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I seriously want this game, I just hope they can surpass the original somehow, or at least have it be AS GOOD. Bioshock is one of my all-time favorite games, you can say "OMG SYSTEM SHOCK 2" all you want but I'll take Bioshock instead, thank you very much.

I'm on the fence about this game. It looks like 2K reused a lot of the assets from the first game. However, if the story is good enough and isn't a cock tease like the first one, then I'll probably buy it.

I love the first picture in the 360 gallery, with your character's reflection.

I don't know...i never understood why the first game was so awesome, to me it was just system shock gone steam punk, and somewhat dumbed down. It wasn't a bad game i guess, i was just expecting more, and this sequel doesn't seem to change much, other than making the player into a big hulking tank with a drill arm. For this game to work i want more RPG elements, otherwise i'll wait for it to hit the bargain bin i think. Looks neat though, i especially like that they fixed up the Little Sisters this time around (i couldn't stand those damn anime eyes in the first game).

It sounds like the abortion that would be created when a manager sits in the artists/directors chair and has to pick a one dimensional selling point.

The original was entertaining but I'm very weary about this one. So far it doesn't sound good imo.

people, tell me. does the game still goes on and on after forth frolic, or am I near the ending?
Love the game, I just wished it had a more standard non-linear level design... it's like a gigantic maze broken in parts.

Jesus: About half way through or something i think. Was a while since i played it though so my memory might be somewhat off :P

What an awful selection of screens. I'm sure anybody could've chosen better looking stills from this game.

Looks exactly like BioShock 1 in terms of everything (gameplay, art direction, graphics) - it's a shame because I thought this developer was capable of originality and innovation

"This developer" is not the same developer that made BioShock. That would be Irrational Games (aka 2K Boston aka Irrational 2K). And Irrational Games is currently very busy on an entirely new IP not due out until at least 2010.


As for BioShock 2 and the work the 2K Marin team is doing on it . . . I'll just say, that I will reserve my thoughts on that until I actually have the game in my hand. In the meantime, Joystiq conducted an interview with the team at 2K Marin concerning the subject matter: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/23/joystiq-intervie...

Unreal Engine can't do this, Unreal Engine can't do that.
Let's have some experience with Unreal Engine before we start spouting off a bunch of bullshit.

I am just basing off upon the limitations of that engine. first of all everybody agrees that almost all ue3 games look the same. I am not talking about mirror's edge or fatal inertia, they are varying in art style that is all but even they have the underlying same issues. I know Bioshock team is great and they really out did themselves with the original. but even they couldn't bring much to the table when comparing 2 with the 1st one. Bioshock 2 looks almost exactly the same same the 1st one.

same is the scene with gears 2. putting in a segmented code for water physics in specific parts of the game(which does not act physically in the entire game anyway) and calling it part of the overall engine doesnot hide the base limits of the engine. looks-wise gears2 looked 90% same as gears1. Bioshock was HOT but couldn't hide the fact that all that pretty water was one flat texture(and they just worked too hard on it). moreover, all this aliasing and low poly-count makes you wonder what else is there in improvement department.

regarding "Huxley", I mentioned it because it was that game that made me get a 360 back in '06. that and the first trailer of "Frame City Killer"(and ofcourse a lower price than PS3 also). now looking at the game in '09 I wonder what I was smoking at the time. with Killzone 2 engine, Metal Gear 4, naughty dog's Uncharted engine and that awesome Fallout engine, I guess ue3 has totally been outclassed(not mentioning those great deferred rendering engines of LittleBigPlanet or GTA4).

Thor: seems to me that it's obvious that you are full of shit. All graphics engines have their limitations but UE3 seems to be a very flexible tool with lots of smart design choises (from a developers standpoint) and retards bitching about how all games in UE3 look the same can bite me, and most probbly Cliffy B as well. There's a reason why UE3 is adopted by so many developers, even though something like that is obviously above most gamers. How games end up looking is mostly based on art direction, not the engine (ofc within the limitations of the engine and hadrware but that goes wihtout saying).

Let me comment in the picture you posted as well. I don't think that clearly marked line is there because the engine couldn't handle a smooth surface, but rather because the pants are supposed to have a pressed look.

If source was addopted by game makers to be a mainstream engine, then we all had H-L2 visual level games spread out there, only with valve acomplishing the step-up in visual quality that is Episode 1/2, because they are the only ones adding new tech.
Like Epic does to Gears 2 after Gears 1.

Check this interview at gametrailers: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/48362.html

Gives you a better idea of what is going on.

its adopted by most devs because its most easy to develop for and ready to use. its no secret that devs have been really slow this generation yet and several very incompetent too. the biggest devs like Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda or Rockstar make their own engines and don't depend upon middlewares like ue3. they do use it for smaller projects but the biggest names don't include middlewares much.

the industry leader games have mostly been made by proprietry engines from Resistance or killzone or metal gear to fallout or gta or uncharted. gears is the only big ue3 thing and bioshock is also a good customization on it but it basically falls way short in competition with other graphical powers we've seen yet.

I'm dying for a Source2 engine tbh, I still love the look of the Source engine, even compared to today's games.

Btw, loving the 4th 360 pic, looks incredible :)

I only played the demo of the original on the 360 but recently moved to PS3 and think I'm going to pick it up soon.

Wow, why the hate? It is no secret that third party devs have had issues with UE3. No secret at all (Mass Effect, Last Remnant, Too Human). However, that doesn't make the engine bad per se. Gears of War 2 was a beautiful game that ran smoothly and Arkham Asylum isn't looking too shabby.

However, IMO, Epic is keeping all the good stuff to themselves so their games look better than any other UE3 games. That means that most developers won't be able to get the same results as Epic with the engine. As a result, Bioshock 2 doesn't look quite to snuff (but hey, it isn't ugly either). Though, to be honest, I wished that they didn't reuse so many assets.

I have faith in this game. I'm not expecting to be surprised. It is impossible to have the same impact that Bioshock 1 had. We know what the game is about, we know it is in Rapture, we know the gameplay mechanics, we know the atmosphere. If all that would have changed, it would be another franchise.
The only thing that worries me, is that Ken Levine isn't directly involved. But on the other hand, we know that he is working on a totally new franchise, so that's good news.

offtopic: a creative developper at Crytek revealed that he was working on something 'unveiled, very secret.... very cloack and dagger'). If that isn't a hint that there next title will be connected to the last part of the footage of the CryEngine 3, than what is?

That's complete bull-poot right there, if you have a competent staff of coders you can modify the unreal 3 engine to suite your needs.So here you say, straight out, that it's not the engines fault that all games look the same but the developers. Yet UE3 sucks? Besides, how is it a bad thing that the engine is easy to use and develop for? You seem to have the same retarded attitude as Kaz Hirai regarding ease of use and accessibility. The easier it is to make the game the more you can focus on making the actual game great.

Fallout engine...? What are you smoking NOW?? That game has a shit engine and everyone knows it. Its barely a step up from oblivion. Poor physics, poor animations, shit poor models, the worst fucking water I have ever seen (Baldur's Gate on the PS2 had water that looked pretty much identical) I mean, it had a decent draw distance. Thats about it...

Also, UE3 added

Soft body physics (pretty big thing)
Destructable enviroments (bigger then most think)
Ambient Occlusion (definitely big)
Geometric water effects
Volumetric effects?

And UE 4 is adding a few new things, one of the biggest (so far announced anyway) of which is real time global illumination (very big)

Look at games like Mass Effect, This, Gears 2, they are all gorgeous games, all of which took different aspects of the engine and used them. Mass Effect had amazing textures and effects and whatnot. Bioshock has plenty of things happening, a good frame rate, and a great, atmospheric lighting system. The fact is, the Unreal engine is a great engine, regardless of if you will accept it. IMO Mass Effect is still the best looking game out there.

And don't bring KZ 2 into this. KZ2 is all about aesthetics that hide the hideous gaping issues with the engine. And MGS4 has.. well it has amazing character models and.. what? Shitty enviroments that look like their straight out of CoD 4.

And I'm pretty sure that none of the engines you mentioned were any where near as easy to use from one developer to another as the UE is. Thats one of its strongest points. Just like CryEngine / CryEngine 2, or Source (which is still in my opinion the best engine out there). And while the Uncharted engine has a SHIT LOAD of potential, there was a lot of poor animation, and unrealized tech in it. Great models, and some awesome effects (like getting wet in water *shock*), but some things went less then they could have, like the explosions. I can't wait to see what they do with the next iteration.

I don't. ( see H. of M. & Magic witch was made after H-L2 and looks sooo fugly )

But it's besides the point. you love H-L2,E1,E2 look, but a wave of source games from 3rd partys would look like H-L2 wannabes in the looks, and looking poorer in the way.

basically what you say is agreeing that ue3 is about Jack-of-all-trades-scenerio, yeah with features that every other game engine has in spades and a lot more than ue3 itself: from gta4, resistance2 to Fallout, hell! even Lair had these 2 years back. Fallout is a sandbox engine and it rocks at what it does. every proprietry engine blows ue3 out of water.

These features are not part of the engine, they were added into gears2 only as segmented code, that is the reason they are not part of the engine. not every place the water reacts physically in gears2. it happens so only in specific places:

Soft body physics ---> only in gears2(added extra, not in the ue3 package, cliffyB said so in the first gears2 tech demo)
Destructable enviroments___ok!
Ambient Occlusion ---> again, only in gears2 usage of ue3
Geometric water effects ---> Sooo only in gears2(not a single other ue3 game has volumetric 3D water, not even the mighty Bioshock1)
Volumetric effects? ---> have yet to point them out!

Thor: all those features were demoed as part of the UE3 engine at least. The reason that fe games ahve used these effects is that they were added later. None of that stuff was present at the start. Feel free to become a little less artard by wtching this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4pe6UAS2M