Working from the engine of 2007's Persona 3 (which spent about six years in development), Persona 4 is the latest entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series of role-playing games. Rather than delaying a sequel by developing for a next-gen system, the publishers decided to release a new chapter on PlayStation 2 before the platform was obsolete. This dark role-playing game with Japanese anime styling has a great mixture of style and life that elevates it above the norm.

The male protagonist has just transferred to a new high school. Rumors begin floating around about the Midnight Channel, a program that appears on TV on rainy midnights and will show people their true loves. One stormy night, the curious protagonist checks out the Midnight Channel, which turns the TV into a portal into another world. He does see a woman, but the next morning she's found murdered. The mystery only grows from there, as you and your friends look to find the murderer, and discover why you have gained the power to enter the TV world and summon powerful creatures known as Personas.

Most Wii games are designed for the entire family. MadWorld is not one of those games: It takes family-oriented titles and cuts them in half with a chainsaw. With extreme violence being the central theme, MadWorld brings with it a different art style and the best sports commentators I've heard to set it apart from other games on the system.

The current generation of video-game systems made a number of significant upgrades, from online play becoming standard to high-definition graphics to downloadable content to extend a game's longevity. One addition stands out from the others, though: the inclusion of publicly recognized achievements.

The Xbox 360 launched in 2005 with its Gamerscore system in place, and the growing popularity spawned the Playstation 3's Trophy system in 2007. The idea is simple: Put a task in a game for players to achieve, and when successful they receive an award and points for doing so. The points are then added together and are displayed with a person's online screen name as a sort of status symbol. The goals vary, from just pressing the start button in The Simpsons Game to reaching number one in the global online rankings on Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.

What started as a way to make games more challenging has turned into an almost obsessive desire to get more points and a competition between friends and complete strangers to get on this modern version of an arcade game's high-score list.

It certainly drives me to play a game more thoroughly than I would normally, for the sake of seeing the little message pop up that I gained an award. I, along with friends and co-workers, will pick up a game and play it for the simple sake of increasing a Gamerscore or Trophies. It's like fast cars with gearheads: They get jealous when someone has something better than they have, so they want to get something even better. It's achievement envy.

It used to be that gamers would document their ridiculously impressive achievements via videotape or photos. In some cases, they would send the evidence to a publication such as Nintendo Power or world-record arbiters Twin Galaxies. With online gaming, there's no waiting for recognition; you get awards right away, and your score is available for the whole world to see. Games have given us "bragging rights 2.0."

There are a number of titles that people pick up and play for the sole purpose of gaining more awards, even if the game is not good or interesting to the player. Working at Video Games Etc., I have seen people purchase Avatar: The Burning Earth for Xbox 360 and sell it back to us the next day; I did the same thing myself. The game has 1,000 Gamerscore points that can be earned within two minutes of starting. A number of games for children have similar setups, with points that can be snagged quickly and easily. In essence, it's a brilliant marketing strategy that makes games appealing to audiences outside of their target range.

Achievements have begun to shape how people play their games: They'll spend more time with them, and they're more likely to finish them. Thinking about getting more Xbox 360 Gamerscore points motivated me to complete Prince of Persia a few days ago, even though I hadn't played it in more than three months.

I know I'm playing games I don't like from time to time, and playing games for a longer period of time than I would like to, but it doesn't stop me. I fall into the trap of wanting to make sure my score is higher than my friends' -- to be the "winner." Worse, even though I emphasize that video games need to have a certain level of quality to be worth playing, I send the worst possible message to game developers: "I'll buy a bad game that I have no interest in as long as there are easy points to get." Hypocrisy, thy name is Luke.

But there are a number of publishers that don't abuse the achievement system. And overall, achievements are awarded appropriately. Earning some can be a real point of pride, such as completing a game at the hardest difficulty. And now that online play has become common, many awards also involve the satisfying experience of winning against actual people.

Luke Hamilton is a buyer, creative designer, and online coordinator for Video Games Etc. He can be reached at ssj_4luke@hotmail.com.

I know Bioshock came out for the Xbox 360 in September 2007 and the PlayStation 3 in October 2008, but I got distracted by other games. Even after several "game of the year" awards, I kept putting it off. But with Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams announced for release this fall, I finally decided to give the original a shot. And after being glued to my couch for the past few days, it's obvious I need to pay more attention to "game of the year" awards.

Players start the game in 1960 as Jack, an average guy whose plane has just crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. The sole survivor of the crash, Jack swims to a nearby structure and wanders the building looking for anything that could help him, which leads him to a rail station that travels to the underwater city of Rapture. On the ride to the city, an automated message tells Jack about the idea of Rapture, envisioned as a Utopian society free from the intervention of government and religion.

But once you arrive in the city, you quickly learn that nothing is the way it was meant to be, as the city lies in shambles and gangs of genetically spliced people want to kill you under the orders of Andrew Ryan, the city's founder. Even stranger are the little girls harvesting ADAM (a form of advanced stem cells that can re-write the human genome) from corpses while being protected by a mechanical super-soldier known as the Big Daddy. With constant radio assistance from Atlas - a citizen of Rapture who's looking for a way to escape with his family - you have to fight for your life against splicers, destroy the Big Daddies, and decide whether you're going to save the girls' lives or kill them to obtain ADAM and grow stronger.

The storytelling in this game is different, to say the least, but in a good way. The main story has multiple endings, depending on the player's decision whether to save the children harvesting ADAM. That provides a good reason to play the game multiple times - to see how your actions can change things. And while you can follow the main story without exploring much, the inquisitive will be rewarded with recordings that offer secrets such as passwords for locked doors and the motives of Rapture inhabitants. At the same time, listening to the recordings can also trigger events that lead to more enemies swarming you. It's a unique style that keeps players on their toes; you really won't know what to expect next.

Game play is entirely from the first-person perspective, and you have a large arsenal of weapons, from a wrench to a device designed to shoot napalm or liquid nitrogen on your enemies, with upgrades to make your weapons more powerful and reliable. The coolest idea by far is the introduction of Plasmids, a form of biological modification players can use to give themselves supernatural abilities, such as shooting fire from their hands or releasing a swam of killer insects to attack enemies. The superpowers have uses in the environment as well: You can melt ice with the fire, electrify the water with a lighting burst, or grab distant objects with telekinesis. The play works well, and it feels gratifying to spark an oil slick to trap your enemies in a wall of fire.

Once you set your eyes on the city of Rapture, you'll quickly realize that you're playing one of the best-looking games available, even after all this time. The bottom of the Atlantic Ocean provides a sinister atmosphere, and the dark water reflecting the city lights adds to the sense of dread. The voice acting contributes to this dark aura, as well, with several scenes of insane spliced citizens preaching their brutal lifestyles and treating weapons like their children. Sounds in general can play a major role during game play, with quiet, stealthy approaches working in your favor to take out an enemy before he can cause you problems. At the same time, you need to keep an ear open in case an enemy is sneaking up on you instead. It all plays a part in an edge-of-your-seat experience that's filled with suspense.

Game-of-the-year awards aren't just handed out to anything that comes out during a year, and Bioshock is proof of that. With game play that's both fun and interesting, a deep story hidden within layers of mystery, and a presentation that blends perfectly with the story, it is by far one of the best games made in the past few years. You'll definitely want to play it before the sequel hits shelves.

Bioshock is available for Xbox 360 for $29.95 and PlayStation 3 for $59.95. For this review, the author played the Xbox 360 version and completed both the story's endings.

Luke Hamilton is a buyer, creative designer, and online coordinator for Video Games Etc. He can be reached at ssj_4luke@hotmail.com.