I finished the game last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I then went over to the Bioshock Wikia page and read the whole plot of the game. There were quite a few things I either missed or skimmed over or just didn’t put the 2+2 together.
I thought the sweetest part of the game was
picking up the guitar and having Elizabeth sing along while she gave fruit to a boy.
In the boat at the beginning before you get to the dock of the sky elevator:
Robert Lutece: I’d greatly appreciate it if you would assist (with the rowing).
Rosalind: Perhap you should ask him. I imagine he has a greater interest in getting there than I do.
Robert: I suppose he does but there’s no point in asking.
Rosalind: Why not?
Robert: Because he doesn’t row.
Rosalind: He doesn’t row?
Robert: No, he DOESN’T row.
Rosalind: Ah, I see what you mean.
I don’t see what Robert means.
What does Robert mean?
Maybe they tried asking him in another reality and it didn’t work.
[spoiler]Robert has already asked Booker to row in alternate realities. Booker has declined to row each time he’s been asked. So Robert already knows that Booker doesn’t row when he’s asked. It’s one of the many things that makes sense once you’ve finished the game. The same with the Lutece siblings asking Booker to flip a coin a few minutes further into the game. They’re testing the flexibility of the various iterations of Booker that come to Columbia.
In fact, the entire game is basically an experiment by Robert to see if he can’t undo what’s already been done. His impetus for hiring Booker is the regret he feels with having stolen Anna for Comstock. He’s trying to rewrite history essentially.[/spoiler]
Great answer! That explains why:
during the coin flip, they had a chart of the heads or tails guesses. Suddenly everything’s a red door knob. I still expected the cage/bird necklace to have meant something though.
Without having read this thread (I hate spoilers), do I need to play the previous installments of Bioshock first?
Need to? No, definitely not and you’ll get a complete experience without having done so. People who have would recognize some things/concepts however.
No, but if you play Infinite to its end and then play Bioshock 1 & 2, you will have a very different perspective on them than if you play 1 & 2 before Infinite.
Which will I enjoy more?
Just started Bioshock 1.
I guess they build upon themselves in a sense so if you were worried about it and intending to play all three, I’d play Bioshock (1), BS:I and then Bioshock 2 if you want. Bioshock 2 isn’t as well regarded as the original so I’d save t for last in case you’re still looking for a Bioshock fix.
Good choice. Gameplay is superb, story is also great until the part after the part that matters (the last 20 minutes or so).
Murder of crows is my most-used vigor just because I think it looks rad.
I’m still only about 8 hours into the game. It seems I can only play it for a couple of hours before starting to experience motion sickness. I’ve had this problem with FPS-style games before but this one seems particularly bad for some reason. (Possibly it’s just that I have a newer, larger computer screen now.)
That said, I’m loving it and am almost dreading getting to the end.
Lower graphics details if you have to to increase frame rate, and increase the FOV to the max. It should help out.
You can also play around with the ini file to increase the FOV farther than the ingame slider will let you.
Thanks for the tips. I increased the in-game FOV slider to max today, and also pushed my computer chair as far back from the screen as I could comfortably get it (probably about a foot further back than before) and it seemed to help. I got through about three hours of gameplay before starting to feel queasy, and that was a good time for a break anyway.
The weird thing is that I’ve played 100+ hours of Fallout: New Vegas, 100+ hours of Planetside 2, dozens of hours of Half-Life, etc., and this seems to be the only game that has really bothered me to this extent. I’m not sure what the difference is.
Half Life 2? I can’t play it for longer that fifteen minutes without getting violently nauseous, but none of the Bioshock games have given me problems. Strange, that.
On a second play-through now and it’s remarkable what a different perspective you have on the game.
I’m going to be interested to see how they incorporate the “Story-driven” DLC into the game, too.
Finished it! Wow I really enjoyed that. According to steam it took 24 hours of play time and it was time well spent. Some more in Spoiler Space:
[SPOILER] I believe I understood the ending but I am curious did choosing either the Bird or the Cage have any significance? I chose Bird.
As far as strategy, I ended up mostly using Shotguns for close combat and Machine guns for far. I switched at one point to a Heater because I thought it would be a laser gun but was disappointed 
For Vigors I mainly used the fire and lightning. I loved Vigors from a Game play standpoint but from a plot standpoint it really didn’t make any sense. If getting permanent magical powers was that easy, why didn’t any of the citizens have them besides me? I expected at some point to fight someone who had their own Vigor powers.
For the final fight I kept failing until I realized hunkering down defensively was the wrong play and I had to be aggressive and attack the invaders before they got too close to the Core. I also realized after several failures that sticking with the Lightning Vigor was much more useful. Especially against Patriots.
The cameo of Rapture was much appreciated and made me want to go back and replay the first game, however, like someone above said, I felt bad for the Bird.[/spoiler]
ETA: I also really enjoyed the music. The anachronistic renditions of famous songs were all really well done.
With regards to your comment on Vigours:
You do actually fight enemies with Vigour powers, notably Members of the Order of the Raven (they have coffins on their backs and can “teleport” via their power) and the Fireman, who uses the Devil’s Kiss Vigour to lob fireballs at you.
And a question on Vigours in general (not spoilered): Is is ever explained where they come from/how they work? The first two Bioshock games had something about a mutant sea slug that excreted a substance which could modify the user’s DNA (or something like that), providing something approaching an explanation for how come you could suddenly electrocute people or launch a swarm of stinging, stinging bees at them.
As far as I can tell, in Bioshock Infinite, Vigours just exist, it seems. It seems to be regarded as a perfectly cromulent thing to have potions allowing the imiber to possess other people, unleash crows or lightning bolts or fireballs, or make people levitate.
We’re told many of them are manafactured by Fink Manufacturing (although “Murder of Crows” is made by someone else and marketed as a “Deterrent against hooligans”, IIRC), but not how they were discovered, what makes them work, or any of the Science! behind them, if that makes sense. Having said that, it’s quite possible this is explained in a Voxophone I haven’t found yet. 