Bioshock - Yet More Previews

A couple of new Bioshock previews and an interview are on offer today.  First, let's hit GameSpot with their "exclusive hands-on" covering latter game missions, character development and underwater battles:

You'll also be able to pick up various Adam-based powers, either by looting them from fallen foes or hidden nooks and by purchasing them from various vending machines scattered throughout the area. However, as an audio log that you pick up early in the game suggests, injecting your body with Adam from fallen foes also injects part of their consciousness and memories into your character's mind. This is why you'll occasionally see ghostly figures reenacting their last moments when you enter a new area for the first time. In the work-in-progress version of the game we played, we began our updated adventure equipped with these weapons and several different plasmid powers; even so, we were hard-pressed to survive the latest leg of our quest.

IGN PC takes a look with specific and welcome attention to the PC version:

While we spent a little time familiarizing ourselves with the controls in these earlier levels, we spent most of our time in the lush section of the underwater city of Rapture dedicated to all things plants known as Arcadia. And yes, we did this in the PC version of BioShock, a version that's not simply a mere port for all of its interface changes and slight mechanical differences. Be forewarned that this preview presents minor story spoilers in the sections about Arcadia so if you'd rather keep the surprise of visiting Rapture on your own schedule, go ahead and skip past the "Welcome to Arcadia" section for more info on some different plasmids, the crafting system, weapons upgrades, and PC specific info.

Shack gets straight into the action:

In one swift movement, the player ran straight up to a doorway and cut down the first incoming enemy with a gory shotgun blast to the temple. I was immediately taken aback. This felt more like a scene from Monolith's visceral Condemned: Criminal Origins (X360, PC) than a moment from a tactical shooter. Levine was quick to note that there are, of course, more intelligent ways of going about your business in the hostile world of Rapture. On queue, the player fired a trip-wire trap into a wall, and with another shot attached the second end of the wire to the opposing wall. The wire wasn't positioned effectively enough, so the player then switched to the Telekenesis plasmid. Plasmids are essentially magic powers, through which the player can cycle through as he would a physical weapon. Using Telekenesis, one end of the trip wire was snatched up into the player's hand and quickly replanted across a doorway. "We found out in testing that this worked," Levine remarked, alluding to the game's unpredictable nature. An enemy soon came barreling through the passage, the wire sending out an electric current and dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

This is getting too long, so check out Kotaku and Joystiq for two more previews. 

..and finally, TeamXbox chats to Ken:

It’s actually good you brought that up, because that was what I was going to ask next: Over the course of a project, a lot of times things change—“Hey, this would be cool to put in” or “We don’t have space for this” or whatever. If you don’t mind saying, how did BioShock, from start to finish, how did the original idea compare to what your final product is?

Ken Levine: The major changes were obvious story and setting—and I pulled that stuff out of my ass at the beginning. I didn’t really know what we were going to do. But the core mechanics…the thing that was always there was sort of the notion of player-powered gaming and a player-driven experience that’s different for everybody. And these three different types of AIs—the aggressor type of splicers, the protector notion and the protected notion…the resource protected notion. You know, the character who has the resources. We always had to make a psychology of AI—where there was an AI that has an interest in each other, as well as you—was always in the beginning. It wasn’t the Big Daddys and Little Sisters, and genetically altered 1940s people at the beginning, but those general notions were there.

The notion of environmental interaction, where the environment was going to be an important thing…that changed a little bit. We had a lot of ideas about changing the pressure and stuff like that in the beginning, which we couldn’t just get people to get. And then when we went like, oh, electrocute water, I get it…okay, light people on fire. We just sort of made things more like, “What would the player expect to happen?” and then building up on those things and all the simulational elements.

In terms of a believable simulation, I think we’re in a totally different place from what any other game is, and we really put our focus there. It’s a lot of work, but that’s one of the advantages of having what we required…you know, it’s not a cheap game. And it’s all on the screen…that’s our hope.