Get ready to revisit the depths of Rapture and the skies of Columbia, as BioShock: The Collection has been confirmed.
In a press release, publisher 2K Games has confirmed that all three BioShock games will be remastered and bundled together for a release later this year.
All three games will include all single-player DLC previously released. While the press release stated that the collection will include higher resolutions, there may be more to it than that. Considering this collection is also being released on PC, models and textures will most likely be updated to give it a newer, more pristine look.
A never-before-seen director’s commentary will also be included with the first BioShock title, Imagining BioShock. It will feature insight from series creator Ken Levine and art director Shawn Robertson.
The collection is being remastered by Blind Squirrel Games. The team already has experience with BioShock Infinite, as it worked alongside Irrational Games to help with optimization, design, UI, and bug fixes. It seems that quite a few publishers turn to Blind Squirrel to help finish games. The studio has also worked on Disney Infinity 3.0, Evolve, Sunset Overdrive, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Borderlands 2.
The BioShock series has been lauded by critics for its gripping worlds and storytelling. Its game worlds also inhabit very realistic and empathetic characters, like Elizabeth, your companion in BioShock Infinite. Sadly, after the release of Infinite, Ken Levine downsized Irrational Games to just 15 employees, as he was seeking to create more concentrated experiences, ones that didn’t have the stresses of a massive studio. As of now, the team is working on a new sci-fi shooter.
BioShock: The Collection will release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC via digital download on September 13, 2016 and will retail for $60.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.