2k-marin posts

Last July it was announced that the action figure company NECA would release action figures based on BioShock 2. Now comes word that those action figures have begun to ship to stores. Obviously their release are being timed with the release of the 2K Marin-Digital Extremes first person shooter sequel.

In fact one of the figures, the Big Daddy Deluxe version, has been in stores since November. The BioShock 2 series 1 figures are now avaiable which include the Big Sister and Subject Delta (the player character). In addition NECA is selling two life-sized game props; a Big Daddy plush toy and a Eve Hypo Syringe. You can order all the action figures and props at the NECA web site.

As we await the release next week of BioShock 2 (and the early reviews have thankfully been solid) 2K Games' Cult of Rapture community site has posted word of two cool collector's items that related to the first person shooter sequel. One of the items you can see above. It's a Sinclair Solutions Syringe Pen that is engraved with the Sinclair Solutions logo and comes in that nifty looking case with the BioShock 2 logo. Pre-orders for the pen are now being taken. The pen itself will ship at the end of February for $34.99. It's supposed to be a limited edition but there's no word on how limited the availability will be.

On sale right now are four special BioShock 2 art prints created by various well known illustrators (including the Penny Arcade team). Each of the four prints will set you back $19.99. You can order both the prints and the pen at 2K Games' online store.

It's been a busy last few weeks for big game launches and it continues next week with the release of BioShock 2. Publisher 2K Games is already prepping for the release of the first person shooter sequel with midnight store openings on February 9 in both GameStop and Best Buy locations.

Over 2,000 GameStop locations will be open at that time as well as a select few of Best Buy stores. You can check out which stores will be taking part on this list. At least one GameStop location in San Fransisco will have some of the game's development team from 2K Marin on hand when BioShock 2 first goes on sale.

So you think you are all fancy by pre-ordering the BioShock 2 Special Edition, do you? Well in fact the collector's edition of 2K Games' upcoming first person shooter is pretty slick stuff and a new YouTube video shows 2K Games' community manager Elizabeth Tobey opening up the Games For Windows version of the edition to show off all the extras in the big box.

But that's nothing compared to what's shown later in the video, the Uber Edition of the game that costs $14.999 and comes with a fully workable Big Daddy. Unfortunately the Uber Edition is now canceled for reasons that . . .well, you just need to see the video to find out for yourself. In the meantime you can still order the special edition of the game before it ships next week.

If you have been waiting to check out the PC version of BioShock 2, you may be wondering if the sequel to 2007's acclaimed first person shooter will be just a straight port or will it have some specific PC features. Thankfully the game's community site The Cult of Rapture has you covered with a Q&A and even a podcast about that very subject.

The podcast has info from 2K Australia's producer Jake Drobowiecki who talks about their work on the PC port. That includes changing the UI and HUD in the game to work with a mouse and keyboard (in fact, they made the decision not to support controllers at all in the PC version). They also talk about supporting Nvidia's 3D Vision technology, having some visual extras for the DirectX 10 users (it also supports DirectX 9) and more. The feature also has some PC specific screenshots from the game.

In related news, Best Buy is planning to hold midnight openings on February 9 for the launch of BioShock 2. If you want to grab your copy in the middle of the night you can do so at these locations.

Gallery: BioShock 2 PC Screenshots

The big new feature of BioShock 2 compared to the original game is the addition of multiplayer features to the art-deco themed first person shooter. Now the game's official community site The Cult of Rapture has reveal some more multiplayer details and that includes admitting there will be no LAN or dedicated server support.

The reason behind why those features are missing is a lack of time in development with the Q&A stating, "We chose to spend the time we had creating a solid game foundation and unfortunately that did not include LAN play or dedicated servers." This seems somewhat odd since both games use Unreal Engine 3 which has native FPS multiplayer support. The multiplayer side of things was also developed by Digital Extremes which has ton of experience in FPS games (co-developing many of the Unreal-Unreal Tournament games with Epic Games).

The Q&A also goes over other items such as how they plan to handle multiplayer cheaters, why the game won't have ranked or unranked multiplayer servers and more. BioShock 2 ships to stores on February 9.

[Via Blue's News]

We are getting ready to have a bunch of PC game title come out in stores and via download in the next few weeks and one of the big ones is BioShock 2. The sequel to the acclaimed first person shooter from developer 2K Marin will once again feature a music soundtrack composed by game music veteran Garry Schyman who created the score for the original game.

While the soundtrack to the game is being included in the special edition version of BioShock 2, Gametunes.net reports that the game music will also be made available for sale via digital download. No release date for the soundtrack nor pricing was revealed.

This story has been highly confusing to cover for the past few days. The PC port of 2K Games' first person shooter sequel BioShock 2 was first reported to have a limit of 15 activations. Then that number went down to just five. Then 2K Games' community manager said there was going to be no limit on activations.

Now we seem to have the final word on the matter. According to a new post on the game's message board the game can be installed on an unlimited number of machines but there is a 15 machine activation limit after all. The difference is that it's not imposed by 2K Games but by Microsoft's Games For Windows software which BioShock 2 uses. According to 2K Games' community manager, "We went with this option because we wanted to go with non-ssa keys, because we felt that was better for you guys all around." So hopefully that's the end of the matter.

On Wednesday we reported that the Steam pre-order site for BioShock 2 showed that the upcoming first person shooter sequel would have a 15 machine activation limit. Later the Steam page changed to show a much smaller five machine limit for the game. Now publisher 2K Games has given the final word on the matter and its good news for gamers and consumers.

According to a post on the game's message board by 2K Games's community manager, "We are using SecuROM only as a disc check method for the retail copy of BioShock 2. That is its only use." That means the game will have no limits on how many PCs it can be installed. Indeed, the Steam web site page for the game has now removed any mention of machine activations for the game.

[Via Blue's News]

2K Games for some reason has failed to divulge the system requirements for the PC port of BioShock 2 so it was up to the first person shooter's listing on Steam to reveal if your rig will be able to run the long awaited sequel. As you can see after the jump the game does require a one time Internet connection to play as well as a Games For Windows Live account for getting updates, save game support and more.

The original BioShock game for the PC got some knocks against it by gamers for a small PC activation limit. According to Steam the game does use SecuROM but has a 15 machine limit. While we know that a lot of you would prefer an unlimited amount of activations, BioShock 2's limits should be more than enough.

Update: The Steam page has now been changed and it now shows that BioShock 2 has a 5 machine activation limit.