This trailer displays the choice of either harvesting the life force of the little girls or saving them.

This trailer shows how players are required to harvest adam face multiple opponents and what when someone turns into Big Daddy and goes for rampage.

Freedom Force, the Silver and Gold age super hero game that broke the curse, didn’t feature a licensed universe with Superman or Captain America. Instead, it played like a tribute to the classic comic book story and while it never became a mainstream commercial success it remains an active and cherished game for its fans and their modification efforts.

This weekend, IGN uploaded an interview featuring 2k Boston’s( formerly Irrational Games) Ken Levine, who was executive producer on both games as well as writer, and some key members of the Irrational Games team regarding the past, present and future of the game series. Levine and his team discuss the rough ride the series experienced, their personal favorite characters in the Irrational universe and the passion it requires to get a self-published sequel out on the street.

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The Cult of Rapture, 2K Games’ official information arm for the incredibly popular Bioshock games leaked some truly interesting images along with a blog describing the process of evolution that the series’ big adversary and future protagonist is going through to prepare for the upcoming Bioshock 2.

Between the first BioShock and the sequel, you’ve seen a lot of concept art for Big Daddies. The logic behind this concept art went beyond different designs and suit combinations. The artists had to imagine what the very first Big Daddy would have on him — this Big Daddy had to feel like he was a rough draft or a work-in-progress, an amalgam of Big Daddies to come. The first Big Daddy was a test case, and in making the perfect prototype, 2K Marin drafted many, many prototypes themselves.

Since the new game places players in the role of the Big Daddy prototype its interesting to see the possible choices the developers considered. You can find links to the images below. I particularly like the hulking gray suited Big Daddy design myself, but the near-final draft is also included showing a more svelte, streamlined and human looking character.

When you create an intense atmospheric game with an intriguing story how best do you continue that story?

Apparently 2K Games thinks you add useless multiplayer to the sequel.

Today 2K Games sent out a media blast revealing the multiplayer functionality of Bioshock 2 in the most marketing rich, vague terms possible. Supposedly the multiplayer game will allow players to experience Rapture before the fall as Plasmid test subjects. The release seems to indicate that a key aspect of this game mode will be combining Plasmids and weapons while discovering how everyday life progressed in the Utopian model society.

“The fans asked for a multiplayer experience and we answered,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “With Digital Extremes delivering a multiplayer experience for BioShock 2 that features all of the things that make BioShock unique, we’re holding ourselves to a high standard so that we can deliver the depth and variety that fans of the BioShock universe demand.”

I’m not sure why anyone was asking for a multiplayer component in Bioshock 2, but I guess I’m in the increasing minority of folks who can enjoy a single player title without feeling it is incomplete without some mindless online mode filled with Xbox Live! p0wning idiots.
The other thing that stands out to me is that they are trying to fill in backstory that we get by playing through the game.. is it really necessary to spell it all out when we know how and why Rapture fell(or at least a good portion of that tale)?

Maybe I’m being too harsh and with so little real information on what form the multiplayer mode might take. This could all be an interesting exercise, though the press release makes certain to point out Digital Extremes’ FPS shooter expertise which is worrying.

You can read all the lovely details after the jump.
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The November NPD numbers are in for PC titles for the month, and it should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is on top–as a matter of fact it takes the top two spots out of the Top 20. If you look through the whole chart though, you will notice that World of Warcraft took five spots which is an indication that its popularity shows no wane in sight.

Call of Duty: World at War for the PC came in third, with Spore still pulling in the gamers and resting at number four, and Left 4 Dead took the number 8 spot which is a decent slot considering the PC powerhouses that are present on the chart.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition
3. Call of Duty: World At War
4. Spore
5. Fallout 3
6. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. The Sims 2 Deluxe
8. Left 4 Dead
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
11. World of Warcraft
12. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Expansion
13. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
14. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey
15. Far Cry 2
16. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
17. BioShock
18. Spore Creepty & Cute Parts Pack
19. IGT Slots: Little Green Men
20. Assassin’s Creed

(Thanks Shacknews)

Ken Levine; lead designer, co-founder, president and creative director for 2K Boston; will be giving the commencement address for the Cohort 9 graduation. The event takes place at 2:30 December 13th at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University which is know as the premier graduate videogame education program in the U.S.

Levine is the creative force behind BioShock and will be working on BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams at 2K Marin. More about the Guildhall at Southern Methodist University follows break.
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Undoubtedly the highlight of this week’s PlayStation Store update (which, once again, ignores PSP owners altogether) is the release of the long-awaited BioShock challenge rooms, as promised earlier. For $10, you’ll be able to work your way through three separate scenarios: Rescuing a Little Sister from a carnival, killing a Big Daddy without any weapons, and tackling a series of rooms containing wave after wave of enemies.

Also new this week is downloadable content for Dead Space (various skin packs and weapon packs, ranging from $1-$4) and new costumes for Little Big Planet (a free Sack in the Box costume and a $3 LocoRoco pack which has five different costumes). Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour square off, with GH adding three tracks from The Raconteurs ($2 each of $5.49 for a bundle of all three), while Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 get three songs from Mission of Burma and three from the Dead Kennedys (both artists’ music costs $2 each or $5.49 for a bundle of all three songs). There are also four other songs from Crooked X ($1), Lacuna Coil ($2 each), and In This Moment ($2), which you can get in a bundle for $5.49. Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2 also gets five new songs, each for just $1.49.

Aside from that, there’s a demo of MotoGP ‘08 (which you can check out on PC at FileFront) as well as some videos, trailers, and themes of everything from NBA 2K9 to Hancock.

Sorry, PSP owners. I wasn’t teasing you — there really is nothing for you this week.

Keith Shetler, assistant producer at 2K Boston, has posted some news over on the PlayStation Blog that should get owners of BioShock for the PS3 pretty excited. The Challenge Rooms Add-On Content pack will be hitting the PlayStation Network today for $9.99 with two new play modes: New Game Plus and Challenge Rooms which are promised to add new twists to the game.

New Game Plus allows you to start a new supercharged playthrough of the game where you begin the game with any weapons, abilities, and inventory that you collected during a previous playthrough.

Challenge Rooms are puzzle rooms where the objective is to rescue a Little Sister where you can fight a Big Daddy without any weapons or try and survive room after room of Splicers.

It was hard enough as it was to bring down a Big Daddy, but the thought of trying to do it without any weapons pretty much terrifies me. Seriously, if you would have hooked me up to a heart monitor while I was playing this game, my pulse would have made the thing overheat every single time I encountered one of those bad boys.

The new trailer for BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams may have many questioning just what 2K Boston has in store for us with such archaic imagery, but there are those who are wonder just what else there could possibly be left to do in Rapture. What or whom survived the last round remains to be seen, but what we do know, thanks to a recent quote from 2K representative Charlie Sinhaseni on Gamespot, is that the game is “destined” for the PS3, Windows based PCs and the Xbox 360.

While a psychic barnyard animal could have predicted that, what we are still unsure of is if each port of the game will be released simultaneously or not. Hopefully, this time around that will be the case–that way those who wish to play the PS3 version will not have to once again wait an whole painful year to get the game on their system.

When BioShock 2 was officially announced back in March, Take-Two stated that not only would Ken Levine be involved in some capacity, but that the game would be released sometime during the company’s Q4 fiscal year, which means we can hopefully expect it to hit sometime between August and October 2009.

Granted, that is over a year away and a lot can happen between now and then, but let’s keep our fingers crossed that this time around everyone will be able venture back into Rapture on the same day. In the meantime, just keep your eyes glued to 1UP for a more official announcement.