Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.”
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

Good news, everyone. I’d given up absolutely all hope of this ever happening, and yet it has. The final DLC for Bioshock 2, Minerva’s Den, was a smart vignette full of nods to System Shock and the history of computing, not to mention being a welcome opportunity to approach the fascinating, doomed society of Rapture from a perspective other than its increasingly fantastical main narrative. This standalone tale of a calculating rogue AI seemed tailor-made for PC gamers… only PC gamers never got it. So it’s with fairly delighted surprise that we discover it’s finally, finally due out on PC almost a year after its console version.
Read the rest of this entry »

The BioShock 2 Protector Trials DLC arrives on PC today, adding a new challenge mode and six arenas to 2K’s inarguably moist epic. A mere seven and a half months late, too! That said, we’re getting it for free, and having had a read of Christian Donlan’s Eurogamer review this sounds to me like neat enough stuff. Take a look at some in-game footage below, if you’re curious. Thx Blues for the tip-off.
Read the rest of this entry »

We were told the PC would indeed be treated to Bioshock 2 The Protector Trials (whatevs multiplayer stuff) and Minerva’s Den (a really rather good standalone new singleplayer chunk), despite initial plans to axe it. WE WERE TOLD IT.

Then it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen for so long that 2010 became 2011. So we gave up. I know I did, anyway.

Now, four months later, we’re told it’s still happening. Well, okay then. Hell, sounds like we might even get that patch we were promised 20 years ago or whatever it was.
Read the rest of this entry »

Previously canned DLCs for Bioshock 2 will be arrive on PC after all. That’s what “2K Elizabeth” has said over here. The post reads: “I have some good news concerning the BioShock 2 PC patch as well as the development of Protector Trials and Minerva’s Den for the PC. Not to keep you in suspense any longer, I’ll sum it up with one sentence: We have resumed development on all three and they will be coming to PC.”

It also looks like the patch and the Protector Trials will be due roughly December time and they will be free. This is: Good News.

A post on the 2K forums announces that we aren’t getting what looks like a pretty decent single-player DLC for Bioshock 2:

We will not be offering Protector Trials and Minerva’s Den on the PC in the future – and I want to say that I’m sorry for the disappointment this will cause to PC players out there. As always, if any of these issues change in the future, I will update you guys first, but at this point in time I don’t want to make you wait any longer and these are the most definite answers I have and you guys should deem them final decisions.

Tsk.

I never thought I’d hear myself say “one of the things I’m most anticipating for the next couple of months is some DLC,” but one of the things I’m most anticipating for the next couple of months is some DLC. Specifically, Minerva’s Den for Bioshock 2. BS2 is, all told, a better game than BS1 for my money, just hampered hugely by over-familiarity and trying to insert an epic new tale into an already-finished story. Steve Gaynor’s upcoming singleplayer vignette sounds like it may well be that much distanced from Rapture’s meta-narrative – both because BS2′s story is now done, and because the announcement of Bioshock Infinite suggests no more Rapture. I’m hoping for a short, self-contained and perhaps more satisfying story that doesn’t resolve itself with another Little Sister-based deus ex machina.

The bad, bad, oh-for-god’s-sakes-you-prats news is that, while console-toy owners can download Minerva’s Den today, it’s coming to PC-land at “a later date.” Let’s hope that’s not a coded dismissal. So let’s make this thread a clarion call from people who are interested in playing this: a message that proves a PC version is a necessity. Trailer below – suggesting homicidal AI has returned to a ‘Shock game…

Read the rest of this entry »