term monkey shine. But it was really heartbreaking to see like a human being, you know, in a game. Yeah. But a portrayal of a human being. Exactly. But essentially be like, oh, I need to realize my place so that I don't upset the status quo. Exactly.
00:55:31
Speaker
Because he didn't want to, like, have shit go down. He want to get, like, beat up. Yeah. And you were just a white person who was walking by. Therefore, it was possible that you could do that to him. Exactly. And get away with it because, again, it's very white centric. Yeah. Entirely stratified classes.
00:55:49
Speaker
And that continues, also speaking of sedition and rising up and things like that, after Elizabeth has knocked you out on the Zeppelin, this other group that you haven't previously encountered, but you could see propaganda about them, takes over the Zeppelin called the Vox Populi.
00:56:10
Speaker
voice of the people, voice of the populace, whatever. And they are led by Daisy Fitzroy, who is the kind of anarchist front leader, who is this not currently very violent, but willing to use aggressive means. Not the next. Yeah, exactly. To claim equal standing.
00:56:33
Speaker
and she's like well it's kind of my zeppelin now but if you can get us guns from this like gun manufacturer or go talk to him then we'll let you use the zeppelin you can leave whatever and so Booker's just like I'm on a side quest
00:56:51
Speaker
goes down, eventually finds Elizabeth, who doesn't really particularly like him, but as she runs away, eventually she's captured and he goes and rescues her from the state police. And then they're reunited and they don't really particularly like each other, but she realizes that she needs Booker's ruthless methods.
00:57:14
Speaker
to really really get out of there. Really good circumstance. Exactly. And she does explicitly not let you die in a situation where she could before you regroup. He gets like knocked to the off of a platform by a handyman, which is like this game's big daddy's. And she summons a Zeppelin. She opens a terror to bring a Zeppelin through to catch Booker. We haven't talked about terrors at all either.
00:57:39
Speaker
Well, we did we did a little bit with the items talking about um, we didn't go we said tear we said tear so terror is capital t Elizabeth can see like weakened points in reality where she can alter reality by pulling things through she um modifies reality in some way and it's heavily implied that she's reaching through to either like
00:58:02
Speaker
the real world or a different world or something like that because some of the tears span time span like they're not from that period but it's just something she could do and she used to be better at it as a child but she's found herself more limited
Narrative Complexity & Conclusion
00:58:22
Speaker
As she grew up And so yeah, she basically they come through like black and white staticky shapes and figures. Yeah But she saves Booker they reconvene Go complete the side quest for the Vox Populi, which includes like a lot of backtracking and
00:58:43
Speaker
The important thing is eventually they find a particularly large terror, and she completely expands the terror rather than opening a small gap in reality. She covers them, which puts them in this other world.
00:59:03
Speaker
And shit only gets weirder from there. Yeah. I really want to go into everything and spoil the whole game. Yeah. But we've got that hour. We're approaching the hour looking in Dave's eyes and it's like we probably can't. But the thing is, I've gone into like 10 minutes of things I wanted to talk about, you know, out of like so much. It's it's honestly just a lot.
00:59:29
Speaker
I would make multiple episodes on this, but I don't think I have the patience to do it, nor do I think it amaze the patience to listen to a multi-part episode. Right. On just one game. So that's what we'll do. Yeah, I like to cut it there.
00:59:49
Speaker
You want to cut it there? All right. Well, there's a lot more to the game. There's a lot of revelations. If you've never played it, I feel like it's a hardy recommend on the thumbs up or thumbs down scale. It's a really freaking good game and it gets ridiculously cheap on Steam because it's been out for six years. They have like bundles of like the Bioshock series or like the remastered pack, whatever. But it is a super solid game. I really enjoyed the gameplay of the story.
01:00:18
Speaker
Everything about it always be a little bit nostalgic of. Right. There are some faults that I have with it, but they do not really take away from the game as a whole. It's just super good. It's like a more cinematic, more intense Bioshock one. Yeah.
01:00:38
Speaker
Because it's meant to be more like you have character dialogue. Yeah, you have these action sequences on rails You have this like very intense music for combat, etc Everything's done very differently as far as tonal shift. Mm-hmm, but it is
01:00:54
Speaker
Mmm, it's inverted. So like where Bioshock one was in a isolationist isolation like confined kind of claustrophobic experience being under the sea This is the opposite but don't very open. There's always people Around you you interact with a lot of people through the course of it as opposed to just a few Elizabeth's almost always there and Yeah
01:01:18
Speaker
It's really freaking good and establishes important lore continuity in the Bioshock franchise, which somehow we didn't even really get to spoiling. So if for some reason you listened this far and you haven't played the game, you could still play the game and get all the twists.
01:01:37
Speaker
And if you do that, maybe you can tune in next week if we decide to do the DLC. I don't know if I could dedicate an entire week to the DLC, but we'll see. We'll talk about it. Maybe we could do other Bioshock things in the DLC. We could do the second half of the Bioshock Infinite in the DLC. Oh man. Now we'll figure out something. I like how we make these plans at the end of the podcast. We didn't pause and say like, so what do you want to do next time? We'll talk it out now.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, but, uh, and the, the interest of letting people get back to their, their day without us. Cause, you know, I don't know why really, but.
01:02:17
Speaker
If you'd like to reach out to us, you can do so at soapstonepodcast at gmail.com or join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. We are always happy to hear from you guys and we love getting ideas for new episodes. Um, we need ideas for new episodes. We did a week on flash games, boys. We have scraped the bottom off of the barrel. We found another barrel below that and we've emptied the barrel. Um, but now we will, uh, we'll keep doing this.
01:02:50
Speaker
Was that a threat? Have a good night everybody. Yep. We'll see you in the next one.