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Bioshock Previews Abound

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jun 08, '07 02:51 PM
from the darn-creep-and-underwater-to-boot dept.
The much-anticipated spiritual successor to System Shock 2, Irrational Games' Bioshock, is finally starting to emerge from the depths of secrecy. The 360/PC title is due on store shelves at the start of August, and a bunch of sites now have previews available for perusal. Eurogamer, CVG, IGN, Team Xbox, and Gamespot all had hands-on experience with the title recently and now can report back. From Gamespot's writeup: "As you investigate Rapture's sprawling, doomed infrastructure, its crumbling art deco facades, and leaky corridors, you'll uncover the secrets of what went wrong. Stepping out of the diving bell, you'll see signs of a struggle ... We'd barely set foot onto the first platform of the city proper before running into a splicer, which is one of BioShock's common enemies and one of Rapture's former residents. As Atlas will quickly fill you in, it seems that overuse of Adam turns the subject into a crazed monster that fiends for--what else--more Adam. Imagine a crazed junkie dying to get his hands on a fix; only this junkie can throw fireballs out of thin air and move large objects with his mind. And those are just the basic enemies." For a more visceral experience, 1up has a video preview of the game, which looks as creepy as it sounds.

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[+] Ken Levine On The Background of Bioshock 23 comments
GameSpy has up an interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games. While Levine has spoken previously about Bioshock's ideology, this piece discusses a number of the elements that went into creating the game. He touches again on objectivism, but expands on the title's connection to its spiritual predecessor System Shock 2 and the process of actual developing the game. "Sterling: Segueing away from storyline a little, what sorts of hardware limits did the team encounter from pre-production leading up to this point of near-completion? Ken Levine: As a credit to my programming team, honestly, I didn't hear much about them. There was some hesitation on the part of some of programming team in pushing a level of physical simulation in the world, in part because they knew how much work that was. To their credit, I'll say, not only did they do it, they knocked it out of the park, because I've never seen this level of simulation ever in a shooter."
[+] Live GTAIV Demo Dominates Take Two E3 Event 55 comments
The Take Two event was dominated by a live demonstration of Grand Theft Auto IV . Though little more than jacking a car and a bit of driving was shown, it seemed to make an impression on journalists at the event. Other titles shown at the conference include Civilization Revolutions, Bioshock, and All-Pro Football 2K8. From Joystiq's take on the GTA demo: "Two Rockstar devs take the stage. The music is a placeholder, so they ask that we not mention it. They've never shown a game to an audience this large before it's release. They remind us that it's a work in progress, so we'll be nice. Something tells us it will impress regardless. The titles shares all key players from earlier GTA games. This consistency should ensure that the title meets expectations. With GTAIV, they're looking to "create the defining next generation action adventure." They show Niko starting in Star Juntion (Times Square). This is not a rags to riches story, 'it's a rags to slightly better rags story.'"
[+] The Shock That Almost Wasn't 57 comments
According to a senior designer on the 2K Boston (formerly Irrational) game Bioshock a number of publishers turned them down when the company brought the title to their doorstep. "Ken (Levine) spent years pitching the game to publishers but no one was interested, incredible as that seems now. I joined Irrational in December 2004 and my first job was to get a publishing deal for the game (I worked as the Business Development Director for the first six months). I remember pitching the game to one publisher who later told a friend of mine that it was 'just another f-ing PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units." Just in case you didn't catch it over the weekend, there's a demo for the game up on Xbox Live. PC owners hold tight: a PC demo is coming, and hopefully before the game launches on the 21st.
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  • Can't wait

    (Score:1)
    by Wicko (977078) on Friday June 08, @03:09PM (#19442227)
    If this is anything like SS2, I will love it (although its sad I will never see a conclusion to the SS series). From the preview video's I've watched, it seems like there is no crosshair or anything. Which can be cool, but also a pain in the ass. Could be just the 360 version though, where auto-aim will most likely be enabled.
  • was looking good until...

    (Score:4, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08, @04:27PM (#19443639)
    "But ammo is incredibly scarce, and faced with hordes of rampaging Splicers, we frequently found ourself reduced to smacking the freaks across the skull with a wrench.

    You'll also have your genetic powers, of course, but again, these are strictly rationed and it's vital that you make every strike, every last bullet count, as you never know where the next ammo or Eve pick is going to be."

    great. so yet another game where i run around not using stuff thinking 'im REALLY gonna need it in a minute so i wont use it right now' and replaying sections over and over to get the ammo usage down. THAT IS NOT FUN, NOR IS IT A GOOD FIRST RUN THROUGH A GAME.

    on the 2nd run through you know where there will be some more stuff, but that kind of makes the 1st play a bit crud. Can't we have an intelligent replishment system, so that it gives you *enough* when needed, not just slotted in as fixed items on a map?

    I played through one FPS (cant remember which) and used 1 grenade the whole game, thinking "gonna need all of these in a minute" and didnt. got the end and felt cheated.

    sytuggling for ammo is a boring as running around a black room with a torch. walloping things with large metal objects is soo Half-Life 1.
  • Shodan wuz here

    (Score:1, Interesting)
    by SparkyFlooner (1090661) on Friday June 08, @04:58PM (#19444111)
    Shodan was one of the greatest game villians ever. (HAL9000 anyone?)

    I can't imagine a System Shock spiritual successor without a Shodan spiritual successor to be in it.
  • by Wicko (977078) on Friday June 08, @03:05PM (#19442153)
    Sometimes they do that to encompass another file.. but no idea about this particular example.
    [ Parent ]
  • by sholden (12227) on Friday June 08, @03:37PM (#19442821)
    (http://sam.holden.id.au/)
    It's so the drooling gamer who can't work out how to "save as..." can download the file instead of having it play in their browser.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:The 360/PC title?

    (Score:5, Informative)
    by revlayle (964221) on Friday June 08, @04:21PM (#19443549)
    Concurrent development, yes. Same interface no... there is a whole different team lead managing the PC interface for Bioshock. In fact, that man said the PC version of the game will be "harder" because of the ease of aiming compared to using a console controller. Also, the PC interface has more drag-and-drop type interface actions that cannot be done on the XBox360 very easily. Looks they somewhat understand the control and play difficulties of FPS-like games between consoles and PCs and are trying to address it. The core technology group and design of them game is the same, just mainly (from what *I* gathered) the interface teams are different (i'm sure as well: the teams that do PC QA and deployment for starters), from what I understand.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Re:Yay, ZIPed videos

    (Score:3, Insightful)
    by antdude (79039) on Friday June 08, @05:11PM (#19444311)
    (http://aqfl.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 09, @02:16AM)
    I think they do that so people don't download and watch in their Web browsers. That's annoying. If they zip it up, then it forces the browsers to download the files.
    [ Parent ]
  • by MaineCoon (12585) on Saturday June 09, @02:13AM (#19448615)
    (http://www.avpmud.com/)
    Command and Conquer 3. The PC interface and Xbox360 interface are entirely different.
    [ Parent ]
  • by Andrew Kismet (955764) on Sunday June 10, @05:36AM (#19456659)
    Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. The two games (PC/360) play roughly the same, but entire aspects are different; more team-control in the PC version, third-person view in the 360 version... each uses their interface appropriately while reusing exactly the same graphical, level, and 'core' assets.
    [ Parent ]
  • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.