Shawn delighted BioShock players yesterday with the news of new Plasmids, achievements and widescreen options for both PC and Xbox 360 platforms. Today, 2K Games and Take-Two announced that the new Plasmids and Tonics, achievements and interface upgrades, are now available for the console on XBL and via a patch for the PC.

“As one of the highest rated games of the year, we wanted to continue to connect with the fans that made BioShock such an overwhelming retail and critically-acclaimed hit,” said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. “We are excited to offer new downloadable content that will extend and enhance the replay value of this title.”

New downloadable content includes:

Four Plasmids and Gene Tonics:

• Sonic Boom: Hurls creatures and objects back with a blast of force
• EVE saver: Enables Plasmids to use less EVE
• Vending Expert: Reduces prices in the vending machines
• Machine Buster: Increases the amount of damage players deal to cameras, bots and turrets

Achievements (Xbox 360):

• Xbox 360 players can gain 100 points for “Brass Balls,” by beating BioShock on the “hard” difficulty setting without dying

In response to gamers’ requests and feedback from the Cult of Rapture community forums, fans of BioShock now have a widescreen option, granting a wider horizontal field of vision, as well as additional enhancements to the game. The Xbox 360 Title Update will be automatically applied at the game’s startup when users log into XBL. PC owners can access both the additional content and gameplay improvements by clicking on the badge at the end of this post.

Via: Press Release

Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy has now officially become Gaming Today’s first ever “Idiot of the Day”. This lauded title has nothing to do with her wanting to educate parents on violence in video games, and it has nothing to do with her wanting to protect children from said violence depicted in certain games. Instead, the lovely crown and respected title of “idiot” has more to with her lack of knowledge and research than her wish to keep children safe from blood and bullets in their video games.

You see, dear readers, she has issued her Top Ten list of violent video games for parents to avoid purchasing this holiday season for their wonderful offspring. While this sounds like a fantastic idea – in theory – the list has me wondering what time frame the woman is living in. Check out her list:

1. Grand Theft Auto (last released on consoles 2004; PSP, 2006)
2. Manhunt (2004, what about 2007’s Manhunt 2?)
3. Scarface (2006)
4. 50 Cent Bulletproof (2005 – who the hell even bought this when it was new?)
5. 300 (Feb, 2007)
6. The Godfather (PS3 – March, 2007; other versions, 2006)
7. Killer-7 (2005)
8. Resident Evil 4 (Wii, PC 2007; other versions 2005)
9. God of War (2005; Maybe she meant 2007’s GoW2)
10. Hitman Blood Money (2006)

According to the Detroit News, this is Worthy’s third annual list of games to avoid as the lawyer has stated in the past that she feels that simulated violence leads to a high crime rate. Sure it does (note sarcasm), and living in the second most dangerous city in America has absolutely nothing to do with it does it Kym? While I can applaud her efforts to educate parents on the content of certain games, she should realize that not only are these mature titles, they are old; she should have done a little more research or at the very least fired her paralegal. It honestly looks like she just went to the Toys R Us website and copied their list of PS2 “M” rated titles. With that being said, I am sure we can all come up with games that are much more violent than what is on her list, let alone ones that are more current. BioShock anyone?

Thanks: GamePolitics and Detroit News

The new update for BioShock coming this week for PC and Xbox 360 will contain new plasmids and gene tonics.

“Both the BioShock PC Patch and the 360 Title Update will be available next week,” says the Cult of Rapture official site.

“In addition to these fixes, we will be releasing downloadable content free on both Xbox Live and for the PC, with the DLC bundled into the PC Patch.”

Both a splicer-flinging Sonic Blast and a Vampire-like trick will be included in the update.

Look for the full details on the Cult of Rapture  when the update goes live.

via CVG

Surfer Girl, known for her mysterious rumors that more often than not turn out to be true, has posted the possible news that a forthcoming sequel to BioShock may not involve creative designer, Ken Levine, at all. Apparently, the team he worked with on BioShock is going so far as to set up a new studio for the sequel to avoid working with him again:

“2K Boston is still recovering – a good chunk of the BioShock team did not want to work with Ken ever again, and 2K definitely understood the sentiment and let them set up a new studio so that they can make Bioshock 2, leaving Ken with Project X [an upcoming X-COM remake]. A good chunk of the other senior 2K Boston people who were sick of Ken but didn’t move to San Francisco ended up scattering to other AAA developers instead. In Quincy, they’re essentially rebuilding a team from almost scratch again.”

That’s rather disheartening news, seeing as Levine was kind of the front runner of the team. I’m sure the other members of the development team could pull off a good sequel, but it probably wouldn’t be quite the same. Of course, this could all turn out to be completely untrue. We shall see.

Via Surfer Girl

It’s understandable if you don’t feel like going through the mountains of Black Friday advertisements to find all of the game deals, so Hawty McBloggy has done it for you. Sure, you’ll still need to get up early (or not go to sleep) and stand in line, but at least you’ll have a clear picture of what to get.

All of the videogame-related deals from Best Buy, Circuit City, GameStop, K-Mart, Target, Toys ‘R Us, Walmart and FYE can be found in this convenient blog post. Unfortunately, there’s no PC games in there, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re SOL. But do look at the bottom of this post for some good news.

There are a number of good deals, including Super Mario Galaxy for just $34.99 at Circuit City and an Xbox 360 with the Guitar Hero 2 bundle for just $349.99.

Awesome deal alert: Friday and Saturday only at Best Buy – BioShock or The Orange Box (both PC) for just $25. You have no excuses. Now go buy them.

I see its effects everywhere. I see it in gaming forums. I see it in reviews for other games. And I can’t help but think one thing: man, Halo 3 has spoiled Xbox 360 owners.

Let’s put the sub-par single-player campaign and the disputes over how good the multiplayer is aside for a second and get one thing straight: for an online gamer, Halo 3 has more options than any title before it. Online multiplayer with multiple modes, online co-op, splitscreen co-op, splitscreen multiplayer, theater mode, Forge: the list goes on. That’s a large part of the reason you can find plenty of people to play with at any hour of the day; there’s just that much to do. But now that I’ve been exposed to all these options in one package, I find myself viewing newer games in a much different light. Read the full article

Being different is something gamers want and appreciate, according to Spark Unlimited lead designer John Garcia-Shelton. It’s also something beautiful.

“If I felt I was making a game like BioShock or Halo I would feel pressure to outdo them,” Garcia told Eurogamer. “But we bring something different to the table that they don’t and it’s that energy and intensity and experience for the player that we believe will make us stand out in our own way.”

“You can’t out-Halo Halo, and the same goes for BioShock, but being different is a beautiful thing that gamers want and appreciate.”

We’ll naturally be able to expect that Spark Unlimited’s upcoming FPS, Legendary: The Box (what is it with these box names of all of a sudden?), will be different… however you interpret that. Built on Unreal Engine 3 technology, maybe Spark will have had the time to create something “different” from what we already have in the FPS genre. It’ll be interesting, if nothing else, to look at the game from this angle upon its release to see if Garcia was being hypocritical.

Here’s a follow-up on the BAFTA Video Games Award ceremony that went down Tuesday night. We now have the winners (you can see the losers after the break):

• Academy Fellowship: Will Wright
• Action and Adventure: Crackdown (Xbox 360)
• Artistic Achievement: Okami (PS2)
• Best Game: Bioshock (Xbox 360)
• Casual: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Gameplay: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Innovation: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Multiplayer: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Original Score: Okami (PS2)
• Sports: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Strategy And Simulation: Wii Sports (Wii)
• Story and Character: God Of War 2 (PS2)
• Use Of Audio: Crackdown (Xbox 360)
• BAFTA Ones To Watch Award: Ragnarawk
• The PC World Gamers Award: Football Manager 2007 (PC)

Wii Sports made out like a bandit. Apparently waving a plastic wand around in the air impresses even ‘the elite”.

Read the full article

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the nominees for The 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards (which apparently went down last night). BAFTA first started recognizing video games back in 1998, but it wasn’t until recently that BAFTA started to give video games equal status with television and film. In fact, as we saw earlier, Will Wright (mastermind behind The Sims) was bestowed the prestigious Fellow Award; a first in video game history.

Glancing at the list, the odd thing I’m seeing here (other than being dominated by console titles) is that it contains a few titles that have yet to be released without even so much as a demo. It is my understanding that the entry submissions were closed back in July. Still, how do games that were in development (and still in development) get nomination status? Is hype enough to deserve a nomination? Are these the Standards and Practices BAFTA have chosen for judging video games? It leaves one to debate how “prestigious” the BAFTA Video Game Awards truly are.

Portal should have been judged by itself for Innovation. Heck, Team Fortress 2 deserves some recognition for Artistic Achievement. At least Guitar Hero II is getting some well deserved props. Anyway, you can read the full list of nominees after the break.

Read the full article

Video Games Live is adding music from the score of Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix to its line up for the upcoming performance in London. The score was composed by British composer James Hannigan and was the first to use the theme from the original film score created by John Williams.

VGL has just recently announced the continuation of its world tour dates and incorporated music from Halo 3, BioShock, Conan and Star Craft II into the program. It will be playing London’s Royal Festival Hall on October 22 with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

via Music4Games