Good games crafted using Epic Games' Unreal Engine seem to come in good numbers, but BioShock (Xbox 360, PC) stood out after receiving much praise. Even Epic Vice President Mark Rein himself is proud that 2K Games produced a title of high caliber using the engine.

The last big video game that used Unreal was Gears of War, which achieved phenomenal sales and easily became the fastest selling Xbox 360 game. However, BioShock doesn't fall far behind in second place.

Rein recognized 2K's achievement, saying the devs did a fantastic job with the game. He added:

Regardless of whether its developed by us or not, nothing would make me happier than to see our engine in the number one selling game of all time or the number one highest reviewed game of all time.

Epic has been under fire recently because of licensing issues, but Rein offered the company's full support to licensees. "We give our licensees the opportunity to take what we’ve done and do something even better with it," he said.

Just a few weeks back, developers Silicon Knights filed a lawsuit against Epic for "sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights and others to develop their own video games." What magic turned BioShock into such a hit, we can only guess.

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]

 

It's been a month since we've kept track of the hottest selling games in the UK, but we guess later is better than never. The latest numbers rolled off from Chart Track's UK list for the week ending August 25, and Take-Two Interactive's BioShock claims the throne from top-notcher Transformers: The Game from Activision.

With Activision's multi-platformer sitting on number two, Nintendo's Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training stays firmly at the third spot. Another Brain Training title, More Brain Training From Dr. Kawashima, tails closely at third, swapping places with Wii Play which now sits at fourth.

Pokemon Diamond drops two places to sixth, pushing Electronic Arts' Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix to the number seven spot. Ubisoft's Surf's Up, Microsoft's Blue Dragon, and Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Warfighter 2 closes the lower three of the top ten, from eighth place onwards in that order. In quick summary, that would be:

• BioShock (Take-Two Interactive)
• Transformers: The Game (Activision)
• Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo)
• More Brain Training From Dr. Kawashima (Nintendo)
• Wii Play (Nintendo)
• Pokemon Diamond (Nintendo)
• Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix (Electronic Arts)
• Surf's Up (Ubisoft)
• Blue Dragon (Microsoft)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Warfighter 2 (Ubisoft)

 

Naysayers would keep on complaining how many first-person shooters look alike, but some development companies make it a point that their titles won't be like the latest big thing in the market. Valve Corporation told CVG that BioShock, 2K Games' explosive FPS that earned much praise since its recent release, is banned from the office until Half-Life: Episode Two and The Orange Box are done.

Not only does it say much about determination to make the games good without influence from previous successful hits, but also gives the folks at Valve an incentive to work hard. "Nobody gets to play it until Orange Box is done - that's our reward to ourselves as a company; everyone gets a copy of BioShock," said co-founder Gabe Newell.

Newell went on, saying BioShock developer Irrational Games "is the latest example of people who've descended from the Id Software/Looking Glass family tree." This points at legends like Doom and BioShock's spiritual predecessor, System Shock, as role models for anyone that followed Id and Looking Glass. "There's nobody left who isn't a descendant of those two companies," he continued.

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]

BioShock is popular enough as it is. But how do you know its popularity has reached critical level? It's when mothers are convinced that they can't do household chores without the help of Plasmids from Andrew Ryan.

As a humor post to lighten up the mood around here, we're taking something that we stumbled across in a Blogspot entry from one gamer mom named Crystal. You may have heard about her - or not. But the important point here is that you can't deny the impact that BioShock has among its many fans.

We've taken an excerpt from Crystal's blog entry to share it with you guys. This one has Crystal and her 14 year old son Devon, who is trying to convince her to get BioShock - especially right after getting to play the demo:

"So, Mom. BioShock comes out today."

"Mmm. I know. We need groceries. We're out of milk. Don't talk to me about buying anything."

"I've been reading reviews. It's received a perfect in every category. Awesome, huh?"

"Yeah. Milk. Meat. Vegetables. Costly. La la la. I can't hear you."

"You get these things called Plasmids and they control your abilities. And you can upgrade your weapons, even create weapons out of stuff you find laying around."

"Growing children. Need to eat."

"And this one ability? You create bees that pop up right out of your veins and they attack and kill."

"Let's go to Wal-Mart. You guys can live on rice, right? 20 bajillion Chinese people can't be wrong."

Now, here's where he hasn't figured out how to perfect this scam of his. You see, once we get the game home, I'm as good as useless for a few days until I finish it. He mopes and whines because he has to wait.

"When do I get to play? Why can't you be like normal Moms and bake cookies and crap?"

"Does this game have a Plasmid for that? No? Then shaddup and wait your turn."

Hello. My name is Crystal and I'm a gameaholic.

Yeah, we sympathize for poor little Devon. Not only is he deprived of getting to play BioShock (whether on the Xbox 360 or PC), but he won't be able to stuff himself silly with some cookies before bedtime either. And to think he knew quite a lot about the game too, it's sad to note that it's actually rated M. If moms always know best, he'll probably be deprived of BioShock for three more years.

As for Crystal, we do wish there were Cookie-Baking Plasmids available in the market today. You won't believe how much the world would be a better place with more cookie-baking moms to go about (just leave out the Bee Plasmids, thank you very much). And likewise, we could probably use some Common Sense Plasmids as well - because some would say that common sense isn't all too common nowadays.

You might want to click the Read link below to see the full post for some chuckles. Just don't mind that bit referencing John Holmes - the BioShock bit is right after that section.

Saying that 2K Games' sci-fi horror shooter Bioshock (Xbox 360, PC) has made waves with the videogaming community is an understatement. Not only did it receive praise from the entire FPS fanbase in general, it also passed the rigorous reviewing criteria of many a videogame reviewing website. And here to give us a sneak peek at just how they managed to pull off the greatest hat-trick in the history of videogames is Lead Level Designer Bill Gardner and Senior Artist Hogarth De La Fontaine, featured in SpikeTV's Bonus Round.

In this video interview, we get a ton of info about this year's runaway FPS hit, including the things they wanted to put in the game's retail version but was sadly forced to leave it in the cutting room. An example of this is an underwater zoo, complete with underwater creatures and monsters as exhibits.

While it would have certainly looked odd, it would've rocked just the same - how can fighting a mutated giant squid in an underwater zoo level not be awesome?

All that and more in the video below. Enjoy!

Over at the 2K games The Cult of Rapture website, the orchestral score for BioShock (Xbox 360, PC) has just been released. The set contains 12 tracks from the award-winning composer Garry Schyman - a download that's only worth 21MB of your bandwidth time. Getting paranoid about seeing Little Sisters and Big Daddies everywhere you go is one thing. Hearing the music of Rapture while you're being paranoid is something else. Here's the tracklist:

1. BioShock Main Theme (The Ocean on His Shoulders)
2. Welcome to Rapture
3. Dr. Steinman
4. The Docks
5. The Dash
6. Step Into My Gardens
7. Dancers on a String
8. Cohens Masterpiece
9. The Engine City
10. Empty Houses
11. This is Where They Sleep
12. All Spiced Up

This musical score does nothing but relive the BioShock experience. If you're that masochistic enough (hey, that includes me), you might want to plug this into your mp3 player and invoke all those feelings you've experienced in the game: sinking below the depths and into the city, nuking it out with Big Daddy for the first time, and facing the decision of whether to harvest or save a Little Sister.

As video game music goes, this one's a keeper. As musical pieces in general go, this one's still a keeper (given that you're really masochistic and brave enough). Personally, it reminds me a bit of the Lost soundtrack (Michael Giacchino FTW!) coupled in with the chill factor of the first and second Silent Hill albums. If that's not your cup of plasmids, it won't hurt to give it a shot. Enjoy the music! Play it loud!

Download: BioShock Orchestral Score

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]

First off, it must be said that there will be no PS3 version for Bioshock, as Ken Levine makes clear. Also, he assures the "pissed off" owners of Bioshock who have some problems with installing the game on their PC that patches are in development.

Joystiq talked to Levine directly to get that info. Levine, lead designer for Bioshock, explains that he is aware of the problems Bioshock has on the PC. He expresses that there were indeed "screw ups" with the game's online copy protection verification. The issue being faced is that the game can only be installed twice and nevermore.

The problem stemmed from the developers not expecting that the game would become such a hit. So when the requests came in for verification, the server simply crashed. Levine explains that they will eventually remove the verification process.

As for the rumors circulating about Bioshock coming to the PS3, Levine leaves no room for doubt when he commented:

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. There's lots of stuff that gets into game code, plans change over time and we got an exclusive deal with Microsoft ... that's not a Rosetta Stone discovery.

 

Here's an update about 2K Games' FPS masterpiece, Bioshock for the PC and Xbox 360 - and it's about the attention the game's receiving not only for its graphic depiction of violence and usage of drugs, but also about the moral decision you're forced to make regarding the lives of the Little Sisters you stumble upon in Rapture.

The media attention comes in the form of an article by the Patriot Ledger. It talks about Bioshock as a game that breaks taboos by letting the player character kill enemies in the form and shape of little girls for Adam, an important resource in the game. The article also cites a murder case where videogames were allegedly involved - namely, the murder of 15-year-old James Alensen at the hands of 16-year-old John Odgren. John was reported to be  heavily into videogames, one of which is the highly-controversial Grand Theft Auto series.

The article also quotes 2K Boston President Kenneth Levine, with his statement of Bioshock being a game that presents difficult moral choices to the player. His statement, verbatim:

As a piece of art, we want to deal with challenging moral issues and if you want to do that, you have to go to some dark places. And BioShock certainly does go to some dark places.

While we can certainly agree that Bioshock does depict violence, it might be worth noting that you don't actually get to "kill" the Little Sisters - choosing the Harvest option merely has the player picking the Little Girl up, then there's a fadeout, and then you get the hefty Adam bonus. No violent scene of the thing actually happening displayed. Also, you can't engage the Little Girl in combat, as they're practically invincible with the Adam inside them.

Another fact is that the game actually rewards you more for rescuing little girls rather than harvesting them. For every four Little Girls you rescue, a pivotal character in the game's narrative, Dr. Tanenbaum, will leave you a present of 200 Adam, as well as Plasmids you can't get anywhere else (like the Hypnotize Big Daddy Plasmid, which lets you trick Big Daddies into fighting your battles for you). And let's not forget that the ending you get depends on what you do with the Little Sisters themselves!

It's certainly a good thing that the world is taking notice of the games - let's just hope it doesn't disintegrate into pointless debating and mud-slinging just like other events that has happened in the past. You can check out the entire article via the Read link below.

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]

 

2K Games' Bioshock may be Game of the Year material, and it could possibly even be among the highest rated games ever, but this horror FPS title isn't without its share of trouble. In fact, complaints are piling up about issues in the PC version - from widescreen woes, to extremely prohibitive copy protection schemes. Some meticulous gamer calls out that 2K is in a worse pinch, stating that 2K Games conflicts against the game's own End User License Agreement (EULA).

Just recently, PC owners discovered that Bioshock can only be installed twice (that's one install, and one re-install) even on the same machine. A poster over at the Official 2K Forum claimed the security measure was a violation of the EULA terms since it explicitly stated that everything should be fine and dandy as long as you don't try to install the same copy on a different machine. Fine and dandy included every re-installation of the game, no matter how many times the user wishes - as long as it's on the same machine.

SecuROM said that they're working with the software publisher, 2K Games, on a strategy to resolve the issue, or so the poster claims. Other attempts to contact SecuROM often ended with the same message.

Forum moderator irrationallevine posted a reply, saying "I've followed up on the circular email with SecuROM and we are working on this issue. I agree, it sucks, and we need to get that sorted. I've been told by 2k that we will."

There's been quite a fuss over the widescreen features of 2K Games' big FPS BioShock for the PC and the Microsoft Xbox 360. Reports of FOV bugs that involve cutting off top and bottom portions of sights have been noted, driving a lot of users crazy.

The noise has gotten pretty loud to such an extent that 2K Games just had to clear things up. Elizabeth of the 2K team posted an official message on their site explaining their side.

Elizabeth made it clear that they "didn’t save any money or development time by choosing this set of parameters." She added that decisions made by the team were done with the game's best interest in mind. She further explained:

When playing in widescreen modes the game makes use of the full screen resolution, and does not crop or stretch a lower resolution image into a wide screen one. For example, at 720p the game renders natively to the full 1280x720 resolution.

She also discussed the rationale behind some key choices as geared towards pleasing the greater majority of players. "Instead of cropping the FOV for 4:3 displays and making all 4:3 owners mad in doing so, we slightly extended the vertical FOV for standard def mode: we never wanted to have black bars on people’s displays," she comments.

For those still unhappy despite this explanation, Elizabeth concluded that they'll be looking into options for allowing users to adjust FOV settings manually. However, she indicated that this may take quite some time to release if they ever decide to come up with a fix.

Buy: [Bioshock (Games for Windows)]
Buy: [Bioshock (Xbox 360)]