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Details have finally surfaced (haw haw) for the long-anticipated sequel to 2K Boston's ambitious, award-winning 2007 first-person shooter Bioshock, thanks to a world exclusive in this month's issue of GameInformer Magazine.
According to the magazine, players will play as the "first" Big Daddy, who must fight other Big Daddies in order to acquire a Little Sister. There will also be a new type of enemy called a "Big Sister," which is (as the name suggests) a female version of the Big Daddy. It's faster, and according to the picture at right, it also looks considerably more deadly. In the process of your adventure, you will be able to use the Big Daddy's trademark drill weapon, as well as the plasmids that made up much of the first Bioshock's gameplay.
It's nice to see that 2K is trying something a little easier to digest than a linear sequel, since it probably would have really diluted the franchise. While no sequel at all would have best preserved the spirit of the game, I think that this is a pretty good way of making a second Bioshock game without devaluing the unique playing experience from the first. Who knows, maybe this new game (presumably a prequel) will provide a deeper investigation of Rapture's founder Andrew Ryan, undoubtedly the most fascinating character in the first game.
[via 1UP]
After months of delays and announcement-silence from Rockstar Games, the developer held a special preview of Grand Theft Auto IV this past Tuesday. MTV News' Stephen Totilo provided a rundown of the preview, and the overall opinion seemed very positive. We've compiled some of the highlights here in bullet form, conveniently appropriate for the GTA franchise. (Do you see what we did there?)
- Play as Niko, a recent immigrant who (in a new turn for the franchise) ends up in a life of crime and theft.
- You can hail a taxi and use it to get to your desinations legally and (with a bit of extra cash) quicker.
- Cars will have GPS systems that show the route that the player must follow.
- Your "stars" only appear when a policeman sees you perform a crime, and simply hiding will not make the stars go away.
- A circle will show up on your map, and while you are inside of it, the police will be after you. As you perform more crimes within the circle, it will grow in radius.
- A much-improved, more Gears of War-style combat and targeting system.
- Unscripted events such as unrelated car chases and uniquely generated dialogue scenes will add variety to every time you play.
- The ability to get drunk has been added, while getting fat and wearing ridiculous clothing have been removed.
Genre(s): Adventure, FPS, Horror
Director: Ken Levine
Developer: 2K Games
Publisher: Take-Two
Console(s): Xbox 360, PC
Rated: M for Mature
"Andrew Ryan asks you a simple question: Are you a man? Or a slave?"
In the underwater city of Rapture, where a man can be "entitled to the sweat of his brow," the utopian ideals of city founder Andrew Ryan have gone horribly awry. Built in the 1930's as a utopia where people could come to live away from the "parasites" of the real world, Rapture is the brainchild of Andrew Ryan, and when you accidentally step into his now-broken dream, looking to find an enigmatic man named Atlas--and, through him, a way out--Ryan is not pleased in the slightest.
As you explore the dark corriders of this city of dreams, you will unearth evidence of Rapture's genetic enhancement industry and resultant degeneration. Citizens use a material called ADAM to create "plasmids" and other substances to enhance their bodies and minds. However, when you enter the city during the 1960's, the citizens have gone crazy with "plasmid sickness," and attack you on sight.
To find your way out, you too will have to splice yourself, and to do so you need to find "Little Sisters." These genetically mutated little girls gather ADAM from dead bodies, but to take their ADAM you will have to kill the lumbering golems known as "Big Daddies," who protect the girls at all times. Either kill the Little Sisters for ADAM, or save them by turning them back to normal. The choice is yours, and the consequences could change your life.
Bioshock, the spiritual successor to 2K Games' previous System Shock offerings, quickly transformed over the course of its release month from a nebulous, hyped-up title to what just might be the greatest video game of the past year. Everything from its graphics to its fascinating plot is near-perfectly crafted into a powerful and influential experience.
The game utilizes the vaunted Unreal Engine to great effect, rendering an amazing number of objects, textures, and particle effects inside of massive levels. I've heard the Unreal Engine's style described as a "gritty sheen," and that is just what one sees in Bioshock. The other important attribute is the game's distinct art deco flair, and the truly inspired art direction that went into creating it.
The realism in the graphics is astounding, though occasionally a few points take away from the experience. The first is the rare (though sometimes persistent) lack of textures on objects, causing some players to simply stop and wait until the texture is rendered. Second is the laggy jump when you change areas and the game loads the new sector of the level. Even these problems, debilitating in other games, cannot take away from the amazing visual feast that is Bioshock.
But when you step into Rapture, it will not be the graphics, but the story, that will captivate you. The game is so rich with backstory, conflict, and culture that players will find themselves completely believing in the world 2K has crafted for them. From the moment you step off of your first bathysphere, you will find trust, treachery, and mad ambition within the walls of Rapture, and the story's twists are some of the most compelling of any recent game.
Bioshock is played much like other first-person shooters, with a dual-analog control scheme. However, the left trigger uses your plasmids, and the two bumpers pull up on-screen "wheels" that allow you to select your weapon or plasmid on the fly. The sheer number of options for both weapons and plasmids are insanely extensive: There are well over 20 plasmids to be used, each with up to two upgrades possible. And when it comes to weapons, you are supplied over the course of the game with six projectile weapons (as well as a wrench and camera), and three different ammo options for each. (Anti-armor bullets, electrifying shotgun buck, etc.)
When you use these skills together, you can create some truly devastating attacks. Drop a proximity mine and whirlwind trap in front of a door, and the next splicer to run in is launched into the air, then lands on top of a bomb. Light an oncoming splicer on fire with an Incinerate! plasmid, then watch him stumble back into a puddle of oil, setting it ablaze and injuring the line of enemies rounding the corner. It is these brilliant game design choices and room for improvisation that make Bioshock such a delight to play through. In addition to all of these gameplay elements, there is also the ability to use gene tonics that boost certain attributes, and to hack robots, cameras, safes, and pretty much anything else.
Without creative game design and open-endedness, Bioshock would have little to no lasting appeal. Afer beating the game on easy or normal, veteran gamers will no doubt want to come back for more, seeing if they can beat a Big Daddy on hard mode, or perhaps find a new wy to kill that horde of splicers. Either way, for a 10-20 hour game, Bioshock will be able to suck some respectable time out of your life.
Bioshock clearly deserves many of the accolades it has received, and it deserves a place among some of the best first-person shooters of all time. If the intense level of on-the-spot problem-solving does not keep you interested, then the captivating and finely crafted story surely will. The game has been winning Game of the Year awards left and right, so would you kindly stop messing around and play Bioshock already?
 |
||||
| Graphics/Sound: | 3.5 |
Average:
(3.7 stars) |
||
| Gameplay: | 4.0 | |||
| Design/Story: | 4.0 | |||
| Lasting Appeal: | 3.0 | |||
| Overall: | 4.0 | |||
Various game hacking websites have recently released instructions for hacking the PSP and Playstation 2 versions of Take-Two and Rockstar's controversial horror game Manhunt 2. These hacks allow users to turn off the blur effects which Rockstar added to cover up the hyper-violent "stealth kills" in the game. Without these blur effects, the M-rated game is essentially made exactly like the AO-rated version submitted to the ESRB in June, which caused a huge public outcry and a reevaluation of the game by the ESRB.
ESRB President Patricia Vance made a statement shortly after the conclusion of an ESRB investigation of the alleged hacks of the game. She confirmed that the hacks do indeed exist, and made the following statements, among others:
"Our investigation indicates that the game’s publisher disclosed to the ESRB all pertinent content in the authorized Mature-rated version of Manhunt 2 now available in stores, and complied with our guidelines on full disclosure of content.It is good to see Take-Two not being held accountable for this hack, since that was the fear held by most gamers during the few days that the ESRB held their investigation. Manhunt 2 went through an agonizing series of events a few months ago (jokingly nicknamed "Black Tuesday" by employees) that eventually ended in a ban from multiple countries as well as a temporary retraction of permission to publish on Wii, PS2, or PSP.
What parents, and indeed all consumers, need to be aware of is that computer software and hardware devices are susceptible to unauthorized modification. Parents should be cognizant of whether or not their children are engaging in unauthorized modification of their games, consoles or handhelds, as those modifications can change game content in ways that may be inconsistent with the assigned ESRB rating."
This event also forcefully brings to mind Rockstar's "Hot Coffee" scandal, when a porn scene was found to be accessable through a cheat code in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. However, the enormous legal battle that followed was only because the game developers had intentionally left that scene, and it was not within the scope of the ESRB's review of the game. It seems as if Manhunt 2 may have finally reached the end of its troubles, though the coming months may still bring more controversy to the already embattled game.
[via GamePolitics. Thanks, Kahuna.]
For those of you who don't know (aka those of you living in holes in the ground), BioShock, the highly-anticipated and fascinatingly-unique first-person shooter from Take-Two and 2K Games, releases this Tuesday the 21st in the US, and by September in all major territories. The game, which will be released on Xbox 360 and Games For Windows, has been sold early by Toys R Us's across the country, naturally sending fanboys into a convulsive furor.
In the spirit of the occasion, the good folks at Joystiq did as any self-respecting journalists would do: They went out to Toys R Us and picked up 4 copies of the 360 version to give away. (2 in Joystiq, 2 in their sister site Xbox360Fanboy) I've already signed up (though I don't have a 360, but plan to get one), so get on over there gamers. There are currenty 4 posts to sign up in: one and two at Joystiq, and one and two at X360FB.
And for those interested in what BioShock is all about, visit the Wikipedia article on it here.
[via Joystiq]
(For those wondering, the digg button is sort of broken in this post. The only way you can digg it is through the permalink.)
