I'm trying to decide whether to attend Jenna's weekly poker game tonight — as I think I've said before, I find it very difficult to tell whether I'm feeling socially lazy or genuinely anti-social. Maybe I could partition off a portion of my brain for especially tricky self-knowledge audits.

I ended up hanging out at home all yesterday, watching football with my brother Matt and his friends after several attempts to make alternate plans fell through. It was a little odd, but beer and bratwurst is never a bad fall-back option.

I eventually retreated upstairs to the warm glow of the Internet, but once the television was free again I snuck back downstairs for a private Heroes marathon. I should have being playing BioShock instead: now I'll have to try to wait a bit so Matt can catch up.

I beat BioShock today, actually...

(BioShock spoilers ahead: no major plot giveaways, though)

I can see why so many people are willing to let BioShock be the standard-bearer for videogames-as-high-art. It's a good-looking game, and the depth of story and especially the depth of character development are far beyond the norm. I like how the enemies are all wrapped up in their own little worlds, wandering through the levels muttering to themselves.

The level design was probably as varied as it could be without degenerating into the usual ice/jungle/office cliche (although: cough) and there are countless decorative touches — the complex where they had the Little Sisters was easily my favorite place in that regard. I mean, wow.

It also bears mentioning that this is a distinctly libertarian dystopia; I don't know if it was just because of my political beliefs, but I ended up with a lot of sympathy for Andrew Ryan. I'm disappointed by the dearth of commentary on this game at all my favorite libertarian blogs, but presumably they're all saving their essays for when it wins game of the year.

In comparison to the leaps made elsewhere, the gameplay is pretty familiar. I beat the game on hard, sacrificing some of the narrative pacing for a more challenging difficulty. And it's true what everyone has been saying: yes, even on hard, the final boss is easier to beat than the Big Daddies you find on every level.

This on the "good" ending, which I assume is a bit easier to get. But also pretty quick? How long did the cinematic last, a minute? I'd like to play for the "bad" ending, but I don't think this is like a Star Wars game, where the fork is ridiculously close to the end.