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EA - Medal of Honor release date, Dragon Age sequel, Sims 3 on consoles | Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing demo out now | Did Dante's Inferno topple Mass Effect 2 from charts perch? | Multiple Deals of the Week on XBLA | Aliens vs Predator scores 8/10 | Free Mass Effect 2 DLC hits tomorrow | Exclusive Left 4 Dead 2 Gamerpics with OXM issue 57 | Need For Speed: Shift Ferrari DLC announced | BioWare talks Mass Effect 2 sex scenes | Sega talks Alpha Protocol delay | X10 Fable III news will make you "super pissed off" | Final Fantasy XIII DLC all but confirmed by boxart | Modern Warfare 2 'care package glitch' being zapped | Bungie has last Halo 2 hoorah on April 14th | PS3-exclusive LA Noire confirmed for 360 | Brock Lesnar the face of UFC Undisputed 2010 | Iron Man 2 trailer flies in | Grab Mass Effect 2 'Dr Pepper' DLC the free way | Dark Void gets its own Horde mode | Microsoft turning off Live for the original Xbox | Could Microsoft be raising the Friends List cap? | Just Cause 2 demo on the way | Watch Super Street Fighter IV bonus stages in action | Watch debut Fallout: New Vegas trailer | Monday Night Entertainment trailer crashes in

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Behind The Scenes Of Bioshock

23-Apr-2009 Seven facts you never knew about 2K's classic FPS...

You played Bioshock. You loved Bioshock. You know everything about Bioshock.

Well... almost everything. The journey from concept stage to the Rapture we all know and love today wasn't as seamless as it might have seemed, with plenty of behind-the-scenes stories on last minute changes and decisions that 2K Boston just couldn't agree on.

So here are seven behind-the-scenes facts about Bioshock that OXM has unearthed by talking to the developers themselves...

First Steps
BioShock's story was initially very, very different. At one point, your character would have been rescuing someone from a cult. Later, in 2004, the idea was you'd be exploring an abandoned World War II laboratory on a tropical island, the sinister genetic experiments of which had become Splicers, Sisters et al. "A lot of the game design elements stayed the same," explained creative director Ken Levine. "Story changed radically, but gameplay always comes first
for us."

Taking It Slowly
Ever wonder why your character is so quick to inject his first Plasmid after entering Rapture? It's because the original opening was so confusing that testers couldn't understand what was going on. It was ditched, and replaced with a slower introduction that took great care to explain everything.

Creating Little Sisters
Little Sisters started out as straight ADAM-generating sea slugs. they were redesigned to be more sympathetic; artists came up with crippled dogs and weird alien-like creatures before settling on creepy, children.

The Endings
The two endings were only added later on, too. It wasn't until midway through the development that the idea of a moral choice presented itself, according to creative director Ken Levine.

The Boss Fight
Hated that final boss fight? You aren't alone. "We're not the biggest fans of that," lead designer Bill Gardner told OXM last year. The team couldn't decide on a 'different' ending so went with the boss fight - only to disappoint players who'd been blown away by the mid-game twist.

Building Rapture
The prototype was a corridor that looked "like it took place in an abandoned box factory," according to project lead Alyssa Finley. It was thrown away and the team built a new room designed to embody Rapture; it became the Kashmir restaurant in BioShock 1.

Being A Blockbuster
Originally the game intended to have a strong RPG element (like its ancestor, System Shock) and had some advanced character development options in the early builds. These were slimmed down or removed to make it a 'blockbuster' FPS that would appeal to more people.

Don't forget to check out our Bioshock 2 preview!

Jon Hicks