Bioshock is really good. It’s not perfect, but it does so many things so well, that it has won a place in my "best games of the past few years" list. I’m close to the end now, and I’m pretty sure that I won’t play it again after I’m done… but the very fact that I asked myself that question should be quite telling. The only modern games that I replayed immediately after finishing (normally at a higher difficulty) have been… Commander Keen, Doom, Quake, Quake2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (see a pattern?), Total Annihilation, Devil May Cry and Supreme Commander.

Another incredible game I’ve been playing lately is Guitar Hero 2 (thanks bro!). I’m a late convert to the Guitar craze, not because I didn’t think it was a masterpiece, but because its coordination and physical requirements scared me. Yeah, it can be very intense, although few players should expect to become proficient enough to ever do that.

Still, it’s amazing how well crafted it is. I remember the first time I tried it (some easy mode song), and how unforgiving and impossible it felt. After that, I probably came back to my PC and beat a couple of Supreme Commander AIs to regain some lost self-esteem. After a few sessions, however, easy mode songs proved doable, and beating my first medium difficulty song made me feel like a true hero. Progress again, then it’s time for a new challenge: hard mode is like being at square one again, unable to keep up with the barrage of notes the game throws at me. Jump back to medium, and it’s almost too easy. The learning curve is among the best I have ever seen in a game.

A very interesting thing about Guitar Hero is how easily and naturally puts you in the fabled state of flow. At some point you stop trying to think what you need to do, and you just do it; you are distantly aware of what you’re doing, but trying to consciously affect it breaks the spell. In intense programming sessions I have definitely reached it, but few games have achieved that: Geometry Wars and other shmups for a few seconds, maybe Quake 2 multiplayer way back when.