2K: Bioshock Blazing Trail For FPS

Bioshock

Bioshock was one of the best games of 2007, and before 2008 is over, PlayStation 3 owners will have had a chance to play the stellar FPS. And according to a recent Eurogamer interview with 2K's Ken Levine, this is one game helped to reinvigorate the shooter genre, and opened up "a brand new market."

Believe it or not, it seems the idea for Bioshock was a tough sell. We have to remember that simply because System Shock 2 generated a small yet powerfully loyal following of fans, this doesn't necessarily translate to good sales in the new generation. Levine elaborated:

"I can pretty much guarantee to you that if BioShock wasn't successful, there never would have been another game like this. I don't even know how we convinced people to pay for BioShock. These games had never made any money - everybody told us when we were pitching BioShock, sounds like a great idea, you'll sell 150,000 units - next!"

Levine was responding to a question involving the hardcore following of previous titles like SS2; this group believes Bioshock wasn't deep enough or complex enough. However, despite not having a few of the extra bells and whistles in SS2, Levine thinks Bioshock struck a happy medium.

"Honestly, really deep down, we wanted to popularise this kind of gameplay that we've been attached to for so long. If the first iteration of it was a tiny bit simpler than System Shock 2... Look, how many of these type of games do you think are going to be made now, compared to how many were going to be made before? It took us how many years to get this game green-lit? Now, future games, competitors' games, our games...

We can build upon millions of people's knowledge of the genre. How many people had played these kind of games before? 300,000, 400,000 - maybe? Now millions of people, because of this game, have played this type of game. Before, as great as System Shock 2 and Deus Ex were, nobody bought them. We wanted to crack that. I think now, the sky's the limit for how deep these games can go."

Well, we always thought Deus Ex and System Shock 2 were pretty hot sellers for the PC, but perhaps they weren't. Bioshock certainly sold a large number of copies for the PC and Xbox 360 last year, and it's gonna sell even more for the PS3 at the end of this year. There's no doubt that 2K's masterpiece is a step above most any shooter out there, so just ignore those old-schoolers who say it's no good because it's "nothing like SS2." Yeah, well, maybe not...but it's selling pretty darn well, and some might believe it's actually better (God forbid).

Related Game(s): Bioshock

8/4/2008 Ben Dutka

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