video games

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1983 was the start of a disastrous period for the once-seemingly indomitable video game industry. With the market overly-glutted from too many competing systems (and a similar brawl wrecking havoc among the nascent personal computer business) many individuals and families completely abandoned home video gaming out of sheer frustration. Neither were matters helped by corporate bungling that has since taken on legendary proportions: witness E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and the Pac-Man port for the Atari 2600. And yeah, the “Atari Landfill” story is completely true. Let’s not even begin to talk about turkeys like Porky’s and Custer’s Revenge (I’m telling y’all kiddies who weren’t around then, that you missed something else…).

All of which makes it the more astonishing that in the dying glow of video gaming’s first burst of prominence, one title was produced which a quarter-century later is still hailed as one of the greatest and most groundbreaking ...

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I’ve seen confusion and misinformation relating to upcoming movies and TV shows, but never like this for an unreleased video game…

Eurogamer is reporting that 2K Games honchos have let it be known that the forthcoming sequel to 2007’s mind-blowing BioShock is still being called BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. Late last week the story got out (originating from another 2K source) that the “Sea of Dreams” was being dropped from the title.

Eurogamer also notes that it will have plenty more to report on the much-awaited sequel in the weeks to come....

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Ever since that teaser trailer was released this past fall, the upcoming sequel to 2007’s BioShock has been called BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. Now comes word from 2K Games that the “Sea of Dreams” has been dropped from the title. So from now on we can just refer to it as…

“What’s in a name?” More like “What’s in the game?” So long as it is at least as thrilling and terrifying and thought-provoking as the original BioShock, doesn’t matter to me what they choose to call BioShock 2.

And speaking of BioShock 2, 2K has announced that the game – now widely whispered to be coming out this October – will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC at the same time. Which will make lots of people very very happy 🙂...

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So the Internets have been burning like mad all day with rumors regarding BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. The prevailing word since late last night, and what very much upset many people, was word that the iconic Big Daddies – the diving-suit clad monstrosities that protect the Little Sisters in Rapture – would not be in the upcoming sequel to the 2007 first-person shooter.

2K Games came out this afternoon and said that the rumors were false.

A few hours later, we now know that 2K isn’t kidding.

Kotaku has broken the news that, in BioShock 2…

You play as a Big Daddy.

In fact, you’re the first of the lot, a so-called “renegade” Big Daddy who’s on the hunt for a Little Sister of his own, according to a tipster who has the new Game Informer magazine in hand. You’ll take out rival Daddies with your huge

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This blog was already becoming non-stop Watchmen for the past several weeks. Now it’s wall-to-wall BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams coverage that threatens to dominate for the next several months. I was working on some more serious stuff when a few e-mails came in screaming about the cover of GameInformer’s April issue.

Take a gander at the Big Sister:

According to one report, the Big Sisters are “amazonian version(s) of the Big Daddy, wearing similar, though svelter, gear” and that they will be “faster and sleeker” than Big Daddies.

So if you’re a fan of the BioShock mythos, you’re probably wondering as much as I am right now: where do Big Sisters come from? We already know the story of the Big Daddies and the original Little Sisters. Nowhere in the original BioShock was it ever hinted that there might be a female version of the Big ...

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It is 1967. Seven years after Andrew Ryan’s sub-Atlantic utopian metropolis of Rapture collapsed into ruin.

And in coastal communities across western Europe, little girls have begun to mysteriously disappear. The only clues connected to the vanishings being mysterious red lights glimpsed by eyewitnesses, and unusual boot prints on the beaches.

The people at 2K Games are certainly being subtle in giving us any idea about what’s in store with BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, the upcoming sequel to 2007’s BioShock: considered by many to be the greatest video game of the modern era. A few days ago the teaser site SomethingInTheSea.com emerged from the depths. On it you can find numerous newspaper clippings and photographs related to the disappearances of the children. Among the most intriguing: a handmade doll that those who played BioShock will instantly recognize as being a plush version of the Big Daddy.

No ...

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Two days ago I wrote how I was currently hooked on Fallout 3, Bethesday Softworks’ amazing continuation of the classic Fallout video games from the late Nineties.

Well since I wrote that, I had to take my copy of the game back to the Target store that I bought it from. Why? ‘Cuz my copy of the Windows version didn’t have the white sticker inside the box that had the Windows LIVE Access Key printed on it for that particular DVD. So I uninstalled Fallout 3, exchanged the original copy for one that did have the sticker with the key numeral, and installed the game fresh.

So everything was cool… except that the game “hung” shortly after the birth/character creation scene started, and would go no further.

Some reading on the Intertubes showed that a lot of people have been having this problem also.

Well, this morning I ...

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The first time I played Fallout 3, my character escaped the bowels of Vault 101 by killing the Overseer before he could do me in. For my heinous act of self-defense his lovely daughter jilted me forever. Tonight I started fresh, and for sparing his life the girl came to my aid and wished me well as I prepared to stride into the nuclear-blasted ruins of Washington D.C.

Fallout 3 is my current drug of choice so far as video and computer gaming goes. Bethesda Softworks’ follow-up to the classic series of the late Nineties (and if you still want to play Fallout and Fallout 2 check out my review of GOG.com) maintains all of the elements that made its predecessors such a gripping experience, while also rebuilding the mechanics with the innovations of modern video gaming. The result? Not a “reboot” at all, but a fully-fledged brilliant ...

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BioShock, 2K Games’ smash hit first-person shooter that tries your personal ethics as much as it tests your aim, is now coming to mobile phones courtesy of Indiagames. The reveal came at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Indiagames is working on two versions of BioShock for mobile devices: a straightforward 3-D port of the original game, and… a 2-D rendition, believe it or not.

(Can’t help but wonder if the 2-D version will resemble this NES-style “demake” or perhaps this Game Boy mock-up.)

I’m of the opinion that BioShock is a game that needs to be played at night, or at least a way darkened room with all the lights out, on a fairly large screen and the sound turned way up. The ruined underwater city of Rapture with all its 1950s trappings is easily the most sinister setting of a video game that I’ve ...

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The marketing for Watchmen never ceases to amaze me. This time it’s an Eighties-style scrolling street fighting arcade game based on the Minutemen. Plunk in your virtual quarters and play as either Nite Owl or Silk Spectre as you clean up New York City of the 1940s.

Maybe if you rack up a high enough score, it’ll unlock Hooded Justice and Mothman as playable characters 😛...

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