There is a saying in architecture that no building is unbuildable, only unbuilt. Structures may be impossible in the here and now, but have the potential to exist given enough time or technological development: a futuristic cityscape, a spacefaring megastructure, the ruins of an alien civilisation. However, there are also buildings that defy the physical laws of space. It is not an issue that they could not exist, but that they should not. Their forms bend and warp in unthinkable ways; dream-like structures that push spatial logic to its breaking point.
A deep dive on BioShock's underwater city to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.
It's now 10 years since we first plunged deep into the Atlantic Ocean and were beguiled by BioShock and the submarine city of Rapture, one of the finest environments in games.
Editor's note: Jordan Erica Webber is co-author with Eurogamer contributor Daniel Griliopoulos of the weighty tome Ten Things Video Games Can Teach Us: (about life, philosophy and everything), out this month. We've asked her to write a few thoughts on video games as works of philosophy. Beware: there are spoilers for Soma, the Mass Effect and Fallout series ahead.
And how Ghost Story is managing expectations of its revolutionary "narrative Lego".
BioShock creator Ken Levine took the stage at EGX Rezzed in London today for a look back over his career so far, in a conversation with Eurogamer's Oli Welsh.
Original Xbox 360 code shows massive improvement on Microsoft's latest console.
Quite possibly the most impressive technological achievement in the console space last year was Xbox One backward compatibility, a virtual machine that somehow - miraculously - managed to run Xbox 360 titles on Microsoft's latest console. Progress has continued on this brilliant feature, to the point where we reckon it has a good shout in staking a claim as the most impressive console technological achievement of 2016 too. We've demonstrated time and again this year how Xbox One is now running Xbox 360 titles faster and more smoothly than original hardware - but this week's release of the BioShock trilogy highlights just how much faster it can be.
We're not kidding about plot spoilers. This article discusses the plot of the first BioShock game in full and right from the first line. You have been warned!
PC players will soon be able to upgrade their copies of BioShock and BioShock 2 - although you may need to rummage around your old PC disc cases to do so.
A speedrun of 2007 game BioShock was seemingly interrupted by a Windows 10 update during this year's Games Done Quick charity event.
Speedrunner Blood_Thunder stumbled into the now infamous blue screen update as he approached a terminal in the game at around the 33 minute mark, to the surprise of audiences watching in the room and online.
The installation was later revealed, however, to be a prank, with the cutscene edited to look like an unexpected update was taking place, before the run continued on as normal, finishing with a time of 51:54. Well played!
Yeah alright, cards on the table. We couldn't find anyone in the office who hadn't played the original Bioshock. Which is hardly surprising when you're talking about a group of games journalists (incidentally, what would the collective noun for that be? A thinkpiece? A scribble? An ornery of games journos? Anyway.) The problem with that is it kind of scuppered my plans for recording a spectacularly well-timed episode of Late to the Party, to celebrate the shocking-but-not-really announcement that Bioshock: The Collection, a remastered edition of Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and Bioshock: Infinite, is heading to Xbox One, PC and PS4.
The kids aren't alright (they're scaring me please help).
Children are kind of useful, giving people who no longer fancy going to the pub very often something to fill their time with instead. They also ensure the continuation of the human race solely by existing, which is pretty impressive when you think about it. Apologies to any parents reading this by the way, I really am trying my best.
Video games are powerful things, capable of making us feel a whole range of emotions. Happy is one such emotion, as is all-consuming self-loathing. That's a good one too.
Live concert heads to London in September, EGX visitors get discount.
You'll be able to hear live performances of music from the BioShock, Halo, Castlevania and Final Fantasy series in London this year at the RePlay: Symphony of Heroes concert.
UPDATE 11.23AM We've been told that the video isn't quite ready to be made public yet so we've removed it at 2K's request - it'll be back very shortly.
ORIGINAL STORY 10.53AM Spoilers below for BioShock, BioShock Infinite and Burial at Sea Episode 1.
There's always a girl, there's always a lighthouse, and perhaps behind one of those doors is a universe where the Hollywood's ill-fated BioShock movie was released.
Due this month in North America, but coming to the UK "at a later date."
The first two BioShock games and their DLC will be bundled together on Xbox 360 and PS3 as part of the BioShock: Ultimate Rapture Edition, due in North America on 14th January for $29.99
BioShock 1 is thrown in for free with BioShock Infinite on PlayStation 3 in the US only, 2K Games has confirmed.
Back in May developer Irrational Games said the PlayStation 3 version of BioShock Infinite would come with a free copy of the 2007 classic on the Infinite Blu-ray disc. At the time Irrational failed to specify that it was a US-only offer.
“I can confirm that the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite in North America contains a copy of the original BioShock," a 2K Games spokesperson told Eurogamer.
DayZ has been the break out phenomenon of PC gaming this year. What would it look like adapted as a film? Renowned YouTube fake movie trailer maker Bloodrunsclear has had a stab at finding out.
His fake DayZ movie trailer uses sound bites from the horrific Miami face-eating incident; Peter Gabriel's version of My Body is a Cage; and clips from numerous zombie films (and other genres) to create a rousing montage - a look at what could be.
DayZ creator Dean Hall tweeted a link to the video this morning.
BioShock creator Irrational Games has stressed that "we're still focusing" on a film adaptation, despite the project being knocked back time and time again.
Levine: "Sony has been such a good partner to us."
Last June, Irrational Games boss Ken Levine climbed on stage during Sony's E3 presentation to reveal that his BioShock franchise is coming to Vita.
With precious little information released on the game since, last week Eurogamer asked Levine why he announced the project before development had even begun. The answer? Because he wanted to help Sony out.
"Look, generally when I announce something... like with BioShock Infinite we had a whole video to show and it was all fully-formed," he explained.
Irrational Games boss Ken Levine hasn't given up on getting the stalled BioShock movie off the ground, but admits that getting it right presents a huge challenge.
Pre-production on the movie version of 2K's BioShock franchise has ground to a halt after no studio was found who was willing to invest in an R-rated version of the tale, the flick's producer has explained.
BioShock creator Ken Levine has said a movie based on the world of Rapture is still afloat, despite talks of spiralling budgets and a struggling production.
Take-Two has lost its battle to take control of the domain name bioshock.com after the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled in favour of a company that basically runs a silly landing page on it.
Seminal shooters BioShock and Portal are shining examples of great videogame storytelling and character design, Lionhead audio producer Georg Backer told an audience at the Develop Conference in Brighton this afternoon.
BioShock film producer Gore Verbinski has insisted the project hasn't drowned but is treading water while the team tries to reduce an "extraordinarily high" budget.
Irrational Games has posted nine pages of the original BioShock pitch document on its website, revealing a game quite unlike the finished, multi-award-winning article.
Irrational Games has explained that the enemies of BioShock weren't always sentient humans; once upon a time the inhabitants of Rapture and holders of ADAM were insects.
I think it's fair to say videogames are fundamentally selfish exercises. And I mean that in a broad, all-encompassing sense: whether you're watching your gnocchi-shaped Mii squat its way into bikini season or conquering some remote alien backwater in the guise of a faceless space-bobby, the focus is on you, the player, and how absolutely amazing and sexy and important you are.
Sony has updated the PlayStation Store with a demo of LocoRoco 2, the BioShock Challenge Rooms and a host of premium downloadables for Need For Speed Undercover along with usual candidates Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour.
BioShock, Dead Space, Pure, Midnight Club, Spidey, Star Wars.
Eurogamer's dogged, relentless coverage of the latest in cross-platform console development continues into this mammoth 15th round, where six more high-profile games are torn apart to the sounds of rage, applause and occasional reasoned debate from the internet assembled.
Of course, you all know the deal by now. Key to our quest is mastery of the video outputs of the respective consoles. Zero-compromise 24-bit full-range RGB captures from the HDMI ports of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 allow us to produce the best comparison screen grabs, while Eurogamer's h264-equipped video player means the best in streaming video (make sure you have that 'high quality' feature enabled). And if all that isn't good enough, the high-def captures in all their 720p 60FPS majesty can be downloaded for playback on fast PCs, Xbox 360 or PS3 via the author's blog where similar content for the technically obsessed can also be found. [Enough plugs. - Ed]
In terms of releases covered this time around, we've centred on a collection of the most recent, interesting or controversial titles:
Eurogamer's Face-Off king Rich Leadbetter likes to do things properly, which means going to unbelievable lengths in his research, sometimes just for the sake of a couple of sentences. So when he asked if we could put up the results of his BioShock frame-rate analysis - 100 like-for-like frames compared - we couldn't bear to deny him. Check out Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 Face-Off: Round 15 to see where all this fits in. Over to Rich:
Xbox 360
To carry out these tests, the same video was captured from both versions of the game and then trimmed to be 100% frame accurate; the same action, the same amount of frames. HDMI capture at full 24-bit RGB precision with lossless compression ensures a digitally accurate capture. The frame rate detector tool then compares each frame with the next. A 0.0000% reading indicates a duplicate frame.
Whatever you think of BioShock - and we're fans, as you may have gathered from our 10/10 BioShock PS3 review a few weeks ago - the prospect of Portal-style canned challenges designed to take advantage of the game's genetic powers and guns is a new and interesting proposition. BioShock encouraged, but seldom commanded players to combine their abilities, but the PS3's Challenge Rooms - due out on 20th November - use their discretion as a licence to impose the kinds of restrictions players would never have tolerated in the campaign, but which make perfect sense removed to one-shot levels built around speed and MacGuyver-style ingenuity.
The very first teaser trailer for BioShock 2 has been shown.
The footage is unlocked after completing BioShock on PS3, and shows a 9 or 10 year-old girl (presumably a Little Sister) standing on the Atlantic Coast peering out into the ocean.
A cuddly Big Daddy toy dangles from her hand as the camera zooms out to show a cityscape bursting from the sand behind her.
2K Marin is to address niggles in the PS3 version of BioShock with a new patch.
It'll be released sometime after the game launches on 24th October, according to the official forum.
An entire fix list will have to wait, but we're told the Big Daddy and Elite Bouncer texture issues have been fixed, as have the white or discoloured bars appearing during the opening plane crash sequence.
It feels a bit strange to be reviewing BioShock almost exactly a year since everyone was last talking about it. Even before it launched on the 360 and PC, it was one of the most widely and thoroughly dissected games of 2007. Riding the hype and backlash seesaw like few games before or since, it attracted reams of praise, (fevered) debate, and impassioned defence along the way.
In other words, so much has been said and written about BioShock that I fear there's little I can say about the long awaited PS3 version that won't taste like refried beans. But then, having been reunited with Rapture, BioShock is a game still magnificently capable of inspiring torrents of thoughts and ideas.
There's the story, one of the most highly lauded in recent gaming history, but then most of the things I'd want to discuss are precisely the sort of things that patient PS3 gamers probably won't want spoiled. I know I'd have been really annoyed if I'd learned that your character is actually a sexy female cyborg with Hitler's brain right before I started playing last year. Oops.
BioShock and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 demos lead a meaty PSN update this week.
They're followed by PSN game GEON, which costs GBP 4.99 and received 6/10 on Xbox Live Arcade last September.
Those FIFA 09 Adidas Live Season subscription packs are also available, either at GBP 4.99 for one league, or GBP 12.99 for all seven. The idea is that EA watches real matches to determine player performance and then allows you to download updates that replicate this in FIFA 09's exhibition matches, ranked online and Interactive League games. Don't get in a huff about the cost though - you get one free sub with the game.
We take the PS3 down into Rapture for the first time.
Is BioShock on PS3 the first example of a developer showing off the downloadable content before we get to see the game? The PS3 version's Challenge Rooms - announced and demonstrated to the press at E3 in July - were our first chance to see 2K's blockbusting underwater mind-bender in action on Sony hardware. The Ferris Wheel level, where players have to rescue a Little Sister by picking through the crumbling environment for electricity to transfer to a control panel, is a neat example of what 2K hopes to do to extend the game's appeal once the credits have rolled, but, shorn of the arguably vital context of the single-player game, it's a peculiar introduction. The assumption was that everyone has played BioShock.
Ken Levine, Bill Gardner and Chris Kline on narrative, creativity, controversy.
Gamers have a strange, and in ways very English, attitude to success - a cautious, suspicious response that says that it's okay to be successful, as long as you pretend you're not and keep your mouth shut. Talk about how you made your game, what you learned from it or why you think it did well, and the internet will rise up swiftly to accuse you of having a God complex and believing that the sun shines out of your own backside like a perverse, fleshy torch.
2K Boston creative boss Ken Levine has warned developers of the dangers of focus-testing games too early - saying that nobody would have wanted to play Bioshock if the idea had been focus-tested years before release.
Take-Two's faith in BioShock meant 2K Boston and 2K Australia had "the luxury of getting to bump into a lot of things", the game's makers have told an audience at the Develop conference.
2008 may be "the year of PlayStation" in Jack Tretton's E3 phrase, but for some PS3 owners "the year of PlayStation" might as well be the time it takes multiformat games to arrive on Sony's flagship console. But before you lynch us for saying so, we're well aware that patient PS3 owners have found the gap can work in their favour - the spit and polish-filled hydraulics of time elevating competent games to a more accomplished level - and with the standard set by the likes of Overlord: Raising Hell, developers are keen to present their overdue PS3 conversions as special editions with all sorts of extras.
2K Marin has explained how you'll be able to collect a few of the Trophies in the PS3 version of BioShock.
These range from bronze to platinum, according to producer Alyssa Finley on the US PlayStation blog, and are designed to entice you into exploring Rapture.
Bronze rewards will be dished out for researching, modifying weapons, hacking and crafting, with each skill apparently "loaded" with awards. You could find yourself up to "your armpits in prizes", said Finley.
At its E3 press conference, publisher 2K Games announced that the PS3 version of BioShock will get exclusive downloadable content in the form of Challenge Rooms.
Created by a small team at original developers 2K Boston, Challenge Rooms will encourage players to delve deeper into the game's unique toolset, using their plasmids to solve a more puzzle-oriented challenge.
Sounds something like Valve's brilliant Portal to us, and a very intriguing prospect. We'll call by 2K's suite at E3 to find out more.
You probably thought that the existence of Bioshock for the PS3 was confirmed when we ran our somewhat unambiguously headlined piece, "Bioshock confirmed for PS3" - well, so did we, but 2K Games is publishing it, so we'll forgive it for wanting to get in on the confirming action.
In a release that's hot off the presses and burning our fingers, 2K Games says that a PS3 version is in development, and will be out in October 2008. Rather more helpfully, the firm also confirms something we've been wondering about - namely that the PS3 edition will be "enhanced", with new content and features added to it.
No details have appeared as yet of what that new content might involve, although in the EGM story which broke the existence of the PS3 version, it was fairly strongly hinted that the graphics, at least, would be pretty much the same as the 360 version.
BioShock is on its way to PlayStation 3 after all.
Although 2K's press office was unable to comment this afternoon, PSM and Electronic Gaming Monthly both have cover stories on the game in their next issues.
Not many details are being shared online, although EGM does point out that there are "some potential graphical improvements" and that it will be out for the "2008 holiday season".
BioShock creator Ken Levine has revealed his top five games of all time, admitting he spends rather too much time playing one of them: World of Warcraft.
Take Two has announced that BioShock 2 will be released in fiscal Q4 2009. The publisher's financial year is two months ahead of the calendar year, so that means we'll see the game somewhere in the August-October 2009 period.
Interestingly, Take Two hasn't set Ken Levine's 2K Boston (formerly Irrational Games) to work on this one, preferring recently-formed studio 2K Marin, based in Novato, California, for what's inevitably going to be among the most highly anticipated sequels of 2009.
(Update: However, the company said during a subsequent conference call that Levine would be involved in the game's production: "He will be working on Bioshock 2 and he will be working on a new IP.")
Ken Levine, creative director on BioShock, has said he believes the gameplay in the third act is some of the strongest in the entire game - but that the storyline peaked too soon.
Speaking as part of an impromptu panel at the DICE Summit 2008, BioShock creative director Ken Levine sought to remind developers what they were really meant to be doing, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was selected as 2007's Game of the Year at the 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
Every now and then, someone pops out of the woodwork to complain that the games industry isn't innovative any more. This is clearly nonsense. Certainly, publishers might have an ongoing love affair with barely distinguishable sequels and a herd mentality that makes sheep look strong-willed, but consider this - year after year, the industry invents new and previously unheard-of ways to make you part with your cash. If that's not innovation, what is?
Download Content (DLC) is a new arrival in the exciting field of wallet-stripping, and the Xbox 360 is on the vanguard. Many Xbox 360 games have content available for download sometime after launch, allowing you to hand over a few measly Microsoft points for access to new maps, models, missions and the likes. It's a great idea in theory, obviously - who doesn't want to extend the life of their favourite game a bit? In practice, though, there's some suspicion about it. Nobody wants to find themselves paying extra money for content that should have been in the game in the first place.
Hence these DLC roundup features, where we'll be looking at the bits and bobs that have made their way onto Xbox Live - and, soon, PSN - in the past few months, and checking out what's worth whipping your card out for, and what deserves to sit, dusty and unloved, in the digital dustbins out the back of the Marketplace.
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for its 11th annual Interactive Achievement Awards, with BioShock receiving a record 12 nominations including Overall Game of the Year.
2K Australia has more awards for its display cabinet, as BioShock has been named game of the year in the Spike TV Video Game Awards, which took place in Las Vegas yesterday, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
The title also won best Xbox 360 game and best score in the ceremony, adding to a host of awards - including best game - which it won at this year's BAFTA Video Games Awards.
Harmonix was named as best studio for its work on Rock Band, which was a also given the award for best rhythm game.
The promised BioShock patch for both Xbox 360 and PC has landed along with free downloadable content consisting of new plasmids, gene tonics and - in the case of 360 owners - an additional unlockable Achievement worth 100 gamerpoints.
The latter is rewarded for beating the game on Hard without resurrecting once at a Vita Chamber. You are permitted to reload using an earlier save-game file, just not to resurrect. A new "Disable Vita Chamber" option is also included for added difficulty, but it doesn't need to be toggled on to unlock the above Achievement - the game will know whether you've resurrected or not.
The new plasmids and gene tonics, meanwhile, are Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom 2, Eve Saver, Machine Buster, Machine Buster 2, Vending Expert, Vending Expert 2, and all are available on both formats as part of the downloadable update.
BioShock will be patched on both PC and Xbox 360 this week, according to the game's official website, and players of both can also look forward to free downloadable content.
"Both the BioShock PC Patch and the 360 Title Update will be available next week," web admin Elizabeth Tobey wrote on Friday.
"In addition to these fixes, we will be releasing downloadable content free on both Xbox Live and for the PC, with the DLC bundled into the PC Patch.
Stop clowning around; it really is bastardly cold out there. Still, it's good for one thing: keeping my PC from overheating. All I have to do is wrap up warm and open my window, then pop in one of these festively fantastic frolics and laugh away merrily - probably with a vat of mulled wine close-by to ensure I am well and truly smashed. I'm only giving it serious consideration because there are some games worth seriously considering.
It is now dark when we walk home and birds are either dropping out of trees in frozen lumps or going somewhere much nicer for their holidays. And, as always happens, the shops are hoisting their Christmas decorations up and getting us all worried about buying presents because we never know what they want is it socks or aftershave. So, we thought we would join in.
If you've ever wondered what Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime makes of the competition, an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle has the answer: he likes the look of LittleBigPlanet, reckons the Halo trilogy is indispensable and thought BioShock was "tremendously well done".
Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski says BioShock is "hands down" his game of the year, and that the game's big plot twist is his "top moment in gaming history, bar none".
2K Games bigwig Strauss Zelnick has said that the two-year release cycle employed for the Grand Theft Auto series could be used for future BioShock titles, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
His comments were made in a recent chit-chat with investors, where he boasted about the 1.5 million sales of the title so far, before suggesting it could become "one of the fastest-selling games in history".
Kriss Akabusi and Cheryl Baker were also on hand to award the game with a record for producing the most sought-after demo on Xbox Live so far - over one million
BioShock has battled off hot competition from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 to remain top of the UK all formats chart for a second week running, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
If you were one of the thousands who heeded Kristan's wise words and bought a copy of BioShock on release, rocketing the game to the top of the all-format charts in the process, then you've probably already experienced the wonders of Rapture and are currently playing through again on a higher difficulty. If so then this guide to every Plasmids and Gene Tonic in the game - where to find them and what they do - was written with your good self in mind. If not, be warned - there be big spoilers ahead.
The winners of the Best in Show awards from this year's Games Convention in Leipzig have been announced, GamesIndustry.biz reports, with Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 taking two awards for Best PlayStation 2 game and Best PlayStation 3 game.
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.)
Irrational Games' Ken Levine has been explaining why you can't just bump off Little Sisters - the vulnerable children who collect Plasmid-enabling Adam in BioShock - in regular combat. Happily, he does this in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, which gives us just the excuse we want to link new blog Rock Paper Shotgun, put together by Eurogamer contributes John Walker, Kieron Gillen, Alec Meer and Jim Rossignol. Rock Paper Shotgun. Sneaky, eh? Rock Paper Shotgun.
Promise is possibly the most powerful weapon in videogames. The promise and possibilities that a title like BioShock dangles tantalisingly in front of us keeps us all hanging on in there, keeps us believing, keeps us pre-ordering. Even when the shelves are awash with me-too pap, cheap knock-off licensed fodder and hyped sequels, a title like this stands out like a beacon of hope amid a sea of mediocrity. No pressure.
But we all know from long experience that promise can be a bitter curse - one destined to magnify any minor disappointments when we finally get the game out of the cellophane and fire it up. A game is never as good as its hype, or so history seems to rub in our face over and over again. Some of us even try our best to avoid getting caught up in the hype bubble, so that, for once, we can actually be pleasantly surprised about how good something is without having it rammed down our throats by hysterical marketing and frothing commentators. Believe me, even as a reviewer - especially as a reviewer - you're always on your guard when it comes to the Next Big Thing. Disappointment comes practically gift wrapped for your displeasure.
So to have any shred of doubt surrounding BioShock comprehensively swept away within the first ten minutes, well, you feel like dancing. You want to tell people about this game who you know won't even care, just because it makes you so giddy inside. Before we get into the nitty gritty, here's the deal: Bioshock doesn't just meet your expectations, but completely redefines them forever in ways you never even expected - in ways that games used to in the past, routinely. The hours spent playing this masterpiece were the perfect encapsulation of why videogaming is such a favourite waste of time for so many of us. Thrilling, terrifying, moving, confusing, amusing, compelling, and very very dark. BioShock isn't simply the sign of gaming realising its true cinematic potential, but one where a game straddles so many entertainment art forms so expertly that it's the best demonstration yet how flexible this medium can be. It's no longer just another shooter wrapped up in a pretty game engine, but a story that exists and unfolds inside the most convincing and elaborate and artistic game world ever conceived. It just so happens to require you to move the narrative along with your own carefully and personally defined actions. Active entertainment versus passive: I know which I prefer.
A Most Wanted list you say? Cripes, whatever next: a Tips and Cheats pamphlet to go with Eurogamer's promotional Pacman Beach Ball cover mount? Still, it's the summer, there are precious few games around and, with an awful lot of new titles coming up towards the end of the year you might quite reasonably want to know which ones to keep an eye on.
Ken Levine is buzzing. He's just spent the past two hours watching a group of journalists take control of BioShock for the very first time. And this is a game where taking control becomes a more profound, complex process than simply guiding a character through its world.
We might spend a lot of time talking about new PlayStations and Slitherlinks and all that, but we're usually dreaming of BioShock when we do - and we're not just saying that because 2K Games has given us this rather handsome exclusive trailer to show off.
BioShock is due out on 24th August on PC and Xbox 360, and we're pretty keen on it. Irrational Games embosses this view in greater faith whenever we talk to them, like we did recently when Ken Levine answered some of our questions.
But you'll know why that is if you've been keeping up with it, so why don't we just stop talking and send you off to look at the trailer? You've probably gone already. If not, you could also click on this link to our BioShock first impressions. We wouldn't blame you if you didn't though. It's 5.30pm and we've pretty much checked out. I'm basically just picking at the label of a bottle of Casillero del Diablo I bought at Sainsbury's. It's a good gig if you can get it.
It's surprising to us that we're not Ken Levine's girlfriend. Not just because we're hot, obviously, but also because we share his love of good ideas that have fallen apart. Then again, there's an obvious reason we'd never work together: for him, it's the worlds of Orwell's 1984, and Logan's Run; for us, it's the worlds of games like System Shock 2 and Freedom Force. In other words, we'd only be sleeping with him for his work.
Being able to use DirectX 10 might sound like most obvious benefit of developing for Windows Vista, but BioShock lead designer Ken Levine has a different take on what makes the operating system so important to gamers and the industry at large.
2K has slammed its fist on the table this afternoon and confirmed to Eurogamer that BioShock will be sitting on European shelves on 24th August.
"We've now had clarification that the new UK release date for BioShock will be 24th August," a spokesperson for the publisher whispered into our digital ear.
It confirms earlier news that the game would be available in August, although Americans will get the game on Tuesday and we'll have to wait until Friday.
Those of you eagerly awaiting to explore the underwater world of BioShock now have a date to look forward to, according to 2K's The Cult of Rapture website, which has announced it will be available on 21st August.
Irrational Games boss Ken Levine has revealed that one of the reasons there was no System Shock 3 is that "EA just didn't give a s*** about that game".
If you were one of the 60,000 frazzled souls that traipsed around the vast halls of E3 last week, you might wonder why you never stumbled across Bioshock on your extensive travels. If you've checked any of the coverage of Irrational's spiritual successor to System Shock 2, just about everyone is excitedly screaming 'Game of the Show' in the faces of anyone who'll listen.
