5punk

The Day Xbox Live Died: BioShock Demo Now Available On Xbox Live
What, you need me to say it twice? There's a BioShock demo now up on Xbox Live. 1.35 GB. You should, you know...check it out.




Author: Luke Plunkett
Category: Bioshock Demo The Day Xbox Live Died Top Xbox 360 Xbox Live
Publish Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 22:00:00 EDT
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Source: Kotaku

YAY!

Internet sources on the PC version of the demo wrote:For those of you who are looking for a BioShock demo on the PC, it is in the works and will be out later this month. I'll give you more details about it tomorrow.

more on PC version

360 owners should get this now.

Apparently the demo is ~45 mins long and modded, so you get fun weapons early on.

The demo is most win.

Weapons you get are a wrench, pistol and machine gun, plus two magic-like attacks that you do with your other hand. Not a massive arsenal, but it gives you the idea - you see lots more fun toys in the ending sequence.

Characters were well-textured, but a little blocky in close-up, but then this was the 360. You get to kill a few low-level monsters and see a couple of the main characters, and have a go at hacking - which I miserably failed at. Hacking turns enemies to fight on your side, but unfortunately is done with a rather annoying "connect the pipes" minigame similar to the one used in TimeSplitters 3.

The levels were the most stunning though, while set in 1960, it's more reminiscent of 1920s Metropolis-style Expressionist than 50s Googie architecture. Not entirely sure why they didn't set it in the 1930s, I didn't see anything in the demo that would have been invented in the intervening years.

Without giving away the story, the place you get to explore is fascinating - so much so that I almost wished it wasn't an FPS game, and I could just look around. It was quite linear, but in a good way - like Half-Life where the story happens in front of you. It didn't grab the camera away from you though, like Gears or War does, so sometimes you missed a bit of the scripted action, as it's a little harder to quickly glance around on a console. It's also a dynamic and scary environment and promises, like the best of games, to have some truly unforgettable areas.

Some very nice effects, there's lots of fire and water around all looking very shiny. Quite a bit of post-processing going on on the camera, most memorably when walking through a curtain of water. This points towards it needing quite a lot of PC to run well (DX10 for some effects, allegedly) - so it may even work out cheaper for some people to buy a console to play it - albeit for a more limited experience: looking around quickly is hard, and aiming is as much of a bitch as it is with all console shooters.

I want it quite badly now, was kind of ambivalent before.

How light/dark is it?

All of the videos made the game look too dark, didn't really work for me.

FatherJack wrote:Hacking turns enemies to fight on your side, but unfortunately is done with a rather annoying "connect the pipes" minigame similar to the one used in <strike>TimeSplitters 3</strike> SYSTEM SHOCK 2 MOTHERFUCKER.

fix'd so as not to be lame

First screen up is a brightness slider, settable anywhere from "WTF I can't see my hands" to "I have night vision lololol".

I played it in the dark, and while there are some bits, particularly right at the start which are deliberately pitch black, it lights up well enough once you get going.

deject wrote:fix'd so as not to be lame

Wish they'd done that with the minigame.

I haven't seen the Bioshock one, but the System Shock 2 one is pretty simple, just connect 3 spots to make a line.

Well i remember the one in timesplitters 3 being a pretty dam awesome level, at least on the single player campaign. Co-op just didn't cut it. There was a bit more to that than just 3 blocks though.

I thought the demo was pretty awesome. Damn creepy also.

yeah the pipe mini game is a bit annoying, just takes too long.

Duke of Ted wrote:just takes too long.

twss

I just bought the hack for $10 rather than trying the mini-game.

I really liked the demo. Starts off with a couple of "woah" moments, very nice looking. The end is a little too intense but I guess that's the point, to show how intense it could get later in the game.

Psssh the pipe game was easy. The setting looks awesome, kinda reminds me of The suffering with the projected bad guy and such.

Also watching that little girl repeatedly stab that dude in the face with a spike was quite possibly the greatest thing ever.

PC: any MP like in SS2? Or have they been faaabulous like every other software dev these days and said it's too hard to implement? Right, cos technology and ability is obivously detioriating from the days when every goddamn FPS had coop multiplayer...

My greatest fear is that it's going to be yet another dumbed down console port to PC, although a friend of mine says it actually feels the other way round - hence the clunkiness of the controld on XBox. Comments?

friznit wrote:My greatest fear is that it's going to be yet another dumbed down console port to PC, although a friend of mine says it actually feels the other way round - hence the clunkiness of the controld on XBox. Comments?

PC Gamer review said it didn't resemble a console port in any way, think they gave it 95% or something.

Also said that menu options like 'auto-aim' only appear if you have a 360 pad connected.

mrbobbins wrote:PC Gamer review said it didn't resemble a console port in any way, think they gave it 95% or something.

Thats because it isn't. It was developed as a PC game first before they decided to release it on the 360 aswell.

Lee wrote:
Thats because it isn't. It was developed as a PC game first before they decided to release it on the 360 aswell.

There's also the added bonus that bits of the team are proper hardcore pc dev's. Bits of team from Looking Glass are present.

Which is most win.

Given there's no other live bioshock threads...

Internet forum of Bioshock makers wrote:Hey guys,

We have the finalized PC specs for you. More PC information is on its way, but I wanted to get this out to you as soon as possible.

BIOSHOCK PC SPECIFICATIONS

Operating Systems:
Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or
Windows Fista


Minimum System Requirements:
CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz Single Core processor

System RAM: 1GB

Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550).

Sound Card: 100% direct X 9.0c compatible sound card

Hard disc space: 8GB free space


Recommended System Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo processor

System RAM: 2GB

Video card:
DX9: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT or better)
DX10: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or better

Sound Card: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ series (Optimized for use with Creative Labs EAX ADVANCED HD 4.0 or EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0 compatible sound cards)

Important Note: Game requires Internet connection for activation
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In short, Shader model 3.0 or above. Should run on pretty much any system that'll run CS:S nicely, Likely will run well on anything that'll do beef nicely.

Obviously, prettiness for playability remains to be seen.

Oh, and for no fucking DX10

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Given there's no other live bioshock threads...



In short, Shader model 3.0 or above. Should run on pretty much any system that'll run CS:S nicely, Likely will run well on anything that'll do beef nicely.

Obviously, prettiness for playability remains to be seen.

Oh, and for no fucking DX10

Hehe, my brother insisted on getting a 3ghz core 2 duo as he saw the specs on Wikipedia a while ago and took them at face value. He's one of you 8800 cunts too, imagine my lols when I was putting it all together and saw the 8800's exhaust system. Rolf!