2K Games released a new BioShock 2 trailer full of bolts, bullets, blood, and gallons of upon gallons of water. The hands-on preview embargo lifts Thursday so look for more in-depth opinions then. Sleep now … your day is done.

Yes, you may be one of the few people posting pictures and video of yourself holding a PC version of Borderlands on the web, but the laugh’s on you if you actually try to play it. It seems that a few retailers out there jumped the gun and “accidentally” sold the title to PC hungry gamers (and maybe a few unsuspecting parents with good intentions) before its scheduled October 26th North America and October 30th International release dates.

In response to this news, 2K Community Manager Elizabeth Tobey, wrote the following on the company’s official forum:

Hey guys,

Yesterday we learned that a fraction of the PC copies of Borderlands were accidentally sold to consumers in some countries but that gamers could not activate their copies yet. Since we learned of this problem, we have been looking into the issue to find the best possible solution for everyone.

I’m going to be completely honest with you guys right now. It is not possible for us to move the planned release date of the game forward. We could not possibly get the games into stores worldwide and out for digital distribution any earlier than planned. Less than 1% of all copies were sold, and if we unlocked the game today, illegal versions would most likely appear on torrents by the evening. I am sure all of you want our PC launch to be as successful as possible, and we simply won’t be able to manage that any earlier than already planned.

I want to apologize for those of you who have gotten the game ahead of our release date, and ask for your patience and understanding. The game will be ready in the US and Canada at midnight eastern standard time on Monday, October 26th, and internationally by Friday, October 30th.

-Elizabeth

This is truly unfortunate if you believe the majority of the consumers who forked over the cash were clueless to the actual PC release date. I personally don’t but hey — to each their own. Moving forward, we should push to implement rights managed payment options. Money that doesn’t become spendable until we are satisfied with our purchases. Sounds good to me.

Source: forums.2kgames.com

2K games hit my inbox this morning with a press release officially announcing the release of their latest title “Borderlands”, and the company’s President, Christoph Hartmann, had the following to say:

“We are excited by the overwhelmingly positive media response to Borderlands and can’t wait for consumers to see for themselves how it takes the traditional first-person shooter experience and turns it completely upside down,”

Interesting. Well, I will personally be hanging upside down from my couch while I play Borderlands, because I enjoy my FPS experience right side up. Hopefully I can beat it before all the blood rushes to my head and kills me. If not, maybe this scenario will pop up in a future episode of CSI — Gamer killed by upside down video game experience.

Hit the jump for the full press release.

2K Games and Gearbox Software Turn the Conventional First-Person Shooter Genre Upside Down with the Release of Borderlands™

Four-player co-op, 87 bazillion guns, an arresting art style and a dancing robot – What more could you want?

New York, NY – October 20, 2009 – 2K Games announced today that Borderlands™ is now available in North America for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and will be available starting October 23 internationally. The Windows PC version will ship in North America and internationally on October 26 and October 30, respectively. Developed by Gearbox Software, Borderlands delivers this year’s most explosive and entertaining role-playing shooter (RPS) by combining the most addictive gaming elements found in action-packed first-person shooters with the deep character development of role-playing games (RPG).

“We are excited by the overwhelmingly positive media response to Borderlands and can’t wait for consumers to see for themselves how it takes the traditional first-person shooter experience and turns it completely upside down,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Borderlands is unlike anything else on store shelves. It’s got it all, from single-player to four-player co-op, two-player split-screen, character development that grants players a sense of ownership, and the biggest arsenal ever seen in a first-person shooter.”

Featuring extensive co-op integration that seamlessly blends the single-player and multiplayer experiences, Borderlands allows players to freely join or leave each other’s games at any time for collaborative mayhem or the freedom to choose to play in full single-player mode to experience the world on their own. Borderlands also includes a groundbreaking weapon generation system that offers a near infinite variety of weapons to the player. Borderlands combines these features with addictive non-stop action to form a breakthrough experience that challenges the conventions of modern shooters and RPGs.

More mayhem is set to come for players of Borderlands via The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, the first in a series of downloadable expansion packs, which is scheduled to arrive for all platforms before the end of the year.

“The Borderlands team at Gearbox has brought together the things we know we love – co-op, skill-based action, character development and millions of guns – in a way we haven’t seen before,” said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. “Borderlands is a great shooter that we can play alone or with friends. I think it’s the best video game we’ve ever made and I have never been more excited about a launch.”

As one of this holiday season’s most unique and entertaining titles, Borderlands takes gun lust to a new level by featuring more than 17 million unique weapons. Each weapon has its own combination of manufacturer, specifications and advantages for gamers to wreak havoc on the evils of the wasteland planet of Pandora as they embark on a quest for the elusive Vault. Add Borderlands’ eye-popping and visually compelling art style known as Concept Art Style that combines traditional rendering techniques with hand-drawn textures, and it is easy to see why 2K Games and Gearbox Software have created the must-have game of the year. Additionally, the Windows PC version will support NVIDIA® 3D Vision™, for high resolution, fully immersive 3D gaming.

Borderlands is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. For more information, please visit http://www.borderlandsthegame.com.

2K Games have today announced that the hotly anticipated Bioshock 2 will be releasing on the 9th of February 2010. The release date will be the same for all platforms: PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

I’ll quickly take this opportunity to remind our PC gaming fans that Direct2Drive are offering the original Bioshock for just $5/£5 for the next few days. Get it if you haven’t played it, and finish it. Then maybe you’ll be as excited as the rest of us that it’s only six months until the sequel arrives. Actually, when I put it like that, six months sounds like ages.

The first in a series of artists to create pieces for Bioshock 2, Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac creator Jhonen Vasquez has produced this wonderful picture entitled “The Sisters”. “I approached Jhonen Vasquez a few months back and asked him to create an image for BioShock 2 that represented the game, its characters, and the atmosphere of the city,” says 2K’s community manager of the project.

Head here for more pictures and a full explanation by Vasquez. Also, the large version can be found here. It’s a great picture, and has a certain Tim Burton-esque quality to it, obviously with the trademark creepy Zim eyes. More artists to come in the run-up to the game’s release.

In perhaps one of the strangest videogame bundles since Beyond Good and Evil was packed in with some cheese, 2K and Behtesda have joined force to create the BioShock & The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Bundle. the deal will be released July 7 in the US, at $39.99 on Xbox 360 and $29.99 on PC. Considering that I got Bioshock on Steam for $5 and Oblivion is currently around $18 on Steam right now, this isn’t the best deal I’ve ever seen. My advice: buy the Orange Box instead.

Still, if you don’t already own these two games, I can’t recommend them enough. Oblivion holds my attention years after its release (in fact, I played it just yesterday for hours on end) and Bioshock’s heavy narrative was an industry wake up call (since they seemed to ignore that of Half-Life 2). Both are must-buys, but with a little sleuth you can get them for much better prices individually.

Take-Two have announced that Bioshock 2 will be released on November the third for Northern Americans, and on October the thirtieth for Europeans, on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. This of course means that the spoilers will hit the web a good four days before people from the US will be able to play the game. I suggest you stay away from the internet during those four days, especially if you don’t want to know that Atlas is f- actually, you can come to Ripten. We won’t spoil it. We promise.

The big screen adaptation of Bioshock, which has been in pre-production with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski at the helm, has been put on hold by Universal due to a rising budget.
A Universal rep has said that the film is still very much alive and in “extended pre-production.” Let’s hope that isn’t a fancy way of saying development hell. The studio is currently looking into things that could lower the cost of the film, such as tax credits and possible shooting locations outside of the United States.

Might I suggest the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean?

Above is the first footage of Bioshock 2 to hit the airwaves. The footage shows the player as a Big Daddy, with both the rivet gun and the drill, as well as plasmids. Big Sister is shown, as well as the ability to walk around underwater (you are in a diving suit, after all), but you would know that if you’d watched the video. I must say, it does look like it’s going to be great fun to play. I’m rather looking forward to the release after seeing this footage. Just don’t mess up the story, 2K!

You may have read recently that there are some… issues with the PS3 version of BioShock, which at first seemed to only apply to textures on the Big Daddies (if not, it’s the very next story). 2K officially responded and owned up to the error, which is cool of them, but it now seems that the PS3 version’s overall graphical quality doesn’t quite match up to the 360 version, as evidenced by the included screenshots.

Click images for a larger view:

At first glance, the images above don’t appear to be all that different. There wouldn’t be a problem at all if people played their PS3 games on a 10-inch television. Unfortunately, clicking the images and viewing them a little closer makes it obvious that graphics whores with their 50-inch HDTV’s will not be happy.

The PS3’s visuals overall appear to be a bit blurry when compared to the 360 counterpart. This, of course, doesn’t mean BioShock is going to be any less of a compelling game on the PS3, it will just be a not-quite-as-good-looking-as-it-could-be-but-still-compelling game on the PS3.

These screengrabs were taken from a Japanese site, and while the fact that it’s Japanese has no bearing on my opinion, the person that posted the images may very well be a 360 fanboy and is only trying to sabotage the game. Honestly, though, I don’t think that’s very likely considering there’s only 3 people in Japan that own an Xbox 360.

We also must take into account that this was only the demo. The visuals may have been compressed to make a smaller download file, and it also may not be the final build of the game. Then again, just to play devil’s advocate, maybe it’s just because the PS3 sucks.

Some screen grabs from the recently released demo of the PlayStation 3 version of BioShock show some rather pixelated textures when compared to the Xbox 360 version. While this is just a demo, the retail release is just over two weeks away. Is that enough time to fix this issue?

Screen comparisons and 2K’s response follow.

Xbox 360

PlayStation 3

These screens (blatantly stolen from the BioShock forum on Giant Bomb) clearly show a slight difference in quality, which apparently is leading some people to cancel their pre-orders of the game. Elizabeth Tobey, 2K Community Manager, had the following to say about it:

“When we saw a post asking about issues found in the demo, we jumped on it immediately. And you know what, you’re right. The texture in the PS3 demo of the downed Big Daddy does not match our level of quality either. This slipped by. We admit it. However, I want to assure you that this is an exception, and not a rule, and while I regret this oversight, we put a lot of love into making this game look amazing for the PS3 and I’m sure that when you play the rest of the demo you will agree that the textures are not all like this one instance.

As for the other issues and concerns, we are currently diligently working to replicate any bugs, and will report back to you with what we find. Thank you for your vigilance here and moving forward.”

I’m fairly confident that 2K doesn’t want to put out a turd, but we’ll just have to wait and see what (if anything) slips by when it releases on October 21st.

*UPDATE: Contrary to the vocal PS3 defenders, new screenshots have surfaced that show a blurry PS3 BioShock when compared to the Xbox 360 version. Head here to see the images.

Spoiler Alert: Your plane crashes.

After only having to wait a year and some change, PlayStation 3 owners will soon be able to experience the Rapture that is BioShock (see what I did there?).  Featuring all-new content and all of the DLC from the Xbox 360 version, BioShock is set to sweep PS3 owners up in its cheery narrative about the joys of life in only a few short weeks.

The game is officially pressed and packaged for an October 17th release worldwide, with the exception being North America who has to wait until the 21st (not enough waiting already, right?).  This Thursday also sees the release of the demo on the PlayStation Network, which hopefully helps tide over anyone with an insatiable need to fuck with genetics and beat people with a wrench.

Been in prison or a coma for the last few years and don’t know what BioShock is? Well, here’s a little PS3 trailer… and the date at the end is a total lie so just pretend you didn’t see it.

Ken Levine is a man of many words, so when he gets tight-lipped in an interview at GamesIndustry.biz, suspicion naturally follows.

Levine, the genius behind the genre defining Bioshock, is currently working on a project for 2K that he describes as “something very different.”

What that something is remains a mystery.

“I actually can’t talk about it, without talking about the game itself,” Levine said to Industry.biz editor Phil Elliott. “There are things related to story, gameplay and… I don’t know how to describe it… people’s relationship with the game over the long term. That’s what we’re thinking about, but it’s about as clear as I can be.”

Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/

BioShock was a game of the year for a lot of people last year, but a common criticism (and praise, in some circles) was its focus on the single player story, with the game having no multiplayer options. All that could change for BioShock 2. 2K Boston (the makers of BioShock) have started looking for a “Lead Multiplayer Designer”.

The last piece of BioShock 2 info we found out about confirmed that 2K Marin not 2K Boston were working on the sequel, taking a few of the 2K Boston people with them. But don’t forget, the original BioShock was produced as a collaboration between two 2K studios, Boston and Australia (two halves of the former Irrational Games). Could 2K Boston be making BioShock 2 multiplayer?

The job description goes on to drop a few hints about the game (possibly red-herrings, but we can hope) mentioning that “BioShock had no multi-player mode. We don’t believe in throwing in something that can’t go head to head with the big boys.”

The description continues to say that “[w]e expect you to be familiar with BioShock and other 2K Boston/Irrational products and be able to speak critically about them.”

Am I reading too hard between the lines here? Or could this be the first evidence to emerge of BioShock 2 multiplayer? Perhaps the multiplayer is being created by 2K Boston, with the single player game being produced by 2K Marin?

The full job description posted to Gamasutra reads:

Summary of Position:

2K Boston, the team that brought you BioShock, is looking for a talented, experienced game designer to lead a multiplayer design team on our next big project.

You will be responsible for creating, documenting and communicating multiplayer design concepts and mechanics. Additionally, you will be required to work with our design tools to implement game mechanics or parameters and test and tune those. You will probably be required to do a certain amount of level building or design as well, though this is not the major focus of the role.

BioShock had no multi-player mode. We don’t believe in throwing in something that can’t go head to head with the big boys. No applicants will be considered who aren’t able to demonstrate they’ve got the skills to build an industry-changing multiplayer design.

Responsibilities:

You must be familiar with the current state of the art in multiplayer game design across a wide range of genres on both PC and console. You must be capable of analyzing and critiquing game designs and using that analysis to inform your own design sensibilities. We expect you to be familiar with BioShock and other 2K Boston/Irrational products and be able to speak critically about them.

Finally, there are a wide variety of miscellaneous other tasks associated with this position such as speaking at conferences, working on game documentation and manuals and occasional PR duties.

Required Experience and Skills:

This position requires a high degree of creativity. You will be required to work with the single player team to form a “vision” of the multiplayer experience and use that vision to inform your design decisions. From there, you will help build a multiplayer design team and be responsible to guide your team through the entire production cycle.

An important part of the role is then communicating that vision clearly and concisely to the rest of the team and ensuring that they have a clear and specific mandate for their work. You must also provide a receptive ear so that other team members can provide input on the game design and feel that it is paid attention to.

Above all we are looking for somebody with enthusiasm, passion and the desire to create a multiplayer experience that is on par with the industry-leading single player experiences created at 2K Boston.

When Applying for this Position:

Please remember to include: game design documents, writing samples, video or screenshot samples of some of your work and/or game analysis as appropriate.

Additional Requirements:

This position requires a high degree of creativity. You will be required to work with the single player team to form a “vision” of the multiplayer experience and use that vision to inform your design decisions. From there, you will help build a multiplayer design team and be responsible to guide your team through the entire production cycle.

An important part of the role is then communicating that vision clearly and concisely to the rest of the team and ensuring that they have a clear and specific mandate for their work. You must also provide a receptive ear so that other team members can provide input on the game design and feel that it is paid attention to.

Source: Gamasutra Jobs

PC gamers who bought BioShock may have taken issue with the constraints put in place by the game’s publisher 2K. The good news is that the activation limits, which previously prevented the game from being installed on more than 5 PCs, have been removed.

Posting on the 2K forums, 2K’s community manager Elizabeth Tobey announced;

As promised, all activation restrictions, including install limits, have been removed from BioShock PC as of today. You don’t have to patch or install anything for this to go into effect for your copy of BioShock – it’s already done!

Up until now, whenever you wanted to install BioShock you had to register your copy online. Their servers would then limit the number of PCs you could install the game on. This limit has now been completely removed.

Tobey further clarified the situation, saying that;

You will still have to activate your copy, and you will still need to keep the disc in the drive. SecuROM has not been removed — just the activation limits on number of installs and number of computers you can install BioShock on simultaneously.

Source: 2k forums

“Who’s your Big Daddy?”

There hasn’t been an enemy character in a first person shooter for a long time that carries the same impact as Bioshock’s Big Daddy. They’ve got loads of health, a disorienting roar, and a powerful rivet gun that will make you go through every last first aid kit, but the Big Daddy makes a big impression before they even come into view.

That’s because with Bioshock’s extraordinary attention to audio detail, you can hear the whale-like song of these lumbering creatures from several rooms away. Every thud of their heavy metal boots rumbles your eardrums, and if you’re close enough, the controller too. They’re the protectors of the Little Sisters, who are your key to unlocking more abilities and resources in the underwater mega-mall of Rapture. And they’re the defining characters in a utopia that placed perfection over humanity. In this way, the Big Daddies are the perfect combat foes, and the Little Sisters are the perfect victims.

The plot of Bioshock is fairly straightforward and linear, with little deviation in the way abilities are achieved but a great deal of strategy in choosing what to use, when. The security system of Rapture, for example, is easily hackable (with a Pipe Dream style minigame that is a nice distraction from the action, if a little simplistic), and there’s no greater joy than watching chaos ensue from a Big Daddy fighting off three or four hovering security bots. You can even cause the Big Daddies to fight each other, with a plasmid power-up that causes one Big Daddy to protect you as they would their Little Sisters.

Compared to the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, the other enemies you encounter are fairly limited and plain. There are splicers that carry wrenches, guns, bombs, and hook-wielding enemies that climb on the ceiling. You can research these foes with a camera, but most of the time you’ll end up shooting them on sight. Other than the splicers and the occasional human boss fight, the best encounters are between the Big Daddies and the environment.

Oil, water, and even bees are the elements which contain most of the fun of Rapture’s firefights. You can light objects aflame, use telekinesis to rearrange traps, or fool enemies into fighting each other. You can also shock water, sting with insects, and booby-trap health stations. This all adds up to one of the most cleverly designed combat arenas in recent memory.

As close as Bioshock comes to being a perfect game, there are still a few minor problems which keep it from achieving a perfect score. The plot, while mature and engrossing, is still extremely linear, with little room for exploration or alternate paths. The major branching path in the game comes from whether or not you exploit the Little Sisters, but in gameplay terms the result is almost the same (you get half the resources for “rescuing” as you do for “harvesting”).

As beautiful as the game’s interiors are, setting the entire game in Sea Lab means that there’s not a grandiose sense of scale or adventure. Many times you are forced through arbitrary gates that open and close only upon reaching certain objectives. As great as the scripted story moments are, it would be nice to see less scripted action and more player-defined moments.

Another thing which keeps this game from achieving absolute perfection is the absence of multiplayer. While Bioshock is without a doubt one of the best single player experiences available so far this year, what keeps the game from infinite replayability is the lack of underwater multiplayer deathmatch. The traps, environments, and weapons seem well suited for melee matches, and perhaps we can hope that a sequel or spin-off allows for some type of online play.

Still, the production values are top notch in Bioshock and it plays like a dream throughout. There are many disturbing moments, several stunning revelations, and one of the most compelling stories ever seen in a game, much less a first person shooter. It’s right up there with Half Life 2 and System Shock 2 in terms of a complete gameplay experience told through a first person narrative.

The great thing about scoring a game in the upper eschalon of the review scale is that it invites endless debates about what would work better, what little tweaks or changes could possibly make it truly perfect. I’ve suggested a couple here– multiplayer mode and a more open environment– but every player who experiences Bioshock will likely come away with their own take on the subject. Perhaps the game relies too much on scripted events, or the audio logs, to tell the story, but it’s still a story that goes so far beyond “saving the princess” or “stopping the terrorists” that it qualifies as thought-provoking entertainment. From start to finish, and hopefully long after, Bioshock deserves a place on your shelf and in your Xbox 360.