BioShock, the moody drama-driven FPS for the Xbox 360 and PC, was released last month to rave reviews from the major gaming news sites. Since then the internet has been ablaze with outcry about the game's high rating scores. It's hard to understand why. The work of Ken Levine and Irrational Games on the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 is sublime. It's incredibly atmospheric, the game's story is well written and compellingly told, and the first-person shooter gameplay is a respectable, tightly crafted experience. It's a really, really good game. I'll tell you now: it's a 5/5. So why all the angst? Why the backlash? Read on for my review of BioShock, and a few comments on the dangers of 'merely' being a good game.

We posted Jay Rosen's Call for Questions on September 25. Here are his answers, into which he's obviously put plenty of time and thought. This is a "must read" for anyone interested in the growing "citizen journalism" movement either as a writer/editor or as an audience member -- and please note that Rosen and many others say, over and over, that one of the major shifts in the news media, especially online, is that there is no longer any need to be one or the other instead of both.

Kylar writes "When you have spare time and decide to do something with a book (That's like an analog webpage, for the neuronauts among us), how often do you turn to a computer related book? How often has it happened in the last year? Right. The problem being that computer books are often either: a) boring, b) difficult to read, c) poorly written, or possibly: d) made of cheese." Read on for the rest of Kylars' review.

Peter Molyneux's Black and White was universally hailed as an innovative switch-up in gaming prior to its launch, and frustrated critics referred to it as a toy once they'd had a chance to see the depth of the title's gameplay. The design of the sequel, Black and White 2, seems to be a deliberate response to the denouncements leveled at the original game. The result is a more traditional, less open-ended RTS with some identity issues. Despite that, being a god still has as much appeal as it did back in the days of Populous. Read on for my impressions of Molyneux's marriage of Nintendogs and Age of Empire: Black and White 2.

Ursus Maximus writes "'Sailing' is a gentle and easily readable re-introduction to Greek civilization and culture, with numerous parallels and lessons drawn to our own times by the astute author. Cahill has a real knack for this sort of thing, as he has amply demonstrated in three previous volumes in his "Hinges of History" series. I was introduced to his work in his first volume in the series, 'How the Irish Saved Civilization,' and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Cahill aims to give us a well rounded glimpse into the way the ancient Greeks lived, saw the world, and in fact into the whole of Greek experience. He does this in an idiosyncratic way that will please neither academics nor purists, but which does allow one to taste and smell the Greeks' cultural milieu, and not just to cogitate about it. But cogitate you will, as Cahill gives enough food for thought as post modern man is likely to be able to bear." Read on for the rest of Ursus Maximus' review.

joshv writes ""Hell has frozen over" proclaims the front page of Apple.com. iTunes for Windows was released this week. iTunes has been around for awhile as a Mac only product, receiving rave reviews. It's the Windows availability of the iTunes Music Store that is garnering the real interest. It has been eagerly awaited on the PC, ever since Apple launched it as a Mac only service in the spring of 2003." Read on for the rest of joshv's review; Ars Technica also has a review of the service.

bbagnall writes "Vehicles, by Valentino Braitenberg, presents a different way of thinking about thinking, one tied more closely to sensing and acting as opposed to long, detailed calculations. In many ways it's similar to the strategy of robot programming advocated by Rodney Brooks, however Braitenberg's ideas came first so he probably deserves more recognition for this train of thought than the much more publicized Brooks." The book is not new (it's in reprint mode now, was published first in 1986), but relevance trumps novelty. Read on for the rest of the review.

Dave Hansen, the IBM programmer who organized this interview (questions were posted on May 28), says, "Perhaps I didn't make this clear enough during the call for questions, but myself and my group are kernel programmers. But, we were able to dredge up some responses for answers that we couldn't do ourselves. We haven't been able to get an answer to the ViaVoice question yet, but if there is real interest, I'll make sure that we do get some kind of answer back to Slashdot.

Apparently, the Panasonic Showstopper is doing a fine job of living up to an unfortunate name, by -- yup -- stopping shows, thanks to the wonders of Macrovision. Ars Digita's long-heralded free online university has released its first lecture, and now you can use double coupons for presidential candidates! Well, you can trade like action figures. No, that's not right ... but is it wrong? Oh, and something else for you to do with your Palm, after work of course. All below.

There's a boatload of censorware news today, enough for two or three Slashdot stories -- but to conserve electrons, we're bringing it to you all in one easy-to-download package. First, Peacefire has a report on the accuracy of intelligent skin-tone-scanning software, one month after its company said they'd have it working in a month. And since the CEO of ClickSafe spoke at the COPA Commission meeting yesterday, Peacefire ran a check to see how many COPA-related sites its AI blocks. Finally, Waldo Jaquith has a report from the meeting itself which should be sobering but cracked me up anyway. Pay attention, everyone, these are the folks who are going to censor your Internet.

Professor Pollack put a lot of time and thought into answering your questions, and it shows. What follows is a "deeper than we expected" series of comments about Artificial Intelligence and intellectual property distribution from one of the acknowledged leaders in both fields.

By e-distributing a Stephen King novella last week, the publishing industry lumbered in the footsteps of its dinosaur-cousin, the newspaper business, which has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years on mostly useless and unprofitable Web sites. But it forgot to produce better or different papers, an enormous mistake, and publishers are making the same mistake. Why interactivity isn't about delivery, but attitude and content. Read more.