The highly anticipated atmospheric first person shooter game BioShock 2 is slated to launch in Australia tomorrow morning.

The game has been developed by 2K Games, although it remains unclear to what extent the company’s Australian division has been involved in its creation. BioShock 2 is the follow-up to 2007′s original BioShock game, which received widespread critical acclaim, especially for its atmosphere and plot.

BioShock 1 was set during 1960, in the fictional underwater dystopia known as Rapture. The sequel is set a decade later, with the player being case as one of the monstrous ‘Big Daddy’ genetically modified creations of the original game. The game will be available on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360, and has been classified MA15+ in Australia.

Gamer and 21-year-old computer science student at Adelaide University, Lachlan Birdsey, has pre-ordered a collector’s edition of BioShock 2, which along with the game includes a book of art, a 12″ vinyl LP with the orchestral soundtrack from the first game, an audio CD with the BioShock 2 score, and some codes to unlock certain multiplayer features.

Birdsey said he was most looking forward to playing as a Big Daddy — some of the most dangerous enemies from the first game. “That’s the big thing,” he said.

But he also wants to see where the gripping story from the first game will go. The plot and character development in the first BioShock game was driven by Ken Levine, a well-known video game designer and writer who has worked on a number of popular games such as System Shock 2 (which features a similar style to BioShock), Thief: The Dark Project and Tribes: Vengeance.

“The story for the first game was mind-bogglingly impressive,” said Birdsey, who noted he was also a big fan of System Shock 2. The gamer said he hoped the story in BioShock 2 was as good, despite Levine’s absence from the BioShock 2 development effort.

Although BioShock 2 will be available for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Birdsey has pre-ordered the PC version, as he said he prefers to play first person shooters on that platform, due to the greater degree of precision allowed by a mouse, compared with a console control pad.

Other major games to launch in Australia this week include Star Trek Online and MAG.

Image credit: 2K Games

Microsoft today launched a new channel on Australian Xbox 360 consoles. Dubbed ‘Inside Xbox’, the service is described as a “free digital daily magazine service” featuring new content on the latest games, special offers and so on.

The service launched today with an Official Xbox Magazine report on BioShock 2, which is slated to launch this month, as well as reports on combat tips and an IGN special on choosing classed for the recently released game Mass Effect 2. There was also a report about a dance competition where the winning dance was re-made digitally with an Xbox 360 avatar.

According to Microsoft’s InsiderX blog, which announced the service this morning, Inside Xbox will also cover major gaming events suc has E3 and the Tokyo Game Show.

The service is only available to those who subscribe to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service.

According to the Inside Xbox website, the service was already available in most other westernised countries. The launch of the service is part of a trend Microsoft has exhibited of gradually launching new Xbox 360 offerings in Australia — for example, it is gradually adding new films to its movies on demand service launched in Australia in late 2009.

In some other countries such as the US, Microsoft offers a broader video on demand service through the Xbox Live platform and has done so for some time.

Also this morning, Microsoft revealed which Xbox 360 games were most played on Australian consoles in the past week, noting Mass Effect 2′s placement was impressive as it launched in the middle of the week. The top ten:

• Modern Warfare 2
• Halo 3
• Call of Duty: World at War
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Mass Effect 2
• Halo 3: ODST
• Forza Motorsport 3
• FIFA 10
• Assassin’s Creed II

Image credit: Microsoft