Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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.

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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 »