I know that Bioshock 1 was the only bioshock Levine made, and the team was other that made Rapture: Part 2.

I just don't understand why he didn't find a way to make the deus ex/system shock exploration gameplay on Infinite. I don't mind the open areas sandbox for a gimmicky wave shooter moments, buts extreme linearity and horse blinders on the levels hurt the fun on that game so much. Love it for the story but ended finishing it just for that.

You guys should install the original and do a side by side. That'd be cool.

its a timeline traveling story, a difficult one to grasp, a difficult one to expose the player and keep the tip of the yarn still with the player, and yet its deeply layered and wonderfull to discover. way more than a twist like "would you kindly". As engrossing if not more than Bisoshock 1. But the world, is without a doubt, less interesting in a closer lenses, then those showpieces of the levels. nothing to explore, nothing to add atmosphere and credibility to it than some sink deep embellishment on a regular "fps level design"boredom.

Is it true that the Speargun doesn't stick enemies to walls anymore?
I haven't tried it yet.

I think infinite had a great story for video game standards. It was shooting for the "all you zombies" vibe and while not nearly as clever or original was still a very cool concept and production considering the standard for the industry.

same story standards as bioshock 1. no more no less.

Gotta disagree with you there. Bioshock was coherent and clearly inspired, where as imo the entire idea of Infinite just felt like they went "oh shit, we need to be at LEAST as cool as rapture with this!". I mean, there was no reason why goddamn columbia was floating, or had plasmids, or had robot cybermans. Whereas all that shit made perfect sense in Bioshock.

Also there are way fewere mechanical and story collisions in Bioshock. Like scavanging everything makes sense in Rapture. Eating a ham sandwitch from a garbage can in Infinite just makes Booker seem like a crazed hobo :P

BioShock's story, lore, characters, setting, atmosphere, dialogue and everything in between were excellent at the time. And were so full of tone, personality and detail that even now just reading one of the lines from it or a text in an image or video it immediately takes me back to Rapture. This is something really amazing and that very few games are capable of, even today.

I really liked BioShock Infinite's story, characters, dialogue, setting and atmosphere, but Columbia did feel less rich and detailed than Rapture. And I do agree with Megido - to a certain extent - that Rapture had better reasons to have its elements than Columbia, it felt more natural.

Though if one takes the timeline into consideration, most of Rapture's technologies were from Columbia - which events are set before Rapture's, but they just weren't explained in a convincing way.

It's also very important to understand that BioShock was released in 2007 when both games' Story and Narrative weren't taken very seriously in most games - they still aren't, but since then more and more developers started taking them more seriously and today, they are far more important than ever before.

To put this into perspective, 2007's biggest games - Story-wise - were: Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, God of War 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Halo 3, Portal, The Witcher, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - just 9 games. That's it, really.

I'm sure many people in here remember how a lot of people, including game developers and gaming press critics, used to say that Story in games were horrible, badly developed, didn't make any sense, were full of holes, like they were made by children, etc. Till a certain point, this is still true, but much more less present than before.

After BioShock's critical and user acclaim, more developers started taking both Story and Narrative in games more seriously, and from then till now, their importance as whole has only grown stronger and stronger with every passing year. BioShock was one of the most influential in this ongoing change, and one of the first responsible for it - a post-BioShock world of sorts.

BioShock Infinite was released after BioShock 1 and 2, in a world where Story and Narrative were already being taken more seriously than ever before, it's impact was never going to be as significant as BioShock's was when released in 2007.

Add to this the fact that many people who played it had already played BioShock and were expecting something equal or greater Story-wise, in contrast to BioShock which was the first game in the franchise and caught everyone by surprise when it was released. Also, many of the Infinite's greatest Story moments were spoiled by trailers, which made them less impactful and hurt the Story overall - this is also one of the biggest reasons why since then a lot of developers started not wanting to release much detail about a game's Story in trailers, interviews, etc.

BioShock was great when released, but not today. Looking at it now it's very easy to think it isn't anything special, but when taking into consideration when it was released, in what landscape and what it achieved, it's a very special game - almost a classic. But one that didn't remain so with time.

This really reminds me a lot of Casablanca, which is an epic movie, a very magical movie and a true classic in every way. When Casablanca was released, many of the movie's magical moments were very creative and unique. And even though Casablanca still holds up exceptionally well today, most of its strongest elements are a cliché now, and have been for a long time. But this is only true because almost every movie since Casablanca started copying it's strongest elements, consequently turning them into very overused clichés.

Cliché's description says it all: "is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel."

That is Casablanca. And also BioShock. Though BioShock doesn't hold up as well today as Casablanca does. Unfortunately, not many works of art are unlike this, atemporal. Another great example of this is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, truly revolutionary at the time, having created systems that became standards and still remain so to this day, but it's exactly because of this that if played for the first time now, after having experienced them in hundreds of other games with more modern, more polished and better versions of these systems, the game is not special anymore, it's not revolutionary. It's only when taking into consideration its history that one can truly appreciate what The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was, its achievements and its legacy to gaming - just like BioShock.

It makes no goddamn sense at all that "most of raptures technologies come from columbia". Rapture was created to let people be unchained by society and morality, and have total freedom. That's why they have all that advanced technology. The moral of the story, ultimately, is that you can't have total freedom as it all went to shit in the end, even though they made remarkable progress. The game is clearly based on a coherent theme, and draws from stuff like Atlas Shrugged allbeit perhaps not in the way Rand intended :P

They should have just started over with infinite, and not tried to keep all the old stuff. It would have made for a much better game. Focus on the portals and dimensions to make interesting things, rather than the plasmids that have no reason to be there. They should have replaced plasmids with expanded functions for Elizabeth really. Her only redeemable factor in terms of mechanics in Infinite is that you don't have to babysit her. The lost potential is massive.

To me, infinite just feels very much like a sort of safe bet. They don't want to risk anything so just reskin good ol' Bioshock that everone creamed their pants over and put a new story in there. Never mind that the narrative, setting, gameplay and characters are in complete dissonance through pretty much the entire game.

Infinite looked pretty, had some impressive moments with it's setpieces, but it was damaged heavily by shitty sequel syndrome imo :P

I'd link to the mathewmatosis video again as i think he nails it, but i feel like i've posted it on here too many times already

Sorry, that was was supposed to be the other way around.

It actually makes sense, but you need to remember a great deal of things, which I won't go into detail right now. But one of those things is a voxophone's recording in which it's explained how some of Columbia's people exploited their access to parallel universe technologies, copying designs of other researchers.

So in essence, they're the same because many of Columbia's technologies were taken from Rapture. And while not confirmed, since Columbia takes place in 1912 and Rapture takes place in the late 50's and the fact that many of Columbia's technologies' works fell very close to Rapture's location, many of Rapture's technologies were inspired by Columbia's works as well, a classical case of time-travel affecting both the past and the future - and alternate realities, since Columbia and Rapture are in different realities/universes.

Like if I went to the future and brought some technologies back with me, and from the point of my return with these new technologies onwards, all technology would be influenced by them, making future technologies both taken and inspired by alternate realities' past and future technologies.

It's one of those time-travels entaglements that take a lot of effort - and belief or suspension of belief, if you prefer - to understand, but essencialy, Columbia stole from Rapture, and then Rapture stole from Columbia - a uncoventional and unintended mutual cooperation. The biggest flaw lies with BioShock 1 - or Infinite, depending on how you look at it, which fails to establish the connection with Columbia.

This is one of the aspects that were half-assed in connecting Columbia with Rapture, and vice-versa. Though I'm sure Ken Levine would give some BS excuse involving time-travel, parallel universes, etc.

I'm not sure if you played BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea DLCs, which are really excellent Story-wise and connect Columbia to Rapture much better than Infinite ever did. Even though it was a let down overall, considering that with infinite possibilities afforded with a multiverse theme, they decided to go back to Rapture.

PS. Never saw your post of that video by mathewmatosis. But I did watch a great deal of videos discussing BioShock Infinite's ending, its implications and the connections to BioShock and Rapture. I also did the same with BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea's Episode 2 after I finished playing it. I still remember one with the guys from GiantBomb, and other famous people discussing it, like Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinski, I think.

Explain it how you will, but that sounds like a complete retrofit. None of this was ever mentioned in Bioshock, and retrofitting it with some flimsy excuse doesn't really give it more of a place in the world of Columbia, which is my main point. The thing i'm saying is that it didn't NEED to be there, and the game suffers from the lack of willingness to step away from the original idea.

The plasmids in themselves isn't what makes Bioshock good, but they fit very well in with the theme of that game while at the same time being one of the core mechanics That's where Infinite fails, aside from teh core mechanics being quite weak in Infinte as compared to Bioshock, they are also never really tied to the theme.. They don't particularly fit in with teh world of Columbia, no matter how much bullshitty dimensional travel you can do, and it just comes off as weird. Add to that that they could have used Elizabeth and her powers, which are central to the friggin story instead of tacked on plasmids, and i think it's fair to say that they were a stupid inclusion.

The fault defo does not lie with Bioschock 1 as the problem only ever arose after Infinite was created :P

Exactly, the problem lies with Infinite, it is obvious that when BS came out there was nothing to connect, Infinite wasn't even an idea for the future.
By the way, I still think BS is a masterpiece, I am replaying it now for the 5th or 6th time and it is as captivating as the first one. The story is great and Rapture is still one of the best playing scenarios ever created. It doesn't surprise like the first time, obviously, because it lacks the element of novelty but it is still wonderful.