Gearbox Software released a batch of new media for the Borderlands expansion, content that looks like it would’ve been great to play on or around Halloween and will give my Siren a bluish hue that I’ll really enjoy. More reanimated screens below.

The Spike TV Video Game Awards will once again double as an E3 as new games are revealed and new trailers are unveiled. Halo: Reach is coming. As is whatever this game is, teased first on Kotaku right now.

Thoughts? Theories? Is it Ken Levine’s new game? Is it BioShock 3? Is it related to anything that shows up in Google when you type in 2K Games and Dubai? We here at Kotaku can only speculate about the secrets the VGA people are holding onto. They won’t tell us anything.

The name of the game and gameplay will premiere during the VGAs on December 12 at 8pm ET/PT (noon AEDT, December 13) on Spike. A Halo: Reach trailer is also scheduled for the broadcast.

1up.com reports that this is a teaser for Spec Ops and we can now even watch an August-posted TV commercial for it.

And at $US99.99 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $US89.99 for Games for Windows LIVE, it’s no small dent in the wallet. But the lovely package you see above comes with all these wonderful things. Even a copy of BioShock 2 itself, if you can believe it!

• BioShock 2
• Vinyl 180g LP featuring the orchestral score from the original BioShock
• CD containing the BioShock 2 orchestral score
• A 164 page 8-inch x 11-inch hardbound artbook chock full of developer commentary
• Three posters featuring vintage ads from Rapture (rolled)

It will ship the same day — February 9, 2010—as the common version of BioShock 2. And 2K Games’ Cult of Rapture site says the package is “limited to a single production run” if that lights a fire under your pre-ordering habit.

THE BIOSHOCK 2 SPECIAL EDITION [The Cult of Rapture]

A healthy dose of glowing eyes and a different Big Daddy suit will help differentiate the sequel to 2007’s BioShock, as one can see in the full-sized art for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC versions at The Cult of Rapture. BioShock 2 is scheduled to ship February 9, 2010, smack dab in the middle of what may be the busiest Q1 in history.

BIOSHOCK 2′S BOX ART REVEALED [The Cult of Rapture]

But, hey, rules are rules. At an event in San Francisco in early October, 2K Games gave an extended look at BioShock 2, due out Feb. 9.

Jordan Thomas, the game’s creative director, gave about a 20-minute demo that took place in the Siren Alley area of Rapture. Afterward, attendees were invited to play through one of the game’s early portions, a level called Ryan Amusements, a theme park designed by Rapture creator Andrew Ryan that served as a “propaganda paradise to scare [children] out of going to the surface and spoiling the secret of Rapture to the world,” Thomas said.

Story: The plot takes place 10 years after the fall of Rapture, the undersea paradise-turned-dystopia inhabited by genetically mutated “splicers”, ghoulish Little Sisters and their protectors, the Big Daddies. Sofia Lamb, a psychologist and political rival to Rapture’s creator, the late Andrew Ryan, has taken over the city. Where Ryan believed one should act in one’s own self-interest, Lamb espouses the idea that we have a “moral obligation to the world entire”, Thomas explained during the demo. “We like to think of Rapture as the sort of the place where good ideas, when taken to the extreme, turn monstrous,” he said.

Amid all of this, the player assumes the role of a prototype Big Daddy who has been awakened and given free will. His focus is to find the Little Sister to whom he was once bonded, but “as the player closes in on his former Little Sister, he realises she’s not just important to him, she’s important to the entire city”.
New enemies: Because much of Rapture is flooded, the goal in Siren Alley was to find a pumping station to rid the area of excess water. Standing in your way, however, was one of Lamb’s lieutenants, a half-crazy (and in Rapture, who isn’t?) cult leader.

Before getting to him, though, we were introduced to some new enemies. Since we needed Adam, we had to find a Little Sister. That meant defeating her Big Daddy protector. In BioShock 2, there’s a new kind of Big Daddy, the defence-minded Rumbler. Again, as long as you don’t attack him, he ignores you, which gives you the chance to properly arm yourself and prepare. Once provoked, the Rumbler will lay down a perimeter of mini-turrets and fire at you from behind a powerful bazooka. To combat this, the demo showed the player summoning Security Bots to help defeat the Rumbler.

Later in the demo, we came across a Brute splicer, who, Thomas explained, had been splicing himself stronger and stronger since the events of the first game. Because he’s essentially at the “top of the Adam food chain”, he’s much more difficult to defeat than regular splicers, often throwing objects or charging you as a means of attack. To address criticism that splicers’ behaviour tended to be too predictable in the first BioShock, the enemies now will come at you with in a variety of ways, both offensively and defensively. (In the demo I played, a note popped up on screen that said, “Beware, a splicer is trying to heal at a health station.” I got him good.)

Finally, there are the Big Sisters, as dangerous as Big Daddies but otherwise opposite in nearly every way. Lithe and quick, they come looking for you after you’ve rescued or harvested a Little Sister. In a way, their presence serves to address the complaint that going up against a Big Daddy just doesn’t sound as daunting when your character has become one himself. It was a point the developer obviously wanted hammered home: Yes, the protagonist is much stronger, but, this time, Rapture is much meaner.

“We wanted the Big Sister to not be just like another Big Daddy,” said JP Lebreton, the game’s lead level designer. “We wanted her to be fast, to be agile, to be scary. She’s darting around the environment, she’s jumping off walls, she’s jumping down off balconies or behind you. A lot of people are saying, ‘Well, if you’re a Big Daddy, what do you have to be scared of? You’re the most powerful thing in the environment.’ It’s like, well, no, wait a minute. There’s this other thing. You’re a big, strong dude, but these Big Sisters are a whole different level of challenge for you. And they hunt you.”

Weapons: In this respect, the biggest change to the game is being able to wield weapons and plasmids independently and simultaneously. As a Big Daddy, you come equipped with a drill, so if melee combat is your thing, do so Big Daddy-style: First freeze your enemy, then drill him to pieces.

Your other main weapon is a rivet gun. One type of rivet ammunition allows you to shoot rivets so they stick in the ground or on a wall; when an enemy approaches, they act as a sort of proximity mine. Other weapons include a machine gun and a spear gun, with which you can fire rocket spears, projectiles that embed themselves in enemies and cause them to fly around the room before exploding.

There are new uses for plasmids, too. In one instance, the demo showed the player setting some traps for enemies by using Cyclone and combining it with Winter Blast — unsuspecting splicers would wander into the mini tornadoes, freeze, get blown into a wall and shatter. Sure, afterward you can’t collect anything off the bodies, but it’s a small price to pay for iced splicers.

Combat and strategy: Once you capture a Little Sister, you can choose to harvest her on the spot or adopt her. If you pick the latter option, she hops on your shoulder and becomes a guide to bodies from which you can harvest Adam, the substance that’s necessary to gain new plasmids and tonics. Clicking a button allows you to see a “pheromone scent”, the path that leads you to Adam-filled corpses. Once there, she will tell you to put her down so she can begin her work. First, however, you must set up a perimeter, because as soon as she begins her harvest, splicers will relentlessly come after her for her Adam. This is where it’s handy to have a mini-turret from the Rumbler and to set up Winter Blast-infused Cyclones. When you’re done with a Little Sister, you can again choose to harvest her or free her.

A major change to how you progress through the game has to do with hacking. When you hack circuitry, no longer does the action pause for you to complete the associated mini-game (one that, by the 50th, 60th or thousandth time, became annoyingly tedious). There’s still a mini-game, albeit a simpler one: A vertical needle moves horizontally across an area divided into coloured sections (picture an analogue voltmeter). Pressing the A button stops the needle from moving; the goal is to stop it in the green section. The difficulty varies with needle speed, the width of the green sections and how many times you have to repeat the process. Stopping the needle in blue sections gets you a bonus.

Moreover, as mentioned, the game no longer pauses during hacking, so that turret that politely stopped and waited for you to hack it before it started firing on you again? Yeah, now it’ll keep firing. To help you out, though, you can now collect hacking darts, which allow you to hack from a distance. Just shoot a dart at a turret from across the room, hack it and you’re good to go.

Multiplayer: Although I was unable to stick around to experience it first-hand, here’s the overview. The setting of the game’s multiplayer is before the events of the first BioShock, during the civil war that led to Rapture’s demise. Players assume the roles of Rapture citizens, earning experience points to create unique Rapturians with whichever weapons, plasmids or tonics they want. Environments, such as the Kashmir Restaurant or Mercury Suites, are taken from key areas of the first game, only revised so they accurately depict that time in Rapture’s history.

I admit that, although I did finish the first BioShock, it had been some two years since I last visited Rapture. The good thing is that, while playing the single-player demo, I was able to ease back in fairly effortlessly. From the little of the game I played—only about 45 minutes—BioShock 2 at least has the potential to satisfy those who enjoy running and gunning as well as players who prefer to plan their strategy of attack. Then there are those instances that combine those two tactics: When you plunk down a Little Sister so she can begin her harvest. The strategists should take satisfaction from setting up an effective perimeter; the mayhem-minded will appreciate the point when the perimeter fails and chaos ensues.

Other moments were equally satisfying, from accessing a locked door by firing a hacking dart through a broken window to the door controls on the other side, to going head-to-head against a Little Sister and ending up the last one standing. There’s the potential for hacking to seem too rote (and that can only be answered after hours of gameplay), but having it occur amid the action, instead of during paused interludes, is a nice touch. In fact, my main complaint isn’t really one at all: I wanted to play more.

Pre-loaders of the PC version over Steam found the file “borderlands_low_violence.ncf” in their download; it’s not a part of the North American version. When contacted about the file, 2K Australia said:

We have been talking to the US 2K team via email and working out how this happened/ what the next steps are to amend this via Steam. They’re working on clearing this up with Valve right now and know to ask how they will handle those people who have already d/l’ed the wrong version.

So, bottom line for Aussies: No content changes were made to receive classification, but this file does make the game “a wrong version”. 2K promises to have this cleared up by October 30 — three days after October 27, the game’s original unlock date for Europe and Australia.

Whew! Glad they’re hot on the case. Because, for real, seeing a level-18 bruiser’s face melt off, and his eyeballs pop out and roll down a flight of stairs after a critical shock sniper attack, is simply not to be missed. Not that I’m rubbing it in or anything.

Borderlands Accidentally Censored for Aussies on Steam [Ausgamers]

Borderlands was meant to unlock on Steam at 2am AEST, October 27. There was a countdown clock and everything. But then disaster struck, as relayed by the following post on the Steam community forum from Valve representative Alden:

“Sorry for the confusion, guys. There was a slight mix-up with the release dates. North America will be releasing in an hour or so while Europe, Australia, etc. will be releasing 12:01am GMT on the 30th.

The count-down you see on the page now should be accurate.”

Cue much vitriol from Australians and Europeans on the forums as US and Canadian gamers were shooting skags on Pandora.

ArcticJoel was so furious he downloaded it again: “I`m getting it elsewere right now. Hey… I bought it on steam and im ♥♥♥♥ing getting it tonight! Its not piracy if you already own the game right? Screw this delay bullshait.”

Wazgrel was eloquent in his anger: “Words cannot express how I feel about this whole situation…”

Enigma182 displayed remarkable restraint: “I didn’t blame anyone I understand these things happen, it did with TF2 prerelease also. I’m just dissapointed in general.”

Muxen’s solitary contribution to the debate read: “♥♥♥♥ off, you guys are bunch of ♥♥♥♥ters, last game I bought over steam.”

Flinchy is now banned: “what the ♥♥♥♥, why do us aussies get shafted???? we already had to wait a whole ♥♥♥♥ing week after consoles, now even america gets to play before us you have my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ money, the game is RELEASED FFS last time i buy a game on steam, i’d rather pay full price and get to play (and at least return it if i dont like it) ♥♥♥♥ you steam.”

Some bellowed that they would demand a full refund. Others wiped spit from their lips as they ranted about taking Valve and 2K to court. Sane people pointed out that the official release date has always been October 30 and that it’s really not that far away.

Compounding the drama, Games.on.net is reporting that the wrong version of Borderlands has been made available to Aussie gamers. If you downloaded the game off Steam, you will have the “low violence” version. However, 2K has claimed this is an error and this version of the game was never intended for Australia. They’re working with Steam to make the “full violence” version available as soon as possible.

[Thanks to Brendan, Cameron, Matt P and everyone else who tipped this story.]

The gameplay shows the firepower; the cinematics show a suspense factor to match. And pay attention to the final title card. Of course it’d behoove you to check back here on Thursday, because when an embargo breaks, we fix it!

Siren Alley Trailer [GameTrailers]

Congratulations to these five guys. I’ll be in touch shortly to arrange delivery of your prizes.

Monday’s Winner
asimovy’s Phat Looter
“Using the amazing power of science, the Phat Looter will suck up all available loot from enemies in a 100 meter radius. Without needing to kill them!

But thats not all! The phat Looter’s secondary fire mode will launch all sub-par or useless loot back at the enemy dealing huge damage! Just in case they want their loot back!”

Tuesday’s Winner
Reaver’s Blue Phoenix
“My blue 1985 Mazda 323 hatch is the weapon of choice.
It has many features that make it the perfect post apocalyptic companion.

*(downhill slope and tail wind may be required to reach said speeds)”

Wednesday’s Winner
Dominic Harman’s Honourable Mention Gun
“While certainly not the best gun to be found in the wastes, it packs a fair punch and makes you proud to have it. Sure, occasionally you will stare at it in minor shame knowing that it isn’t the best gun out there, but in moments such as these it is just important to pat yourself on the back and recognise the fact that you still have a quality gun. Key features of this gun include its encouragement to find a better gun and its random selection of songs that will play at various moments including “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “I Can See Clearly Now.”

Thursday’s Winner
Aaron’s Sense of Civic Duty Pistol
“It always bothered me in games like Fallout and Borderlands, worlds with a severely diminished population, that you spent so much time killing bandits and raiders, people who could be rehabilitated to help in rebuilding the infrastructure. Not to mention the hereditary damage of the reduced diversity in the gene pool.

Like politicians fail to do, I think post apocalyptic scenario games need to think long term.”

Friday’s Winner
Viroxide’s Good Hair Day Ray
“So many of Pandoras’ residents suffer from premature baldness due to the harsh environment and years of inbreeding. The side effects of this terrible situation can be seen through out the land. So many Pandoran men have turned to violence and destruction due the helplessness and frustration they feel every day. Studies show that bald men are 4 times more likely to vandalise property, torment the public and self mutilate in an attempt to unleash the rage that builds in them everyday they see themselves in the mirror.

So come on, do your part, try the GHD Ray today and help make the world a better place, one head of hair at a time.”

UPDATE: This competition is now closed. Friday’s winner will be announced on Monday, Oct. 26.

Thanks to our good friends at 2K Games each day this week we’re giving away the following prize pack:

* A copy of Borderlands for Xbox 360
* A Borderlands t-shirt
* A Borderlands mug
* A Borderlands kitbag
* A Borderlands notebook
* A Boderlands cap
* And a Borderlands retro tape player USB

Borderlands is the imminent role-playing shooter from Gearbox Software. It might not be the Citizen Kane of games, but it is – in the words of Gearbox president Randy Pitchford – totally badass. We’ve played it, several times in fact, and we dig it.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the game is its procedurally generated weapon system, which randomise a host of factors to ensure that you’ll rarely find two weapons that are the same. Gearbox claim there are more weapons in Borderlands than in every other shooter this console generation combined.

But perhaps you can come up with a weapon they haven’t got.

To be in the running to win, we want you to describe the Borderlands weapon you’d use to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Leave your weapon name and description in the comments below. Humour and creativity will be rewarded, as per usual Kotaku competition lines.

To be eligible for today’s draw, you must leave your comment by midnight tonight. You’re allowed one entry per day. If you want to enter in tomorrow’s draw, you’re fresh out of luck because there is no draw tomorrow. This is it. Your final chance!

And for all those who entered yesterday, Thursday’s lucky winner is…

Aaron and his Sense of Civic Duty Pistol. Because, frankly, the best way to survive in the wasteland may not necessarily involve killing everyone.

It always bothered me in games like Fallout and Borderlands, worlds with a severely diminished population, that you spent so much time killing bandits and raiders, people who could be rehabilitated to help in rebuilding the infrastructure. Not to mention the hereditary damage of the reduced diversity in the gene pool.

Like politicians fail to do, I think post apocalyptic scenario games need to think long term.

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