Official Bioshock for PC thread - Page 2

...and from out of nowhere: BioShock is available for pre-purchase on Steam!

The minor advantages of buying it from Steam: 1) no disk needed in the drive to play, 2) no validation code needed and 3) it can be re-installed on different computers under the same account.

If this works like other Steam pre-orders, it will immediately download the game to your computer, and once the street date hits, it will install and be available to play.

...they need to get a PC demo out this weekend!

IGN has a review of the PC version up.

A couple excerpts of interest to this thread:

"If you're debating which version to get, the PC version handles better. In part it's because of the greater precision with the mouse and keyboard, but also with how the plasmids and weapons are selected. With the default settings RMB switches between the two, LMB fires, and you use the mouse wheel instead of a radial menu to select a specific plasmid or weapon. This keeps you rooted in the action to a greater degree than in the Xbox 360 version, since you don't have to keep pausing the game."

"The PC version definitely outclasses the Xbox 360, mostly because of the ability to crank the resolution to 1920 x 1200. If you've got a Vista rig with a DX10 card, you can expect some heightened particle effects, crisper real-time shadows, and more dynamic water, but the game looks gorgeous regardless. On our gaming PC running a Core 2 Quad processor with a GeForce 8800 GTX, and 4 GB of RAM, it ran very well, with only a few occasions of seemingly random framerate hitches."

Heads up... Circuit City has the PC version of BioShock for $10 off for a limited time.

Yea, it sucks that there's no early PC demo.

But you will be able to do in-store pickup on the 21st, so if your state sales tax isn't as bad as mine, that's probably as good of a deal as you will get in the next couple months. And then the retail price will eventually drop.

I'm still on the fence about getting it from Steam....

nVidia users: the recommended driver for the BioShock PC demo is beta v163.44

Here's a link to the 32bit XP driver page. There's separate links on that page to the 64bit and Vista drivers too.

Not 'till tomorrow (Tuesday).

Wow... I just played through the PC demo twice. A couple thoughts:

1) at 1920x1200 (that's beyond 1080p!) with v-sync on, FRAPS reports a locked 30fps with occasional 60fps. With Vista's DirectX10 it looks great... this is the first very positive Vista-enhanced experience I've had, so maybe DX10 can deliver the goods?

2) Sound in 5.1 on a X-Fi card is amazing!

3) I might be in the minority here, but first time through the PC demo I played with mouse/keyboard, and it was fine. Second time through I tried a wired 360 controller... the controller is the way to play this game. The reason might be because this game was designed for a controller, or maybe I've just gotten used to dual sticks...? Either way, it felt a lot more natural with the 360 controller. And the rumble is cool!

I played the 360 demo last week --personally, I think I'm going to rent the 360 version, at least for the first time through the game. However, re-playability is very high with this game. So when the PC version drops in price, I know I'll pick up that version and play through it again with much better graphics.

For those with high-end PCs, grab this demo and let that rig shine!