Plenty of people expected the game to tank. From top people at 1up to every other news outlet, we heard a lot about how “Bioshock is going to be great, but sell terribly,” or, “it just isn’t known by the right people to do well.”

Apparently news people don’t know everything.

Announced today in a press conference, and covered by Kotaku, Take-Two announced that it has sold over 1.5 million copies of their new IP. They also emphasized that they have the highest rated game ever for the 360 to date. Good news for a company whose numbers have been lagging….to put it nicely.

But why should you, dearest reader, care about how sales of Bioshock affect Take-Two? Because, in this day and age high sales mean sequels. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, in response to the sales numbers said, “Clearly, we have a new hit franchise on our hands.”

OMFG, BIOSHOCK II, CONFIRMED.

Chufmoney

Posted in 2k, Bioshock, Take Two, take 2 games | No Comments »

Ken Levine’s Uber-Spoiler interview with Shacknews is up and running, for anyone who’s interested, which should be everyone with thumbs. Ken talks about (Spoiler), and (Spoiler), and the awesomeness that was (Spoiler). The cool thing about a game like Bioshock is that, if you know any of the story before hand, the whole thing is ruined. So, only read the interview if you’ve played through it one solid time. This could very well be the down swing of Bioshock posts, but I promise the game hasn’t lost any love with fans. Prepare yourself next month when you hear the phrase, over and over, “Halo 3 is great….but not as great as Bioshock.” Ouch. Burn.

[Via Shacknews]

Jayslacks.

Posted in Bioshock | No Comments »

Obviously, Unreal Engine 3 has been somewhat under fire since Silicon Knights filed their lawsuit alleging (more or less) that UE3 wasn’t what Epic had claimed it would be, and that it was significantly late to boot. Since then, Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games has been on a PR campaign of sorts, trying to shore up the image of UE3. The latest salvo in this campaign came a couple of days ago when Mark Rein took some time to pat his engine on the back while complementing Bioshock on its somewhat surprising success:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Bioshock, Silicon Knights, Unreal Engine 3 | 1 Comment »

Oh Bioshock. You’re like the mean girl that we call up every night. You scare us. You hurt us. You’re mean. On the hardest difficulty setting, you are nigh unto impossible! But you are addictive, like heroin or crack cocaine. So much so that Valve has banned you, you production sucking whore.

“We had to ban Bioshock from our offices,” Valve boss Gabe Newell told us. “Nobody gets to play it until Orange Box is done – that’s our reward to ourselves as a company; everyone gets a copy of Bioshock.”

Its nice that one studio can love another studio. This war will not end true friendships. Admiration creates quality. Now, go away. This Ultra-Bouncer is gonna be a bitch!

[Via Game-industry]

Jayslacks

Posted in Bioshock, Valve | No Comments »

Gamestop will very likely be sold out almost completely of Bioshock by the time you read this. If you were planning on just picking it up, or you were going to pick it up in a couple of days, I suggest you call ahead prior to making a, er, Gamestop. Or you might try Circuit City, where it’s on sale for 50 dollars for the 360, and 40 dollars for the PC (and if you have a PC that can run it, I’d like to add that you can burn in hell). On that note, I’m off to Rapture. Hold my calls.

-Aegies

Posted in Bioshock, Gamestop, PC, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

You’ll pardon our absentee-ism yesterday; aside from stories that were generally just random unimportant bullshit, everything else was about Bioshock, coverage which stirred massively conflicting emotions within me. However, there are reasons why you’re hearing so much about the game that might not be completely obvious. First, because Madden is more like a yearly gaming tradition (like a hernia or prostate exam), and Lair was delayed (and was not so great according to sites whose word actually means something to me), Bioshock is the kickoff to the “Great Game Flood of 2007″, a time during which gamers will find themselves awash both in an orgiastic tide of awesomeness the heights of which we’ve never seen, as well as misery unlike any year prior as we scrounge, beg, borrow, and sell organs both our own and otherwise in an attempt to keep up.

This is why you’re hearing about it now. Why you’re most likely going to continue to hear about it is because there is a very good chance that Bioshock really is going to be Game of the (Motherfucking) Year in a year where there is no shortage of contenders for the crown. What’s my evidence? Read on, and weep that 2K didn’t push up the release date to this week.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Bioshock, PC, Xbox 360, game of the year | 7 Comments »