Bioshock senior designer Joe McDonagh has been taking more about the birth of the 360 and PC shooter that's been getting many gamers a bit uncomfortable under the collar. For those among us with really good memories, Bioshock started out as something quite different as McDonagh explains...
"Every studio has its own dynamic, but we believe that original games require a lot of iteration and sudden changes of direction," McDonagh told CVG. "It can be terrifying and ageing at times. But it's impossible to sit down at the start of a project and say this game will be XYZ and it will be fun. Bioshock for instance started out on a tropical island with Nazis.
Back in 2004 when talking about the game for the time we wrote: "It's set in the near-future, from what we know so far, with most, if not all of the experience taking place in an abandoned World War II laboratory complex that's now become the home of bio-tech experimentation and gene-splicing skulduggery." How things change...
McDonagh continued, "You have a high level direction, but most of the time you get something working, then realise it's rubbish. You then work away at it until it's fun. Sometimes the best things are total accidents (think about the rocket jump in Quake).
"The magic of game design lies in rigorous analysis, careful research and thousands of hours of play testing. Elixir took the same approach; we just weren't very good at it. There's a lot of passion. I remember Ken and Nate (Wells, the Technical Art Director) shouting at each other about the Splicers' 'morphology'. Passionate debate is the anvil in which great ideas are formed."
Pitching what now looks like becoming a game of the year was no simple task back in the early days either. "I remember pitching the game to one publisher who later told a friend of mine that it was 'just another fucking PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units'."
Read more here and don't you dare miss our Creative Minds interview with Joe McDonagh right here.
I had a peak at the 360 demo at a friends house last night, and I'll deffo be picking this up for my PC. I've been following it since the jungle/nazi times, since I'm a huge SS2 fan, can't wait for this one!
I've been following it since the jungle/nazi times, since I'm a huge SS2 fan, can't wait for this one!
Yup, me too - and part of me would still like to play a -Shock game based in an abandoned Nazi genetics lab...
Bioshock as it's turned out does look amazing though. I played through the demo last night, and it really reassured my that it is a worthy successor to SS2.
I played the demo yesterday and was blown away. Usually FPS with pretty graphics end up having shallow gameplay, thankfully this is one game that doesn't follow that trait. I can already tell that this game is going to be well up there for GOTY.
Just played through it, very impressed. Gets to the action straight away doesn't it? It's a very solid fps so far, have to get the game and see how well implimented the rpg elements are, and how linear the game is.
Much better than the underwhelming blacksite demo I've just tried!
However, I don't know how eager I'd be to just inject myself with some strange substance as soon as I found it; you could get aids.
However, I don't know how eager I'd be to just inject myself with some strange substance as soon as I found it...
Haha! I thought the exact same thing. Atlas should have had to talk your character into injecting himself with it for it to make sense. But it's a game...and apparently a damn great one...so I guess we can let them slide on that.
I just realized why he's named Atlas...I can't believe I didn't see that while playing the demo (Ayn Rand's book 'Atlas Shrugged') ...I guess I was too busy doing bad things to the splicers.
I can already tell that this game is going to be well up there for GOTY.
I'll 2nd that!
I'm one of the few lucky ones that was able to get a copy prior to the release date (THANKS 2 Toy's R Us!) and I've been playing this game non-stop for the last 5 hours!! Let's just say that as fantastic as the demo was, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
This game is surely going to go down as one of the greats of all time. Game Informer magazine already gave it a ten, TWICE! Now excuse me while I go kill me some more Big Daddies!!!
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Let's just say that as fantastic as the demo was, it's just the tip of the iceberg. 
