So I guess I had better luck than some with the Bioshock demo download, as I actually got it in under 3 hours.

I can't judge it too much from the demo, but it is SHORT AS HELL. Other than that, it looks damn cool. The art director deserves an award or awards. The 40s-50s atmosphere is nailed and combined with the underwater city feel to a T. I love all the billboards and posters that line the halls, advertising everything from cigarettes to various brands of plasmoids. The various clips of music sound like something you'd hear in that era, complete with scratchy phonograph quality sound. The graphics look pretty nice, the water especially is cool. Is water the new sun flare? I know Bungie keeps raving about how they put all this money into the water in Halo 3. Or is that just a metaphor for something else?

The whole thing reminds me of Myst. Being tossed into a totally unknown world, with the user really getting no backstory on who they're even playing. The difference being Myst wasn't overun with mutant psychos at every turn.

It seems quite a bit more linear than I thought, maybe that's just the demo, but I've had the feeling all along all these "choices" things they keep pushing is more about different ways to kill enemies than different paths through levels and different outcomes. I'd probably enjoy just roaming the city snadbox style, but then someone would accuse it of being "GTA Underwater."

I've elevated Bioshock from "rental" to "possible purchase."