It's funny how our own passion can wind up working against us like that. If it helps any, my remaining doubts dissolved within the first few steps of my return to Rapture. It was both as I remembered it, and not. The world retains its period atmosphere but with an added layer of decrepitude. The best sign is that both these first two nights I've spent there the experience retained the original's intensity that requires me to leave Rapture thirty minutes or so before I want to go to bed so I have time enough to settle down. If you're curious for more, along with the comments below we started a BioShock 2 chat thread and discussion first thing this morning.

And for something completely different, there was the rest of today's news:

• No PC version of Dead Space 2 for you (or me)
• Ghost Recon 4 named 'Future Soldier', out this fall
• Diablo 3 female monk character revealed
• Ubi plans greater push on sequels

Google has struck again. This time with some sort of social aggregating Gmail widgit. You can check it out at buzz.google.com

Polish newspaper slips, includes pedobear as an official 2010 Vancouver Olympic mascot

Along with eating while snowed in, DC residents also evidently showing a spike in condom demand