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(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
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
About freaking time. After waiting days and days, and screaming your, err, fingers off all over the Internet, the BioShock PC Demo is finally here. “So what?”, say the Xbox 360 owners who got to play it more than a week before, as they sigh with exasperation, thanks to the PC camp starting to posting their demo experience every which way. But don’t worry, you all should be able to get your BioShock goodness starting tomorrow, while, us poor Xbox 360 owners in India go into a month-long hibernation.
BioShock Demo HTTP Downloads:
SoftPedia
XtremPC
FilezArU
BioShock Demo Torrent Downloads:
GameUpdates
UPDATE: Here’s the official announcement by 2K on the demo. Looks like all you need to do is get the latest drivers once you get the demo.
WAIT FOR THE OFFICIAL DEMO DOWNLOAD TONIGHT AT 7 PM EDT
While there are versions of the BioShock demo available now on the web for download, I recommend you waiting until 7 PM tonight to download yours. The official release is timed so that you can optimize your system with the latest drivers that will make the game run as smoothly as possible. Running BioShock with outdated drivers may impact your performance, so if you do happen to play the demo before the 7 PM launch time, please be sure to check your system again after grabbing the latest and greatest drivers as a true measure of performance and quality.
We mean it! For real! Or at least the powers that be do. After days of screaming, abusing and outright rioting at the Cult of Rapture forums about the seemingly infinite delays the BioShock PC demo was facing, word has finally come down that the demo will be available today at 7 PM EST, or around 4:30 PM IST. The demo should be available across all major download servers including FileShack, FilePlanet, GameSpot, etc., in addition to good ol’ Steam.
For those bastards who don’t give a rat’s ass about the demo because they were lucky enough to pre-order the full version via Steam, well, you will get to play it in approximately 1 day, 13 hours and 21 minutes… while the rest of us rot silly waiting for the retail PC and Xbox 360 versions. Be warned, we’ve got voodoo dolls in your likeness and we’re more than happy to use ‘em! In the meantime, here’s some sagely advice from Ken Levine:
If you’re going to buy the game this week, I highly recommend you stay away from any forums that might have spoilers until you play the game through. Our goal in making the game was to thrill and, often, surprise you.
Please don’t ruin other people’s experience by revealing secrets in unmarked threads, and if you want to enjoy the game to its fullest, stay away from any threads that might ruin the fun for you. With a game like BioShock, it will really make a difference.
Best,
Ken
That’s right, spoil the game for us and we’ll hunt you down and strip every piece of flesh from your bones.
Sounds zany, huh? But that’s how BioShock started out apparently, according to senior designer Joe McDonagh, who spoke at length to CVG about his career - selling no-good games for a living, his stint at Lionhead and the really interesting way in which he landed it (think tea leaves, burnt matches and a letter in a bottle), starting his own company and then losing it all before heading over to Irrational to work on BioShock as a senior designer.
We all saw how BioShock was almost never made, but then, it was also a pretty crappy concept at first, according to Joe. A plot that involved an island and lots of Nazis, BioShock almost became Far Cry meets Return to Castle Wolfenstein, before they took the out-there idea of building a game based on Ayn Rand’s principles and what happens when you take it too far.
Read the complete Creative Minds interview at CVG and thank the stars that the game you enjoy is built so because people like Ken Levine, Nate Wells, Joe McDonagh, Melissa Miller and a hundred other dedicated individuals broke their collective backs for years making it so that we could enjoy the romp through the dystopia of Rapture.