Bioshock Demo now on XBLA

The Bioshock demo for Xbox 360 is now live. I suggest you download it.

I just finished the demo and to be honest, I'm so happy. So very very happy.
Allow me to explain. My opinion is that shooters are divided into 2 sub-genres. "traditional shooters" like Battlefield 2142, Halo, CounterStrike and the like. The other is what I call "Story shooters" One of my favorite "Story shooters" is a game that made me realize this division. It's called System Shock 2. It was released on PC in 1999. It redefined shooters with it's mix of adventure, Role Playing, puzzle solving and of course story.

When I first heard of Bioshock and it being billed as "the spiritual successor to System Shock 2", I scoffed. It was a very tall order to live up to in my eyes. As I saw more and more of it as it progressed through development, I got hopeful. It had potential. "But still.." I told myself, "I've gotta play it. That will be the test." Nothing they could show or tell me, despite how impressive it might be, would mean anything if it didn't feel like SS2. While that would by no means be a failure on their part or mean Bioshock isn't a good game, it would just mean SS2 would continue to sit on the top of the heap and I wait for another challenger to try to take that crown.

I'm here to tell you that I shouldn't have doubted.

I just played a demo that was SO immersive, so beautiful and so compelling that I'm not even sure how long I played it. All I know is that it ended far too soon and I want more. I want to know more about my character. I want to know what happened in Rapture to cause such chaos. I want to explore Rapture and see all of its crumbling beauty. I want to know what kind of monster would create something like a little sister. I want to know who or what a Big Daddy is. I want to know.

I'm not going to spoil a second of the demo for you. Go play it. For you PC users, the demo will be out before the end of the month.

BioShock comes out on August 21st.

Take a trip to Rapture. You won't be sorry you did...or maybe you will?