After the results of the Game Critics Awards
were announced last week, we reached out to several winners for
their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The
winner of Best Action/Adventure Game was BioShock from Irrational Games.
We emailed some questions to Ken Levine, co-founder of Irrational Games. Here's what he wrote back:
What was your reaction to winning Best Action/Adventure game?
We've
always won a ton of E3 awards for BioShock from the press, but we never
picked up a judges' award before. So it was really gratifying.
BioShock
has already gone gold. How have you celebrated this milestone in the
past, and how did you celebrate this milestone for BioShock?
We
just had a team party in Boston, and then we have a event on the launch
night on August 20th, which we’re inviting lots of people to, including
members of the BioShock fan community. I'm actually looking forward to
that, because launches are usually such abstract things. You wake up
launch morning and it’s like, "Hey, our game has, umm, shipped to
retail!" It’s not exactly like headlining at Madison Square Garden.
With
BioShock already getting great reviews, and Harmonix's Rock Band
receiving early accolades, 2007 looks like a breakout year for the
Boston game development scene. Is there anything that distinguishes
game development in Boston from that in other cities, and how much is
the departed Looking Glass Studios responsible for laying the
foundation for what we see today.
I think LG had a LOT to do
with it. Greg LoPiccolo was one of the key guys on Guitar Hero and Rock
Band, along with lots of other former LG people. Irrational is just
crawling with former LG people. Hell. I wouldn't be in Boston (or maybe
the games industry at all) if LG didn't hire me and move me up here.
It is strange to think that two of the biggest games of the year are
Boston bred.
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