The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 3E Googled into submission few years ago, Face- book and Wikipedia joined Google to form the triumvirate of Internet sites as verbs. Google is certainly the father - it's enjoyed this status the longest. Its creative output is massive and exponentially growing, andasitstrutsforward, conspiracy theories and legitimate disconcer- tion spread like fungus. If Google takes overtheworld (odds are bet- DREW ter than a coin SARGUS flip), though, KiEIN at least it'll make most everything awfully convenient. With the most comprehensive search engine on the Internet as a base, Gmail and iGoogle form the site's next tiers. The two pro- grams make up your personal- ized corner of the Web. iGoogle brings you simple packages of news, calendars, to-do lists, unofficial "Calvin and Hobbes" comics and the top five movies at the box office. Of course, your Gmail inbox is on iGoogle as well. But Gmail itself turns the Google experience from a mute (in a manner of speaking), con- templative experience to a more active one. Gmail givesyou Google Docu- ments, which allows any num- ber of people to collectively share a word document and edit its content, and Gchat, a pared- down version of AIM - chat- ting while checking e-mail just makes sense. Google Reader is a remarkably simple (albeit some- times clunky) basin of RSS feeds. Google Blogger is by far the easi- est and most respectable avenue to set up your own blog of kitten photos. Yes, the Internet spans gener- ations. This is all equally acces- sible to the college student, the professional and the grandma. Google is here to serve you. But Google is becoming larger than what can be contained in a six- letter nonsensical word (though the Google search "define: Google" notes the word was first used in a 1927 Little Rascals film "Dog Heaven" to refer to the act of drinking water). Google the search engine is one thing (more on that later). To be overly simple, a couple of algorithms keep track of the bulk of what happens on the Internet. Now we have Google Maps and Street View, Google Earth and Sky. In terms of my new favorite bar in D.C., I now know the constellation Perseus is directly over it tonight, that the previous restaurant's sign still sits above the back door and that nearby is the setting for the photograph "1958: But Sir, the Dragon," which depicts a boy stepping onto the street during a parade. A policeman looms in mock consternation as the boy gleefully points his finger up at a dragon float passing by out of the frame. It's beautifully Hallmark. And it's so obscure a photograph that Google Image Search can't find it (Google Earth told me it was snapped by Bill Beal of the Washington Daily News). Via Google Earth you can learn everything there is to know about your (or anyone's) neighborhood: government services, bars, the obvious. But you can also find out the color of your cross-town friend's new car. It's mildly frightening. When I think of its potential applications, I'm reminded of a true story a friend's father once told me about a certain' egre- GET A GOOD HOURLY WAGE TO COPY AND PASTE. Work for the Daily's online uploading staff. E-mail cesere@ michigandaily.com. giously misdirected air strike in a certain country. Apparently the boys at the top neglected to consider that the city's street- address configuration might be different than their own. Some time later, an unrelated meeting was held with various military and civilian higher-ups, one of whom was the president of a cer- tain mail delivery service. The bombing came up, and the CEO remarked that his company had the exact information for every city in the world, down to the last cul-de-sac. If only, if only. No, this didn't involve Google. But it's an example of how today's largest corporations are outpacing governments in map- ping the world, physically and electronically, in a relentless, self-perpetuating census. We know little about it. With Google Earth it'd be easy to say that since the pub- lic has access to a platform this powerful, we should fear it as somethingthat could potentially be used to spy on us. , Google is not spying on us. At least, not through Google Earth. Google-watch.org, one of the many conspiracy sites dedicated to Google, has a fascinating sec- An overlord we could all learn to live with and love. tion on Valerie Plame Wilson and phone numbers. After the notorious leak of the CIA agent's name, asearchyielded her phone number - a search that, in turn, dug up her Washington, D.C., address. Ironically, it's not too far from my bar and that photo site. Maybe I even saw her there one time. I could probably find out the color of her car. It all comes back to the sancta santorum, the search engine. Everything stems from this one massive logbook of human movement. Our own govern- ment is monitoring what people are reading on planes and what they say on the phone. Google could convincingly estimate why that person bought that book and where he buys coffee when he sits down to read it. I wrote a few weeks ago that our country's intelligence agencies have devel- oped Intellipedia and A-Space (A is for analyst). Slowly but surely they catch on, and sooner or later something. I'm not conjuring Big Brother or starting to store canned food, butI have to admit: the thought of Google Govern- ment makes me queasy. - Given your typical daily output, past relationship with the press and the Web patterns for B-side readership, you have a one-in-113 chance of e-mailing Klein at andresar@umich.edu. .......... ................._ . .. ,. -_ .PHOTOS COURT ESY OF 2K GA MES By MICHAEL PASSMAN mentally approach a game. attack when appropriate and attempt to find Daily TV/New Media Editor This is one video game that requires no crap- health when they're taking a beating. py Hollywood interpretation. "BioShock" is the Roughly six hours into 2K Games's "Bio- Shock," the game transforms from a legiti- mately impressive video game to a valid piece of art. As the only game not titled "Zelda" whose storyline I thought more than a sec- BioshoCk ond about, "BioShock" uses Xbox 360 the first-person shooter as a 2K Games medium to tell its story - in contrast to basically every- thing before it, which mangled narratives to legitimize the existence of games. Upon crash landing into the underwa- ter world of Rapture, your character's saga begins as he's guided via radio by Atlas, one of the seemingly few remaining life forms who doesn't want to exterminate you. Atlas needs you to help him rescue his family from Rapture, whose creator, Andrew Ryan, doesn't want them to leave. Ryan's world was devised as an underwa- ter utopia free of conventional laws and eth- ics, where genetic modification runs rampant. Shortly into the game, your character goes through his first of many transformations, acquiring the ability to shoot electricity from his hand. These "plasmids," as they are termed in the game, are acquirable superpowers. In order to progress through Rapture, you'll have to creatively use a variety of plasmids in con- junction with conventional weapons. And while the excellent combat mechanics and environments offer a much-needed regen- eration of the first-person shooter, the genius of the game is the way it plays off gamers' presup- positions of how videogame narratives work. The story unravels in an almost "Catch-22"-like way that will force gainers to rethink the merit of their journey and forever alter the way they HEADS UP! E WE BLDG. at michigandaily.com/thefilter. MEDIA Kimbery Chou reminisces about GeoCities and gURL. com. She used to have a M Web page there. Don'I look tor it. fucking movie. Pro-life vs. pro-choice: To acquire plasmids and genetic upgrades in "BioShock," you'll have to find ADAM, which is a genetic currency of sorts. The only way to get ADAM is to take it from little, possessed girls who look like they could've been understudies on "The Shining." The problem is, in order to get a hold of one of the girls, you'll have to go through their body- guards, the Big Daddies, who kind of resemble the Incredible Hulk in an old-school diving suit. If you're able to dispatch these guys, which isn't easy, you'll have to decide whether to harvest or rescue them. Rescuing nets you less ADAM per girl, but you'll receive bonuses later in the game, along with the mental clarity that comes from not being a child killer. The game's ending will vary depending on what you decide to do with the girls. And EVE: The other half of "BioShock"'s cre- ation currency is EVE, which acts as injectable ammunition for plasmids. EVE, alongwith con- ventional ammunition and extra health, can be bought from vending machines with cash accu- mulated from robbed corpses and containers. These goods are overly pricey, and at no point will you feel comfortable with your bankroll. "Please don't shoot bees at me": While I was playing the game an observant onlooker remarked, "Wow, they actually run away when you shoot them." Novel, isn't it? Although your foes are pretty much limited to a few different types of zombie-like characters, they're actu- ally intelligent and averse to you trying to set them on fire. Even on the medium-difficulty setting, enemies will flee when threatened, It's a series of tubes: The one blemish on an otherwise stunning experience is the man- ner in which machines are hacked in the game. In order to get cheaper prices from vending machines or turn evil robots into good robots, you can hack them. Hacking involves rearrang- ing pieces of pipe to get liquid to flow from one place to another. It's an uninspired mini-game, more of a nuisance than anything else. Mutilated corpses have never looked this good: 'BioShock" looks incredible. Be it the textures of walls or the lighting on weapons, everything appears true to life. Most impres- sive, the game all but eliminates cut scenes by having almost every plot point occur around you while you remain in control of your char- acter. The near-elimination of cut scenes pro- vides for a more engrossing experience that could only be possible with the game's stellar graphics engine. Shooting your roommates is not permitted: OK hardcore "Halo" fans, brace yourselves: There is no multiplayer mode in "Biolhock." None. And you know what? It was a great move. Every shooter since N64's "GoldenEye 007" has included a multiplayer mode of some sort, and maybe three of them have been any good. Instead of tacking on a multiplayer mode, 2K devoted all its resources to pulling off a pol- ished single-player experience, and it did. Is it worth a 96 on Metacritic?: Yes. "Bio- Shock" is the highest rated next-gen videogame on any system, and amazingly its 96 is valid. "Halo 3" might be the most-anticipated game this year, but "BioShock" will probably go down as the best. 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