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Sorry for the delay, the game took me slightly longer to finish than anticipated. Also I had to contemplate whether to bother posting it since Suislide already wrote a review. This is actually a really good game. I have not read Suislide's review yet, so it will be interesting to see how much we agree or disagree.
Story: The story starts out in 1958. Naturally, you open up wikipedia and type in Bioshock 1 to find out that it originally took place in 1965. A prequel! Fantastic. I always wanted to see what really happened on that fateful new years when Ryan managed to not kill Fontaine. Instead you get a cutscene with a big daddy, presumably you, protecting a little sister. Then the antagonist, Sophia Lamb, enters the scene. This broad has a serious case of the librarian. She comes along and she steals your little sister. To complicate matters, she claims the girl belongs to her. She then instructs you to shoot yourself. Parallels anyone? You go ahead and kindly do so. Then a wrench is thrown in the works as you fast forward 10 years. It's not terrible. It's just not as cool as the beginning of Bioshock 1. I would much rather have played through the intro, than to watch cut scene.
Before progressing, a word must be said about the overall gist of the story. In the first game, Bioshock: Wrath of Rand, the player had to navigate through a myriad of Ayn Rand novels discussing collective behaviour, personal moral corruption, and penis envy on the part of scrotumly challanged individuals. Whether you understood the plot or not, you believed it because of the amazing voice acting, and really cool character development. Here they have followed the example set forth by Modern Warfare 2, and have obfuscated the plot considerably. The premise is that Bioshock 1 was about the self, and Bioshock 2 is about the 'family'. Every five seconds you will hear someone speaking of the 'family' and how Lamb made them a 'family'. Then they through religion into the mix. You also find out that the Lamb is actually full of shit, and she so much as says this in one of her beta max recordings. Apparently under the old system of no 'laws or gods, only men', the people got depressed. Then they introduce certain supporting facts, like lack of sun exposure, and ease the people's plight by forming 'families', which is a euphamism for socialism. It's not a plot hole, by any stretch of the imagination. However the Rapture they presented in Bioshock 1 doesn't fit seemlessly with this picture. Also, this game is essentially Bioshock 1, but with more vaginas. And FYI, the big sister, it's not supposed to be a spin on little sisters, or big daddies, but Big Brother, as in "Big Sister is watching you". But I digest...
You meet up with Tanenbaum, who introduces you to Atlas 2.0, now repackaged as Sinclaire. Sinclaire is about the only character in the game you don't want to rip to shreds. You are told right from the get go that you are a special daddy --it is never explained why you are the only daddy that can use plasmids, but that doesn't bother me much. You then discover that they wanted to design daddies that didn't only protect sisters in danger. Instead they wanted daddies with a genetic link to their sisters. And you keep getting hallucinations from this Elanor chic --these are actually extremely lame. So you put two and two together and come to the conclusion that you are genetically linked to said sister. Also, getting ahead of ourselves, you can use the vita chambers, suggesting you're either Jack, Andrew, or some bastard child of theirs. Is there an Ayn Rand novel on children born out of homosexual incest?
Next, you get to the hood. There's some old woman who's batshit insane on account of Ryan killing her husband. So naturally she suckles at the teet of Lamb. Lamb entrusted her to take care of her daughter, Elanor, but she lost her, and feels guilty now. The only thing this broad likes repeating more than 'the family', is calling you 'tin daddy' --it sounds just as douchebagy in the game. She hates you for taking Elanor. You hunt her down to get a key from her and she doesn't put up a fight. Instead she accepts that you will kill her, so she surrenders. You spare her life (I did anyways...totally regretting it), and she comes to her senses and basically admits that you were right, and she was wrong (making it the first, and probably last, time in history a woman has ever admitted to being wrong).
Next boss is a Rasputin look alike, and he is about the closest character to father Grigory. Every 10 minutes he comes on to your radio and goes on and on about salvation and other religious crap. You have to kill him to progress to the next level. The rest of the story is essentially the same thing. Enter a level, you can't advance until you finish a goal, and once that's completed, you usually get the option to kill the main person, or let them live. There's some news reporter guy, who turns out sold Elanour to the orphanage, causing her to become a little sister. Some insane guy who lives in a tank full of fluid. Elanor reveals to you that she found your body/genetic code, and tweaked the vita chambers to accept your DNA (there goes my Jack/Andrew theory). And that she brought you back to rapture because she needs a father figure in her life. Nearing the end, Sinclaire reveals to you that he sold you as a test subject for the Alpha series --the first prototype Big Daddies-- and he makes his peace with you. Then you get to Lamb, and you sink Fontaine Futuristics. The End.
There are some serious issues with the plot. First off, Lamb is lacking any and all of the charisma that made Andrew Ryan such a great character. You can never tell what she's really trying to say either. She keeps repeating the phrase 'family', but never explains what that is. Then she props up her daughter to be the next messiah. But then Elanor gets turned into a little sister. However, it's never properly explained if she is important specifically because she is a little sister, or because her mom is just batshit insane. There is also a side plot about how she wants her daughter to be some sort of memory store for everyone's experiences through Adam. I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what the hell was going on in this game.
TL;DR
Bioshock 2 is to Bioshock 1 what Starship Troopers 3 is to Starship Troopers 1
Gameplay:
Gameplay involves your train/transportation being blocked, and Sinclaire telling you, in not so many words, who you have to kill to get the damn thing moving. However, within levels, there is a huge degree of variety as each level has sisters. To get them you have to take out a big daddy. This will, at first, require 2-3 vials of eve, and several healthpacks, and most of your awesome ammo. After you kill him, you can adopt or harvest the sister. Harvesting is easy adam, adopting means you can go and have her first look for more adam. However, protecting her while she harvests results in massive battles which require more eve, health packs and ammo. Therefore, you can't kill a daddy, gather adam and get rid of the sister in one go. you usually have to space it out. In my opinion, this adds a level of strategy to the game. It also pads out the length of the game (good) without being really tedious (great).
Adam is more important in this game than the previous ones. This is because there are far more plasmids, and much much more tonics. This is great for RPG fans, and it is a disaster for FPS fans. Thankfully, I lean more towards the former, in this case. First off, you start with almost nothing. No health, very little space for eve/health packs, move really slow...And tonics really help you with these. Secondly, they have perfectly tweaked the balance between adam and eve. You need eve (and health, and ammo) to take out daddies to adopt sisters to harvest adam. You use that adam to get more tonics. These tonics help reduce the amount of eve you consume, and/or how many vials of eve you can carry.
The plasmids/tonics also come into play during combat. Since hacking has been made more remote, you can hack turrets/security/bots from a distance. Therefore, the enemy will get destroyed before they even see you. Also they have a whole array of tonics geared towards hacking. In cases of massive assaults (ie. when the sisters are harvesting adam) you absolutely have to set up a trap. Some of the splicers are insane tough. There's this new juggernaught splicer that just fucks your shit up. You have to put tornados all over the place and shoot him while he's down. Perhaps I should let a few examples do the talking
In one level I set up an ambush for the splicers. I laid down cyclones all around the main entry points, and charged them with various other plasmids. Then I set up trap rivets along the walls to shoot anyone stupid enough to walk past them, proximity mines behind the cyclones, and electric spear traps everywhere else. Then I instructed my little sister to start harvesting. It was a massacre. those splicers didn't know what hit them. Another way to tackle large numbers of splicers is to charge the hypnotize tonic and get the biggest bad guy you see. Then through standard hypnotize plasmid shocks at the other splicers. You can literally sit back and watch the mayhem unfold. For added fun hack the health stations in the immediate area. Next I decided to take down a big sister. They come after you as soon as you get rid of the last little sister in the level. I went into a room with 4 security cameras, and two turrets, and I hacked all of them. Then I summoned in two security bots, and set up an ass load of cyclones, traps and proximity mines. That poor sister got ravaged in the middle of all that.
It's still the same game, but they tweaked certain elements. For example, hacking has been simplified, so you can use it more strategically. Healing stations are now better located, so you tend to hack them and then enter a fire fight, and not the other way around. There are far more power to the people, weapons upgrade stations, so you get more out of your weapon. Furthermore, you no longer have to switch between your plasmids and your weapons. Also, that lame camera has been replace with a video camera, so now you get upgrades based on how you attack enemies. This is an extremely effective way to force the player to switch his tactics around. I also find they have made it more necessary to use different weapons on different enemies. BS1 followed the time honoured rule of matching the size of the weapon to the size of the enemy. Here, enemies behave differently based on what weapons you use. So the phosphorus buck shot is extremely effective against Big Daddies as it makes them jump around in agony, and then catch on fire. The rocket spear has the same effect on them. I find the electric bolt does not work very well against them however. The spear gun is useless until you upgrade it. At which point, it is deadly against splicers. There is a rivet gun (glorified nail gun) which literally blows nine times out of ten, but has heavy rivets which are effective against bigger guys. Another cool element is the fact that there are so many places to search. And the fact that there is more money lying around means you can afford more ammo. This means you won't use your ammo sparingly. Finally, the developers threw in a short, but pretty fun little sister level where you take control of a little sister and try to free yourself, gathering adam along the way.
Another cool aspect is how much the game changes as you progress. So there is a tonic for increasing your speed, which is an intuitive way of dealing with the fact that you move much more slowly. There is a tonic for increased damage from head shots, catering to the FPSers. There are tonics which allow you to fill your EVE when you use health stations. Even the plasmids have been made cooler. So you can charge that cyclone plasmid with other plasmids. But you can charge certain plasmids as well. The security plasmid, you can charge it, and it will send a security bot to protect you. Charge the hypnotize plasmid, and you can recruit people to fight on your side. Charge the fire/electric bolt plasmid and you can discharge a constant stream of whoop ass. And the fact that there is so much eve lying around means you actually use your plasmids as much as possible, instead of in BS1 where you had to conserve it. The drawback of all of this is that the game starts out extremely difficult. You die so much trying to kill your first daddy, or protect your first sister. And your weapons are terrible. A shotgun with two ammo? What is this doom? A spear gun that takes 7 seconds to reload. To make matters worse, the game gets extremely easy near the end. At one point I remember fighting a big daddy and two alpha series (what you play as) at the same time, and kicking their asses. Near the end of the game I didn't even need to pick up eve, as all of my tonics replenished my eve when I hacked, healed, ate, drank, hit somebody, shot somebody, electrocuted somebody, got hit by somebody, got electrocuted by somebody...
There are certain problems with this game. The controls, although not bad, could be better. Switching weapons in a fight is easy, just bring up the weapon display button. However, you can't change the ammo there, you have to get back into the action, then change it. Seeing as how there are two separate buttons for ammo versus weapon, this would have been a huge bonus. The same goes for plasmids. If you walk into an ambush, you sometimes have to choose a weapons, then change that ammo, then change your plasmid, then possibly charge your plasmid. You end up getting shot too many times in the process. I also didn't like how the camera was a weapon, that meant that you first had to start recording, then switch weapons, and probably get shot in the process. Finally, on the 360 anyways, if, after changing your weapon, you try to change your plasmid too quickly, the game won't register that, and you have to try again. Probably getting shot in the process.
Graphics:
They are exactly the same as the first one. Therefore, they are outdated. But I honestly don't mind because the combat is so much fun. Some of the textures just look like ass though. Like the plant life. It looks as 2D as the crowd back in NHL 99 for the PC. Also, when you're walking around outside, it isn't that beautiful. In fact, it looks equally like ass. There have been some criticisms of the level design, most notably that it is too linear. I never found this to be the case. However, this may just be because I have not played BS1 in so long. I think the argument is that the levels in BS1 were more representative of a real living breathing city. Here, the levels are more designed with combat in mind, allowing you to set up traps. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I feel it necessary to point out that there is no anti aliasing. Even the load screen has visible jaggies. Walk up to anything that's circular --a window, a lamp, a door-- and you can clearly tell that it's a bunch of connected lines. They really need to stop subjecting us to this crap. Finally, the water looks terrible. I read somewhere that this has to do with the fact that it's not using per pixel shaders. Nevertheless, whatever they're doing, they're doing it wrong.
Sound:
It's pretty solid. Sinclaire sounds super convincing. And the dialogue is pretty authentic (for Sinclaire anyway). There are cool expressions in there as well. Even that panty waist Lamb sounds pretty good--it's just a shame that 99% of what she says is pure garbage. At one point she said "I am not making a sermon". To which I replied "STFU". Oh and the black chic is super annoying too. I would say she is the only one 2K Games messed up with. The music is OK, but nowhere near as memorable as the kick ass music in BS1-- after all, who could forget pappa loves mambo, and somewhere beyond the sea. The sound effects for you, on the other hand, are a little annoying. Some of the sounds have the auditory counterpart of ALLCAPS. When even a single drop of water lands on you, it sounds like an air gun shootin a tin can. When a stream of water pours on you, it sounds like thunder. When you charge your plasmid, it sounds like the greatest suction in the universe. Fall 3 inches? Sounds like lift off for the Apollo 13. Even getting shot by a tiny pistol makes your character grunt and groan. Dude, take it like a man.
Overall: The story is completely overshadowed by the previous game, and there are certain minor visual, audio, and control problems, but the game is still insanely fun. And, in my opinion, there is a high replay value because of the sheer number of plasmids. I wish they had these awesome gameplay elements coupled with the story of the first one. And it goes without saying that I didn't play the multiplayer portion.
9/10
Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:59 pm
berzerker
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So we have a new service for those visitors who for some reason are unable or unwilling to post on the forum. They can now submit an article and the VGS staff will post it on the forum for them!
It's good to see that this site is increasingly becoming more customer friendly.
BTW the review would seem a little out of touch with the normal reviews on VGS (both in length as in content).
Last edited by berzerker on Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:46 am, edited 1 time in total
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:35 am
berzerker
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puk wrote:
you can use the vita chambers, suggesting you're either Jack, Andrew, or some bastard child of theirs
WTF, isn't this explained in the game? Seems pretty vital to me to maintain some consistency with BS1.
puk wrote:
TL;DR
This was inserted by Suislide I presume? Did he delete text from the review? If so the original text was even longer, sounds impossible.
puk wrote:
Next I decided to take down a big sister. They come after you as soon as you get rid of the last little sister in the level. I went into a room with 4 security cameras, and two turrets, and I hacked all of them. Then I summoned in two security bots, and set up an ass load of cyclones, traps and proximity mines. That poor sister got ravaged in the middle of all that.
This seems a bit overdone, was all this really necessary to beat this big sister?
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:08 am
puk
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berzerker wrote:
BTW the review would seem a little out of touch with the normal reviews on VGS (both in length as in content).
Ya it was super long. I wanted to chop it down, but, at the same time there was so much I wanted to say.
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:11 am
puk
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berzerker wrote:
puk wrote:
you can use the vita chambers, suggesting you're either Jack, Andrew, or some bastard child of theirs
WTF, isn't this explained in the game? Seems pretty vital to me to maintain some consistency with BS1.
It is later explained that Eleanour (sp?) tweaked the vita chambers so you could use them. I thought I mentioned this.
berzerker wrote:
puk wrote:
TL;DR
This was inserted by Suislide I presume? Did he delete text from the review? If so the original text was even longer, sounds impossible.
Sadly he did not insert that
berzerker wrote:
puk wrote:
Next I decided to take down a big sister. They come after you as soon as you get rid of the last little sister in the level. I went into a room with 4 security cameras, and two turrets, and I hacked all of them. Then I summoned in two security bots, and set up an ass load of cyclones, traps and proximity mines. That poor sister got ravaged in the middle of all that.
This seems a bit overdone, was all this really necessary to beat this big sister?
They are really difficult. Much harder than the big daddies. You go at it guns blazing but you will use up all of your Eve/First Aid/ammo...
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:18 am
berzerker
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puk wrote:
I thought I mentioned this.
Yes you did indeed, I missed it, sorry.
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:22 am
puk
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berzerker wrote:
puk wrote:
I thought I mentioned this.
Yes you did indeed, I missed it, sorry.
apology accepted
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:31 am
Pogma9
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puk wrote:
berzerker wrote:
puk wrote:
I thought I mentioned this.
Yes you did indeed, I missed it, sorry.
apology accepted
Do you guys fuck now?
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:18 pm
berzerker
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Pogma9 wrote:
Do you guys fuck now?
I'm not sure about puk (it's been a while since we had posts about his sex life so I couldn't tell) but I might tonight if the wife is in the mood. Why do you want to know anyway?
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:35 pm
_Master_
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berzerker wrote:
Pogma9 wrote:
Do you guys fuck now?
I'm not sure about puk (it's been a while since we had posts about his sex life so I couldn't tell) but I might tonight if the wife is in the mood. Why do you want to know anyway?
swingers
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 2:10 am
Pogma9
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berzerker wrote:
. Why do you want to know anyway?
It seemed like a natural progression
Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 9:42 am
puk
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Just playing it a second time through, and I have some new impressions
-The game gets significantly easier in two phases. First it gets easier by giving you a lot of new plasmids at roughly the same time your research progresses (Siren Alley part II). Then it gets even easier (Fontaine Futuristics part II) when your tonics allow you to easily hack Med Stations, those stations replenish your EVE, and your tonics replenish your Health/EVE in every way, ie. stand in water to replenish Health/EVE.
-The field of view is definitely messed as you have to 'scan' a room to make sure there are no enemies left
-environments do definitely feel smaller the second time round
-Analog controller inhibits dynamic gameplay (ie. shooting a strategically place electrobolt station to generate a bolt of electricity is trivial with the mouse, but tedious with the analog sticks)
-It still feels unnatural when a Leadhead Splicer is tougher than an alpha series (Big Daddy lite)
-The plasmids have been made sufficiently different such that each one forces the player to use a different gameplay approach
Although this is not fair as the game is already fun, I wish the game allowed for more exploration in a sandbox fashion, so as to make more use of the plasmids you have gained. But I will definitely play this a third time
Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:08 am
Pogma9
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Quote:
Puk wrote.... But I digest...
I hope you're not referring to you, Berzerker and bodily fluids
Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 3:44 pm
puk
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Also, early on the game, when you hack a med station, if you land in a blue hack zone, u get a free med pack, but in later levels there are no blue tiles. It is never explained why
Suislide, did you notice this as well?
Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 4:02 pm
puk
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Also there is a level where you take control of a little sister, and the texture in that level are sublime. They are so silky smooth. I wish every game looked like this.
Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 8:57 pm
Suislide
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puk wrote:
Also, early on the game, when you hack a med station, if you land in a blue hack zone, u get a free med pack, but in later levels there are no blue tiles. It is never explained why
Suislide, did you notice this as well?
I did notice that. Not sure if it was just something to make it harder?
I also had ridiculous amounts of ADAM at the end of the game
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 5:06 am
puk
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Suislide wrote:
puk wrote:
Also, early on the game, when you hack a med station, if you land in a blue hack zone, u get a free med pack, but in later levels there are no blue tiles. It is never explained why
Suislide, did you notice this as well?
I did notice that. Not sure if it was just something to make it harder?
I also had ridiculous amounts of ADAM at the end of the game
They expect you to upgrade all of your plasmids (Electrobolt 3, incenerate 3...) so if you do that, you will use all of your Adam. But if you're waiting for one particular plasmid, like Telekenisis 3, and don't care about the rest, and each plasmid station only has a limited number of plasmids/tonics, then you'll get to the last level and still have 600 Adam!
Also I've hit a glitch where my plasmid/hand keeps disappearing and I can't get it back.
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:11 am
berzerker
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Pogma9 wrote:
Quote:
Puk wrote.... But I digest...
It seems safe to assume he meant "I digress".
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:38 am
puk
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I meant digest, as in, now it's time to get back on topic
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:58 am
berzerker
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I'm no native English speaker, but I'd think it must be "digress" then.
It seems that "digress" does cover your "now it's time to get back on topic" and "digest" doesn't, I suppose that was pogma's point too (although it is hard to tell with his twisted mind).
And google gives 129.000 hits on "but I digest" and 1.480.000 on "but I digress".
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