While Rapture was built away from civilization in secret, the city in BioShock Infinite was built to publicly showcase the ingenuity and progress of America. Rather than a city submerged like that in the original BioShock, Infinite features an advanced city built to float in the sky.Ok, a sky city could be cool in a "Castle in the Sky" kind of way. But that was really a slow hype build up for a Bioshock sequel that wont be released until 2012.
It's the late 1800's when Columbia, a city built to rise up and sit among the clouds as an expression of great American democratic ideals, is born. Although the city was formed to show the world how advanced America has become both in industry and political stature, there are dark secrets that plague the world. "What started out as the Apollo Project became the Death Star," Irrational Games boss Ken Levine says, describing that Columbia is soon discovered to be "armed to the teeth" before thrusting itself into a violent international incident. Soon after this "incident," the city escapes view into the clouds and is never seen or heard of again.
One thing, though - why the hell is this called Bioshock? For brand recognition reasons? There's no water and no Rapture here - which is pretty much already synonymous w/ the past two Bioshock games.
Skyshock or Airshock sounds more appropriate, to me. I'm sure w/ the word "Shock" in the compound word/title (at the very end), most people would probably realize it's a game from either Irrational or 2K Marin.
I was thinking the same thing at first. But then, isn't the "bio" short for Biology? A biodome isn't underwater either, it's just a contained biological environment.
VIDEO: First 10 minutes of gameplay (http://www.gameblog.fr/news_18158_bioshock-infinite-10-minutes-de-gameplay-en-video-hd)
Holy shit, this looks good!
Yeah, 2012? Hell, what if the Mayans are right? :PHmm, I think 2012 would be an appropriate year for Bioshock Infinite ;D The connotations are too good to ignore.
I was thinking the same thing at first. But then, isn't the "bio" short for Biology? A biodome isn't underwater either, it's just a contained biological environment.
1999 mode (http://irrationalgames.com/insider/announcing-1999-mode/)
1999 mode (http://irrationalgames.com/insider/announcing-1999-mode/)
Definitely cool. It's on my radar, but won't be a day one thing. But this may bump it up the list slightly.
BioShock Infinite had two multiplayer modes accompanying the narrative campaign, but according to Kotaku, both of these things have been cut. The news follows reports that several key developers -- including the game's art director -- have left the project.
One mode was a "Tower Defense" style game that, according to Irrational, never really worked. The other was a cooperative "Spec Ops" mode, presumably featuring a selection of missions that two players would complete. No reason was given for its cancellation.
I don't think this is a bad sign. On the contrary it says to me that the slapped on multiplayer wasn't working, and they are concentrating on singleplayer now.
That's in line with most (if not all) of 2K's recent PC releases. Almost everything after Borderlands is in Steamworks.True.
Irrational Games
@IrrationalGames
@krzaq Yes, BI will use SteamWorks... why not join the official BioShock Infinite group? http://steamcommunity.com/games/BioShockInfinite …
8:31 AM - 1 Mar 12
You recently released the box cover of the game and some BioShock fans felt strongly against it, even though it may or may not be indicative of the game. How did you take the reaction?
There was no new information available because we felt we had shown the game at E3 and didn’t have anything new to let loose. We could have gone into a bunch of stories of “Well, here are the new type of gear you can have,” but we felt that would be much better after people have played the game and journalists had some context. We had a lot of people questioning, “Oh, what’s going on? Is it falling apart?” Is it a disaster?” because they didn’t have any other news. I knew that was going to happen and it was more painful for the team than it was for me, because I’ve been through enough of these. But, that’s just part of life.
There is a whole part of being a game fan that involves speculating about games, not just playing them. I love to think about games ahead of time and imagine what they are going to be like and worry about them. I get it, but I knew the only thing to do was to hand those people the controller and say: “You tell me how it is. Why should you believe me?” That’s why I’m so happy to now give the controllers to people.
After reading the recent interview you did with Wired, it came across to me that you really want to reach a wider audience with this one --
It’s not that we want to. We HAVE to.
With that intention, I have to wonder: with an intro so long and with very little shooting dudes in the face, how do you approach that?
What I won’t do is compromise the product. People say the cover seem to be – there is an article that says “Look it’s important because it must say something about the game. The game is dumbed down!” [Kotaku] I’ll count on you guys to report on the validity of that. It’s a fairly calculated marketing decision that is based on making these games continue to get made. I can understand the reception from fans.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. You always want to please everybody. The price that I think I’m asking those people to pay is that that the cover that you pick up off the shelf may not be your favorite cover in the universe, but hopefully that cover will help make this game successful, so we can keep making more of them and not compromise in anyway; right now, no one asks us to compromise. They are like “Yep, big complicated directed sequence with no Taliban shooting you in the head. Yup go make that game” and Take-Two has done that so far.
There are two things we want to do with the fans. We are definitely doing one of them. We want to communicate with the community and generate a whole pile of alternate covers for the game that we can put on the website so people can print out. And key art, traditional concept art and weird doodles and sketches. You know, so we can really get them arranged. There is another thing I’d like to do but I’m not sure we can for production reasons, so I guess I won’t talk about it yet. But, in the very least, we’ll do that.
Anyone who picks something other than 4 is doing it wrong.
Too orange. I took #6. Not that it matters since I doubt I'll ever play the game. Maybe when I retire. *sigh*
Now, of course Andrew Ryan is a semi-anagram of Ayn Rand and I was certainly guilty of that one, but mostly they were just people I knew or names I made up. However, that doesn’t mean that the experience that person had playing the game and thinking about all of those theories isn’t still completely valid because, frankly, who gives a shit what my intent is?http://www.vg247.com/2012/12/13/bioshock-infinites-ken-levine-of-sounds-and-pixels/
It’s all about the experience that the gamer has that’s important. If someone gets some added-value element that I didn’t have to do any work for, that’s great, right? The experience is the experience that you have. That’s all that matters; my intention is irrelevant. I can guarantee that there will be stuff that people see that wasn’t intended, but I’ll also tell you this: I don’t know of a lot of accidents in this game.
BioShock Infinite system requirements:
MINIMUM
OS: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 32-bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO 2.4 GHz / AMD Athlon X2 2.7 GHZ
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 20 GB free
Video Card: DirectX10 Compatible ATI Radeon 3870 / NVIDIA 8800 GT / Intel HD 3000 Integrated Graphics
Video Card Memory: 512 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
RECOMMENDED
OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
Processor: Quad Core Processor
Memory: 4 GB
Hard Drive: 30 GB free
Video Card: DirectX11 Compatible, ATI Radeon 6950 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
Video Card Memory: 1024 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
For the many-monitored, Irrational’s release also mentions that Infinite will support AMD EyeFinity, NVIDIA Surround, and Matrox TripleHead2Go. Hooray!
Ken Levine Verified account
@IGLevine
200 million for Infinite? Did someone send some checks to the wrong address? #unnamedanalyst
9:22 PM - 21 Mar 13
Ken Levine Verified account
@IGLevine
Analyst: @IGLevine 's American girl doll collection cost 200 million.
11:55 PM - 21 Mar 13
Damn. That looks like... really kind of way better than I was expecting. I honestly had very little interest in this pretty much from the start, but this looks substantially cooler than I'd initially thought it would be.
Damn. That looks like... really kind of way better than I was expecting. I honestly had very little interest in this pretty much from the start, but this looks substantially cooler than I'd initially thought it would be.
I'm really really pumped on this for some reason.
I really also liked Bioshock 2Yep - I thought Bioshock 2 was good, but it certainly was NOT the masterpiece that Bioshock 1 was.
I bought the first Bioshock 3 years ago and still haven't finished it. Looking at my save games, it looks like I only played up to level 5 before quitting. The date of my next save coincides with the release of Bioshock 2, which I preordered and paid full price for (but still haven't touched). I finished level 5 and 6 at this time, and then stopped playing again. The next time I picked it up was this past week (in anticipation of Bioshock Infinite), and I'm up to level 10 now.
So basically, I can't seem to stick with this game for more than a couple levels at a time. I only seem to play it when the imminent release of a sequel reminds me of this game that everyone loves, but I somehow never finished. Any other game and I might just write it off as something I just don't get into. But I love shooters, and everyone seems to love this game so much.
EDIT: Just beat it finally. The mood and story made the second half much better, but not without fault.
I thought I didn't care about Infinite, and would probably play it "some day" when I could get it cheap. The imminent launch has be wishing I had the money to get it though. I've stayed away from pretty much all discussions, but can't help but feel hyped anyway.
Playing Bioshock 2 for now. I started with Minerva's Den, and I'm liking the combat and weapons a lot more. I really hope those things are done well in Infinite.
Oh, I'd like to hear your thoughts on Minerva's Den DLC for Bioshock 2, (http://www.overwritten.net/forum/index.php?topic=3741.0) some time. :D
I missed out on that.
I really wish they did a Bioshock 2: Complete Edition re-release w/ all of the DLC's.
I played about 20 mins of Infinite last night. Wow. It is engrossing. It parallels the first Bioshock in terms of introductory structure, except Columbia is very much thriving when you first arrive. It is a gorgeous game too.
I'm really anxious to play some more of it.
I recently said of Bioshock Infinite I wished the game would have been something other than a first-person-shooter about halfway into playing it. Exploring the world, the characters and the story were just inherently more interesting than the gun fights, which seemed noticeably contrived, given the meticulous nature with which the rest of the game was put together. You never actually fought any of the major adversaries or villains, so the path of the story seemed set to play out in a very specific manner. That just left you fighting arenas full of grunts every so many steps, making it seem like this element was more of a concession to the marketers, who would need some guns and gore before believing they could sell the game.
That's a shame, because if there is one thing that's holding me back from immediately replaying Bioshock Infinite, it's knowing that I'd have to slog through more of those spastic and twitchy firefights. Had it been something more along the lines of TellTale's The Walking Dead, I'd be ready to jump back in.
Game franchises get married to genres pretty early, and players, maybe the industry as a whole, get nervous when they tries to switch things up. Metroid Prime got most of its pre-release attention back in its day simply for daring to switch perspectives. Turned out to be a brilliant and modern way to explore the worlds of that franchise. I think Bioshock might be ready for a similar kind of leap.
My thoughts exactly. It is funny, actually. The main idea behind Bioshock Infinite's story was choice and the huge consequences that even a small choice can have. But the game never really gives you a choice to do anything. You can run through corridors and shoot. There was actually much more choice in the previous two Bioshock games than in Infinite, which just feels dumbed down.
The real shame is that there was enough money to make Infinite so much more. Keep the shooter elements, but add depth to Columbine [sic!], which seems just like a stage set.
If a team as talented as Irrational Games, with all the time and money they could ask for and with a franchise that will sell regardless of whether the game is great or "just good", does not aspire to achieve more, then I am afraid that perhaps we will never see AAA games that aspire for more . . .
The funny thing is that my favorite of the series, in terms of gameplay, is Bioshock 2, which most consider the weakest game of the three. Like I said, and you said even more emphatically, the Infinite gameplay feels mundane. I did like the setting and and its details, but unfortunately the attention to detail did not extend to what we get to do i that setting--which is by far the most important thing in a game. The exception is the sky lines. We needed more innovative and compelling mechanics like those.
The funny thing is that my favorite of the series, in terms of gameplay, is Bioshock 2, which most consider the weakest game of the three.That's b/c the setting (Rapture) and many of the assets were re-used from the original. It felt more like an expansion pack than say a new game, in that sense.
Like I said, and you said even more emphatically, the Infinite gameplay feels mundane. I did like the setting and and its details, but unfortunately the attention to detail did not extend to what we get to do i that setting--which is by far the most important thing in a game. The exception is the sky lines. We needed more innovative and compelling mechanics like those.Can't speak on Infinite yet - ain't played it.
That's b/c the setting (Rapture) and many of the assets were re-used from the original. It felt more like an expansion pack than say a new game, in that sense.
Plus, the story for Bioshock 2 was nowhere even remotely close to the greatness Bioshock 1 had.