cexantus

The same reason why Nathan Drake is dying from heat exhaustion, yet somehow has the energy to engage in another gun battle--cause vidya gaems, lol.

It's not a plot-hole, but for a game that strives to be as detailed and fairly grounded than your average game, Joel being fine after a little penicillin made me roll my eyes a bit.

"So preserving the relationship isn't necessarily the most important thing."

Not to be a dick, but how can you say that when the relationship serves as the basis for the entire game? It's the sole reason why Joel does what he does and it's the reason why Ellie chooses to stay. Saying that it isn't important is beyond ridiculous.

Just saying "she can go back" misses the point of her character arc throughout the game.

"The only person who says that is Marlene and she appears to be overexcited because of how proud she is the she found Ellie in the first place."

This is what I mean where it really feels like people are trying hard to justify that lie. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that 90% of the game takes place entirely from Joel's point of view. Suddenly Marlene is made out to be this shrewd character hell bent on killing a child for the sole purpose of feeding her ego. Is that really presented in-game? I don't think so. It's clear there's a relationship between Marlene and Ellie (presumably before she realized that Ellie was immune) and even Marlene calls Joel out on his

shit--he isn't the only one who'd suffer should Ellie die.

I think the problem here is that we have no idea what happened to Ellie between the moments Joel is knocked out and when he wakes up at the base. Did Marlene simply force Ellie onto that operating table? Did she lie to her and tell her that that she'll be alright once the operation is over. I don't know, but I'm not certain that Marlene would do that, and I believe that Ellie knew very well that she would never wake up from that table; and that's why she tells Joel that story at the end of the game--she'll always be the last to die. We could make all the ifs and buts want, but it doesn't change the fact that Joel took away that choice and decided base their entire relationship going forward on a lie. I don't think Joel is wrong because he damned humanity; I think he's wrong because he's decided to place Ellie in a position where she no longer has any power, and that the only way to make the relationship work is to believe in that lie, which is pretty damning itself.

: @lackingsaint: I think that speaks to a failing on the games part: it really doesn't differentiate between the levels of violence that occurs in the game. The Winter segment is clearly meant as a sort of commentary between the actions made by Joel and Ellie at this point, but it's kinda hard to take any of it seriously when I just got through mowing down a couple of nameless thugs or gutting them in the stomach. So to those people, killing those doctors was no different than putting down a bandit or clicker.

@raineko: the reasonable choice? Maybe. Does it make it any less messed up? Not really. Joel kills Marlene for a very selfish reason, and ultimately damns humanity just so he doesn't have to lose another daughter.

But I keep going back to Ellie--is this really what she wanted. During the Spring segment she gives Joel a monologue about that dream that she has: She's on a plane that is currently going down; she races to the controls only to discover she doesn't know how to fly the plane--death is inevitable. I feel like that's supposed to be a metaphor for the entirety of the human race. No matter what we do, we're all doomed to die anyways. But there was an option, a choice that could have been made to save the world--and Joel decides to take that choice away from her.

I'm a little weirded out by how some of you are trying to morally justify Joel's lie. Yes it's meant to be an ambiguous daughter--Joel is projecting the love of his surrogate daughter over the whole of humanity--Yes, it might be what a "parent" might do--it doesn't make it any less fucked up, and the moment that you control Ellie during the final are one of the more uncomfortable moments I've ever experience in the game. Joel going on about how Ellie and Sarah would like each other was just so damn creepy.

It's not just fucked up because Joel goes on a massive killing spree to save Ellie (though I think the reason why people seem not to have a problem with Joel's lie and his actions are because the rampage is depicted no differently than any of the other mini-rampages enacted by the player through the game); it's because he decides to ruin the very thing that has bonded them in the first place--complete and total trust. Ellie does not want a father figure, someone she can hide behind and be protected; she wants a friend, an equal. Why else do you think she was upset when Joel wouldn't let her use a gun? Ellie's "okay" isn't done out of complete love, and it certainly isn't her believing the lie wholesale, her "okay" is out of complete resignment. If she acknowledges the lie, then she loses the only person in world that cares for her. Basically, Joel has put Ellie in a position where she has no power, all because of his own selfish need to revive his own daughter through Ellie. It doesn't matter if it makes him "human." It's still incredibly messed up. The fact that I understand why both parties did what they did somehow makes it even worse.

Woah. This thread made me stop my weeks of lurking just to post:

I think The Shining is a fantastic horror film, proof that you don't have to tell the viewers everything in order to scare the crap out of them.

Well said. While it's fun to wonder what everything means in-game, I do believe that Bioshock: Infinite is meant to be a critique on the state of the gaming industry; that every game has to be some type of power-fantasy where you're treated as a hero--despite the fact that your involvement has probably led to scores of people dying. By casting the main character as both the hero and the villain, Bioshock basically say that everything that happens is your fault, and the only way to truly fix anything is to kill yourself.

This is

I disagree with that, mostly because I do find each of the characters well-written. But even then, doesn't that kind of prove Sweep's point? Who cares how many polygons your game has when the writing is bunk, the characterization is terrible, and plot is cliched. That's precisely the problem with Cage's own Heavy Rain: It's a gorgeous and ambitious game that's hampered by awful voice-acting and a trite third act. I soon stopped caring about how great those character models look and focused entirely on how ridiculous the game's story became.

I'm not against technological improvement at all, I'm just a lot skeptical of how it's being used. This Sony conference tried to sell us on the Ps4, that this was truly "next-gen;" but all I saw was kind of more of the same: More KillZone; More Infamous; more of the same things we've been playing for the past decade--just only prettier. I'm sure they'll look great, and maybe once I get my hands on one of them maybe I'll have fun, I'm just not convinced I need to jump on board as soon as possible.

You people are silly. Pilot was pretty great and lays the foundation for a (hopefully) great show.

So, like...I'm curious if anyone who's too busy slathering the internets with "DEY DONE TOOK R VIDYA!!!" or "OBAAAAAAAAMMMMAAAAAA!!!" actually bothered to read up on this or, you know, gotten their facts straight before blasting their opinons on here? Unless I missed the secret wording that said Obama is going to push an initiative to remove all violent video games from stores.

THEY TOOK R FREE SPEEEEACH!!!!

Do I agree that the idea of a direct correlation between video games and violence is ridiculous? Absolutely. Little Timmy isn't going to blow off someone's head with a shotgun just because he saw it GTA.

HOWEVER,

when mixed in with media violence (music, television, books, etc) as a whole, as well as keeping in consideration education, social status, and other thiings--I think there is something worth studying here. While I certainly agree that gun regulation should be required--it's not the end-all solution. It's just a band-aid over a much bigger, deeply rooted problem. Saying only crazy people enact in weaponized violence is not only bullshit, but keeps us from realizing that gun violence is entirely a societal issue.