This isn't a "review" of Bioshock - just some points I wanted to express based on my own experience and talk around the web. I finished Bioshock after playing it about 3 days straight, wrote my little review in the review section, and had to defend my review by someone who wrote me a very intelligent and civil protest letter (uncommon). None of that bothered me - just some things I have done. Now I'm waiting on the next big thing to come along.

I was lucky enough that I had a graphic card that ran Bioshock - I purchased to play some other whack game only a few months after buying another (Nvidia) card for the same purpose. I am since hip to the hardware games that the industry is playing - and I wait before buying a game that a publisher is using to try and "hard sell" hardware. I think a game should be made to be so good that people who want to PLAY IT will buy it on the merit of it's entertainment factors - not on how it is so "revolutionary, realistic, or "on the edge" that you need to upgrade your whole computer to play it!

In that vein, I was disappointed - but not surprised - to find out that 2K games had made e deal with Nvidia not only to support it aesthetically - but that they agreed to re-program Bioshock to lock out Shader Model 2.0 cards. This little move made sure that Nvidia cards had an advantage - newer cards - and that ATI owners would get a rude awakening when they checked the specs. Let me clarify - BIOSHOCK had already been programmed to play on the ATI and older Nvidias as an option... 2K and Nvidia decided to REMOVE that option, helping themselves at the expense of consumers. 2K is not the first, nor will they be the last to pull these kinds of deceptions - but I for one have become savvy enough to sniff these tactics out - and refuse to surrender my pocket to the hardware upgrade game! But some people ... just can't wait (digital crackheads... software junkies... game tweakers...).

I'm looking at Prototype, Crysis, and that Assassin game who's name escapes me every time I try to mention it - oh and NFS: Pro Street, not to mention some others. I fully expect that some of these titles will be requiring the "next level" of whatever the median PC setup offers... like Rainbow Six: Vegas asking for 2 gigs memory - as if the developer / publisher didn't know that the median system of gamers is ONE gigabyte of memory - sure there are some freaks out there that have more than that (and actually if you know anything about XP you would know that your not gaining anything with more than i gig anyway) but that is not the norm, and makes no marketing sense to build a game for their system. that is unless you figure you can sell some memory for somebody - for a fee, of course. I'm not a Tom Clancy "Rainbow" game fan - but I was going to try and see what I had been missing when I heard that R6:LV was made in a FPS style (I'm not into squad-based strategy shooters so much). I don't think I'll be giving that series any attention whatsoever after that move - I'm on protest.

Hopefully, one of the upcoming games will actually be a "game". so far it's been a boring year for games altogether, except for a faint light here and there. Maybe they just want us veteran gamers to die off like the dinosaurs so we can stop telling noobs to stop getting so excited over the lameness that's being spewed upon them? Maybe developers / publishers realize how much cheaper it would be if they could make games primarily for first timers - thus avoiding living up to expectations and being careful not to go too far away from the core of a series??? As I play more games - particularly sequels - I certainly get the feeling that these games are not being made with the previous crop of fans in consideration. What business sense this makes is beyond me - just throwing away guarunteed money... I can't fathom how someone would dump the fans with money waiting to spend for unknowns - why not have both? How about making the same game enjoyable by both veterans and noobs? It isn't impossible - it just involves WORK.

Maybe something nobody ever considered would come out of it - for instance, I have yet to walk past some of the kids in my family, while they are playing a game, and see some familiar (yet updated) characters. If I did, I would probably want to join them, interact with them, even buy my own "game stash" so I could play and see what's new happening with some of the game characters I played when I was younger. This isn't happening because game companies are on a noob hunt - so instead of making games accessible to veterans as well as noobs - they do everything they can to repulse veterans. They think it will open up a new market for them - but it is backfiring because now veteran's aren't in the game craze loop - and some of us are older brothers, sisters, cousins, aunt's, uncles and PARENTS of this new crop. WOuldn't it make more sense to impress us so that your machines will be firmly in place without having to wait for the nag factor to take effect? Wouldn't it make more business sense to make the market attractive to all of us - so that there's alway someone buying? Don't you want your game machine in people's household whether they are youn, old, crippled or blind? (this can all be applied to PC upgrades as well) Well, right now that isn't happening - and that's because you aren't giving the people with the money anything that THEY can enjoy out of it - and YES... we are that selfish, that if we cannot enjoy it too - we just won't purchase it...