A while back, some people in a TotalFark television thread recommended the series Dexter, which I'd never heard of (we didn't add Showtime to our cable lineup). The premise sounded interesting — the protagonist works with the Miami police as a blood forensics expert, and (unbeknownst to them) also happens to be a serial killer, who only kills other murderers — so I added it to our Netflix queue. It finally bubbled up to the top, and arrived this week. Karen wasn't much interested in it, so I started watching it in the computer room while I was doing other things.

Or at least that was the intent; I found I wasn't doing much of the other things while it was on. It's a really well-written, intense show, supported by some very good acting.

I thought Karen might enjoy it, so I suggested we watch an episode this afternoon (it happened to be the penultimate show of the first season). After it was over, Karen declared that it was a really good show, but that she would never ever watch another episode; she was too creeped out. In ten years of being together, I think this is the first time that we've found a TV show that only one of us is interested in watching.

Oh well, I suppose it's a good thing we don't get Showtime, then. Although I heard a rumor that the first two episodes of the second season have been leaked onto the Internet before they're supposed to air...

Having now played the full version of Bioshock through to the end, I figured I'd revisit the topic, as reviewing an entire game based on a fragment of one level is not terribly fair. Once again, I'll compare it to Deus Ex, which for seven years has remained the yardstick by which I measure first-person shooters.

The Pros:

• The graphics. This beats Deus Ex — and everything else I've seen so far — hands down. This was a truly immersive environment, and the modeling, texturing and lighting was all just mind-blowing.
• The music. Not only was there a good orchestral score, but interspersed throughout were radios and record players emitting music of the period. Hearing Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt in a couple of places brought a smile to my face.
• The story. It wasn't as complex as Deus Ex's conspiracies within conspiracies, but the dynamics of a utopia gone bad were far more interesting than most FPS game settings. I thought I'd figured out who I was supposed to be, but they caught me by surprise.
• The Plasmids. In Deus Ex, I enjoyed the bio-modifications which allowed you to upgrade your abilities — but Bioshock did it better. Rather than being locked in to whatever modifications you choose, you can swap them out at any of the numerous gene banks located throughout the city of Rapture.
• The hacking. In Deus Ex, to hack a computer terminal, or get past a keypad lock you didn't have a code for, you just aimed a disposable multitool at it and waited. In Bioshock, you're an active participant, rerouting tubing within the locks, security devices and safes. If you fail, it triggers a massive shock which drains you of nearly all your health.
• Research. The more you research the various enemies, the easier it is to defeat them. Towards the end, after having researched the most common enemies all the way and having loaded up with certain plasmid tonics, I could smack them once or twice with a pipe wrench to kill them - which really conserved ammo for the tougher enemies.
• Level design. I enjoyed the fact that there were multiple paths through the levels, and that (unlike Deus Ex) you had a map showing the level (and indicating the parts you'd been in, so you could double back to places you'd missed). And the feel of the levels was great, with a very distinct character to each one.
• Character design. I love the "Big Daddy" designs, especially the ones with the Carmagnolle-style helmets. And while there were only three or four different kinds of "splicers", there were several distinct models of each.
• Replayability. I definitely want to go through this again, making different choices at key points (for example, harvesting the Little Sisters rather than rescuing them — and then maybe again to see what happens if you harvest some and rescue others).

The Cons:

• Lack of interactivity. This was my only major complaint with the game. In Deus Ex, you could interact with many characters, holding conversations and often choosing the tone of your responses (sympathetic, brutal, and so on), which would direct the flow of the conversation. These conversations could lead to secondary goals, or letting you purchase additional equipment. You still had to complete your primary goals to move on, but it at least provided the illusion that you had much more latitude in your actions (especially at the end, where your choices led to different final outcomes). In Bioshock, all communication was one-way — voices on the radio, or coming from television monitors with still pictures — so it felt much more like you were jumping through hoops to complete your primary goals. And when you did finally meet some of the voices speaking to you, it was usually on the other side of a window while they got killed.
• Shuffling Plasmids. When you upgrade a plasmid to a more effective version, the hotkeys use to activate them change — which can cause a sticky situation if, for example, you're used to <F1> activating Electro-Shock, then you go to use it in combat and <F1> triggers Telekinesis instead.
• Lip-Synch. The only character who actually had any real lip-synch was Andrew Ryan, when you finally meet him. And that drifted out of synchronization over time. Some of the others, as I mentioned in my original post, just had moving jaws. And some had no face motion whatsoever while they were speaking, even if they weren't wearing a mask. (This was particularly egregious with Sander Cohen, who had a great character design.) Correction: Sander Cohen's jaw does move up and down - just not very much.
• Captions. Speaking of synchronization, the voiceover captions weren't synchronized to the words.
• No Inventory screen. I took to writing down which plasmids I had, so I didn't accidentally buy a duplicate at a Gatherer's Garden. Again.

Final verdict: Definitely a good game, well worth playing. Visually superior to anything I've seen. The storyline is good, though not overly complex. If there is a Bioshock 2 — which I certainly hope there will be — my one wish is that it lets the player interact with the main characters, rather than simply being talked at by them.

Just for grins: it occurs to me that the various plasmid/tonic icons available on the Cult of Rapture Downloads page would make awesome Boy Scout merit badges.

I've played the game through a couple of times now, and it is really hard to go back to nothing once you've had the pleasure of loading yourself up with enhancements (not to mention upgraded weapons and ammo).

The main choice you're given is whether to harvest the Little Sisters for "Adam" (the resource which you trade in for additional enhancements), or rescue them (which gives you less Adam, but doesn't make you feel like a child-murdering sociopath). I haven't tried harvesting some and rescuing others, but rescuing them all gives you a different cutscene at the end than if you harvest them all. Otherwise, it doesn't significantly alter events during gameplay.

Okay, I'll give them this: the spam subject line was at least mildly amusing:

Anti-d1abetic d4ugs at a sweet price

Isn't there any way to tell a spam filter "if the words in the subject line contain mixed letters and numerals, increase its spam score"? That would also kill any message with a "13375P34K" subject line, so I don't really see a downside.

This morning, a little Java icon appeared in the system tray of my work laptop. The tooltip which popped up announced that an update was available, and included the enticement "Update Java Now... and get OpenOffice FREE!"

Which is such a good bargain, as OpenOffice is already free.

Running frozen-bubble to kill time while compiling a large app causes swapfile thrashing.