Hime wrote:Knoyleo wrote:Hime wrote:Knoyleo wrote:Gravity and momentum?
I'm not sure I'd call them a theory.
Space bending portal guns?
Portal was definitely a better "physics" game than infinite was.
I think you've misunderstood, I'm talking about the story, not the gameplay.
I guess I wouldn't really consider a game about time travel/universe hopping to be a physics game, more sci-fi, at least in the way Bioshock Infinite handles it. It's not like the game actually tried to examine the mechanics of multiple universes existing, it just kind of said they did, so now you can summon in a robot from another time to shoot people. Oh, and murder yourself. But this is semantics, really.
I don't think it's a bad thing that the game tried to use multiple universe theory as part of it. That's ambitious, and deserves to be recognised. Unfortunately, the plot was pretty cluttered, and the earlier elements of religious authoritarianism and racism were topics I'd like to see tackle just as much. Perhaps they could have better served any plot device better if they'd given it more focus. As others have pointed out, the real in depth nitty-gritty of the multiple Bookers and Comstocks isn't fully addressed, and the whole timelines thing feels a bit weak come the end of it.
A coherent plot set about multiple timelines is ambitious, but games have to be judged on their final execution of it, and I don't know if Infinite really did the best job it possibly could have in exploring that theory. It's used to introduce some game mechanics, and force a change in setting, then the actual explanation is offered up in a rushed manner right at the end, just as a means to tie up the story. I don't think the other aspects of the story were executed well either, but considering which side could have been better executed if the game hadn't tried to clutter itself up with two pretty heavy subject matters, the exploration of authoritarianism and racism is something I think would have been done much better. Time travel, probably not so much.