Entertainment Electronics Blog

Irrational Games boss and BioShock creator Ken Levine may have left BioShock 2 to 2K Marin, but he hasn’t ruled out a return to Rapture himself in the future — so long as he has a good enough idea.

“Leaving Rapture was very, very personally difficult for me,” Levine explained to CVG during GamesCom last week. “It was my whole life. I don’t have kids, it’s like my child. I feel that connection to Andrew Ryan, Sander Cohen — a sick group of people to feel a connection to but I do. I just felt that we had said all we needed to say about it… at the time. I mean, never say never. But right now that’s how we feel about it.”

So if it’s “never say never,” what would it take for Levine to make a return to Rapture? “Yeah. I mean, life’s a long time. But I’d HAVE to have an idea that drove that. I’d have to spring from the idea,” he said. But for now, Levine is focused on the cloud city of Columbia in BioShock Infinite, which features its own bizarre cast of characters — including the Big Daddy-like creature seen in the debut trailer with its heart visible through a glass case. As explained on Irrational’s latest podcast (via VG247), this character is called “Handyman,” and it went through quite an evolution to its current state.

“I think with the original Handyman, there were claws,” said concept artist Rob Waters. “But in the end, Crabman didn’t end up working out because he couldn’t grab a guy and shove him in a fish tank very gracefully, and he ended up looking a little goofy in-game” (early concept art for this version hasn’t been released, but we’re guessing he looked something like this). In the end, they replaced the claws with large porcelain hands because they decided it’d be more “fundamentally scary,” and add “humanity” to the character.

BioShock Infinite is planned for release in 2012. You can check out our early impressions of the game here.

If you’ve ever wandered over to BioShock.com in hopes of finding out more about Irrational’s 2007 shooter or its sequels, you may have been surprised when you were instead faced with a website that houses links to just about everything other than BioShock. That’s because the domain is owned by Name Administration, Inc.; the official site of the BioShock game is actually located at BioShockGame.com (pictured above). BioShock publisher 2K Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, set out earlier this year to obtain the rights to the BioShock.com domain, which has been owned by Name Administration, Inc. since December 2004.

The WIPO notes in its judgment (via Gamer/Law, GamesIndustry.biz) this month that “BioShock” wasn’t trademarked until November 16, 2005, nearly a full year after the domain was registered on December 6, 2004. That alone wasn’t enough to lose the case for Take-Two. But it didn’t help that the term “bioshock” had been used previously, including by Johnson & Johnson, as well as the fact that the domain “is connected to a web site that does not seek to trade on the goodwill of the underlying trademark since it is associated with fields other than computer games and consistent with the scientific fields conjured up by the constituent components of Domain Name.”

Take-Two’s main argument was the obvious one: “[T]he only reason for [Name Administration's] use of the Domain Name is to trade off the value and goodwill of [Take-Two's] BioShock trademark by diverting users to third-party commercial websites for profit.” In addition to that, Take-Two points out that Name Administration is known for domain squatting, which is essentially the practice of registering a domain name involving a trademark owned by someone else with the intent of profiting through advertisements displayed on the website. Take-Two even noted that Name Administration had, hilariously enough, previously registered TakeTwoInteractive.com, though they relinquished control of the domain to Take-Two upon request.

The judgment ultimately declined the complaint, meaning BioShock.com will remain under the control of its current owner. Take-Two will simply have to make do with BioShockGame.com — BioShock2.com continues to go through a similar situation, though thankfully for Take-Two, it has already snatched up BioShockInfinite.com.

Steam currently has a number of spiffy deals on Bioshock 2. Those who preorder the upcoming sequel from Valve’s digital distribution service will not only get 10 percent off the standard retail price (down to $44.99), they’ll also receive a copy of the original Bioshock for free.

Should you already own the first Bioshock, these digital copies can be gifted to anyone on your Steam friends list — though you may run into a little trouble finding somebody who doesn’t already have the game after all the recent holiday sales.

Also on offer is a four-pack of Bioshock 2, which, like the Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2 bundles, can be split between four friends. These bundles include the same 10 percent price reduction for preordering ($134.97 instead of $149.97), as well as four free copies of Bioshock to divvy up.

Bioshock 2 is scheduled to release on February 9, 2010 for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.