irrational-games posts

BioShock Infinite is already one of the most talked about games due out in 2010. While developer Irrational Games hasn't revealed much about the game since it was first announced last summer this week the developer revealed that one of you might find your name in the game.

Irrational's web site has posted up word that they are looking to put a fan's name in the game. As it states, "You could end up as the namesake of a building, a character, a business–whatever our artists come up with. It's the ultimate bragging rights." And all you have to do is send in your name and email address by the end of the day on April 13. How simple is that?

PAX East 2011 is less than a week away but opportunity to attend at least one day of the March 11-13 gaming event in Boston are slipping away. According to a post today on the official PAX Twitter page, " ... we only have about 250 Sunday badges left!". Those tickets are expected to sell out before the start of PAX East on Friday.

Meanwhile game publishers and developers are starting to annouce their PAX East exhibit plans:

• Irrational Games will be holding an invite only party on March 12.
• ArenaNet will show off a playable version of Guild Wars 2 at PAX East.
• FireFall will be shown off for the first time in playable form at PAX East.
• Nvidia is rumored to launch its new dual GPU graphics card the GeForce GTX 590 at PAX East.

So what happened to all those plans for a BioShock movie? At one point it was reported that the film adaptation of Irrational Games' first person shooter was being held up by a budget that was too high. Now in a recent chat over at ComingSoon.net the movie's now former director Gore Verbinski we find out there was another reason for the delay.

According to him, "I couldn't really get past anybody that would spend the money that it would take to do it and keep an R rating. Alternately, I wasn't really interested in pursuing a PG-13 version." We can certainly see his point that any BioShock movie that would be true to the game's vision will indeed have to be bloody and scary in order to work.

Irrational Games' head man Ken Levine has now completed the promised task of providing the forward for BioShock Rapture, the long awaited prose novel that will serve as a back story for the events in the BioShock and BioShock 2 first person shooters.

On his personal Twitter page, Levine wrote, "I wrote my tiny corner of the BioShock novel last night. Hard to describe the feeling of writing for Ryan again after 3 years." He's referring to Andrew Ryan, the creator of the underwater city of Rapture at the heart of the first two games in the BioShock series. When asked by another person if it was hard to write the character again Levine replied with, "It wasn't difficult, but I had to say something about him that I hadn't said already. I think I found a tiny, tiny new corner."

As we have reported before the BioShock prose novel was first announced back in 2009. John Shirley wrote the bulk of the novel and it's currently scheduled to be released via Tor Books in July.

[Via VG247.com]

Last month we reported that Bioshock: Rapture, the upcoming novel that tells the back story of the first two Bioshock first person shooters, was finally scheduled for release in March. Now it looks like we will have to wait a few more months for the novel from Tor Books to be released.

Amazon.com now shows that the novel has been pushed back until July 19. As we reported before, the novel is written by John Shirley but will have an introductory chapter by Irrational Games' head man Ken Levine. It is supposed to tell the story of how Andrew Ryan first created the underwater city of Rapture, the setting for the first two games in the series.

We cannot tell you how disappointed we are about Digital Illusions' decision to cancel the promised PC port of Battlefield 1943. Is it ultimately a minor occurrence in the overall scheme of things? Sure. Will we still want to buy and play Battlefield 3? Of course. But it once again shows that for the most part publisher EA treats the PC as a second class citizen when it comes to multi-platform games.

• Steam has new automatic updates for A.R.E.S (including a new suit), Crasher, and Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
• The latest Irrational Games audio interview has Ken Levine chatting with Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford.
• Bethesda Softworks has reportedly fired its second law firm in its continued fight with Interplay over the Fallout game license.
• Game Informer has a new podcast where Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard answers fan questions about The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

Lawmakers in the state of Massachusetts are currently debating whether or not to become the latest state to offer tax breaks to game development studios. The Boston Herald reports that a bill is still in its early stages and faces some opposition from other lawmakers who feel that specific industries should not be boosted above others.

Massachusetts is already a popular place for game development with teams like Irrational Games, Turbine, Demiurge Studios and others located in and around the Boston area. In 2010, another Boston-based game development team, 38 Studios, left the state and moved to Rhode Island thanks to a massive $75 million loan guarantee sponsored by that state's government.

[Via GamePolitics]

Some of you may remember that back in 2009 plans were revealed for a prose novel to be written based on the Bioshock game series from developer Irrational Games. However the novel from publisher Tor Books pretty much from sight. Now Amazon.com and Tor's parent company Macmillan both have a new listing for the novel, titled Bioshock: Rapture, stating it will be released on March 1.

The novel is written by John Shirley but will have an introductory chapter by Irrational Games' head man Ken Levine. It will feature the back story of how the underwater city of Rapture was established by Andrew Ryan. The novel will be released both in hardcover and trade paperback format, each with different cover art work. The novel was supposed to be released around the time of BioShock 2's release in early 2010 but according to a post credited to Shirley on the 2K Games' BioShock message boards the decision was made to incorporate characters and plot points from Bioshock 2 into the novel. That caused an additional 30,000 words to be put into the book.

If you feel like staying up late tonight you might want to check out our site around 1:30 am Eastern time or so. There might be something of interest. No promises.

• GameStop has posted up info about midnight openings on Monday at its stores for the launch of World of Warcraft Cataclysm.
• Steam has automatic updates for Super Meat Boy (including Tofu Boy) and Team Fortress 2.
• Steam has also added the new games Swords and Soldiers and Arcadia to its library.
• A new Elemental beta patch is getting closer to release.
• Natural Selection 2 beta owners have a new patch to download.
• You can now pre-order eight inch vinyl figures of Super Meat Boy (alas they won't be released until April).
• Irrational Games has a new podcast where Ken Levine chats with movie director Zack Snyder.

If for some reason you have never played the original BioShock, there's never been a better time to purchase and play this classic 2007 first person shooter from developer Irrational Games. The newly relaunched Games For Windows Marketplace web site now has BioShock on sale for a mere $1.99 from now until 1 am Eastern time on Sunday. That's a whopping 90 percent off its normal price.

Keep in mind that the web site already has the game's sequel, BioShock 2, on sale this weekend for just $9.99, There's also one more daily deal on the Games For Windows Marketplace web site that's set for Sunday.