Some Bumps, But BioShock Is Still Expected to Do Well

The horror-shooter hasn't had the quietest of weeks, what with people getting upset about widesceen and copy protection.

From gamers to critics to investors, people at every level of the games industry have developed an unashamed love for Take-Two and 2K Games' new shooter BioShock. But not everyone is happy.

First there are the widescreen devotees, who have been in a tizzy this week after it came out that rather than seeing more of the action, they were actually seeing less.

Regular, 4:3 aspect ratio video from a widescreen source is normally obtained by slicing off the sides of a 16:9 image. But for BioShock, the team went the other way, vertically extending the field of view, giving 4:3 players not less but more to look at.

When this came to light, after the PC demo was released earlier this week, widescreen gamers went on the rampage, kicking up at numerous online forums.

In a statement on the official Cult of Rapture site, BioShock creator Ken Levine tried to calm down the agitated minority.

He said that the "optimal mode for playing the game is the widescreen mode" and that the extra viewing area on the 4:3 mode, "does not significantly affect the game-play experience and, we felt that it best served our goal of keeping the game experience as close as possible to the original design and art vision on both types of displays."

Perhaps more serious were the onerous tethers put in place by the SecuROM copy protection on PC copies of the game. This limited owners to just three installs on two systems.

A new, so-called 5x5 installation system will lets those who buy the Windows version of BioShock install the game up to five time on five different PCs.

Together, these technical gaffes are likely to be minor speed bumps for BioShock.

The game, which was released in the US on Tuesday and is out in Europe on Friday for PC and Xbox 360, has earned top reviews from critics in both regions.

According to data aggregation site GameRankings.com, BioShock is tied in third place with Metroid Prime on the GameCube on the list of top ranked games of all time, behind only Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 classic Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo