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Having a wallet so empty that tiny bats had taken up residence inside, I was faced with a difficult choice of purchases today. Having to choose between Battlefield: Bad Company, GRID or finally, Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360 was a gut-wrenching decision – one that was nearly impossible to make.
Finally, against much beating over the head by my brother (and partially to spite him) who wanted to play Battlefield, I decided to pick up Civilization Revolution. After a day of playing with it and then the Battlefield demo, all I can say that it was the right decision.
Hit the jump to read more.
(UPDATE: GamerTagRadio is reporting that the 100 GS Secret Achievement is “Bulletproof - Complete the game on Hard difficulty without using a Vita Chamber”. Great, like I’m going to be going to be getting that anytime soon. Not dying even once on Hard, pfft, yeah, sure, why not.)
BioShock seems to share a lot in common with the city it’s set in. What started out with a vision ended up blowing up in their faces somewhere down the line. With fans screaming bloody murder over the activation fracas, widescreen display issues and broken patches, it looks like at least one of those problems will be going away for good. In an update that’s been promised to come out soon, 2K Games will fix the widescreen issue once and for all, which we assume, was serious enough to render one of the greatest games ever made totally unplayable.
But wait, that’s not all. It looks like the game will also be seeing its first DLC along with the update, since we’re now seeing that the gamerscore for the game has been upped to 1100, with a new Secret Achievement being listed for 100 GS. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether the DLC will be free or not, but we should at least get a couple of new plasmids that were cut from the original.
PC owners who are still ripping mad about the activation issue, you still have to march some more in front of the 2K offices to get what you want. Hey, at least be thankful you’re not in the PS3 club, clutching at straws and marching day and night by the big cooling tower.
They dropped multiplayer gameplay, and vehemently shot down hopes of seeing a System Shock 2 style co-op mode, but it looks like Irrational 2K Boston isn’t about to let BioShock sink to the bottom as Halo 3 and The Orange Box fight to stay at the top. PC gamers who snooped deep into the game when it launched had unearthed a bunched a new Plasmids that were marked off as DLC.
Talking to the Games for Windows magazine in a post-release interview, Ken Levine said that he preferred expanding a game experience with replayability, instead of just slapping on some new content or more narrative.
Diablo II, to me, was a great model for an expansion, because it enhanced the original game, but also extended the game, too. I’m not a really big fan of expanding things just by linearly adding to the experience, adding a new campaign, as much as I am of enhancing the original experience and adding replayability to that experience. I think that certainly BioShock’s combat experience is great, but it could be broader. I’m a little more confused as far as how to expand the narrative experience.
Since the team had to cut a lot of Plasmids down during development, it’s quite possible that we’d soon be seeing new Plasmids and Tonics in a DLC rather than filler for the game. With PC owners already screaming bloody murder over the activation fiasco, it’d be nice to see how they’d react on the Cult of Rapture and TTLG forums if this was made a paid or an Xbox 360 exclusive download.
For those that were ripped at 2K for putting in those awful, awful installation limits into BioShock, relief is finally here. Temporarily, at least. Caving in to enormous pressure from the PC community, 2K Games has released a revoke tool that promises to free up one of your activation credits for reuse, provided your hardware hasn’t changed in a major way since the install.
In an FAQ at the Cult of Rapture community website, 2K promises users that they can uninstall and reinstall the game as many times on their systems as they want without using up any more activation credits as long as the hardware hasn’t changed. But the real catch here is that this only works as long as the old license information is still on your PC. If you’ve had to reformat your hard drive or reinstall Windows for any reason, you’re still boned and have to reactivate the game all over again. Worse, it still doesn’t remove the SecuROM dependency that’s built into the game, so people who were looking for a way to get past all of this have to wait all that much longer.
Definitely not the solution we were looking for, but at least it’s a step in the right direction to make sure people still don’t run around pirating the game just because of this. A reminder: this works only on the retail versions of the game, not on the Steam and Direct2Drive versions.
Download the BioShock Activation Revoke Tool
Download the BioShock Revoke Tool Guide
Visit the Revoke Tool page at 2K Games
Yeah, Mafia 2.. For some, the original Mafia had left a bad taste and an even worse after taste with its bad driving and lack of a free roaming option like GTA; but for the rest of us who loved the missions and the whole story behind the game and who have been waiting to see what comes out of the second installment of the mob underworld action thriller, here it is; the official trailer from Illusion Softworks..
More updates as they are warranted.
Looks like 2K’s on a roll these days. After launching a number of AAA titles including The Darkness and BioShock, they’ve made us an offer we just can’t refuse. And no, we’re not talking the Godfather sequel here, but something a bit.. closer. Announcing the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven - the gangster games’ poster child - Take 2 said that the game will “feature a deep mobster-driven narrative packed with both behind-the-wheel and on-foot action” and is being developed by the same guys that gave us the original, Illusion Softworks.
And then the press release goes on to throw several fancy phrases including some delectable ones like “cinematic Hollywood movie experience”, “high octane gunplay”, “white knuckle driving” and the obligatory “engaging narrative”, but needless to say, they pretty much had us foaming at the mouth with the gunplay and the white-knuckled driving part. Mafia 2 should explode on to next-generation consoles as well as PC sometime next year, even as we wait the inevitable suffering with The Godfather 2!
After rumors burned up the official Cult of Rapture forums that a number of Big Daddy figurines in the Limited Edition of BioShock were broken, 2K Games has decided to not only replace the figurines for free, but also offer a printed version of the recently released BioShock art book. The only catch is that is it will take quite a bit of time for your replacement figurine to get back to you, since the production is just starting to gear up. And yes, they will also bear all costs of shipping and handling in the event that you find your precious Big Daddy in a couple of pieces. Well, at least they’re not suggesting you use Superglue! And oh, in case you live anywhere outside of North America, you might have a teensy problem, since 2K has not confirmed whether this offer is valid only for North American customers or for the entire world.
BIG DADDY FIGURINE ISSUE
2K Games has identified a small percentage of Big Daddy figurines that have been damaged in transit to US and Canadian retailers. We are in the process of setting up a replacement program to ensure customers who are affected by the damaged figurines are issued replacement figurines as quickly as possible.
Since redemption will not be immediate as replacement figurines are currently beginning production, we will be also sending affected customers a complimentary special printed edition of the BioShock art book, “Breaking the Mold,” to enjoy while the replacement figurines are produced and shipped. Additionally, 2K Games will cover all shipping costs for the figurines and art book.
Please check back at this page shortly for details on how to obtain a replacement figurine. We apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced.
2K Games