BIOSHOCK DEMO RELEASED!

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

My blockbuster costs $7.99 for 7 days for all games. That's over a dollar a day, fuck that, especially with how absolutely shitty their selection is.

[naiwf]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...754C0A9629C8B63

On July 26, 2004 the average cost to rent a single game at Blockbuster was $ 6. It's at least $8 now in NYC for example. I think that gets you either 3 days over the weekend or 5 weekdays, but I can't remember. I just know that even renting movies is almost as expensive as going to see a new one these days which kind of defeats the purpose.

Edited August 13, 2007 by naiwf

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

Just played through the demo, and and holy shit, that was like playing an old first person adventure/puzzle like Myst or Drowned God, only in realtime, and no video compression. The atmosphere of this game is absolutely incredible. It looks and feels like a big-budget movie in terms of the visuals and artistic design, like if Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow had gone in the direction of horror instead of adventure. The gameplay looks promising, but really, who knows. They have all these cool little things you can do, setting traps and such, but it'll depend on the design of the areas. You may not end up having the time or resources to do many of the elaborate things they've touted as being possible.

The game looks amazing, at least. I think it'd be worth buying just to explore the environment.

edit: One problem I had was that in-game subtitles were terribly out of sync. Subtitles would show up seconds before the dialogue was spoken. Sometimes the subtitles would seemingly playing out of order. The subs would read "Sentence A. Sentence B.", but the character would say 'Sentence B. Sentence A.'

Edited August 14, 2007 by Fanku Kaibutsu

[Maxx]

I think its going to turn out just fine, advance reviews have been overwhelming positive. Xbox Magazine UK gave it a 10 out of 10 and PC Zone gave it a 96%, only Half Life 2 has ever gotten a higher score than that and it was only a 97%.

Also, if you watch some of the preview stuff they have on IGN, developers showcase that there are many different ways to approach each level, so while you might not find time to do everything on your first try, your second time though you can do something completely different.

[abundant]

The gameplay looks promising, but really, who knows. They have all these cool little things you can do, setting traps and such, but it'll depend on the design of the areas. You may not end up having the time or resources to do many of the elaborate things they've touted as being possible.

[Vilge Duin]

I played through the demo earlier. I have to say, wow. It looks phenomenal. One of the best looking games I have ever seen. The water is so photo realistic and with the lighting, everything is exquisite.

Very atmospheric and creepy. However, I can't say much more for it. I HATE the security bot thing. The one area with a red camera, I wasn't paying attention and the alarm went off. You have to wait too long for it to go away. Also, shooting the electricity plasmid seemed to do sweet fuck all. Combat seems a bit weird too. Too much screen distortion when hita nd that. And the story, from what I've read at least, isn't that interesting. I also didn't see that much game play to really make a conclusion.

I'm not really a fan of "first person immersion" game play.

But yeah, the sound and graphics design are absolutely fantastic. Not sure about the rest.

[Jack Krauser III]

I played through the demo earlier. I have to say, wow. It looks phenomenal. One of the best looking games I have ever seen. The water is so photo realistic and with the lighting, everything is exquisite.

Very atmospheric and creepy. However, I can't say much more for it. I HATE the security bot thing. The one area with a red camera, I wasn't paying attention and the alarm went off. You have to wait too long for it to go away. Also, shooting the electricity plasmid seemed to do sweet fuck all. Combat seems a bit weird too. Too much screen distortion when hita nd that. And the story, from what I've read at least, isn't that interesting. I also didn't see that much game play to really make a conclusion.

I'm not really a fan of "first person immersion" game play.

But yeah, the sound and graphics design are absolutely fantastic. Not sure about the rest.

[VerbalPuke]

Rentals at my local blockbuster are $7.50 for five days when pertaining to X-Box 360 games. Unfortunately, this is a waste of money for the casual gamer such as myself, seeing as I only have two days to play the game (Saturday and Sunday) seeing as my work schedule doesn't permit much of anything on the weekdays. It's also unfortunate when you drop $7.50 on a game that blows and you don't touch it again. Free demo's are always a good thing, no matter when they are released.

I could buy a good six pack of beer for $7.50, something I know I'll enjoy.

[Vilge Duin]

I quite know that, and I said nothing about the other enemies, nor did I mention it causing damage or otherwise. Nice try though.

I DID hit the security bot with it (and the camera afterwards). I blew through a bunch of my Eve syringe things trying to do it over and over. It didn't do jack shit for me.

[abundant]

If you hit a security bot/camera/turret with electro bolt, then it should’ve been disabled for a short period of time. During this time, you could walk over to the disabled equipment and hit X to either start the hacking game or pay $10 to hack automatically. With the equipment hacked, they fight for you.

[Guest Kou]

I came in with none of the hype surrounding Bioshock penetrating my sexy sexy mind, and after the 20 minutes or so it took to complete the demo I can firmly say that Bioshock will be the best FPS released for the 360 this year.

Bitch.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

From 2k's Forums

As the majority of you know from the demo, legs are not present in Bioshock. The feedback we received following this choice was astounding (we do, after all, view the major forums and receive quite a bit of mail) but we intend to eventually release a Microsoft Point download via Live that will add viewable legs into the game for a reasonable cost; we fully expect our vast PC community to develop a mod that will allow the legs and quite possibly the torso to be seen, but there's always the possibility of an official mod of our own creation in the near future.

We know that many players were affected (apologies from us all), and we are completely aware that the lack of legs in the game has been attributed to "laziness" on our own part, but we simply had a set release date and wanted to ensure that the framerate was satisfactory. Really, the possibility of legs was discussed many times in the office, but we had to sacrifice realism for playability in the end.

The responses we've received for the demo so far have been fantastic, but remember that we consider it to be an "edited version" of what players who purchase the finished product will actually see: some weapons that you receive are not found until later on, and a few situations were tweaked. We aim to satisfy all those who have been dedicated enough to follow us from the first announcement, and we can only hope that the demo prepared you for the main course.

From the team,

Ken Levine

[Dan]

Surely that's not serious?

[abundant]

we intend to eventually release a Microsoft Point download via Live that will add viewable legs into the game for a reasonable cost;

[The Kraig]

Er...what does it mean by legs? I thought they meant stages, levels, chapters, etc. They mean the limbs? Because there's been plenty of legs in the trailers and demo.

[Gongsun Zan]

I think they meant the ability to see your character's legs by looking down.

Haven't d/led this yet, because doing so would probably get me excited for the game, making the wait that much more painful.

[abundant]

Well, it was bound to happen… BioShock’s streetdate has been broken by various Toys R Us.

So those who don’t want to be spoiled should avoid most gaming message boards.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

Oh, this makes me look forward to reading gaming message boards. The Nerd Rage people will display over such a travesty as someone else getting to play a video game before them will be excellent.

[LL!]

Must.Have.Bioshock

Must.Hate.CopOut.Ending.Of.Demo

[Scott McFly]

How long before a release date do retailers receive copies of a game in the US? That's a week before it's out and places are selling it. In Woolies in the UK, we get all game new releases on a Wednesday afternoon for release on the Friday morning, which effectively minimises the chances of us accidentally (or otherwise) selling it early.