There's a moment in BioShock Infinite's opening act that's always stuck with me. As you emerge onto the floating city of Columbia, the game takes you on a guided tour of the sights and sounds of this airbone civilization. As you saunter through the streets, you learn about its citizens and its creator, just sort of taking it all in. The sun is shining. You're surrounded by smiles. Before you know it, an airship rises above the clouds and perches next to a hugging couple, gently swaying in the summer breeze. Aboard the ship is a barbershop quartet, cheerfully harmonising the iconic Beach Boys tune God Only Knows. It's a memorable scene, and has become an integral part of the game's lasting iconography.
But for Tyler, Nick, Derek and Greg, this section was more than just a fun tease for the secret behind Columbia's unusual success. Self-confessed music school kids, the quartet inspired them to create their own musical group styled after Infinite's singing hairdressers. In 2023, BioShop Infinite celebrated their ninth year at PAX East, where they performed a wonderful collection of harmonised tunes to an absolutely packed community room - and we were there to film it.
]]>A long time ago (in 2013, in fact) in a student-y house far away (assuming that you don't live too near to Nottingham), I started playing the BioShock series. I'd flirted with the idea for years, but it was the release of BioShock Infinite that finally convinced me to take the plunge. And I can't exactly complain: the series' Rapture arc — made up of the first and second games, plus the prequel novel by none other than John "The Crow" Shirley — now makes up maybe 10% of my personality, having given me two of my favourite video games, my favourite video game tie-in book, and a front-running contender for my favourite video game locale all at once.
I just wish that, after all that prep I did for it, I'd actually liked BioShock Infinite a bit more.
]]>BioShock Remastered, BioShock 2 Remastered and BioShock Infinite have all fallen afoul of some questionably titled “quality of life” updates that publishers 2K Games released last week. These updates added a new 2K Launcher to all three BioShocks that appears when booting them up from Steam, but as found by GamingOnLinux, something about this launcher doesn’t take kindly to Linux-based operating systems. Linux-based operating systems like the Steam Deck’s SteamOS.
As it happens, then, there's a chance – if you’re trying to play on Valve’s handheld PC – that all these updates will do is swing a bloodied 9-iron into the Deck’s ability to launch the affected games at all. Whoopsie doodle.
]]>BioShock: The Collection is the latest freebie on the Epic Games Store. Grab it anytime between now and June 2nd and BioShocks 1, 2 and Infinite are free to keep forever, including all the add-ons such as Minerva's Den and Burial At Sea.
]]>A boy dancing around the streets of Paris waving a baguette over his head in BioShock Infinite holds a surprising amount of secrets and stories. Over the weekend, the former Irrational developer who placed the meme-ified Baguette Boy in Binfinite's Burial At Sea expansion explained why he's there. It's an interesting story about how weird game development it is, how weird games themselves are as technical objects, and about creativity within technical constraints.
]]>Ultrawide gaming monitors can seem excessive compared to regular 16:9 gaming screens, especially when their demanding resolutions often require powerful and expensive graphics cards to make the most of them. Once you try one, though, there's no going back. I've been a big fan of ultrawide gaming monitors for years now, as their extra screen space not only makes them great for juggling multiple desktop windows, but supported PC games also look uttery fantastic on them - and to prove it, I've put together this list of the best ultrawide games on PC.
]]>What is the true hallmark of a BioShock game? According to the press release about the new 2K-founded studio Cloud Chamber, wot is making a brand new BioShock, it's "iconic, first-person shooter gameplay". Before Binfinite came out, original series lead Ken Levine said in an interview that it's the "incredibly detailed world" each game lets you explore. Or maybe it's the PoLiTiCs? BioShock, famously, includes a pretty basic critique of the wet fart that is Objectivism, causing people either to argue it was a searing work of political genius, or be furious that it wasn't a work of searing political genius. Perhaps it's the settings? BioShock and BioShock 2 were set in an underwater city, and Infinite was set in a floating one. I can only assume the new one will just be about a normal city. But run on centrist principles. The most dystopian system of them all!
But of course, none of these things are really the hallmark of a BioShock game. What truly makes the series stand out is that you can shoot flying animals out of your hand, because of DNA. And I think we all know what that animal should be used as ammunition in the new BioShock.
]]>Pretty pop-philosophy FPS series BioShock is to return, 2K announced today, with a new game coming from a new studio. 2K don't reveal even the name of the new game, let alone in which sort of strange city it'll (surely?) be set, but it's official: BioShock is back, baby. 2K have muttered about resurrecting it several times in the years since the release of BioShock Infinite and demise of creators Irrational Games, and this time it seems to be real. The new BioShock is being made by Cloud Chamber, a new studio who'll be working on the game "for the next several years." Don't hold your breath. Unless you're underwater. In which case, do.
]]>Oh, to be a Mac owner. Not that we've got it great on PC - my rig's been bricking it since last week's Windows update, after all - but it's been a long time since a big OS update killed half of my game library. Desktop gaming always gets around to leaving a generation behind, though. 32-bit applications have been on the chopping block for a few years - and with this month's "Catalina" update, Apple are making the first move towards killing them off for good.
]]>Listen up, you’re drumming on my time now. What’s the tune? It’s the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show of course. This week we are talking about music in games, and what makes a good game soundtrack. The bleeps and bloops of Pac Man? Or the orchestral panache of Oblivion? A lot of people requested this topic, so we’ve also done something special – a music quiz! Can you guess the game based on a few seconds of music? Even if you can, I doubt you’ll score higher than Katharine, who it turns out is, uh, quite interested in videogame music.
]]>Kine is one of those titles that annoys me the moment I hear about it, because I deserve to be playing it right now but some team of artists is working really hard on it so they won't just give it to me. Give it to me, you crazy kids. I have been a good boy all year and I am delighted by what you have made. Please let me have it. Please.
]]>BioShock is ten years old! The first-person shooter set in the underwater city of Rapture was released on August 21, 2007 in North America (and on the 24th elsewhere), and I've been digging through RPS's archives for the things we wrote about the game upon its release.
]]>BioShock: The Collection [official site] on PC is good-lookin' but, it's fair to say, A Bit Dicky, pulling off the impressively bungled trick of both recreating some of BioShock's original issues and throwing a clutch of new ones into the mix too. Take yer pick from enforced mouse-smoothing, no 5.1 sound, messed-up 21:9 support, limited FOV, no graphics settings outside of antialiasing, anistropic filtering, resolution, vysnc and a clutch of crashes. Many of these, though not the crashes, can be resolved via ini file editing (a guide to that is here), but in this, the third consecutive Year Of Luigi, we should not be expected to dirty our hands so.
The good news is that 2K are planning to grab a five-iron and bludgeon most of the major problems into submission. The bad news is that it doesn't look like we can expect a full settings menu any time soon.
]]>Almost ten years after our first trip to Rapture, the BioShock trilogy has been re-released and (in some cases) remastered. The Collection [official site] looks lovely but it's far from perfect.
Today, we're looking back though - a lot has happened since the first game’s arrival, including the departure of director Ken Levine from the studio that made two of the three games, and a resurgence of the first-person immersive sim as a genre. Here, we consider all things Bioshock and decide, among other things, which of the games is actually the best.
]]>Almost ten years after we first daddied and kindlied and golfed, BioShock has today returned in an apparently fancy-panted remastered version, aka Bioshock: The Collection [official site]. Sadly it’s not in the best of shape, in terms of what we PC folk tend to demand from our settings menus and whatnot, but perhaps a more overriding question is but how does it look?
I shall show you, in thirty different ways. A few thoughts of my own just beneath the cut too.
]]>Bioshock: The Collection [official site] is out today (and free to owners of the originals), which from a PC point of view is most exciting because it gives a big old spit'n'polish to the first two games in the series (Infinite is unaffected on PC, being relatively contemporaneous as it is). Unfortunately it seems that BioShock 1 Remastered particularly has not been as well-loved on PC as it perhaps should have been. It has only the barest-boned of graphical settings, it's saddled with particularly nasty mouse-smoothing that can only be turned off via ini file hacking, and there are various minor screwy graphical boo-boos too. History is repeating itself: remember the FOV and DRM drama of 2007?
Details - and some fixes - below.
]]>Bioshock: The Collection [official site] is out next week, and as such you'll be able to play the first two Bioshock games and all of the single-player DLC in renewed detail. Bioshock Infinite is thrown in there for good measure, but it already looks so pretty on PC they're leaving it as is. 2K Games also plan to give the updated versions free to people who own the originals. How? What's the catch? I checked, and it turns out it is surprisingly painless. Read on!
]]>After years of waiting, No Man's Sky finally took off last week. For some, it soared above the clouds. For others, it crashed into a ditch and exploded. Our John had a rocky flight himself, saying that, while he was enjoying the journey, it was often infuriating. My own experience was one of disappointment. I didn't enjoy the focus on crafting, the endless menus, the lack of purpose to it all. But it was strange that I felt this let down. Then I went back and watched the early trailers and quickly realised that I was not playing the same game I had been shown.
]]>So I can't play the original BioShock because I can't deal with injections at all. I played Binfinite, though, and that was better, although I think some of the DLC is perhaps not my cup of tea in terms of icky moments. That's why I'm now watching the BioShock: The Collection Remastered [official site] trailer through my fingers, ready to cover my eyes at any moment should a needle make a sudden appearance:
]]>You might have noticed all your friends' avatars and profile pictures turning into comic book drawings or impressionistic paintings over the last few weeks. That's because of Prisma, a photo editing app for iOS and Android that let's you apply a couple of dozen filters to images you feed it. The app goes further than simply messing with the hue like Instagram does, using a process similar to Google Deep Dream to warp and twist photographs - without shoving fucked up dogs in every corner.
I spent last night feeding it game screenshots, to find out what No Man's Sky, Half-Life 2, SimCity and more would look like if their artists abandoned realism.
]]>"Day 4. I've looked everywhere, but I can't find anything to eat or a clue to get me off the ship. Just... more audiologs! They're everywhere! For some reason I keep listening to every minute of every one thinking there'll be some useful information but... they're just filler! Filler that's driving me to madness!" - South Park: The Stick Of Truth
It's hard to argue. They're kinda dumb. But I'm still fond of this stupid little trope.
]]>Rapture is still one of my favourite video game places, and I'm quite keen to return to it all fancied-up. Following a string of leaks, publishers 2K today announced BioShock: The Collection [official site]. It's coming our way in September with all three BioShock games and their singleplayer DLC plus a video series with words from sweet Ken Levine. Most notably, the first two are being revamped - though 2K say Binfinite is pretty enough already. It is quite pretty, that's true. Here, catch a few glimpses at the nice improved Rapture in this announcement trailer:
]]>BioShock: The Collection is the deeply uninspiring name for a bundle of all the previous BioShock games that for some reason 2K are still refusing to acknowledge. It's now been rated by bodies around the world, including the ESRB, and yet 2K still remain schtum. Which is weird. Anyway, it'll contain all three games, and in case you've forgotten, "Cutscenes also depict intense acts of violence," and the c-word makes appearances. All games should be announced by the ESRB! It'll potentially have had a little brush up and tidy, to look prettier on the young people's modern consoles, but that's not yet confirmed. Right, I've somehow included all the news about this above the jump, so join me for some fascinating sea-life facts below. BioShock is set in the sea, and that's my excuse.
]]>And now on Vague, Possibly-Nothing News Hour, it's the apparent leak of something called The BioShock Collection, which appears to comprise BioShock 1, BioShock 2 and BioShock: Infinite Art Budget. Which isn't super-interesting in itself, given we've all been able to pick up said bundle or the components thereof for absurdly low prices in various Steam sales. What is twisting my Plasmids, man, is that the leak claims this pack is coming out for Xbone and PS4 in addition to PC. Which might meant that we're in for a - oh lord, save me from the buzzwords - next-gen spit'n'polish of the series.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
It's not all we hoped it would be, but I liked BioShock Infinite [official site]. Am I wrong?
]]>Expansion packs were once a core part of playing PC games, but they can often feel less essential in a world of constant updates and microtransactions. Original game Alec, expansions Adam and Graham, and brief DLC Alice gathered to discuss their favourite game expansions and why they still think the model works.
]]>A few months ago I published up my impressions of an early build of The Flame in the Flood [official site], a sort of roguelike/white water rafting mash-up set in the backwaters of a drowned but contemporary America, and made by ex-Irrational, Harmonix, and Bungie devs. Which was jolly stupid of me, given the only other people who could play it at that point where those who'd backed its Kickstarter. Fortunately, it's now on Steam Early Access, which means you can buy it, which means I positively demand that you read my earlier article on it first.
]]>Ken Levine has moved onto other projects, and Irrational essentially no longer exists, but publishers 2K have declared that the BioShock series will continue nonetheless. Good, I'm glad: the games so far have had downs as well as ups to say the least, but they have, to a one, attempted to do things that other big-budget shooters do not. It'd be a terrible shame if that was lost and the floor ceded to yet more military-inspired prepostero-realism. I'm also fascinated to see what a BioShock game that wasn't led by someone who has, for better or worse, become something of a figurehead for game stories and high concepts would look like. Would they become more free to explore their own worlds, less hampered by the need to meet expectations of Big Ideas and Ultimate Answers?
There are things I'd like the next game to try. There are things I desperately pray it doesn't do. These are just a few of each. Would you kindly take a look? (Contains some spoilers for BioShock 1 & Infinite).
]]>Sometime BioShock boss Ken Levine has opened the first tears to his new development dimension. He effectively closed his long-time studio Irrational last year in favour of working on smaller-scale projects, but still within the protective fortress of 2K. At the time he talked about making narrative-led games with more replayability, and while last night's sudden flurry of updates is nothing like a reveal, he has a least given out a few big hints, together with a pledge for more open development than was the case on the spoiler-vulnerable BioShocks. What he's got planned is a open worldish ("but not necessarily outdoors") RPG, sci-fi, PC, probably first-person, chapter-like structure, brand new setting, add "ins" rather than add-ons, and a Passion System. Missus.
]]>A game going gold isn't particularly big news in this age of early access, unless you're someone who worked on it, or you're one of those not-at-all-fatiguing people who just have to start singing Spandau Ballet whenever a certain precious metal is mentioned, but I keep meaning to say something about Evolve. Here's an excuse to: Evolve, the 4v1 team shooter from original Left 4 Dead creators Turtle Rock, is gold. I'm not exactly a frequent flier to multiplayer land, but brief dabbling with Evolve's alpha late last year got me all excited.
]]>While at a procedural generation shindig for ProcJam, roguelike developer Darren Grey answered a question about games which have characters who interact with one another and not the player. A member of the audience suggested Din's Curse and Depths of Peril.
"I don't know how interesting that is - having things interacting with each other - especially if they're out of your sight. What does it matter? A game should be player-centred in my opinion. I'm not interested in what goes on behind – simulate it. make it up, it doesn't matter. As long as the player feels like they're getting an interesting experience."
]]>OK, normally "human being accepts new job at large company" isn't our sort of news, unless it's a really big name. The creative lead on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed perhaps doesn't make it onto any auteur lists (though he has worked on enough other Star Wars games to fill a few Sandcrawlers), but Haden Blackman fetching up at 2K is fascinating because... well, what's going on at 2K? Where are the big games going to come from in a post-Irrational (as-was) world? Well, perhaps from Hangar 13, a new 2K internal studio whose stated intention is "delivering mature experiences loaded with meaningful choices." Reading between the lines: 2K wants its next BioShock.
]]>The contemporary big-budget FPS has a few different strains: blood-n-guts military settings a la Call of Duty, open-world environments like Far Cry, and high-concept dystopias. Outside of open-world most of these styles were first codified in the 1990s, and FPS games then and now share an enormous amount: primarily a core mechanic of shooting many hundreds of enemies in the face over and over again, as well as crossover in areas like structure, goal-chaining, and narrative delivery. FPS games, in other words, have for a long time been constructed on resilient and proven principles. And many of them come from Looking Glass Studios.
]]>Rarely do I effusively recommend a bundle made up entirely of games I already own, but it's kinda hard to argue with every BioShock, Spec Ops: The Line, Mafia II, The Darkness II, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, among others. The Humble 2K Bundle does come with a slight catch (a flat rate of $20 if you want a couple of the more recent games), but even then it's a formidable deal. Unfortunately, this will technically count as purchasing The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, but don't worry: I won't tell anyone.
]]>Which would win in a fight: System Shock 2 or BioShock Infinite? Oh these petty arguments and spewings of bile come round every so often thanks to the weird compulsion to rank and rate everything in the gameosphere. Let's be lovers, not fighters. What would happen if System Shock 2 and Binfinite loved each other very much and wanted to share that love with the world? That's a better question. And it has an answer: System Shock Infinite.
The SS2 mod continues the game's story in a very Binfinite-y way, dabbling in time loops and reality tears, and even joins you with Marie Delacroix as a companion of sorts.
]]>With Irrational 20,000 leagues under and Ken Levine off doing his own, significantly smaller thing at 2K, you might think BioShock dead in the water. You would, however, be wrong. Following on from Levine's original comment that he was leaving the series in 2K's hands, Take-Two Big Daddy Strauss Zelnick has confirmed at a recent analyst conference that the oft-divisive series will carry on and once-thought-dead BioShock 2 developer 2K Marin will do the honors.
]]>Sanitarium-inspired space-horror adventure game STASIS impressed me even before it had any money in the bank, but based on its most recent videos it appears to be spending its Kickstarter funbucks wisely. Specifically, on making its haunting environments all the more detailed, animated, lavish and sinister. More ichor, too. More ichor always helps in any game. Yes, even the My Little Pony ones. Don't try to tell me I'm wrong.
]]>BioShock Infinite's DLC, BioShock Infinite and BioShock 1 concludes with this second, longer, stealthier half of last November's return to Rapture. It's out now.
You'll hear no politics from me, though by God it's tempting to correlate Burial At Sea Part 2's status as a swansong for two BioShock universes with the recent, shock closure of Irrational. Whatever else there is to both tales, at least this concluding DLC for BioShock Infinite reverses the sense of decline we've seen since the original BioShock. Despite a multitude of sins it does leapfrog both Infinite and its own, irritatingly slight if visually flabbergasting Part 1. It also includes the single most unpleasant - and frankly needless with it - moment I've ever experienced in a videogame.
]]>Irrational has (mostly) sunk beneath the gaming industry's ever-turbulent waves, but its spirit lives on. And by that, I mean the rather tumultuous work environment gave birth to one last piece of DLC before massive (and by many accounts, inevitable) layoffs struck. BioShock Infinite: Burial At Sea Episode One was a mixed bag, but Episode Two has a shot at going out on a high note. There are plenty of solid ingredients in place: we're back in Rapture, we get to play as Elizabeth, and apparently we can entirely avoid killing anyone if we want to. 1998 mode is a bonus option with a heavy emphasis on stealth, and if some referential fake box art is to be believed, it's rather heavily influenced by the original Thief.
]]>In a post on the Irrational Games website titled "A Message From Ken Levine", the BioShock creator announced that he's "winding down" Irrational Games. What does that mean? All but a core team of fifteen developers are being laid off, so that the remaining few can focus on new ideas, "a long period of design", and the idea of "replayable narrative".
This is a surprise.
]]>The first part of Burial At Sea, BioShock Infinite's Rapture-bound DLC, met a mixed reception. Alec loved its pre-fall beauty and felt frustrated by its inevitable, violent turn and quick end. Which I suppose means there's plenty of reason to feel excited by the arrival of part two.
Irrational want to whet your appetite for wetness with a three-minute video, but be warned: it assumes you've played part one and will heavily imply spoilers if you haven't.
]]>BioShock could have made a wonderful movie. But realistically it would never been a wonderful movie, even if plans for a Gore Verbinski-helmed adaptation of the Irrational's opus hadn't been abandoned. It could only have been an overload of CGI that sacrificed depth and tone for a visual onslaught. I'm sure of that, and I'm glad the movie didn't happen. But the real reason it didn't is that backers Universal were spooked by the commercial limpness of the Watchmen adaptation, taking it as a sign that there wasn't enough of an audience for an R-rated sci-fi movie at the kind of budget Verbsinki demanded; he then wouldn't agree to a much a lower one. A later attempt at a cheaper movie by 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was nixed by Ken Levine, who told Eurogamer that "I didn't really see the match there."
The movie did at least make it to concept art stage, a few examples of which have recently emerged, and depict new areas of Rapture planned for the big screen.
]]>Please note that while this piece contains no overt plot spoilers for any BioShock game, it does feature some allusions to their major events and does presume at least some familiarity with them.
"The problem with utopia is it's still full of people." A fair sentiment indeed, but is it truly spoken by a dispossessed citizen of the fast-failing undersea brains trust that is Rapture, or is it a BioShock Infinite developer lamenting that they need to somehow insert humanity into their singularly lavish shooty-bang game?
It is wonderful to be back beyond the sea, but things are different now.
]]>Oh look, here's a release date for the first BioShock Infinite story DLC, Burial At Sea. This, you may recall, recasts Infinite's protagonists Booker and Elizabeth in the undersea social experiment that is Rapture, and thus entails both a brand new story beneath the waves and a chance to catch up with old chums such as Big Daddy and his syringe-loving chums. Irrational have been coy about exactly when it's due out, until about five minutes ago when they brazenly proclaimed it would be on November 12. That's around one Earth fortnight, or 17 Venusian aafgf-ghhhrnights.
]]>Bioshock has that one part, the stunning moment that locks the game in the memory forever. I'm talking, of course, about the opening plane crash and the first view of the lighthouse. The descent into Rapture, like the ascent into Columbia, employed tidy, efficient techniques to build a world that was eerie, allusive and oddly attractive. Alec wrote an entire post about that first sight of Rapture. The opening five minutes of Burial At Sea, Bioshock Infinite's narrative DLC, contain a different side of Rapture, as Booker and Elizabeth walk the corridors before the Fall. Spoilers abound, obviously, with the plot's initial direction outlined as the two take in some familiar sights.
]]>The Modern Day Icarus videos that heralded the arrival of Bioshock Infinite were thoroughly enjoyable as far as marketing nonsense goes. Faux documentaries that showed glimpses of the city in the sky, its populace and artefacts, they were entertainingly odd and managed to win my approval despite showing nary a glimpse of the game itself. As the Burial At Sea DLC approaches - and with it a return to Rapture - 2K have released a new video, in the same style, examining the Modern Day Atlantis. It's not quite as effective, mainly because I expected more than the sort of annoyance I greet Jehova's Witnesses with when the narrator gravely intoned, "That's when this happened".
]]>So, as guessed by people paying attention to Ken Levine last night, there's to be BioShock: Infinite DLC. What a surprise. What's more of a surprise is that one bit is out today. That is Clash In The Clouds, and is a bunch of challenges. Below you've got a trailer for that, and a teaser for something called Burial At Sea, which will be a new campaign set in Rapture!
]]>He might not have quite the profile of a Levine or Smith, but as a lead designer on Thief 3, particularly of The Cradle level, not to mention the similarly nerve-torturing Fort Frolic map in BioShock, Jordan Thomas is a name just as worth knowing. While being granted more overreaching control of a project resulted in 2K Marin's smart, improved but too safe sequel BioShock 2, followed by a disappearance into the black hole which eventually morphed into The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Thomas also took on some creative duties late in BioShock Infinite's development. Now he's moving away from franchises into creator-controlled, independent territory, and I am not-entirely-quietly confident that this will mean great things.
]]>For the first time in ages, Deus Ex director Warren Spector is unemployed. The man who created what's regarded by many as the greatest game of all time isn't cracking any whips, cooking up cyber conspiracies, or teaching cartoon mice to sing. Instead, he's taking some time to both teach and learn, which is what brought him to UC Santa Cruz's recent Interactive Storytelling Symposium. There, he echoed the refrain that's recently become his calling card: take games to new, interesting places, and don't just lean on crutches from film, TV, and the like to do it. It was a call to action - a plea for tomorrow's burgeoning brains to break outside the box and then burn the remains. Do not, however, mistake that for an admission of inaction on Spector's part. Unemployed or not, his gears are churning again, and he's starting to think about his next big move. After his session, Spector and I discussed why he can't simply make another Deus-Ex-esque game, why he really wants to put a “no weapons restriction" on his next project, Kickstarter's popularity among his pioneering peers, Epic Mickey in retrospect, and more.
]]>Heavy Spoilers, obv.
]]>The following theory is not true, but it could be. It's surely no accident that BioShock Infinite often evokes The Wizard of Oz - there's even an early stage of the game named after it. Even so, the similarities, be they deliberate or coincidental, run deeper than a turn-of-the-century character being mysteriously transported to an amazing world of technology and magic. Once I started down the yellow brick road of looking for parallels between Dorothy's adventure in Oz and Booker's adventure in Columbia, I couldn't stop - I identified what seemed to be dozens of them. Am I onto something, or am I projecting? It doesn't matter - this is purely a thought experiment, not a claim to accuracy, and I'm entirely sure you could achieve a similar effect by comparing Binfinite to Star Wars or the Bible or Peppa Pig. I'm doing this for fun. Mostly.
Also, SPOILERS UNBOUND. Do not read past this point if you haven't completed the game. (Or if you somehow haven't seen/read The Wizard of Oz). If you have, fire up Dark Side of the Moon and let's go off to see the wizard.
]]>Hello. I am not at GDC, but I am at my desk with my lips on the RPS post horn, and I'm prepared to blow. My first honk on the Grand Parper of Postage today concerns my first few moments in BioShock Infinite. All those intro videos, that squeezed FOV, and an overly sensitive mouse . I'm used to having to drop out of games so I can go INI file wrestling, and Levine's latest is no exception. I've been forum lurking and come up with a few fixes for the most common issues.
]]>4500 words, and I still feel I didn't get anywhere near close to covering everthing I wanted to about BioShock: Infinite - that I made lengthy generalisations but not enough specification of the smaller, or at least subtler, details and events of a game which consistently barrages the player with imagery and ideas. Here are a few I missed, just to get them off my chest. Could maybe, possibly be said to contain some minor spoilers, depending on how absolute you are about these sorts of things.
]]>BioShock: Infinite is a new first-person shooter from Irrational, creators of BioShock, System Shock 2 and SWAT 4. It's set on a flying city in 1912, where racism and religious fundamentalism dictate society. You're up there, wielding guns and magic, to bring someone the girl and wipe away the debt. Here's what I thought, spoiler-free.
]]>After years of speculation, I've finally figured out what the 'Infinite' stands for in the new BioShock's title. It's the number of trailers that they're going to release before the game comes out. The closer we'll get, the sheer mass of the trailers they've made will start warping time. We'll slow down the closer we get to the March 26th, and time will stretch on and on. We'll never escape the trailer singularity, and the closer we the less chance we'll have of playing. So I have another trailer for you, because I passed the event horizon a long time ago.
]]>As we all know full well and is entirely obvious, BioShock: Elizabeth is a straightforward damsel in distress with a pretty face and a nice dress, and there's nothing more to her than that. There definitely isn't anything surprising or sinister about her: she will be rescued by the big man with the big gun, the mean nasty boss will fall to his doom and everyone will live happily ever after.
Or maybe there's some massive twist at the heart of the game and she's not what she seems to be at all? Nah.
]]>The investigative documentary style of Bioshock: Infinite's Modern Day Icarus videos tickles my pleasure-nodes. The earlier reveals of the clockwork catastrophes and mechanical malignancies that roam Columbia are failures of imagination in contrast, and anyone fortunate enough to have instigated some form of media blackout regarding the game last year would be well-advised to continue that policy, with a glimmering exception for these informative and menacing reels. The first covers the vanishing of the city and the second, below, contains dark children's rhymes and the sinister Songbird.
]]>Matters are rather different for the third BioShock game than they were for the first. While Irrational's original had to grab attention from a machinegun-crazed mass audience, their next one comes with built-in renown, potentially affording the studio more opportunity and freedom to indulge themselves in other aspects of the game. Where BioShock's undersea city of Rapture was, in hindsight, much more of a concept than a functioning place, BioShock Infinite's floating metropolis Columbia seems to be striving harder to have an explicable and finely-sketched society.
Reflecting this is newly-released ebook novella Mind In Revolt, by Irrational's Joe Fielder with assistance from Ken Levine, which could technically be described as a prequel but seems more designed to flesh out the social pressures bubbling under Columbia's utopian surface in the way that the rollercoaster ride of an action videogame might not.
]]>As if we hadn't already heard enough from the man who steers the Irrational Zeppelin through developmental waters, Jim also had a long chat with Ken Levine, the creator of Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite. Read on for thoughts that span the sadness of cholera, the mystery of condiments, the joy of turn-based historical war, and some stuff about a game set in a flying city.
I've marked out some mild spoilers towards the end of the piece. These are non-specific discussions of the plot themes, but you can decide whether to skip.
]]>Trailers are like dreams. You can't really touch them or play with them in a way that is actually of any use, but they happen anyway, and when they're over you're left with a lingering feeling that they were trying to tell you something. I don't know why I dreamed about eating marshmallows that morning when my pillows had disappeared, but I do know that Irrational want us to take note of what they're trying to build with their setting for Bioshock Infinite: Columbia, a miraculous flying city at the turn of the 19th century. Here be philosophy and politics, there mechanical monsters and stuff on fire. There's really no precarious uncertainty here, what they are trying to tell is that the expectations for this game should be sky high, and when giant metal ravens come for you, it's time to find ammunition for the rocket launcher. Facts, you see, are super-true.
Bioshock Infinite will fall to Earth on March 26th.
]]>I've seen enough of Bioshock: Infinite for now. The next time I see Columbia, I want to be playing the game rather than watching somebody else falling out of the sky or presenting fast-cuts of footage. The latest video doesn't show the game at all and, remarkably, that isn't a problem. Presented as a fragment of documentary footage, a teaser for a fictional element of Infinite's universe as well as for Infinite itself, the Truth From Legend video is as effective a piece of marketing as I've seen for a good while. Creepy, convincingly dated and mysterious, it's an invitation to another world. More of this and less of that and that please, thank you.
]]>"This is like your nightmare interview here, huh?"
Nah. This might not be going too well, but I've had worse. Much worse. (The most terrible was probably with an executive at one of the industry's biggest PC game developers a couple of years back, where I had the distinct impression I was interviewing a robot who'd much rather murder me than talk to me).
This half hour with the lead designer of BioShock: Infinite would definitely win a place in my Top 40 Botched Interviews, but it's not up there in shotgun-to-the-head territory yet. The mutual acknowledgement that it's been a misfire does wonders too. Eventually.
]]>Some interviews with prominent figures, as in Polygon's widely-circulated one with BioShock: Infinite lead designer Ken Levine, are held on top of skyscraping Californian hotels. While it's not something I've experienced myself, I can entirely appreciate why this often leads their eventual write-ups to be somewhat defined by awe, be it overt or subtle: a famous figure is encountered in a dramatic setting, the trappings of aspirational luxury around them. Thus, they are inevitably presupposed to be superhumans of a sort, with achievements and a lifestyle far beyond those of mere mortals such as the humble interviewer. This is the tale. Notoriously, this week also saw the outermost extreme of this, in Esquire's absurd interview with/clearly lovelorn ode to the attractive but otherwise apparently unexceptional actor Megan Fox.
I can't ever imagine going as far as Esquire, and I'd hope someone would throw me into the nearest sea if I did, but I do understand why it can happen. The scene is set in such a way that the interviewer is encountering, if not a god, then at least royalty. Even on a more moderate level, I have never conducted an interview in a Californian luxury hotel's roofgarden, and my own interview with Ken Levine last month was no different, but I am nonetheless left thinking about the narrative created in that half hour. What tale could I now tell from just a talk with a guy in a room? Initially, I thought it impossible, or at least redundant, to spin a story out of a short, slightly awkward conversation in a dark little room somewhere in London: this is why Q&As are the standard interview format here. Let's try, though. I want to tell you about what happened in that interview, and how it felt to me, as well as sharing Ken Levine's comments about BioShock: Infinite's characters, pacing and mysteries with you.
]]>After reading Alec's impressions of BioShock's star-spangled salvo against American exceptionalism, I got quite excited. So of course, I proceeded to do what any rational, well-adjusted human being would: list off all the potential ways it could go horribly, horribly wrong. Nefarious hacker code theft, of course, was up there, as were natural disasters, a scenario in which total destruction of Infinite was the only way to disarm a city-obliterating bomb, and the very real possibility that Ken Levine replaced all the audio diaries with recordings of himself taunting us about how there's never going to be another Freedom Force. Or, you know, it could just straight up not work. But that last one, at least, seems significantly further outside the realm of possibility than the others, as Irrational's suggested that BioShock Infinite's PC version will actually work quite well.
]]>I've talked a lot about the setting of BioShock: Infinite, but let's not lose sight of what the game really exists for. To (Booker De)whit, shooting people in the face and magicking them to death. (Actually I'm also going to talk a whole lot more about the setting too, because I can).
The combat aspect of the game is broadly in keeping with BioShocks 1 and 2, though amped up noticeably, while the environments feel significantly more open and the bulk of your enemies are straight-up police and soldiers rather than the creepy, scuttling Splicers. It does perhaps feel a less distinct combat experience than its predecessors despite the dramatic, often open-air backdrops, which is partly because shooting soldiers is such a familiar 21st century videogaming experience and partly because the weapons available in those fourish hours I had generally cleaved a little closer to a traditional videogame arsenal, even though they were in theory from an alt-universe 1912.
]]>Do you want to see the first five minutes of BioShock: Infinite? I don't. I want to play them at the time! However, should you be of a more curious mind, or simply incapable of waiting now you know it exists, desperately trying to, but horribly aware that like the beginnings of a sneeze it's inevitable that you're going to have to press play eventually, you can watch them in the video below.
]]>Earlier this week, I played around four hours of BioShock: Infinite, which is due for release next March. While this was at a publisher-held event (disclaimer - I ate some free salt and vinegar flavoured Hula Hoops and a small bowl of Moroccan tagine. Alas, I hate aubergine) and I was part of a gaggle of journalists, I was not guided or observed during my playthrough, so I approached it at my own leisure and pack-rat pace.
It has given me much to think upon, a few examples of which I shall share with you below. I will avoid all spoilers as regards to the events of the plot, but please be advised that I do talk in detail about the setting, its population and its backstory as presented by these initial hours of the game.
]]>We've seen sad news that the next Bioshock will NO LONGER BE RELEASED ON MY BIRTHDAY GODDAMNIT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD AM I BEING PUNISHED FOR SOMETHING I AM NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE ANYTHING NICE IT'S SO UNFAIR I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU and we've seen Uncle Ken chatting about the game, but what we haven't seen for a while is a big chunk of in-Infinite footage. I'm off to play the game tomorrow and will report back with findings shortly thereafter, but in the meantime the noisy death of popular culture that was the VGAs brought some new stuff for us all to look at with our human eyeballs.
The VGAs being the VGAs, it's primarily shooting-men-in-the-face centric, but it does afford a good look at enemies, weapons and powers, as well as just what Elizabeth gets up to while the player's busy attacking people will bullets, rockets and crows.
]]>There's a lot you can do in a month. You can write a novel, you can fill in one 12th of your calendar, you can take ride around the Earth once while on the moon. It depends on the month, though. For example, from February 25th to March 25th 2013 you'll be unable to play BioShock Infinite. It was due out on the 26th of February, but Irrational are taking an extra month to 'polish' it. At least they chose February. If they delayed it for a month at any other time of the year, it would have taken longer to complete it. Thank you, February. You're the best month.
]]>The Dishonored pre-order 'incentives' incited my blood to boil by appearing to chop parts of the game off and deliver them piecemeal, but when I played the game I was so content that my blood remained at a comfortable, non-volatile temperature throughout. I don't think any of the preposterous packages can have done very much at all. Bioshock: Infinite is now offering a means to earn in-game rewards before its February release and I expect and hope that they will turn out to be similarly unnecessary. While it's essential to pre-order to begin the process of unlocking bonuses for a game that isn't out for almost half a year, there is a nifty puzzle game tied to the promotion. Industrial Revolution is available now to anyone with a pre-order.
]]>Bioshock Infinite has seen a few high-profile members of the team leave of late, but that doesn't seem to have caused it to waver from its February 26th release date. The latest trailer shows off happenings of light and fury, with lots of combat. The skyline, Elizabeth, and the Handyman baddy feature heavily. If the original Bioshock was a colourful and visually offbeat shooter, then we'll need to dust off rarely used 19th-century adjectives for this one. Go take a look.
]]>Let's do this, okay: When a new game first announces a release date, let's just go ahead and ignore it. Wasn't it Einstein who said the very definition of insanity was filling a balloon with kittens and then severing off your own leg? So it is that BioShock: Infinite has declared it won't be with us this year at all. They're now looking at February next year.
]]>I'd hate to have supernatural powers. What if there's a supernatural equivalent of a sneeze? You're driving along in your Crueltymobile, or whatever it is evil people do when they're not battling others, then: "Ahhh-Ahhh-AHHHH-CHOO" and all of a sudden every kitten in three blocks is now a giant, man-eating snarg. No, I'd rather remain mundane and in control of my surroundings, lest I suddenly develop hay fever. I'll bet the Siren, the final Heavy Hitter in BioShock Infinite's series of boss reveals, can't go anywhere near a graveyard, in case she burps and an army of undead are suddenly awoken and grumpy. The floating, ethereal, shrieking monster can raise the dead to fight Booker.
EDIT: The video of the Siren in action is now in the post.
]]>The Boys of Silence sound like an incredible New Romantic band so I was slightly disappointed to find that they're actually blind men with two gramophones soldered onto their heads. If ever a game needed less mechaniman monstrosities and more synth pop, Bioshock: Infinite is that game. With these cantankerous "walking cameras" that emit the shriek of a thousand sirens and Mr Tickle's dangerous yet sorrowful offspring it's a world full of ruined metal men. What do they do for fun? Brief footage of a Boy of Silence below, along with Mr Levine and others enthusing about the concept.
]]>Levine describes this latest "heavy hitter" character as "sort of a tragic figure." The video goes some way to explaining why: a heavily-scarred gentleman trapped in a giant, ape-like robotic suit, at the centre of which is what appears to be a heart in a glass case. Threatening, indeed, but you really wouldn't want to share his fate. There's a bit of footage, and even a few glimpses of concept art for what the handyman could have been in other, hideous incarnations.
]]>BioShock Infinite is by far the game I'm most excited about this year. I'm torn between wanting to know everything, and wanting it to be a surprise, but that plan was somewhat undermined by being sent to New York to cover the reveal of the game. My attempts to wipe it from my brain by drinking lots of vodka and dancing with Kieron (we linked arms and kicked legs) around a restaurant failed. Instead I'm burdened with The Knowledge, and an insatiable desire to know more. Last night's reveal of the Motorised Patriot, part a new class of enemy called Heavy Hitter, I added to my Levine Shrine. He talked to G4 of how the Patriot is a fearless killing machine, and how the Heavy Hitters "... are enemies that are used to not just be more powerful, but to augment the abilities of the more traditional BioShock enemies. You’re going to come across them in certain areas of the game, and they’re going to provide a really unique challenge." Everything we know about the floating World's Fair, including footage of the patriot in action, is below.
]]>In the RPS "When is BioShock Infinite Out?" sweepstakes, Jim Chose Oct 17th, John Oct 18th, Alec Oct 20th, Adam Oct 21st, and I swung in with September 19th 7019. It turns out none of us have particularly well-defined psychic powers, and I was WAY off: mark October 19th down on your calendar as "National BioShock Infinite release day". That sweet trailer from December is below, to soothe your beating hearts.
]]>Yesterday, we brought you Ken Levine's explanation of BioShock: Infinite's 1999 mode. The response was, perhaps inevitably, divided. Here's the second part of my chat with him, in which he anticipates that, as well as addressing the fact he can only offer a biased opinion of his game, the problem with out of context headlines, tennis in BioShock, why SWAT 4 would have been a very different game under his stewardship and, yes, why "if you're a reader on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, you are sophisticated enough to not listen to what Ken Levine says."
]]>Late last week, Irrational announced 1999 mode for BioShock: Infinite - an attempt to recapture the sense of binding decisions, permanent consequences and hard-as-nails challenge that we perhaps associate with a lost era of gaming. In this first of a two-part interview, I nattered to avuncular Irrational bossman Ken Levine about why they came up with 1999 Mode, what it entails, why it's a very different prospect to simply a 'hard' difficulty setting, why he doesn't want non-hardcore gamers playing that mode, and whether or not it's a reaction to disappointment about BioShock from System Shock fans.
]]>Irrational Games have just announced a new play mode that will be appearing in BioShock Infinite. Called 1999 Mode, it's aimed at appealing to those who think games have become too easy. Ken Levine explains, "We want to give our oldest and most committed fans an option to go back to our roots," adding that 1999 Mode means that you'll face more permanent consequences from their choices you make, and force you to stick with the specialisations you choose.
]]>Straight from the Gears of War / Mad World school of ironic juxtaposition-based maudlin marketing, this new vidotrail for BioShock: Infinite features EXPLOSIVE ACTION set against someone singing unhappily. It's quite affecting, I'll give it that, but I think we'll need someone to do the excruciatingly dedicated frame-by-frame analysis thing to identify exactly what new stuff we're seeing.
]]>Do you enjoy conversation between passionate individuals? If so, the recent Irrational Interview featuring Ken Levine and Guillermo Del Toro is a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an hour of your day. The Mexican author/director is working on a horror game and the first part of this audio was posted on Halloween so I expected a focus on spooky happenings but the conversation is much more wide-ranging. There is some discussion of monsters but mostly it's two men discussing the joy of the creative process, as well as the frustrations that can arise in the film and game industries.
Del Toro is frank as ever, at one point describing working on projects with no personal interest as like trying to "fuck without a boner". He does swear a lot. Ken slowly warms to the idea of this navvy-like behavior and by the end they're both at it. Two parts. Downloads here and here.
]]>When a Bioshock Infinite video arrives in my lap, which is how I demand delivery of all gaming news, I do not expect it to feature actual human beings speaking at me. Ziplines and plummeting are gravely missing from this video. Although it does contain game footage, it's mainly Ken Levine talking about the world he's creating, which he sees as but one of the game's main characters.
There's a focus on actual people characters, with the voice actors behind Booker and Elizabeth also featured, breaking the rule that they, being the opposite of Victorian infants, should be heard and not seen. Now, in my mind's eye, Booker Dewitt will always look like Troy Baker, whose name should immediately be attached to Syndicate's antagonist.
]]>There will inevitably be an English language version of this video available four seconds after I post this, but I feel compelled to make everyone watch it right now. It’s a short BioShock: Infinite trailer from TGS and I find it hugely exciting. There’s some nattering at the beginning, in Japanese, but once that’s done with it’s all action in the universal language of “my word, this is rather thrilling”. It does show some sequences that those wanting to go in completely fresh may not want spoiling, although it’s enemy types rather than plot. Then again, for all I know, the dialogue at the beginning may give away a huge plot twist. It’s unlikely though, isn’t it? Still, if Japanese is something you understand, certainly don’t go telling the rest of us if Elizabeth reveals she’s a sledge.
]]>That's a fourteen minute look at what's going on in the flying city of Columbia, via GameTrailers. If yesterday's huge interview with Mr Levine was anything to go by, this is worth paying attention to. The "tears" stuff - where things are dragged through from another reality - are shown off here, and they're quite the thing. There's so much in here: combat, airships, the skylines, crazy contraptions, decisions being made in an almost-RPG style, and lots more Elizabeth.
Frankly it looks insane and fascinating, and leaps forward Bioshock. The buildings bobbing up and down is quite a disconcerting thing, though. Hmm.
]]>Since abandoning sitting in my underpants writing games journalism for the glittering world of sitting in my glittery underpants writing comics, it takes a lot to get me out of bed. That said, it always took a lot to get me out of bed. I'm lazy. However, a chance to chat to Irrational's creative director Ken Levine about all things Bioshock Infinite counts as something that'll have me tearing the duvet asunder. So when I was asked to do it, I – er – did it.
]]>Irrational Games have posted the first two minutes of the Bioshock Infinite E3 presentation. The footage is introduced by the lovely Ken Levine and covers a brief rummage through an old curiosity shop chock full of adventuresome period banter between Booker and Elizabeth and also features some remarkably creepy sound design. Comrade Dan Griliopoulos previously reported on the demo which you can rejigger in your mind-memory right here. Impressive-sounding stuff, and you can watch his words spring to life below! Seems like too much of a coincidence. My new theory? Maybe he's a god. He's got the chin.
]]>Those of us who didn't spend the best part of a week legging it around a giant convention centre earlier this month could only swoon at the resulting tall tales of BioShock: Infinite's newly-announced reality-rift feature, known as Tears. Now we get our own crack in space-time to peer through, as Ken Levine talks about (and demonstrates) companion character Elizabeth's ability to introduce elements from other realities into the player's game-world.
]]>The upcoming third BioShock game intends to fix an oft-made criticism of the Rapture-set original games, according to Timothy Gerritsen, Director of Development at Irrational Games.
The Executive Producer on Bioshock Infinite admitted to RPS in an interview published today that, in the first Bioshock, "we failed in giving you a sense of that city underwater."
]]>Agent Dan stalked the halls of E3 until he caught up with Timothy Gerritsen, Director of Development at Irrational Games and Executive Producer on Bioshock Infinite. They then talked Heisenberg, Bader-Meinhoff, pulp fiction, psychoses... and sometimes even Bioshock.
]]>We sent Dan Griliopoulos to take a look at BioShock: Infinite. It might have broken him. That's the explanation we have for the opening story. But read on for a super-detailed preview of the third BioShock game, and why Dan suspects it's going to be rather good.
]]>Well, obviously pretty much everyone's fighting you - it is a first-person shooter, after all. But there's also inter-factional conflict in 2012's Skyoshock, as one Mr K. Levine reveals below. What on earth could make the denizens of a rebel, militaristic, ultranationalist city in the sky turn against each other? Oh, riiiiiight. Also: time travel.
]]>Only a shortie for Ken & chums' latest, but it's pretty confident proof that we're not in Rapture anymore, Andrew. Rocket-spewing zeppelins, anti-gravity powers, gruesome splatting via sky-crates and, at the end, a hint of how large the environments may be. Also, it really plays up the fact that this is a buddy game - but not exactly a buddy comedy.
]]>The 2K way of late appears to be announcing impossibly ambitious and exciting-sounding games then going deathly silent for months (with the notable exception of Duke Nukem Forever, which has been very, very noisy since its comeback announcement). So it's grand to see BioShock: Infinite start its promotional gears turning again, ahead of what will hopefully be a grand old infosplosion at E3. Following a revamp of the game's website, we've got four new screenshots to stare at and make desperate, fannish guesses about. Hope you don't like horses, because I'm about to show you a picture of a dead one.
]]>I'm changing my name to Brian Nothing. This, I feel, is my best hope of being selected to be the gamer whose name is given to a character or location in Bioshock Infinite. Think about it: a sort of home-spun domesticity, coupled with a statement of nihilism. It's perfect for a game about a conflict-torn community in the sky. Maybe, though, I shouldn't have changed my name to Alec Meer from Alec Zeppelin-Lord al those years ago. Honestly, I kind of regret that now.
]]>That'd be the same 10 minutes that's been doing the rounds in assorted shadowy pressrooms for the last few months, and that Kieron flew to New York specifically to see. Go! Go! Feast your hungry eyes on the video waiting for you beneath the jump. Without wanting to spoil anything, it's a bit stunning.
]]>This is beautiful. And two things we're posting a lot about at the moment brought together, like some kind of nuclear fusion of pop-hype. Nukezilla discovered on the Irrational Forums - and the ever-loving Craig Pearson told us - that a load of chaps have got together and built Columbia (off the currently available screenshots) in Minecraft. Frankly, it's all I can do to stop myself from climbing on my stairs, applauding, and then throwing myself out of the window in total despair, as I'm still impressed at myself for being able to build a wobbly tower.
]]>Just a quickie here. The full Bioshock Infinite gameplay footage video which I saw in August on the game's unveiling is going live on 21st. However, they gave Gametrailer TV a few short snippets in their latest show. So you can watch that, or just go to the cut-for-youtube snippet Phill found below...
]]>Following on from their splendid covers, Game Informer have put a selection of information from their Bioshock Infinite coverage online. Everyone's picking over the full set of propaganda posters and nosing at the screens, but the real interesting new information is actually about the factions who are tearing Columbia apart. The nationalistic, conservative Powers That Be versus the Vox Populi anarchist front, who apparently draw from 1970s German terrorists like the Red Army Faction (i.e. Baader Meinhof).
So - Bioshock Infinite features the Powers That Be. And what do you have to do to the powers that be, Chuck?
]]>Game Informer are actually having a worryingly impressive run of covers. Following the stark Batman: Arkham City ones last month, this time they've got three fantastic period-styled Bioshock Infinite ones - two above, and one highlighting the be-hatted "Handyman". Go over to Joystiq to have a nose at both the final versions and various work-in-progresses.
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