Speaking at the GDC in Paris, BioShock (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) lead programmer Chris Kline said that the game should gave failed from the get-go. This caught many attendees by surprise because BioShock was one of last year's most decorated titles. Why did Kline say this? Find out in the full article up ahead.

2K Boston is not shy of telling everyone that the company is hiring programmers who can work on the Sony PlayStation 3 and Unreal Engine. It may not sound much on the surface, but we sure are excited to find out if the new recruits will be developing Bioshock for the PS3. More details on this at the full article.

Take-Two Interactive has formally announced the formation of 2K Marin, proving previous ponderings on the subject  to be true. 2K Marin now joins the ranks of 2K Boston and 2K Australia, the two teams that was once known as a singular: Irrational Games, the group that developed Bioshock. More in the full article.

Irrational Games split into two after the completion of Bioshock, introducing the 2K Boston and 2K Australia studios. Now it looks like a new studio is being set up in the Bay Area. According to a cached job listing in Gamasutra, the new studio is to be called 2K Marin and will comprise of some of the people who created Bioshock. More at the full article.

There have been a lot of rumors about Irrational Games' Bioshock title for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows platforms going to Sony's PlayStation 3. Reports claim that Microsoft doesn't have a complete exclusivity for the game and Irrational is just waiting for the deal to expire.

The rumor this time came from gaming blog Megascorcher and claims that the development came from someone in 2K Boston (that's Irrational Games). For the full story, click on "read more".

 

Earlier rumors about BioShock's release for the PS3 have been quashed and dealt with a few months ago, but the interesting config.ini file found in the PC BioShock demo revealed a quite interesting bit of news. Check out this bit of code taken from PC BioShock demo's config.ini:

[Console]

Console (XBox360, PS3) specific settings

StreamingDynamicFloatingLimit: If this is a positive number, then instead of using the fixed per-level limits, the StreamingDynamic resource will use as much memory as is available as long as the total memory allocated by the game is less than the specified number. In other words, StreamingDynamic will grow and shrink to fit to the available memory instead of being locked to a fixed budget StreamingDynamicFloatingLimit=500

You read that right, there's indeed "PS3" listed in the possible console specific settings. Is it because Irrational Games and 2K Games decided to release BioShock on Sony's PlayStation 3 after all? However, there's also a possibility that the PS3 bit was put in before it was determined that BioShock is going to be an exclusive title for the Xbox 360. There's so many speculations that can be drawn by that small bit of information, and it is certainly intriguing.

We're going to keep you tabbed on this bit of news so stay tuned!

 

An official announcement by Take-Two Interactive slapped us back to Timbuktu today, as the publisher wired news regarding a name change for Irrational Games. The developers behind the highly anticipated BioShock (Xbox 360, Windows PC) won't be known by their former collective name anymore. Welcome to the limelight, 2K Boston and 2K Australia.

Double-rooted Irrational Games have now been officially integrated into the 2K Games label (and family), claimed 2K Games. The move was quickly followed with the knighting of the Boston, Massachusetts headquarters as 2K Boston and the second studio in Canberra, Australia as 2K Australia. "Following their incredible efforts in bringing BioShock to life, we are proud to make the newly renamed Irrational Games studios a cornerstone of our game development family," said Christoph Harmann, President of 2K.

Just a little while earlier, Irrational Games 2k Boston and 2K Australia had rendered the final mastercopy of BioShock for mass production, and even before it can ship to shelves it has become one of the must-have games for Xbox 360 and Windows gamers worldwide.

I was bored last night. Not able to stand the monotony, I decided to go through my game shelf just to see if there was something that I could pop into my PlayStation 2 and enjoy. I eventually picked up and dusted off my copy of Clover Studio's Viewtiful Joe 2.

I decided to play through the first stage mostly as Sylvia. While I was blasting through the stage with her pink guns of unrelenting joy and joyfulness, I suddenly got hit by a wave of nostalgia. I needed a 2D platforming high.

Why go with 2D you ask? Well, it's because if there's anything that Castlevania on the DS and Viewtiful Joe by Clover proves, it is that there's still room for well-done 2D platforming games in this hyper defined, 1080p, next-gen world.

Dammit, I want to play Commander Keen again.

This isn't really news. This is a long rant-ish post, and to save you the pain of having to read through a dinosaur's gaming woes, you're only going to have to read the rest of the post after click on that "Full Article" link below. Zerglings, cyberpunk hippies with mini-guns, and space-travelling pre-teens await after the Jump!

 

Microprose's PC Tactical sci-fi game, X-COM: UFO Defense has spawned many sequels since the originals release in late 1993. The odd thing is that the franchise has not seen a new entry since 2001's action spin-off X-COM: Enforcer. If you're a fan of the franchise, then here's some good news for you.

Shacknews speculates that Irrational Games may be working on a successor to Microprose's PC Classic.  A cached version of a CV document of firm partner Frederick U. Fierst has this interesting entry:

Ken Levine and Jonathan Chey, founders of Irrational Games LLC, Boston and Canberra,
Australia-based video game development company whose titles include System Shock 2, Tribes 3,
SWAT, X-Com, BioShock, Freedom Force and others;

Furthermore, studio head Ken Levine has often referred to the game as his "first love" and usually mentions it as a strong example of game design that stands the test of time.

What adds fuel to speculation is that Take-Two Interactive acquired the X-Com property in full from Atari in 2005, just a few months before Irrational Games was acquired by the publisher. As juicy as all these are, this is still mostly rumor as Levine has yet to comment on Irrational's potential developments.

The current version of the said CV document has had the relevant reference removed from it. To read the cached CV document yourselves, feel free to use our "Read" link below. Just press CTRL-F and search for X-Com.

Will we see a PC sequel? Will we see a downloadable classic port for the next gen-consoles? We'll update you as soon as more info is made available.

  

These two new screenshots from Irrational Games, the people behind Freedom Force and System Shock 2, puts the shock in BioShock.

Recent coverage reveals a newly added active gameplay called "adaptive difficulty." It's like having some divine intervention when you find yourself in a fix. Say fresh drilling "Little Sisters" have you in a corner, there would be some ammo that just happens to be there. That sort of thing.

Bioshock is a role-playing first person shooter game set in a war-torn underwater utopia, where mankind has abandoned their humanity in their quest for perfection. So this is where Extreme Makeover and The Swan got their idea.