Lets explore Bioshock Infinite a bit more :) (Destiny)

by Malagate , Sea of Tranquility, Tuesday, October 17, 2017, 12:21 (2395 days ago) @ Robot Chickens

Sure, our worldviews often color our interpretation of art. (This is why is hard/impossible to objectively say art is good or bad) What we should strive to do is view art through whatever worldview it's being presented in, and later reflect back on it through our own lenses.

Oh I totally get the need to enter the moral world of the media presented. It's my post-play reflection that led me to call BS on it.

I think part of the problem lies in the genre (FPS video game) they're telling the story. You see, Booker has motivations ascribed by the game designers and world builders, but there's an element of him and his motivations that get filled in by the player (in this case me). Some games give more motivational control to the players than others, but I still felt like there was a part of me choosing to react to the world as Booker at play. He wasn't carte blanche, but they left it open enough for me to feel engaged as a protagonist. As Booker, I wanted to do more than just deal with the pain I caused Elizabeth. My daughter even helps me become better (when she's not helping me murder people). It just feels like that bit of development gets totally subverted the next time someone's head explodes. Again, perhaps that's the point but the genre of the delivery of the story felt (to me) like it allowed me to interpret Booker as something at odds with the gameplay.

Red Dead Redemption handles the themes this game was getting at better IMO- cyclical nature of violence and the futility of shooting your way to redemption. It just didn't have the cool alternate paths in the universe element in it. That was a real cool hook for me and the clever story path made me enjoy the game. Outside the videogame genre, it wouldn't be too hard to have selective violence or even an absence of it and still have Booker come to the same conclusion that he needed to erase himself from the universe. Like Cody points out, the game kind of revels in it.

I should add that I loved the art/music of the game. The haunting opening of the game with the relevant hymn/spiritual is beautiful. There are so many ways it succeeds and perhaps that's why I'm so hard on it.

I agree with a lot of this, I just see Booker/Comstock as problematic overall by his very nature, and by design. Comstock is obviously beyond redemption from the get-go, and the glee in wanton violence (on my/our part) of Booker puts the nails in his coffin by the end. Violence is the opposite thing to do when righting wrongs, but I see the war crimes committed prior to the story as decisions that created Booker, and we simply join him on his path at a place where he's still beyond redemption, regardless our actions.

It's very much the same way I felt in the first BioShock. You think you have this choice all the way through, but by the climax of the plot, it's clear you don't. You're a product of the circumstances and choices made prior to your control of the situation.

~M