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Bioshock Infinte to be world-shaking narrative experience

Ken Levine, chief of Irrational Games, said he wants BioShock Infinite to be know for a “world-shaking narrative experience”

Game Informer quoted him saying, “We want this to go down in the history books as both a world-shaking narrative experience, but also a ‘Holy s—! I was in this combat and let me tell you what happened! It was awesome!’”

Levine said further that this time some of the more tried-and-tested narrative techniques would get the boot. He mentioned, “On the story side, one of the criticisms from System Shock 2 to BioShock to BioShock 2 is that whenever you encounter somebody, they’re behind a piece of glass. I invented that trick back in 1999. We’ve gotten rich and fat off of that trick, and we decided, ‘no more of that trick.’”

Nate Wells, the Art Director, stated that the setting of 1912 America in the game would give many inspiration for the game. It is set in the cloud city of Columbia.

He sid, “We wondered if this time period would bear fruit, and it became clear very quickly that it would. We were able to play with history and draw from history in the same way, and cherry pick what we want and leave what didn’t serve us.”

BioShock 2 DLC fixes hacking mini-game for colour blind

The Minerva Den and Protector Trail of BioShock 2 adds in stripes to the hacking mini-game which will help the colour-blind gamers.

The game was content-less so a title update of it couldn’t fix it said a developer as it was not for DLC fault but a “technical constraint”.

The developer just added stripes to the red wires. “It was in fact “secretly” fixed,” said Steve G, a designer at 2K Marin. “The reason it’s not publicized is that buying the DLC (Protector Trials or the upcoming Minerva’s Den) is required to get the fixed hacking.”

There were impossibility for some to tell the difference between green and red wires for the hacking mini-game.

“This is due to a technical constraint meaning that we couldn’t put the fix in a free title update (we would’ve had to re-distribute all of the levels, basically, because of how our data structure is set up, and I don’t think that title updates can contain content at all, only code.)”

“But, we figured better to fix it for some people than no one, so there you have it.”

Take-Two Loses Legal Battle Over Domain BioShock.com

Regarding the BioShock.com web domain, Take-Two Interactive loses the lawsuit. The court decides that the said domain was not used in the promotion of video-game related advertisements.

If anyone has noticed the domain BioShock.com, one may have seen that it was related to biology related subjects and it was not the official site of Take-Two.

The domain was under legal dispute for some time. It is actually owned by Name Administration. The game developer claims, “The only reason for [Name Administration's] use of the Domain Name is to trade off the value and goodwill of [Take-Two's] BioShock trademark by diverting users to third-party commercial websites for profit.”

Take-Two also argues that Name Administration allegedly implicate in domain squatting. It registers domains with name that involve a trademarked owned by someone else. It intents to make profit by displaying advertisements on the website.

However, Take-Two will still use BioShockGame.com for its BioShock and BioShock 2. BioShock2.com is also in the same situation as BioShock.com. Learning lesson, Take-Two has registered BioShockInfinite.com to make Irrational’s upcoming creation safe.

New DLC for BioShock 2 from Aug 31

More actions coming for Big Daddy in BioShock 2 this month end. 2K announced recently the new downloadable content pack for the game that is dubbed as Minerva’s Den. The DLC is scheduled to be released on August 31.

It will cost $10 for the PlayStation 3 owners. For the Xbox 360 gamers it can be grabbed for 800 Microsoft points.

There will be three new unexplored areas in Minerva’s Den for single player campaign. Moreover, gamers need not to complete the BioShock 2 narrative to access this.

The new areas will have 6 new Little Sisters and the gamers have to protect these sisters abreast of harvesting. Then, gamers need to rescue the sisters or drain ADAM out of them.

Those who bought the earlier DLC Protector’s Trial can now play around with a Master Tonic that is picked up from any of the Gatherer’s Garden. This will in return increase the harvest time and it will also increase the amount of ADAM that the Little Sisters get.

When the Pc owners will get this DLC is not yet known.

Irrational Games developing BioShock: Infinite

Finally the silence broke. After a long period the team behind BioShock, Irrational Games, has finally announced that they have been working on BioShock: Infinite, a continuation of BioShock.

There were long debate earlier and for years about the next game of Irrational. Of course fans were expecting BioShock from them as BioShock 2 was developed by another studio and without any input from the creative director of Irrational, Ken Levine.

Well, BioShock: Infinite seems to a be a surprise to many, specially to those who are expecting a new IP.

However, the most important thing here is the name of the studio because Infinite going to be a very different game.

There will be some known quantities of earlier two BioShock’s and also the fresh ideas from Levine, as promised. May be it can recapture some of the magic lost since the 2007 debut.

BioShock: Infinite will be released in 2012 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

ZeniMax Media Acquires Arkane Studios

After more than a decade moving ahead alone, now Arkane Studios decides to combine with ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda.

The best known game of Arkane studio for the PC and 260 are Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and it also assisted on the development of BioShock 2.

Arkane Studio was founded by lead designer of Deus Ex, Harvey Smith, in 1999 and the company has its offices in US and France. In 2002 the studio released its debut title Arx Fatalis.

Raphael Colantonia, the creative director of Arkane Studions, said: “This is an exciting moment for Arkane. After 11 years of independent development, we couldn’t think of a better publishing partner… We share so many creative values. Joining the ZeniMax family will allow us to grow stronger while staying true to the games we love.”

Currently the studion is working with Bethesda Softworks on a project under the ownership of ZeniMax.

It is also learned that Arkane will join other two teams which are well versed in first-person shooters and RPG.

Bioshock: Infinite announced

Bioshock: Infinite has been announced and now fans are questioning as why Ken Levine, the creator of series, had skipped on BioShock 2.

The answer was very simple for Levine. He said that he “felt like we said what we wanted to say about Rapture.”

He also added further, “That’s one of the reasons Bioshock 2 wasn’t the right project for us and, as we agreed with the company, we didn’t have the timeframe or the scale to make the product of the ambition we had.”

Levine appreciated 2K Martin, the maker of BioShock 2. He said, “I think [2K Marin is] a very talented team,” he told Eurogamer, “and I think it fulfilled the mission of completing the story of Rapture.”

So, all the fans of BioShock series! Excitement begins? For Levine’s Bioshock: Infinite? Bring on the Big Daddies.

New Downloadable Minerva’s Den for BioShock 2

Downloadable Minerva’s Den for BioShock 2 was announced recently. It is an all-new single-player game add-on which introduces new characters, locations and also some mystery to the world of Rapture.

Minerva’s Den is being developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and also for Windows-LIVE. It is a self-contained narrative experience putting the players in all-new character roles.

2K’s President Shristoph Hartmann said, “Minerva’s Den is a substantial addition that will give players more of what they’re looking for: more story, more narrative, more gameplay and more of Rapture… The core team has created an exciting product that further enhances the mystery and allure of the world of Rapture. Minerva’s Den will be a fitting conclusion to the BioShock 2 saga.”

In the new download there will be district of the undersea city that has been never seen before. Players will also come across uncovering the dark secrets that is hidden in the founder’s past.

There will also be some of the high-tech absolutely new weaponry.

The downloadable Minerva’s Den is developed by 2K Marin and it offers some new and fresh twists on the story of BioShock 2.

New patch of BioShock 2 due out next Tuesday

The new patch of BioShock 2 is due out next Tuesday.

This new patch of the game focuses mainly on creating more stability in the menus of it in PlayStation 3 as well as Xbox 360 versions.

However, the new patch makes the effects of the experience-erasing “Rebirth” tonic little easier to swallow and moreover, it will not be affecting the Adam totals anymore.

It is learned that the Unchartered 2 update will mainly be focusing on fixing multiplayer mechanics which the gamers were exploiting in order to progress in the matches.

There will also be some updation on the character content packs. Now, the patch will allow the voices to be included with the character skins.

Protector Trial’s environment becomes harder progressively

In BioShock 2, the new addition by 2K Marin mainly focuses on the single-player aspect of the game and not as it was earlier, a multiplayer side only with new maps, characters and weapons.

The developing team takes a snippet of Little Sister harvesting gameplay loop in the game and expands it to a full mode backed by its own story.

In the recent announcement of the Protector Trials, the players players take on the role of another Alpha series in service to Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum.

In it the Big Daddy is suppose to be helping Little Sisters collect to the maximum extent to weaken Sophia Lamb operation.

Well, the Subject Delta and the Alpha series Big Daddy don’t cross paths.

Ryan Mattson, the lead designer of the game, said that the campaign will have 6 environment in total. He adds that there will be 3 challenges in each environment and all will get harder gradually.

Protector Trial is releasing on August 3 and it will sell for $4.99 or 400 Microsoft points.