Bioshock 2: Field of View
That was supposed to sound like a nice little rhyme. Alas, it just comes across as a really boring, proasic headline - they should have sent a poet. Anyway, the point is that the promised widescreen patch for Bioshock 2 is due tomorrow (at 2AM PST), and will address the returning BS1 oversight/disagreement/confusion that the field of view remained at 4:3 settings even when played in 16:10. Just writing that turns my brain to mush, as it makes me feel as though I've been stuck in a temporal loop since 2007, forcing me to continually write something about Bioshock and field of view into a Wordpress page again and again. It's good news for people with nice monitors, however - and as well as that there's both a larger patch and some DLC in the offing.
No word on what the big patch will address, but given there's been a fair whack of bug-related complaints we can expect a glut of minor fixes. The DLC, meanwhile, will initially focus on multiplayer, throwing in new maps, weapon upgrades, multiplayer skins and a raised level cap in exchange for money. Which, basically, is an absolutely terrible idea if it's as cut and dried as it sounds, as it's splitting the community into haves and have-nots. I like Bioshock 2 quite a bit, but this sounds too much like a cash-grab. I'll be quite happy to admit I'm a big silly if it turns out to be super and smartly-implemented, of course. The troubling add-on's due next month and is yours for 400 Microsoft points, if you're so inclined.
After that, apparently we're due some singleplayer-centric DLC. I'll be curious to see how they work that into what's a self-contained story - will it delve off into side-narrative, and if so do you need to replay the game to see it, or will it star a new character? Or will it just be bunch of new plasmids and gene tonics? "In the coming months, 2K Games will also be publishing downloadable extensions of the single player experience that provide new insight into the world of Rapture. These packages will include more narrative, new tools and new challenges that extend the lore and fiction of the failed Utopia under the sea" is all we get for now - hopefully there'll be an interesting concept underpinning this expansion, whatever it may be.