r/BioshockInfinite

Don’t know a single thing about the bioshock games

I just used the pistol for most stuff because I'm scared of picking up a new gun and it being worse than what I already had because I think that already happened to me before I also use the repeater but I'm thinking about swapping it out

Salut, j’ai joué au jeu bioshock le 1 et 2 mais j’hésite à acheter Bioshock infinite. Je me demande si ces la continuation de l’histoire ou juste une histoire annexe à l’histoire principale.

I’m a nostalgic person, don’t love that about myself but it is what it is. Recently, I’ve been playing through the entire series minus burial at sea part 2. Bioshock 1 I first played in late 2012, followed by Infinite for the first time when it was free on ps+ in 2014 I believe. I was 14 at the time I played Bioshock 1, so it was already slightly “before my time” in a way. I won’t get too into it but the time from early 2012 onwards was a sorta period of recovery for a lot of my family following the recession, we got real poor for a few years and never really got back to the positions we were in when I was really little, but I was able to get a ps3 and some games and we had access to the internet.

I first saw bioshock infinite trailers and gameplay and was so intrigued. But I wasn’t going to be able to play it for a long time because it was new and I was only able to get one new game per year usually, so I kept up with the online stuff. At some point I got gifted bioshock 1 and loved it, but like I said, I didn’t really ever have that depression after finishing it. I think for that it’s partly because the game is wholly negative in atmosphere with only the good ending cutscene having anything positive or uplifting in it. Plus I finished it without a lot of “build-up” in my head. To this day I love bioshock 1 immensely.
When it comes to infinite, it was a cold morning when my best buddy stayed over at my (aunt and uncles) house and we walked to the school bus stop and he had actually got infinite and was talking about it to me. Since he had both xbox 360 and ps3 and I only had ps3, he couldn’t let me borrow the 360 games he had but he would talk to me. He was gushing about infinites story and ended up telling me about the ending and I still vividly remember saying “I won’t be able to play it for at least a year so tell me and I might forget” and so he talked about the ending sequence. I remember just him telling me Elizabeth is bookers daughter but the comstock reveal and the sea of doors stuff either got muddled or flew over my head then. So I remember just being in awe in the bus to school. Like I said, when it was free on ps+ some time later, I played it and loved it. But it gave me that post-game depression. Since Elizabeth is so likeable, and you are more engaged with the downfall of Columbia and the events of the story, the events hit harder and I always wanted booker and Elizabeth to actually come out whole and to have a happy ending. That sorta feeling is rare for me in stories now, but I still feel that on every playthrough.

Finishing bioshock 1,2, and Minerva’s den leaves me feeling kinda victorious and triumphant in a way. Bioshock infinite on the other hand, due to its somber ending and the knowledge that nothing good comes later, just leaves me feeling so depressed. The ending piano notes and the main menu music just hit me. Relating that back to the times in which I experienced infinite for the first time, I was becoming a teenager, experiencing more friendship and autonomy alongside gaming going through a sorta evolution and regression (infinite is a microcosm of that phenomenon in a lot of ways), so that time was infused with a kinda “spirit” of that makes sense. That “spirit” is present whenever I play infinite and resonates with me hard. It’s like when you smell something that transports you back to a different time in your life.

I’m probably not doing a good job at explaining my thoughts all that well, but I’m going through that feeling again. Knowing that Burial at sea (for me at least) is a miss. And it took a while to release so it came out after that “time infused with that spirit” means that BAS is almost entirely separated with my idea/feelings of Infinite. I think that’s why I’m so interested in all the pre-release info and scrapped ideas from infinite. Something that feels integrated into the fabric of my life and those transformative years that could have been radically different is so interesting.

Ultimately, the worst part of all this, because to feel that feeling indicates that you cared for something, is that the “spirit of that time” that those games came out with is gone. That era of gaming had it’s time and place and the seeds planted during that generation for the next generation had replaced it entirely in a few years, and so on until you have the landscape of gaming now. For me, most games and most things just don’t hit anywhere near close. Part of that is losing the novelty effect since you experience more things as you get older, and you have that “nothing new under the sun” type of phenomenon happen more and more. It gets to the point (for me at least) where you become less invested in the things that used to be so interesting. Each time has its spirit/character and must be sat aside for a new one and that’s fine. But there are some times that I feel you can be more in tune with, and as far as just the realm of gaming goes, that time from 2007-2014 was my time. Hearing “after you’ve gone” when being sent back to the main menu is the most solid way of reinforcing that idea if you can get what I’m saying.

Now like I said, as an adult I’m very nostalgic for those times. Materially, life has improved for me a lot but I’ve lost a lot of friends from that time, and most days are filled with work, chores, responsibilities, some anxiety and worry and trying to keep away personal/mental/character stagnation. But I do indulge that nostalgia and that’s what this past month has been of going through the series again. I guess it’s a long-winded way of saying I care for this thing that had its time and place and meant something to me throughout a long time. It’s a wall of text but if anyone relates or has thoughts let me know your thoughts or if you have a story similar.