For a long time, cut scenes were the principal way to advance the plot in a video game. & For some reason, game creators more or less took you out of the game and into a movie when they wanted to tell you what was going on. & Bioshock wasn't the first to use "discoverables" to tell the story -- an old letter, and audio recording, a newspaper -- but they certainly showed us all how much more powerful (and fun to play) a story could be when most of the story is advanced in the game itself. & And Bioshock inspired Cliff for the sequel to