Bioshock: A Defence

Now, I was planning on doing this at some point in our Advent games, but Tom over at EG and I were talking about the backlash against Bioshock. He wondered if I had anything to say, and waved some of that fat EG dollar. And lo - I did. 4000 words worth. I may keep my sanity by not reading the EG comments thread - as I noted in the piece...

You see, I was surprised to find BioShock's not my favourite game of the year. I'm also aware that perhaps the intensity of discourse around the game had something to do with it. When I think of BioShock, I have to wipe away pages of forum nit-picking and genuinely bitter pub-based rows before I can even start thinking about, at its best, how clever and elegant it is and how on its own grounds it makes everything else released in this incredible year for videogames distinctly second-rate. For most of this year, I've been too tired to actually do this. But when the response to a patch with free new content is just a shrug and a bunch of whining over free stuff, I can't help but think we - as a community - need a good slapping and a reminder that we should be a little bit grateful.

Something to annoy virtually everyone herein, I suspect. But, as my old mate Rorschach once said, we don't do things because we choose to. We do them because we're compelled.