Just because Irrational Games has effective shut down as it restructures to become the world’s highest-profile indie-sized game developer, that doesn’t mean that their epic BioShock franchise is gone with them.
2K Marin, the studio that helped Irrational with BioShock and developed BioShock 2, has been tapped by Take-Two Interactive, 2K Games’ parent company, to once again take over BioShock and make the next game in the series.
As someone who has BioShock on their personal top ten games of all-time list and top three of 2013, I had to go back to play the DLC that marries the two worlds of Rapture and Columbia together. But is Burial at Sea capable of properly combining two memorable stories and two memorable settings into one cohesive whole or does Burial at Sea come off as nothing but BioShock fan service for the sake of nostalgia?
It’s never good to hear about games developers closing up shop and people losing their jobs but it’s nice when a company goes above and beyond to ensure that everyone lands on their feet. While most companies are content to just cut jobs and say “S.O.L.,” Irrational Games just held its job fair to help out the 75 employees who are losing a job of the company’s closure and saw 57 studios show up to meet the outgoing developers.
The developer of such legendary games as System Shock 2, BioShock and BioShock Infinite will be all but shutting its doors after the release of the upcoming BioShock Infinite DLC, Burial At Sea: Part 2.
Irrational Games boss Ken Levine announced that the developer would be letting go all but about 15 staff members as it transitions from a big triple-A studio to smaller endeavor for Take-Two Interactive.
It looks like 2K Games is all aboard the DLC train this week. Yesterday, we looked at the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Today, it’s the first part of the two-part Burial at Sea DLC for BioShock Infinite. If you haven’t played through to the end of Infinite, chances are that there are some spoilers in the reviews, this post and the DLC itself so consider yourself forewarned.
Opinion on the first real narrative driven BioShock Infinite DLC seems to really be split on whether you’re partial to using the term “ludonarrative dissonance.” If you thought it was a big issue with Infinite proper, you’ll find the same here. The narrative apparently doesn’t have quite the same moral undertones of the game proper’s so that might also be a detracting point for some. Though everyone agrees that the game looks gorgeous. Since BioShock doesn’t work on Windows 7, this might be one of the few opportunities for PC gamers to visit Rapture in all its glory.
Okay, BioShock Infinite has been out for five months now but sometimes you just have to take note of spectacular work.
Luke Ritson may not make a lot of videos but when he does, you absolutely have to take notice. His alternate trailers for games like Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead were nothing short of spectacular. So when he gets his hands on a GOTY contender like BioShock Infinite, you know that you’re in for something special.
So the planned BioShock film helmed by director Gore Verbinski didn’t work out but that doesn’t mean that we’ll never have a live-action return to Rapture.
A group of Vancouver film students did their own short fan film looking at the rise of plasmids and the downfall of Rapture from the prospectives of two brothers who travelled to the underwater city to be artists. I call it a fan film but the sets, props and special effects are absolutely fantastic. You mean to tell me that students can manage this but Hollywood can’t do it without breaking the bank?
At the beginning of January, I wrote up a detailed breakdown of how much a publisher actually makes for each new copy of a game they sold. With today’s release of BioShock Infinite, I thought it would be a good time to apply these numbers to a practical example to show how profitable games actually are.
It’s finally here. After a few delays, much concern over whether it would ever be released and debate over if this game could live up to Irrational Games’ legacy of System Shock and BioShock, we finally have one of 2013’s most anticipated games. Talk all you want about GTA 5, The Last of Us or even the upcoming next generation of consoles, when Ken Levine is making a game, we’re all going to stop and take notice.
Fortunately, everyone agrees that BioShock Infinite lives up to the hype and the legacy of its predecessors.
et geekera 