BioShock Q&A on ShackNews

Today's interesting tidbit: the first BioShock prototype was rubbish!

Shack: BioShock looks absolutely stunning. What went into creating the environments, the characters, the overall setting, etc.?

Ken Levine: First off, BioShock is not only ambitious from a visual standpoint, we have really set a demanding goal for ourselves: we intend to redefine what gamers expect from a first-person shooter. We want BioShock to do for FPS games what Gran Turismo did for the racing genre, or GTA did for the action genre: To raise the bar for features, user choice, open-endedness, immersion, story and setting, and replayability. Imagine going back to Ridge Racer after Gran Turismo, or Driver after GTA. You can't.

What goes into this? Well, starting with the environments and look of the game, a huge amount of work. To be honest, we blew it the first time around. The first prototype we took to Take 2 really didn't work. Fortunately, they let us go back and try again. To me, that's the real difference between having a decent budget for the first time: second chances.