FPS

The anticipation for the release of Bioshock has grown to palpable levels, with the Aussie/American Devs at Irrational Games’ first-person-shooter set to hit the shelves in June this year. Irrational and Publisher, 2k Games have stirred fans once again with the release of the Bioshock Community Website, The Cult of Rapture.

It was announced today by 2K Games that the highly anticipated Bioshock, spiritual successor to the acclaimed System Shock series, will be released globally in June of this year for both the Xbox 360 and the PC.

Bioshock is being developed by Irrational Games, who have two studios - one in ACT, Australia, and one in Boston, America.

Evil Avatar caught up with Irrational Games Co-Founder, Ken Levin, for a chat that makes an interesting read. While the interview eventually delves into information and the makings of Bioshock, the build-up to that poses some very philosophical and ideological discussions. Ken supplies an interesting look into the life of a writer for a computer game, with the difficulties faced, his work ethic, and things he tries to achieve in his writing.

The interview is split up into two parts.

Morten Brodersen, CEO of Aussie developer Third Wave Games, announced at the recent Melbourne eGames 06 Expo that the partly Australian developed PC title, War World will be geared to release on the Xbox Live Arcade roughly in the next six months. The game has already been approved for Live Arcade by Microsoft, and Morten Brodersen indicated that a publisher in the ‘top ten’ has signed up for the release.

Things certainly have been quiet since January this year when Perception staff were let go and the development of the licensed FPS game based on the (now axed) Stargate SG-1: The Alliance television series reaching a sudden halt.

Worthplaying.com has reviewed War World: Tactical Combat, the fast action mech third person shooter by Melbourne based Third Wave Games and released by publisher Lighthouse Interactive just a few months ago. The site has given it a very impressive 8.5 out of ten...

Eurogamer has an interview with Irrational Games' Level Designer, Dean Tate. You might know of Dean Tate as the recipient of the Australian Game Developers Conference 2004 Award for Best Level Design (Tribes: Vengeance). Dean talks to Eurogamer on the expansion pack for SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate...

Those naughty people at the Tiscali.games website have scanned and uploaded some magazine screenshots and concept art from Bioshock, the spiritual successor of System Shock 2. No word has been made public on whether Irrational Canberra is taking part in the development of this game, but the engine that is running the show here is the Vengeance engine. It's a highly modified version of the Unreal technology that was used for Tribes: Vengeance, a game which was developed mostly in the Canberra studio.

Late last year, publisher Lighthouse Interactive picked up War World by Melbourne's Third Wave Games for retail distribution in Europe. War World: Tactical Combat went gold just two weeks ago and will be hitting European shelves any day now. A demo has also just been released for those of you who are interested in checking out this online mech fps'er...

I wish Micro Forte would release some sort of official statement on what is happening with Citizen Zero, but in the meantime, some chap has posted up a never-seen-before promotional picture of said game in the Citizen Zero forum thread of CZ pictures. The picture shows some of the futuristic environments, characters, and weapons this Massively Multiplayer Online Action Game promised. They're fantastic art assets indeed, and one wonders if they could've branched off and made an Unreal Tournament 2004 beater instead. Oh well, click for the picture!