As long as he's comfortable looking foolish, he can be my guest.

There WAS a spoiler warning.

Excuse me, but last I checked, you weren't required to read the article. Many read it and enjoyed it, and you can read their comments as proof. If you're so worried about the author's "lack of humility" in trying to represent all Christians, perhaps you should also reconsider your claim to represent non-religious…

Notice that Booker Dewitt was an awful, violent man with or without religion. Religion rarely makes violent people. Violent people twist religion so that it can justify their actions. Also, replay the game, your analysis is sorely lacking in understanding.

Bravo, Sir. Thoroughly thought-provoking, and I'd say accurate.

Dang it, I really do need to replay the game.

So you and I agree on that. We simply differ on /why/ it is the right thing to do. I believe pacifism is right because human life is sacred, but functionally I'm sure it's no different from your conviction.

It could be considered blasphemous for some Christians because the "player" is forced to undergo baptism into a faith that, while appearing similar, isn't Christianity. If one were to actually do such a thing, it would essentially be denying your faith.

It does take that into account. Booker as Comstock is timline 2, coming from the baptism. That's the timeline that Anna is taken to from timeline 1 (indicated by the blue lines), where Booker rejected baptism. And Comstock didn't get cancer, he just became sterile.

She refers to multiple instances, though. She used her powers to look at every timeline, and that was why she brought Booker to her, so that she could create the opportunity for timelines where they succeed.

Ah, I do recall that one. I just assumed that that was similar to how "our" Booker would occasionally call out for Anna when he was knocked out or waking. It could mean that he knew her identity, but it may not.

Doesn't old Elizabeth say how many times Songbird stopped Booker?

That's certainly a possibility. Though, I don't recall anything indicating that martyr Booker knew who Elizabeth was (as in, he knew she was his daughter?). The voxophones suggested that that Booker also wanted to return her to the "man in New York."

No, he was the Booker who had Anna, just pulled into a different timeline by Lutice.

Yeah, a lot of people don't take that very well. It didn't help that I grew up by a massive military base. A good chunk of every congregation I ever joined were military.

I don't really consider myself an Anabaptist, but I have a real appreciation for the main Anabaptist traditions. I'm more of a non-denomination kind of guy.

He couldn't have. That being said, he played through the first two Bioshock games, and couldn't have missed the countless violent promos for this one.

I think you make a good point. I'm a Christian myself, and as such I take baptism pretty seriously as a symbolic action. I'm also a pacifist /because/ of my faith. Yet I still play violent games, and I played all the way through this one. I can understand where this guy is coming from, but I think he's being…

I agree wholeheartedly. I also think that this kind of "multiplayer" shows up in a lot of games with emergent story, like the Elder Scrolls series. Half of the fun of playing Oblivion in college was meeting up with my friends at the snack shop and exchanging stories about what each of us had been up to in Cyrodiil.

Wow... Virtual Shackles was really scraping the bottom of the barrel this week, eh?