Bioshock - Interview @ IGN AU

In what is shaping up to be a quiet day the biggest news looks to be IGN AU's interview with Jonathon Chey, Bioshock's Project Leader.  Jon Chey often gets overlooked for Ken Levine whenever anyone discusses Irrational so it's nice to hear his input:

IGN AU: Looking at the scope of the game and, dare we say it, sandbox environment, we're guessing AI must be a huge priority for you guys. How have you approached this area of the game? What difficulties have you encountered? What cool things are you trying to get your AI personalities to do? How did you make the Big Daddy so lovable… and yet so damn freaky?

Jon Chey: Yeah, AI is one of our core tech and design focuses. When we started this game, we wanted to focus on the idea of an ecology - a world that isn't just about running into a room and gunning down everyone in it. Can you have a game in which there are lots of hostile forces but there are also relationships between the AIs that you can exploit and work with? So the Little Sister and the Big Daddy are obviously core to that concept. I mean, these are a pair of entities in the world that have a complex relationship with each other. How often do you hear that word mentioned in connection with a shooter?

You have to fight in BioShock, but you also have to know when to fight and who. If you don't mess around with a Little Sister, the Big Daddy is going to leave you alone. And sometimes, that's the right thing to do - just walk softly around them, take heed of his warnings and leave them alone… until you've found a new stash of ammo and then it might be time to go back and take him on. Or maybe you've got a plasmid that allows you to dupe the Big Daddy into protecting you! And then you get some unfortunate splicers (people driven mad by abuse of genetic manipulation) to attack you…and trigger the wrath of the duped Daddy. Or maybe you tag him with a pheromone that alerts the security system and turns it on him - leaving the Little Sister alone…

So, yeah, you could say AI has been a huge priority for us.