News

Bioshock novel releasing on March 1

We all know that in 2009 it was revealed that a prose novel is to be written on the Bishock game series and developer Irrational Games would do it.

Well, the novel is pretty much from sight from publisher Tor Books. It is available on Amazon.com and Macmillan, the parent company of Tor Books. The novel has been titles as Bioshock: Rapture and both the companies have stated it to be releasing on March 1.

Though Bioshock: Rapture novel has been written by John Shirley, but Irrational Games’ head man Ken Levine has written the

introductory chapter, which will be featuring the back story of how Andrew Ryan had established the Rapture, waterwacity.

The novel will be getting released in trade paperback format as well as hardcover and both to have different cover art work.

The Bioshock: Rapture novel was actually to get released in early 2010 around release of BioShock 2, but a post of Shirley on the message boards of 2K Games’ BioShock said that the decision was made to incorporate the characters and also the plot points from Bioshock 2 in the novel. This made another 30,000 words inclusion in the novel.

2K Games apologizes PC gamers

2K Games earlier this month apologizes to all the PC gamers for not putting effort to bring downloadable content of BioShock 2 PC version. The DLCs were only made available on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The developer cited the problesm of timing and technical issues for not working upon BioShock 2 DLC for PCs.

We had seen a rage among the PC gamers on official forum of the company for being left away on DLC projects as favored the gamers on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Lately, 2K Games apologized all the PC gamers for their cancellation of BioShock 2 DLCs – Minerva’s Den and The Protector Trails. The developer has now resumed the development of these two DLCs and it will be coming soon on PCs.

2K Games’ representative Elizabeth Tobey said few days before: “We have resumed development… and they will be coming to PC,” said company representative Elizabeth Tobey.”

Elizabeth also mentioned that the project was axed because there were some unresolved bugs that would trigger problesm during specific situations with the game. The developer could not fix up the issues on time and so they had to move on to other new projects.

Abandoned Project revealed by makers of BioShock

Will the Monster Island game ever become get launched? Makers of BioShock have lifted lid on this abandoned project.

Recently the official website of the game reveals description of the game in PDF file along with images.

The game involves controlling the monsters themselves or to those who are trying to stop the monsters. The idea of this tabletop RPG is derived from BioShock.

Earlier, Irrational Games also unveiled same concept material for their game The Lost that was inspired by descriptions of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

At present Irrational Games are busy working on the forthcoming BioShock Infinite, which is a quasi-prequel to the original BioShock. However, Irrational Games had no involvement with the BioShock 2.

Monster Island game is a mixing giant Japanese style creatures along with having European mythology.

BioShock 2 DLC launching on PC this December

2K Games announced earlier this month that downloadable content of BioShock 2 would not be launched on PC. The developer cited the issues of technical problem and timing, and the PC gamers, naturally, turned into a fit of rage as the Minerva’s Den DLC and The Protector Trails are available only on PS3 and Xbox 360. Now, anger has paid off. The developer has cancelled its plan.

Elizabeth Tobey, representative of 2K Games, said: “We have resumed development… and they will be coming to PC.”

Tobey also explained why earlier the projects were cancelled. She said 2K Games was working in building the Protector Trails, but some unresolved bugs were there, which still persists. She added that this would trigger some type of problems during specific situations during the game. The bug was not fixed on time by the developer and so they had to move on to other projects.

Well, let us thank to the harsh community that forced the maker of BioShock 2 to think over their cancelled project and offer to the PC gamers The Protector Trials this December. More to this, the content will be free.

2K Games to release downloadable content for PC

2K Games has announced lately that they are coming up with the downloadable content for the PC version of Bioshock 2. Earlier, they had said of not launching it due to timing and technical issues. The decision of 2K Games took gamers into a fit of rage. Now, the anger has paid off. The decisions of the developer is changing.

Elizabeth Tobey, the representative of 2K Games, said: “We have resumed development… and they will be coming to PC.”

She further mentioned that the projects were earlier axed because the studio was working on the Protector Trails, which still has some unresolved bugs. Tobey added, the bugs “would trigger problems with the game during specific situations.”

Well, let us thank to the community that made the studio to think over it. Now, the PC gamers can expect The Protector Trials by December, if everything goes well. Moreover, the content will be absolutely free. Isn’t it some great news for the PC gamers?

BioShock 2 DLC packs prices slashed on Xbox 360

BioShock 2 got 3 DLC packs on Xbox 360 and 2 Avatar items. So, players to enjoy more because prices have been slashed in Xbox LIVE Deal of the Week.

There has been 6 new multiplayer maps addition in the Rapture Metro. Also there is an addition of new melee mode. Usualy it is 800 MS Points, but for this week it is just half, 400 MS Points ($5).

The popular Sinclair Solutions Tester Pack raised the level cap to 50 instead of adding any new maps. It just added weapon upgrades and also brought twenty new trials. It has 2 new playable characters and also 5 new in-game masks. The DLC got 33 percent discount. It has come down to 240 MS Points from 400 MS Points.

The Protector Trials is available at 240 MS Points ($3) instead of 400 MS Points. This is a single-player only DLC and in this the player defend the Little Sisters against the swarms of enemies. It has 6 new maps and all of it is based on locations of the game. There are also 3 difficult levels in it and 7 new Achievements to unlocks.

More to this, the Avatar’s wardrobe of Big Sister Outfit and the Watchface Big Daddy Doll are also on sale. The cost 240 MS Points and 160 MS Points respectively.

Minnerva’s Den DLC a challenge for players

The biggest draw of BioShock2 was to offer a chance to return to the submerged city of Rapture to all the players. Rapture is a wonder. It has a gorgeous art-deco visual aesthetic along with spine-chilling atmosphere. Many players liked the lure of a new story set in it that is within the spooky and dimly-lit corridors of the city.

For those players who were not drawn to time challenges were largely unsatisfied. 2K had offered Protector Trials and also a series of maps that is based on locations in Rapture.

2K had also released Minerva’s Den, which is a self-contained adventure. The Minnerva’s Den is running concurrently to the main campaign. It is the unexplored part of the Rapture. In the Minnerva’s Den the players will face many challenges.

The Sigma in the BioShock 2 is like a task of breaking into the Rapture’s central computer core. Players need to gain access to The Thinker in it. Thinker is the machine that runs in the electrical inner-workings of the city.

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.