Levine on BioShock PC issues

By Tom Bramwell Published 28 August, 2007

Plus: music released, no PS3 ver.

Irrational Games' Ken Levine has responded to concerns about the PC version of BioShock and squashed speculation that a PS3 version is in the offing. (Bad news for Sony Defense Force.)

Although quite lovely, BioShock on PC has faced a few teething problems - to say the least - since it launched in Europe on Friday. Most significant of these are those related to activation and copy protection. On the former, publisher 2K updated the Cult of Rapture website late last week with news that buyers will now be able to install BioShock on up to five PCs - with a "revoke tool" that you can run on a system to free up that key again and move it to another computer. 2K, Irrational and SecuROM are also looking at other technical issues, the post says.

Another point of contention has been the game's implementation of widescreen. As Ken Levine explains in a Joystiq interview: "We primarily designed it for widescreen. Then we had to ask, 'How do we make it full screen.' Your options are to put black bars at the top and bottom, keep same width perspective. Or you allow to...add pixels to the top and the bottom if you can afford the frame rate - we could." This being the Internet, we ended up with widescreen gamers complaining that they were being robbed of pixels. A patch is apparently inevitable: "We may disagree with them aesthetically, but sure, we'll make a patch and make if work for them," says Levine.

The other BioShocky things to note are that the Cult of Rapture website now offers the game's complete score for download (23MB, direct link). "The score was created by film, television and video game composer Garry Schyman and features a combination of early twentieth century writing, aleatoric elements, musique concrete, traditional tonal and late romantic styles that capture the distinct retro-futuristic aesthetic of the game," says 2K, allowing us to print the word 'aleatoric' without feeling silly.

And then there's the question of a PS3 version. "I promise you, there is no secret plan about the PS3 that we're keeping from people. There's no PS3 development going on that we're hiding." Shame.

So - finished it yet?

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Ryze #1 5 years ago

    Interesting.

    The PS3's got Warhawk anyway, so where's the problem?

    /coat

  • X #2 5 years ago

    I can play the game as it is...but only because of the unofficial trainer which supports it. It just looks too weird at 1920x1200 without it. I won't hold it against the game though.

  • UncleLou #3 5 years ago

    Oh my, I can't believe what I am reading there in the Sony Defense Force review. It's so embarassing, some people just have no self-dignity at all. :D

  • mentat #4 5 years ago

    Conveniently glossing over the constant frequent freezing issue on the 360 version, I notice.
    *sigh*

  • Psychotext #5 5 years ago

    @mentat: That might be because there only seem to be a few people getting it. I suggest you email them if you're one of them.

  • captainrentboy #6 5 years ago

    Constant freezing issues? Not on my console.
    Hilarious corpse spaz outs, with limbs shaking everywhere? Plenty.
    Still fooking loving it though, my character is sooo badass now it's unbelievable, I'm not sure how much further I have to go, at the mo I'm trying to break into Ryan's fortress of an office.

  • lambtron #7 5 years ago

    "Conveniently glossing over the constant frequent freezing issue on the 360 version, I notice.
    *sigh*"

    Yeah its SILKY smooth for me - absolutely no glitches whatsoever and short load times too.

    I'm guessing you have a borked DVD drive.

    As for Sony Defense Force - sweet lord. I like the way it claims to bring the TRUTH about Sony and then has a list of sales figures where it points out Sony is outselling Nintendo (by taking every sony product PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP) and comparing it just against the Wii. Haha comedy gold!

  • ProtoformX #8 5 years ago

    People complaining they were being robbed of pixels despite them playing in the aspect the game was designed in? FFS.

  • sharpfish #9 5 years ago

    Well my 360 finally RROD'd for no apparent reason, hadn't been turned on for a week or more, swtiched on and RROD... nice. Gotta sort that out now, and i've always treated it like it's made of glass.


    Anyway, so I got Bioshock on the PC and the game itself is very nice. There are way too many small issues however that when added up show at lot of these problems stem from being ported (lazily) from the Xbox. The mouse control is off, there are not 'typical' pace control keys like on other shooters (they say it's by design yet the 360 version has full control cos of analog sticks!), the widescreen issue (which IS an issues, seems their comment 'by design' on that one was BS too cos UE3 defaults to that cheap hack for WS same as Medal Of honour, they both have the same problem so it wasn't settled on for 'artistic reasons').

    Then there is the matter of the animation update frequency (no reviews spotted this!? !) That seem locked at ~ 20fps at most, look at physics objects and enemies sent flying, then look at procedural textures too - they look slow and stuttery even on a system getting well over 100fps on full detail (mine).

    PC users got the shaft, and there are some issues on the 360 version also but nowhere near as many.

    Still a great game but 10/10 everywhere just shows me reviewers don't have much of a clue about technical qualities and ignore those over the content, it should be a balance between the two.

    Still one of the best PC games ever but has definitely suffered by being a dual release with the Xbox360.

    I've spoken to Ken Levine myself about some of this issues and he accepts a lot of flack for them but at the same time can't quite delve deep enough into the technical issues to fully understand why a lot of PC gamers were pissed off.

  • sharpfish #10 5 years ago

    ProtoformX > congrats on showing ignorance. No one cares about 'missing pixels', even if it was the way WS was designed it wasn't tested on enough users to show that the restricted 'depth' of the scene (by the zoomed in FOV) causes nausea and other ergonmics issues in many people (not all and that's fine).

    It wasn't about seeing more it was about not having an innapropriate FOV setting, it could easily have been the same if the 4:3 suffered from it, and was totally avoidable with just a bit of thought and a compromise between their vision and the science of aspect ratio vs projection matrices.

    Anyone who uses Racer_s FOV Fix (from widescreengamingforum ) will testify that with the correct FOV you get no bad side effects, more immersion and everyone is happy. That is why 2k are working on a patch cos they accept it as an issue, they just won't fully admit to it in their statements so dress it up as 'artistic vision'
    Edited by 2 at 28/08/07 @ 08:38

  • willy359 #11 5 years ago

    Would you kindly continue playing, captainrentboy? You're just about to get to the good part.

  • aldo_14 #12 5 years ago

    I'm not sure you can call really Bioshock a sloppy Pc port if that was, AFAIK, the original and sole target platform for quite some time.

  • Wite_Noiz #13 5 years ago

    If I hadn't waited for the game for so long (and it wasn't quite so damned good), I'd have stopped playing it with all the crashes I've had.

    It's a shame, because it ruins the mood to have to restart the game (with it's annoying two-screen copyright list and non-skippable splash screens - yes, I know nVidia is the way to play) three or four times an hour.

    /waits for v1.1

  • Dizzy #14 5 years ago

    >Yeah its SILKY smooth for me - absolutely no glitches whatsoever and short load times too.

    Same here. Super smooth. Will take me 4 weeks to finish this but enjoying the ride!

  • IAmBatman #15 5 years ago

    > This being the Internet, we ended up with widescreen gamers complaining that they were being robbed of pixels.

    More proof that gamers are utter morons.

  • Goodfella #16 5 years ago

    This is odd. I've had zero problems with installation/activation and no problems with the game itself. It runs silky smooth, highest settings @ 1680x1050.

    I'll admit though that the 'mouse lag' has forced me to use a wired 360 controller :/

  • Shrui #17 5 years ago

    The game is gorgeous and while I would have loved it for my PS3 (as long as it had mouse & keyboard controls - I suck at console shooters) my now aging PC is having lots of fun with it! I was doubtful of the rumours of there being a PS3 version since I saw it turn up on Threespeech, looks like a dodgy tactic by Sony to capture some headlines this weekend if not to slow some sales by PS3/PC owners.

    Funnily I got the PC version for free by taking a PS3 game to Gamestation.

    And Sony Defence Force... I'm too forgiving of how stupid humanity can be when I see something like this so I think its satire by someone who hasn't appreciated Sony's previous marketing sites. The Bioshock review reads like a response to Threespeech's preview (review until they changed it after being lambasted by.. well everyone) of Heavenly sword.
    Edited by 1 at 28/08/07 @ 09:45

  • Vandrius #18 5 years ago

    PC version wise, I'm sort of halfway between the views here.

    Its a good game, but there are a few technical issues (mouse!) that annoy me a bit.

    I must admit, I really like the game, but to me it doesn't seem a 10/10 game. I think Gamespot actually got the review spot-on -- 9/10, brilliant game, but flawed in a few ways (as with all things near perfect, the flaws shine out).

    The EG review was way to happy-happy-zomg-fanboy for my liking.

  • Avenger1324 #19 5 years ago

    To say that Bioshock on PC has "installation issues" is somewhat of an understatement. I got the game Thursday morning, but wasn't actually able to play it until Sunday because of the wonderful activation process and problems with the installer.

    Wasn't the "Games For Windows" brand meant to represent extra checks to ensure stuff like this didn't happen?

  • Wite_Noiz #20 5 years ago

    I'm interested with the views on mouse issues. What OS are you guys running?

    I'm on Vista Home Premium with DX10 and the mouse is absolutely fine. Granted, I'm using a wired Kensington Expert trackball (at sensitivity 5) and not a mouse as such, but it plays just as well as FEAR, Far Cry, et al.
    I was planning on testing BS under XP tonight - will be annoyed if there are aiming issues (even if it stops the crashing).
    Edited by 1 at 28/08/07 @ 10:06

  • sharpfish #21 5 years ago

    Aldo14 > 2kBoston led development on the console version with 2kAustralia later doing the PC version (well, at the same time but with the lead going to Boston - where Ken Levine is).

    Anyway, it was 16:9 biased because the 2D onscreen hud elements are slightly squished on PC (16:10 widescreen) which shows they did in fact ignore the different aspect ratio on PC because they were primarily focussed on the Xbox version.

    Maybe 4 years ago when they first started in ernest on the game it was PC mainly (as the SS2 devs would have had no probs) but somewhere it took priority on the 360 and most of the issues can be traced back to that.

  • Xerx3s #22 5 years ago

    This game is going to look so much beter on the ps3 when they release it in a couple of months time. Blueray will make this all possible.

  • Xerx3s #23 5 years ago

    Conveniently glossing over the constant frequent freezing issue on the 360 version, I notice.
    *sigh*

    What freezing?

  • black2 #24 5 years ago

    Anybody having problems with that music download? I get a 21MB zip file, but it only extracts 1 MP3 (track 1) at 2.65MB.

    :(

  • Wite_Noiz #25 5 years ago

    @black2
    21.6MB (23.5 unzipped) for me, but 12 files... downloaded using Firefox

  • mentat #26 5 years ago

    'What freezing?'

    The freezing problem that people are experiencing with the 360 version.

    1 - 5 second freezes every 20 - 30 seconds. It's most bizarre and fairly frustrating.

    Odd thing is that it seems to only be the graphics that are freezing - the sound carries on playing normally in the back ground.

    It's not just me, there's a fair few issues being reported out in the intarwebz land.

  • InsoFox #27 5 years ago

    I've heard of this 'freezing' issue too, but on my second playthrough now, this is still something that hasn't affected me at all. It seems to happen in isolated cases. I wonder what causes it, and whether it's a fixable thing.

    I do feel for those experiencing it because I would get very annoyed by that. Some people have talked about it starting after/during the first Big Daddy fight. Is that other people's experience, too? Perhaps there's some bug to do with the free-roaming big daddies which only happens in certain situations. That would explain why it suddenly seems to start partway through the game. I'm just guessing, though.

  • black2 #28 5 years ago

    @Wite_Noiz

    I use Firefox too, if I extract it using Vista's inbuilt unzipper, that's what happens.

    Extract with WinRAR however... all files present.

    I want to like Vista, I really do >:(

  • Entity #29 5 years ago

    "Conveniently glossing over the constant frequent freezing issue on the 360 version, I notice".
    *sigh*

    I didn't have any problems on my 360 from start to finish.
    edit: @willy359 /clap
    Edited by 1 at 28/08/07 @ 15:20

  • GamesConnoisseur #30 5 years ago

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/forum_thr ead_posts.php?thread_id=92270&category_id=39
    ]http://ww w.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_po...[/link]

    I refer Mentat and others as to the freezing problems which do affect small proportion of X360 owner to the above thread. It is solveable and I now play BioShock much so smoothly!!

  • mentat #31 5 years ago

    Cheers GC, i've also been told that holding RB and LB until the 2K logo appears empties out the cache and may alleviate the problem...

    Not tried it yet, but worth a go to avoid removing the HDD all the time.