@ 30/08/2007 – 10:23:53 pm
Hi folks, I just like to let you know that Rapture Gazette won't stop. I just take a break because of university. The most important test since 2 years will be next Thursday. Until that, I won't post any news or updates here.
See you next week!
Rapture Tourist
@ 28/08/2007 – 01:48:34 am
I checked the AT&T blue room and there are even more videos of the "A-List: On Location" show with host Brittany Allbright. She visited 2K Boston (fans know them as Irrational Games) and toured with Ken Levine through different development rooms. After part one of the show, part two and three could be new to you.
Brittany looks a bit lost inside the studio, but don't worry Brittany, we know it's good that you have been there. It's interesting to see the people behind Bioshock and under what kind of circumstances they work.
In part three of the show, Technical Art Director Nate Wells and Senior Artist Hogarth De La Plante have been interviewed.
I am surprised that the team keeps on working and working. The show was filmed close to the launch window of Bioshock and you listen to Ken how he talks about working on the next project, doing first concept arts and how the Big Daddy animators think of "the future". What is next? Bioshock 2 or a Bioshock MMORPG? Or just new Big Daddy types, patches/addons (which would be awesome!)? Do you guys really never go on vacation?
AT&T blue room - A-list: Bioshock Pt. 1 (old)
@ 28/08/2007 – 01:03:18 am
Yes, the AT&T blue room also gives you the chance to win a Xbox 360 Elite and a Collector's Edition of Bioshock, but you get this in other sweepstakes or in a shop of your choice, too. What about a really rare item like a signed and framed piece of Bioshock artwork, decorating your Rapturian appartment? Yes, that is cool and yes, you may get it.
There is only one problem: Like Rapture's citizens were a handpicked group of elite people, not everyone can enter this AT&T contest. Again (How often do I have to say this?), only US residents are eligible to participate.
All Europeans can hug their Big Daddy figurines and dream of more swag for us.
@ 27/08/2007 – 11:54:28 pm
The 1UP editors Andrew Pfisters, Ryan O'Donnell and Dan Hsu discuss about Bioshock in this 13 minute long video with a lot of scenes from various parts of the game.
It's interesting to listen to different opinions and especially how they change with the playtime. For example, they call Bioshock "Half Life meets Metroid" and say it feels like a excellent movie, you want to watch again for the first time.
@ 27/08/2007 – 09:35:04 pm
Yes, Rapture is a dangerous place for children. It can be hard to protect them all the day, while you have to look after your duties. But wait, there is someone who can care for your little girl: Big Daddy Day Care!
Take a look at this funny episode of Attack of the Show at G4 TV! I am hungry for any Bioshock comedy or cosplay so I hope we will see more of this.
@ 27/08/2007 – 09:21:51 pm
Everyone makes mistakes, even video game editors. The latest example are the guys from the German video game mag "Games Aktuell". In their latest issue, they reviewed Bioshock (91% btw!) and wrote a wrong info about the Bioshock Collector's Edition.
So again for all those, who might have seen the picture (left corner of scan): This is some fan art I did to show it at the official forums. After I made the petition for the CE of Bioshock, we collected opinions about how it should look like. So I made a "dream CE" with Photoshop and this was the result. It is NOT how the real Collector's Edition looks like.
The real design of the CE is shown in the right corner. The Collector's Edition includes a special package design (with a tin box in Europe), a Making of DVD, a cd with three remixed soundtrack songs and our precious Big Daddy figurine. It does not have stickers or a poster.
This little mistake made me laugh today, although I should cry. My Gamestop store still hasn't got the (uncut) Bioshock CE copy, I preordered.
@ 25/08/2007 – 11:34:13 pm
You probably know that Ken Levine is the General Manager and Creative Director of 2K Boston/Australia (Irrational Games). But who is the man behind Bioshock? How did he start his video game career?
1UP followed these questions and collected information to write some sort of biography about Ken Levine. It is five pages long and really starts with the young boy named Ken. It also provides some interesting quotations in the end to draw a portrait of Levine's character and opinions.
Thnx to Coagulated for the hint.
@ 25/08/2007 – 11:03:52 pm
Bioshock is everywhere, from news to interviews to awards. Despite some problems it's the most hyped shooter right now. So why not making a comic about the game, everyone talks about?
The weekly comic wrapup at Joystiq.com deals with Bioshock. You can read nine comics and vote for the best one. My favourite one? The one with the arguing Little Sisters!
@ 25/08/2007 – 03:07:46 pm
"What the hell is OMeGA?" you may ask now. To be honest, as a German I haven't heard of this German award before. The jury behind this award is the VdOSM (Verband deutschsprachiger Online Spiele-Magazine = Association of German speaking video game online magazines). Phew, this title really deserves a abbreviation.
Well, the VdOSM picked the best games of Games Convention 2007 and Bioshock has won four awards(out of ten):
Best presentation
Best game - rated mature
Best PC game
Best console game
I hope 2K Boston/Australia really get some trophies for their awards instead of lousy letters for congratulation. On the other hand, the dev team maybe needs its own trophy room then.
@ 25/08/2007 – 02:49:44 am
Real Bioshock fan = crazy for Bioshock swag and merchandise. After I surfed at Flickr again, I suddenly regretted that I don't work for Looki.de as an editor anymore. If you take a closer look at the right image, you discover a very cool Bioshock box.
This box was a press kit, sent to a French editor and it was surely full of nice goodies. The box itself had "Official product of Rapture" and "Damaged by the sea" printed on it. A syringe pen came together with a how to use info (inject it into your arm). The Bioshock micro-soundtrack cd was hidden inside a stylish sleeve case. Then there was the LE edition of the game with a tin box, some kind of book (printed artbook maybe?) and a tin box for bon bons ("Kashmir Restaurant").
Argh, I just wished I had a box like this. Now I get the idea of having a Rapture shrine...or some kind of museum or real Kashmir Restaurant? Cool idea, now I just need the money. Feel free to send donations 
!
@ 25/08/2007 – 02:16:34 am
Since the game is out, I enjoy watching every advertisement of Bioshock. Most are beautiful, some are entertaining and some are even informative. A little banner at Gametrailers.com reminds us on Bioshock being in the next Bonus Round show this Sunday.
The banner says: "Sit down with the team from Bioshock this Sunday".
No exact time has been indicated so we should just wait and download the video then. I now feel really sorry for the team since I expected them to relax after launch. Instead of that they directly work on patches and fixes, interrupted by interviews like this. That's business, right?
It's not Sunday yet, but GT now provides a (wrong) link to a show named "BioShock: A Look Inside - A 2 part episode featuring Bill Gardner and Hogarth De La Plante". So now you know what to expect.
@ 25/08/2007 – 01:49:04 am
As reported earlier, Bioshock belonged to the nominated games for the "Best of GC" award at this year's Games Convention.
Today, the jury consisting of 11 judges announced the winners: Bioshock is one of them. It's now the best game of the show in the Xbox category.
Here is what the jury had to say:
Surviving in a nightmare under the sea, in a sunken Art Deco city, against mad citzizens, always questioning, what is morally right or wrong: "BioShock" is the most intelligent, most bizarre and depressing shooter since years.
Crysis (PC), God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP), Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2/PS3), Mario & Sonic bei den Olympischen Spielen (Wii), Eye Training (NDS), Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Online) and Wii Balance Board (Best Hardware Accessories) have won the rest of the awards.
Thanks to LeafCut for the tip!
@ 25/08/2007 – 01:06:43 am
The Bioshock release and its consequences got a lot of attention in the last days with happy and sad faces. Joystiq.com waited for the right moment to grab Ken Levine for an interview about certain aspects like copy protection, field of view, Little Sister harvesting, installation and a PS3 version (which is NOT in the works).
Joystiq.com also knows that there is more to ask than the hot topics of the week. They tried to set more pressure on Ken about a possible Bioshock 2 and asked how it was to work with the Unreal Engine 3.
Joystiq.com - Joystiq interviews BioShock's Ken Levine about success and harvesting Little Sisters
@ 24/08/2007 – 09:28:17 pm
Sorry, I have not got much time right now so more updates may follow this weekend. But the best new info is the release of 12 free Bioshock tracks, which were composed by Garry Schyman.
Many customers were sad and complained about not getting what they expected for the Collector's Edition, which was "a soundtrack cd". Instead, the CE had three remixed songs. You may now discuss what a soundtrack cd must contain, especially for just 10$ more (plus a Big Daddy figurine, plus Making of DVD). When I created the petition for the Collector's Edition and made the fan art, I already had in mind that no one would get a full soundtrack cd (but selected songs). I had no high expectations.
In times of copy protection and FOV problems, 2K Games made the best decision to calm down gamers. While I haven't ordered a PC version, I can imagine how angry PC users are. And I think fixing the PC related problems may take a while. Until that you should really enjoy these 12 songs from Bioshock.
Empty Houses is so far my favourite song, which I already heard in videos before. The melancholically arranged track with strings lets you think about the fatal destiny of Rapture.
By the way: Today is the European Bioshock launch! Go and get the game !
The Cult of Rapture - Introducing the Bioshock Original Score
@ 23/08/2007 – 11:12:44 am
After the Business Day yesterday, the German Games Convention is now open to public visitors.
2K Games/Take 2 are said to have a Bioshock booth, too. The location is Halle 2: C11. I heard something about big Bioshock logos and a Big Daddy statue. If you are going to visit it, send me some photos of you and Bioshock! I will post them here.
Send your pics to photos@rapturegazette.com.
@ 22/08/2007 – 05:40:36 pm
Since yesterday you can grab your Bioshock copy at the store of your choice, so it didn't take long until the first walkthrough showed up today. MyCheats.com, a member of the 1UP Network offers a free walkthrough for Bioshock.
The walkthrough contains screenshots of the game and gives you tips for all audio diary, plasmid and gene tonic locations. I can't tell how many pages it has got, since I don't want to spoil my gaming experience, but I guess it's complete until the end of the game.
UDPATE: I discovered Gamespot has a free walkthrough, too. I added it to the links.
@ 22/08/2007 – 03:34:38 pm
OK, listen: This is just rumour, altough other websites like PSU handle Bioshock as "confirmed for PS3". What happened is that someone discovered PS3 specific info in the code of the PC demo.
Inside the demo's config.ini file, there is the following line:
Console (XBox360, PS3) specific settings
Wow, the confirmation is there! Probably not, I say. Remember when Bioshock was expected to be multi-platform? That was before Microsoft and Take 2 had the exclusivity deal for PC and 360. This is why I assume that this code line is a relict of those days.
It would be funny to listen to 2K's explaination. If they say "No comment", something could be foul, because they could easily explain the code line's origin.
Until we have any official word, please remember this code line for your brain: Bioshock is 360/PC exclusive. Don't post any more questions about this at the forums...please.
@ 22/08/2007 – 02:07:28 pm
Priya Ganapati at TheStreet.com has written an interesting article about Bioshock's role for 2K/Take 2 and about its sales predictions.
Ganapati mentions the 35% stock decrease of Take 2 since May and says that Bioshock might be the title to help the company after GTA IV has been delayed. Doug Creutz, an analyst with Cowen & Co confirms her theory.
Most analysts predict the sales of Bioshock will be between 1 million and 1,5 million copies, but 4 millions are a possible goal, too. According to online video games prediction market The simExchange, most copies will be sold for Xbox 360 (3,2 million) and the minor part for PC (980.000 copies).
Many sources and quoted analysts in the article say that, together with the outstanding reviews, Take 2 now just needs to do the right marketing to turn Bioshock into a real big franchise.
simExchange analyst Jesse Divnich believes a sequel to Bioshock is quite possible after it has crossed the border of 2 million sold copies.
@ 22/08/2007 – 01:36:27 pm
"Which Bioshock version is better?" was discussed very often at the game's official boards. In terms of visuals GameTrailers.com now offers you some help. A comparison video between the PC and 360 version is available so you can now judge for yourself.
My conclusion: I always liked the comparison videos at GT (e.g. PS3/360), but this one here seems to be bad or there are just not many differences between PC and 360. Of course you have a higher resolution on PC and DX10, but in my opinion there is not such a big plus. I discovered some better water effects on PC, but the general gorgeous look is quite equal on both systems.
Before I forget it: There is also a video review of Bioshock at GT. I will add more reviews of the last days here, soon.
@ 22/08/2007 – 01:10:43 pm
Today, the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, has started with the Business Day. With 25% more space and 34% more exhibitors, the GC 2007 will surely top last year's show, expecting more than 200.000 visitors.
In a press release of Leipziger Messe I have read that Bioshock is nominated for "Best of GC" in the Xbox (360) category. 2K's game missed the PC category, wherein the games Sam&Max Season One, StarCraft 2, Hellgate: London, Die Siedler Aufstieg eines Königsreichs, Crysis and Enemy Territory Quake Wars have been nominated.
On 24 August, the results will be announced during a ceremony at Games Convention.
@ 22/08/2007 – 04:19:11 am
Adding more tools and feedback possibilities to the site, the first Rapture Gazette poll in the left frame is now up and running.
Please tell me how often you are here: Are you a hardcore fan or did you arrive via Google for the first time, maybe? Is this site your daily source for Bioshock news or do you believe stepping in once a month is enough?
Thanks for reading,
Rapture Tourist
@ 22/08/2007 – 03:12:57 am
While maybe still some party guests are slumbering and recovering, first photos of the Bioshock launch party in Boston can be seen.
The Promoguys Marketing did an awesome job at the FELT club in Boston. After I saw the photos, I just wished so much more to have been there. There were "Welcome to Rapture" neon signs, beamers, Rapturian billboards, Bioshock beer mats, Bioshock stirrers, Big Daddies, Little Sisters, security bots at the ceiling, Bioshock logos on the walls, alcohol (?) syringes and last but not least...Splicer models.
As you can see in the photo on the right, several promo models were dressed like Rosebud, Breadwinner, Grossman and BabyJane splicers. Together with dress and makeup inspired by artworks, they look like they just jumped out of the game.
And there were tons of swag. As new stuff a aluminium mousepad, new t-shirts and backpacks can be mentioned.
First photos were provided by Jostiq.com and a private Flickr site by someone, who seems to work at 2K.
@ 22/08/2007 – 02:30:11 am
Game-to-film adaptions are always a difficult issue. Nontheless many fans scream for a Bioshock movie. The game feels like a dream (nightmare?) of underwater cities becoming true and taking this to the big screen might sound like the next step. This is why IGN.com editors sat together and thought of the best movie cast.
It's quite an interesting read and Anthony Hopkins for Andrew Ryan sounds good. As directors I would suggest Christophe Gans, Guillermo del Toro and even Tim Burton. It's not Burton's genre but all of them are masters of dark stories and create incredible visuals.
A Bioshock movie seems unlikely for now, but if it grows to a great franchise or series, a movie might be possible. Until that day I just hope they don't ruin the Hitman and Prince of Persia movies...
@ 21/08/2007 – 06:00:00 am
While you are reading this, the guests at the Bioshock launch party are about to rock! Since I have important exams, I am stuck here in Germany and maybe miss the biggest party of the year...
Because I know the party location, I thought you are maybe interested in where the party is taking place. Access is for invited guests only, so spare your hopes. But Elizabeth and 2K Games have found a great location: The FELT in Boston. It seems to be well known, because big names like Bono from U2, Ben Affleck and Lenny Kravitz were guests there, too.
The restaurant/club/bar has four floors and delivers a great setting for Bioshock. The interior design could remind me on the Kashmir restaurant perhaps. Here now you can see how it looks like before it was prepared for the launch party.
Andrea Rota from Promoguys Marketing told me there will be multiple game play stations (this time Xbox360 & PC!), goodie bags, entertainment and food & drinks. I expect many VIPs to show up there.
Elizabeth Tobey promised to share some photos with me after the party is over. Stay tuned and enjoy your Bioshock demo/retail version!
