With an intelligent story that’s brilliantly told, Bioshock is one of the few exceptions that proves the rule when it comes to videogame scripts. It was inspired by Ayn Rand’s love letter to capitalism, the epic novel Atlas Shrugged. Things have now come full circle, with the official Bioshock prequel on the horizon in the form of a novel. With a history which includes a Bram Stoker Award and a credit for screenwriting duties on cult movie The Crow, John Shirley is no inexperienced fan fiction teen. Does that mean he’s up to the job of making a Bioshock book work?

Bioshock: Rapture begins with the end of the Second World War. The world-changing use of the atomic bomb urges billionaire industrialist Andrew Ryan into action. He throws his time and his money into a project he has long since planned; a secular city under the ocean, isolated from the rest of the world. A city where science and business can innovate and grow without tax, without public ownership… without regulation. A city where a man owns the sweat off his own brow, and nobody else’s. The ultimate free market: Rapture.

The book gets off to something of a false start. For the first few chapters, Shirley is prone to seemingly random bouts of brief – but intense – doses of pedestrian detail when introducing new characters. Even a character who will disappear within a page or two never to be seen again may have their hair, clothes, and even skin described to the reader. Whenever this happens, it brings the narrative to a juddering halt.

Thankfully, he kicks the overdescribing habit long before the city of Rapture is even finished. Would Ryan hire the man who came to fix his toilet as chief building engineer for a secret city under the sea, though? Really? The early stages of the novel are far from a total loss though, and in fact one of the best sequences of the book is to be found in the prologue. During Ryan’s childhood flashback, there is an undeniable tension that most authors struggle to provide.

"A man chooses; a slave obeys. A dog barks; a lemon makes no sound at all. A monkey swings; a fish swims. A carrot is orange; so is an orange..." Bioshock script first draft. Maybe.

You’ll be pleased to hear that Ryan often takes centre stage throughout the novel; and in addition, almost every character in the book, no matter how big or small their part, can be found in Bioshock 1 and/or 2. The ones who were fleshed out enough to have their own identities keep those identities whenever they appear, even when in places and situations far removed from anything the games may have suggested. Kudos to Shirley for that.

Staying true to the characters comes with a few pitfalls, however. On paper, Dr Suchong’s pidgin English looks awkward and painfully stereotyped (though mercifully, his role in the story is not a major one). Fontaine features prominently, the author gleefully providing a slice of this dark horse’s unpleasant history; and this is done brilliantly. One of the main characters is Ryan’s chief building engineer Bill McDonagh however, and – to British eyes at least – attempts to emulate the dialect of a 1940s cockney are not always… palatable. The best/worst line of the book is to be found on page 222:

“These ragamuffins over ‘ere’ve been giving me the gimlet eye. Half-expecting a knock in the head.”

I promise you that these Dick Van Dyke moments are extremely few and far between, however. Generally speaking, Bill’s speech runs nice and smoothly.

"Gor blimey guv, currant bun's aht innit, apples and pears dahn to the dog an' bone, step in time, step in time, and so on and so forth."

One more character that must be mentioned is actor/playwright Sander Cohen. Flamboyant and more than a little creepy (only partly due to the reek of Sexual Predator that engulfs him), he is the most instantly memorable character in the entire novel. The only mistake Shirley makes with Cohen is underusing him, limiting this grimly fascinating man to a handful of brief appearances.

Great care has been taken to stay true to the Bioshock universe. Not only people, but places and events have been taken straight out of the games – neither underused nor overused. There’s a perfect mix of original writing (which dominates) and existing history; which sometimes even extends to dialogue lifted straight from audio diaries. Some questions you may have are answered, while others are frustratingly skirted.

If you’re expecting a detailed explanation of the science behind plasmids, Adam, Little Sisters and Big Daddies for example, you’ll be disappointed. There’s little more than vague talk of genes and stem cells. The sociological history of these developments, however, is painted wonderfully; though only a little of the mystery shrouding Big Daddies is torn away.

Overall it’s a convincing and riveting portrait of Ryan and Rapture, and how they both fell apart – and how neither was particularly secure to begin with. It’s been so carefully crafted to please and respect Bioshock fans, you rarely doubt that this is how it really happened. If you ever do, it’s never for more than a second or two – you’ll be too eager to see what happened next. It’s so authentically Bioshock in fact, that the book (unintentionally) highlights two gaping plot holes in the first game which have always bothered me.

To top it all off Shirley manages to provide a touching, bittersweet ending that somehow sidesteps schmaltz. You don’t need to have played either game to enjoy Bioshock: Rapture, but there’s a substantial extra layer for those that have. It’s best to have played the games first however because, being a prequel, there are spoilers here; particularly for the first game.

Bioshock: Rapture necessarily runs in parallel to Atlus Shrugged in some respects (and there are a few subtle hints that Shirley has read it), but it’s hundreds of times better than that godawful mess of a book. Now, would you kindly order yourself a copy!

Bioshock: Rapture will be published in the UK by Titan Books July 19th.

Each entertainment medium has one advantage over the others, that the very best examples exploit. Some music, through a process nobody fully understands, can instantly provoke feelings such as sadness or elation through sound alone; literature, connecting directly with your mind as it does, is capable of making the most preposterously unrealistic situations not only acceptable, but incredibly gripping and immersive; while TV & cinema can bombard the viewer with a mixture of highly evocative scripting, sounds and visuals (employing the finest writers, actors, musicians, and technology) to create an experience they’ll never forget. What is gaming’s advantage?

Interactivity; and it’s amazing just how underexploited this element has been over the past two decades or so.

Notoriously, big budget games have been pathetically desperate to emulate movies this generation. The problem is that developers try to emulate the movie industry via their cut scenes (and sometimes incidental dialogue); forgetting the fact that the budgets put aside for casting, direction, scripting, and cinematic computer graphics will never allow them to compete with the best that cinema has to offer. Also forgetting, of course, that games are meant to be played rather than watched. Nonetheless, there have been titles that have taken advantage of gaming’s interactivity in interesting ways.

Bioshock is a good example of this, though only in two instances; the moment you finally come face to face with Andrew Ryan (which I shan’t spoil for those yet to play the game) – and the first time you have a Little Sister at your mercy. Sadly, it is now virtually impossible to experience Bioshock as the developers intended; that is, with no idea of the details of the story including, crucially, the true nature of the Little Sisters. I was careful that this was how I first played the game. Therefore, when I was forced to either save or ‘harvest’ a Little Sister, I had to make the decision on very little information. One character was telling me this was a twisted little girl I had a chance to return to normality; another was telling me that this creature was no longer human, a monster beyond all help. I didn’t feel that I knew either person well enough to entirely trust one or the other, but I had to make a decision. I could be saving a little girl, or murdering one; destroying a dangerous monster, or setting one loose.

In case you were wondering, I saved every Little Sister in the game.

There’s no denying that Bioshock 2 is inferior to its predecessor, but it’s still a good game in its own right. The Little Sister choice returns but, now that the choice is clear cut, with little emotional baggage. What you decide to do with the Little Sisters you meet on your travels affects the ending, as with the first game; but it also decides what happens during a brief yet memorable moment toward the end of the game. All I’ll say is that the impact of this moment is strengthened immeasurably by your participation – and once you realise that your actions have decided what is about to happen, you will almost certainly feel either relief or terror.

The flawed gem that is Nier makes you aware of your participation in a very clever way… after your first playthrough. Once the twist in the tale is laid bare and you’ve seen the first ending, the game allows you to replay the final third of the adventure with all of your weapons, XP etc. intact. The knowledge you now have – combined with extra incidental dialogue and cut scenes the second time around – give you a new perspective on your actions, and a deeper understanding of previously confusing events. Nonetheless, you are doomed to do everything exactly as you did before.

Jumping back a decade to the year 2000, we see the release of Deus Ex. Here was that thing that is still so sadly rare today: a game of true intelligence. A mature game in the proper sense, i.e. no bare breasts and/or gratuitous gore and/or profanity every few minutes purely for the sake of it. It dealt with deep and interesting issues and, most importantly of all, was great fun to play. You quickly found yourself wondering if you were on the right side; indeed, as the game progressed, you found yourself wondering if there were any ‘right’ side at all. The next Deus Ex game, Invisible War, was well received by professional critics; but seems to be universally spat upon by Deus Ex fans (though I have previously admitted that I actually rather enjoyed it). So strong is the hatred for Invisible War, in fact, that Square Enix are touting the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution as ‘The true sequel to Deus Ex’ (despite it being a prequel).

Another way Deus Ex leaned on the interactive element of videogames was to truly empower the player. Wherever possible, it was up to the player to decide how the protagonist progressed. Did he jump into a fight guns blazing? Set a trap? Or simply sneak past? Or perhaps he took the long way round, seeking an alternative route. I’d like to see Human Revolution expand on this idea further.

What frustrates me about moral choices in games is that, 99% of the time, it’s simply a case of being told ‘do this and be good, or do this and be evil’. How is that challenging the player in any way? How does that enrich the experience? A game carrying the Deus Ex name is the perfect opportunity to show the industry how it should be done (the next perfect opportunity, of course, being Bioshock Infinite). I want to see choices similar to the initial Little Sister concept; moral dilemmas with potentially disastrous consequences, which you are forced to make on the bare minimum of information. Even moral decisions where the consequences are clear can be difficult and thought provoking. Would you sacrifice your dying child in order to save the lives of a hundred healthy children? Would you sacrifice yourself to save him/her even if it meant that, without you around, his/her chances of survival would be close to nil? Could you choose one country to obliterate in order to save another? Would you go back to kill Hitler before he even joined the German army… if it meant you could never return to your own time? These are just a few ideas off the top of my head and yes, I’m sure you can do better. I certainly hope developers can.

I don’t expect Hitler to appear in the next Deus Ex game, but I would certainly hope challenging and thought provoking choices will. Unfortunately – from my point of view – Human Revolution is already showing signs of leaning on gaming clichés in order to appeal to Johnny Average. A regenerating health bar, a third person cover system, instant kill melee moves… if a lithe scantily clad female sidekick makes an appearance accompanied by a tweenrock soundtrack, I may not even bother buying it.

The bottom line is: a game doesn’t have to have artistic, cinematic, or literary ambitions to be a good game. However, surely I am not the only gamer becoming tired of having stories told at me? I want to see more stories being told with me. I’m in your story, traversing your world and meeting your characters. I’m there – let me help.

Perhaps LittleBigPlanet should have been released in the summer?

As we move into the summer months the release of major games becomes a trickle, much like a water supply during a summer drought. It’s a phenomenon that has been synonymous with gaming for years, as publishers put all their efforts into pushing their titles for the Christmas market. Unfortunately this glut of games leads to some gems getting left on the shelves as uneducated parents flock to buy the latest entry in the FIFA or Call of Duty franchises.

Games like LittleBigPlanet, Mirrors Edge etc have all suffered due to coming up against the Christmas big hitters. Christmas may be the time when people spend the most money, but there’s only so far hard working parents’ cash can go, and when faced with the dilemma of buying popular games like FIFA, or buying an unknown but critically acclaimed title like LittleBigPlanet, then the choice is simple. They’ll go for the known quantity every time. As an example of a lost sale, I recently purchased Dead Space second hand on a well known online auction site, as it’s a game I was always keen to play; but at the time it was released my Christmas budget could only stretch so far, and so a sale was lost to the developer. If it had been released a couple of months later the story would have been quite different.

Red Dead Redemption should flourish during the summer drought, like predecessor GTA IV.

Last Christmas saw several big games feeling the pressure of coming up against the COD juggernaut, and moving their release dates into 2010. Games like Bioshock 2 and Red Dead Redemption were sensibly shifted to the first half of the year and I’m sure their sales will get a boost as a result. They could easily have been lost in the Christmas wilderness, and then found a couple of months later at bargain basement prices, but sensibly the developers chose to bide their time and release them when the competition wasn’t so fierce.

While these moves are a step in the right direction, I still feel mid and late summer has a dearth of decent titles, and goes completely against what the movie industry do, when the biggest blockbusters are released during the summer months. A game like LittleBigPlanet would flourish during the summer, and as Nintendo have shown with Mario Kart Wii, sales can be very strong during this period, with the classic karting game still in the retail top 10 throughout the summer months. They are also releasing Super Mario Galaxy 2 this summer, which should hopefully see it doing good business. If more companies showed this kind of forward thinking then we wouldn’t have to rely on our Christmas games to see us through the summer.

So what can you do when the AAA titles dry up? Well you could trawl the games stores for bargains from previous years. How about Fallout 3, the aforementioned LittleBigPlanet, Far Cry 2, or Okami? All these games can now be found for bargain prices in most stores, and are well worth picking up if you’re bored with the games you have. You could also check out your own collection, as I’m sure there is a title in there that you haven’t played much, if at all! I know I have several titles that I need to delve back into, that I have only played the odd 10 minutes of. There are also countless games to download from Xbox Live and PSN which are well worth a look. Games like Braid, Flower, and LostWinds are all great, original titles, and have a lot more to offer than some so-called blockbuster titles. If you feel guilty playing games indoors when the sun is shining outside, take your PSP or DS with you and enjoy the best of both worlds. You could also use this time of year to try a different genre than you usually play. FPSs like COD and Halo are great, but you do get jaded with them after a while. Why not try an RPG like Fallout 3 or Persona 4? A strategy game like Settlers 7 or Advance Wars, or a puzzle game like Professor Layton? There is a lot more to gaming than FPSs, and you might be surprised to find a game that really sparks your gaming Mojo.

What to do? Cut the grass or play a videogame? Tough choice!

So what are your plans for when the drought finally hits? Personally I’ve got Fallout 3, Dead Space, Bioshock 2 and Red Dead Redemption to tide me through the summer months. It’s either that or I’ll be out cutting the grass. Now whatever happened to Lawnmower Simulator?

Not so scary with the Vita - Chambers switched on.

Are you any good at games? Well, that’s a rather stupid question really, on the same level as ‘do people like you?’ or ‘are you an intelligent person?’. No matter what the reality, most people will be telling themselves – and anybody who asks them – that the answer is a crater creatingly large ‘yes’.

No matter how good you are at games (or at least, think you are), what do you consider to be more important; a game’s quality, or its difficulty? Now unless you’re a serial sado masochist, you’re going to answer ‘quality’. But I have one more question for you before I replace the question mark key on my keyboard. How many times in the last two years have you complained about a game being too easy?

“Yes, LittleBigPlanet empowers the player to a degree never before seen on consoles, but the story mode is too easy”. “Yes, I like the latest episode of Monkey Island, but the puzzles are too easy”. “Yes, Modern Warfare 2 is as addictive online as the first, and Special Ops is cool, and I like the set pieces in the story – but it was too easy” and so on. If a game is perceived as having a low difficulty level, that is usually the issue that spearheads a backlash. But should this be the case if people can still, y’know… have fun?

Before you start thinking my ham – fisted attacks on controllers result in my being unable to enjoy any game more challenging than a single coloured Rubiks Cube, I’d just like to say that I love Demon’s Souls. Not in an unnatural relationship between man and disc way, I just mean it’s a fantastic game. I also, personally, play games on the highest or second highest difficulty whenever there’s an option. This is partly because I’m competent or better in virtually all genres after over two decades of gaming, and partly because I like to show myself and others that I can do it. However, I’ll happily trade a high difficulty for a high level of fun.

Every choice has a consequence. Will you survive the hold - up... or survive it?

Look at Heavy Rain. Even if you choose the highest difficulty possible you can’t fail in a way that requires a restart, and it’s actually quite difficult to get your character killed without trying for the most part – and even if that happens, the game continues. A game where you’ll never, ever be forced to go back – easy. What’s that you say? My supersonic radar will help me. BEEP. Oh, replay value, you say? Multiple endings, hmm? Yes, you’re absolutely right – but it doesn’t make the game any less easy, does it?

The trend this generation seems to be for games that allow you to increase or decrease the difficulty at any time. The big – name examples that come immediately to mind for me are Bioshock 1 & 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Brutal Legend, and Fallout 3. There are dozens more. This should be standard practice. Extra trophies/achievements for those who care about that sort of thing as a reward for sticking to the higher difficulty, and yet those who don’t and may struggle can make things easier at a tricky section.

What this boils down to, is that developers finally seem to have woken up to the fact that their games should be enjoyed – not endured (see, for example, the reason Ubisoft’s Pete Closs gave me for Splinter Cell Conviction’s revamp). Allowances are being made to accommodate less skilled players and, yes, this is due in part to the rise of the so – called ‘casual gamer’. Adjustable difficulties aside, are games easier today than they used to be? Yes – and that’s a good thing.

Up until the early – mid nineties, the vast majority of games were ruthlessly difficult. Try playing an average NES game in its original form now, and it will most likely trample all over your ego before urinating on it and setting it alight, using the remnants of your pride as firelighters. Metaphorically speaking. No choice of difficulties, no quicksaves, no checkpoints, no saves of any kind of all and – often – not even any continues or passwords. Once you’ve lost your small reserve of lives, it’s back to the title screen for you, lad. On top of this, a sizeable chunk of the first 8 – bit games were platformers with jumps you needed a degree in mathematics to judge correctly. Missing any one of these jumps would, of course, result in instant death. Even if you found a rare exception that allowed you to regularly save your progress (usually an RPG), it would be more difficult than getting Jack Thompson to join your Modern Warfare 2 party.

Even Demon’s Souls – arguably the most challenging game of the current generation – is far more forgiving than these games. Yes, death comes easily, and all the level’s enemies are resurrected when you are. But in effect you have infinite lives, you get to keep the weapons, items and experience you gained before dying, and you even have a chance to reclaim the ‘souls’ that you lose. Plus once a boss is dead it stays dead, no matter how many times you die or re – enter the level.

Would our British readers agree that he looks like a Riddler?

It’s important to remember that a game isn’t bad just because you can progress easily – nor is it bad because progression requires a high level of skill. It’s good if it’s fun to play and bad if it’s no fun to play, simple as that.

I think relating my experiences of FIFA 10 online (12 wins 24 losses ranked, 2 wins due to winning opponent losing connection) will illustrate my point well. If I’m winning very easily – extremely rare – then I’m certainly enjoying the game, but something’s missing from the experience. If I’m getting slaughtered by virtual footballers virtually laughing at my lack of skill (an average game), sitting on the wrong end of an 8 – 0 score with half the match still to go, I’m quite frankly not having a good time, and only continue because I’m not one of those tosspots who disconnects whenever a match isn’t going their way. The very best match is played at the halfway point, and is the sort of match I usually play with Kevin; each player constantly fighting for possession, goalscoring opportunities hard won and hard fought against, each point well earned, the winner impossible to declare until the end of the match.

Yeah, we’re both crap.

Anyway, the point is, the very best gaming is a perfect balance between a fun experience and a decent challenge – and that balance isn’t the same for everybody. If a game’s easier than you’d like then, yes, it’s not your ideal experience; but you can still enjoy the ride. If a game’s far too difficult, the emphasis is on work rather than fun. Surely nobody can disagree with, or desire, that.

• Format: PC (version reviewed), PS3, 360
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: 2K Games
• Developer: 2K (single player), Digital Extremes (multiplayer)
• Players: 1 (offline), 10 (online)
• Site:www.bioshock2game.com

Parenthood is a bit of a funny business. You have the joyous moment when the little tyke is first placed in your arms, the hoops you jump, duck and weave through to meet their every need, and all that time you spend cleaning the blood off of your drill arm that you use to protect them whilst they harvest the dead.

BioShock 2 does what we all wanted from the original and fixes you inside the lumbering, stompy boots of the Big Daddy. You have the tools, the sounds and the responsibilities that made the gentle, yet fearsomely deadly, giants great. It is the aggressive father – like relationship that you share with your assigned Little Sister however, that really gives us an insight in to what drives these massive, hulking beasts in their actions.

The game starts with you, subject Delta (a prototype Big Daddy) waking from a ten year slumber with the only goal in mind that you have ever known. Find your little one, protect her from danger, be her Big Daddy. The simplicity of it as an objective really gives the plot that evolves around it a nice bit of substance. Of course trying to top the twists and turns that the original story had was always going to be difficult.

She may have difficulty winning this fist fight alone

Unfortunately, Bioshock 2 hasn’t quite managed the same trick twice. There are brilliant bits of storytelling, mixed with some of the best voice acting found in gaming which really makes Rapture feel alive. It just lacks that narrative kick in the face the first game shocked us with. Of course the best bits are spoilers, but we will say that the last hour of play this time around is far superior to the original’s, especially in terms of gameplay and story.

The most iconic symbol of a Big Daddy is his drill arm, which we are delighted to say can bludgeon, grind and extract all of the wet, juicy bits from enemies. It’s an incredibly satisfying weapon to use, which makes it a real shame that none of the guns feel anywhere near as fun. They are definitely Big Daddy sized, so no piddly pistol, it’s just that they pack the punch of a granny slap.

It takes too many bullets to ground an enemy, and all of the time they are being shot it doesn’t impact their killing performance. This makes you feel really underpowered in comparison, something that we all know from personal experience, Big Daddies aren’t.

Another problem with playing as subject Delta is that, whilst he acts all stompy and feels like he would stop a train with his forehead, apparently his armour is made from soft cheese. On normal difficulty, especially to begin with, an entire health bar can be depleted with four pistol shots. A Big Daddy is all about being an impenetrable man fortress that can take so many bullets he can rub against enemies and give them lead poisoning. It’s an experience that 2K have, tragically, just missed the mark with.

Big pain only seemed fitting for this Big Daddy

The thing they got right with the Big Daddy is how you interact with Little Sisters, giving the option to adopt them rather than the straight harvest or save routine. This lets you put one of the little darlings on your shoulder, and stroll around searching for corpses rich with Adam (a genetic goo currency) for her to harvest. Once she begins the extraction however, it alerts baddies to your location, leaving you to protect her with little prejudice and no concern for economic drill usage.

Another gameplay improvement is the ability to dual wield plasmids and guns at the same time, which is a real blessing allowing for even more creative combos for filling the morgue.

Speaking of plasmids (other goo that lets you spray fire, electricity and bees from your hand), there’s a return of all the classics that we love but curiously, hardly any new arrivals. This is disappointing as plasmids were key to combat in the original, but they seem to have been overlooked this time around.

It’s a shame, as the extra firepower would have been handy against the new super enemies, the Big Sisters who all have armoured diving suits, a massive syringe arm, fire conjuring facilities and the nimbleness of an elastic band.

They are not so helpfully summoned when you have dealt with all of the Little Sisters in an area. Fighting them feels very reminiscent to the first Big Daddy fights in the original, where you flop about hopelessly trying to accomplish the near impossible, before you finally manage to win. These fights give a great climax to the end of each level and add a real thrill to the combat.

Big Sister is watching, so give her a face full of drill with plenty of electricity

Multiplayer starts off really promising, setting the scene for the downfall of Rapture. You begin by wandering around your own room in the underwater dystopia where you can customise your character and loadout which is a really good way of doing it, instead of funnelling us through drab menus. Unfortunately this is where the innovation stops.

After taking your own personal bathysphere into a game lobby and picking the mode you want, the multiplayer seems to be a fairly bland set of deathmatch scenarios with weapons that are even more lacklustre than those in the single player. Plasmids also feature, but feel nowhere near as powerful as they do against NPCs.

There are some sparks to the formula, such as Bioshock themed capture the flag style games using Little Sisters, and occasionally making one player a Big Daddy, but nothing that can redeem the dumbed down gameplay.

BioShock was never really about the game mechanics, which aren’t exactly bad; we’ve just been a bit spoiled by other FPSs lately. The real star of BioShock 2 is the world of Rapture, with its brilliant décor, characters and background which sets the dark undertone of the series brilliantly. Unfortunately the original set the bar very high, and the sequel didn’t quite clear it, despite coming awfully close.

8/10

The videogame market is returning to what loyal customers expect; follow-ups to their favourite games. A long list is slated for 2010, and if Mass Effect 2′s two-million in a week performance is any indication; the situation may stay “recession proof.”

“What the industry has learned here is that you are going to make money off your best customers,” said analyst Doug Creutz.

The next few months are crucial, as publishers have staked claim on their core, most loyal customers to shell out lots of cash over the next few months with such follow-ups as: BioShock 2, God of War III, Final Fantasy XIII and Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Publishers are going with “what works” on the back of a decline in casual games, surmised analyst Todd Greenwald.

NPD reports videogame hardware and software sales year-to-year down 8 percent and Holiday sales sliding 7 percent Stateside. This reverberated through the market, all four major stand-alone game publishers underperformed in the NASDAQ in 2009.

Via MarketWatch news

Want a high end mega gaming PC but don’t want the high end mega gaming bill to explain to your significant other? There may be a way to help you.

To celebrate BioShock 2 releasing on February 9, 2K is teaming up with Scan Computers and HMV Gamerbase to give away a monster of a PC, with the following, rather attractive, shiny bits bolted inside.

• Intel Core i7 870 (Overclocked)
• Asus P7P55D motherboard
• Corsair Obsidian Chassis
• Corsair H50 Cooler
• Corsair 550Watt PSU
• Corsair 4GB TwinX memory
• XFX GTX285 NVIDIA graphics card
• 500GB Samsung Spinpoint hdd
• DVDRW
• Windows 7
• Internal blue lighting (clearly the most important bit)

To win this beasty, all you have to do is go along to the HMV Gamerbase at London’s Trocadero Centre and hack their PC.

Don’t get too excited or depressed about your keyboard computer cracking skills as the computer ‘hack’ is a simple (well, actually rather difficult), ‘guess the six digit combination’ competition. It may seem like a daunting and impossible task, but we’re assured that if you don’t get it the first time, you can come back the next day and give it another crack.

So if you’re in the London area, why not give it a go? Six numbers can’t be that hard to guess right? After all, people do win the lottery sometimes. Best of luck!

In case you were wondering, Bioshock 2 has a lot of action. This new single-player trailer jams over 30 all-too-brief scenes into less than two minutes. The trailer showcases some of the new enemies, weapons, and set-pieces from the first-person view of the Big Daddy you’ll be taking control of.

The scenes are so quick that it’s hard to keep up, but the emphasis on combat suggests a heavy action slant for this anticipated sequel. Highlights include a faithfully steampunk-ish sniper rifle, combat with a mutated brute reminiscent of the last game’s final boss, and flooding rooms left and right. It’ll be surprising if Rapture can hold together until Bioshock 2′s release date on February 9th, 2010.