BioShock 2 Preview

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 April, 2009

Would you very kindly?

You're a Big Daddy, and you're right, that doesn't sound very ambitious. As Take Two admits during our tour of 2K Marin, a lot of people bought the first BioShock because they thought you were a Big Daddy anyway. He's the guy on the box. He's got eight glowing eyes, JCB hips and a drillbit the size of a fridge stuck to his arm. And the fact is, by the time you got to the end of BioShock, you were so powered up that you practically and to some extent literally were a Big Daddy as well.

Except, there's also something wrong with the idea of being a Big Daddy in BioShock 2. BioShock was a first-person shooter with RPG elements and a brilliant story, laid out next to Randian extremism in a smotheringly coherent waterlogged coffin at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But its sucker punch was an interrogation of free will in videogames, landed in a dizzying monologue by Andrew Ryan at the end of its second act. The Big Daddy may be a kickass monster, but he's also BioShock's supreme embodiment of what writer Ken Levine - speaking through Ryan - was attacking: he is conditioned to do one thing, and knows no better.

If 2K Marin, led by creative director Jordan Thomas (Fort Frolic, The Cradle), is committed to overcoming that paradox, BioShock 2 might actually be the more ambitious of the two games after all.

However, it's also clear that the Big Daddy is the wrong emphasis at this point, as senior character designer Colin Fix explains when he talks about the Big Daddy's probable replacement on this year's front cover: "It was my very first day, and Jordan took me into an office and was like, 'Alright, so, pretty much the premiere character of the entire game you'll start designing now.'" He wasn't talking about the Big Daddy. He was talking about the Big Sister.

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 1

The Little Sisters in BioShock 2 have more advanced facial modelling, so they can frown, and smile, but like most of the characters they're stylised.

BioShock 2 is set in Rapture around a decade after the first game. The star of the first trailer, the little girl standing in the sand, is one of the Little Sisters liberated by the player's actions. But she couldn't assimilate into life on the surface. So she went back to Rapture, and put herself through a process that transformed her into the Big Sister. "This literal hybrid of a Big Daddy and a Little Sister", as Jordan Thomas - the new Ken Levine, if you like - puts it.

"She begins abducting young girls from all over the Atlantic coast and turning them into Little Sisters in an attempt to kind of jumpstart Rapture from the decayed hulk that it had become into the city of her memories," he explains. "And to her the status quo is very much Big Daddies and Little Sisters in perfect harmony. Even though that's a horribly conditioned nightmare, to her that is home." With new Little Sisters roaming around Rapture, she reboots the ADAM ecology, and the splicers - raging former inhabitants of the underwater city driven mad by their addiction to the substance that powers their genetic enhancements - are restored to a food chain that the Big Sister dominates.

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 2

"One of the things that sold BioShock 1 was visual storytelling in a scene, " says Jeff Weir, "like a spilled glass of wine and maybe some bullets, and it illustrates the story of a guy there who maybe committed suicide. Visually we're doing the same thing with our characters - you'll see the storytelling, like the drawings and the bows."

The Big Sister is slender compared to the original Bouncers, with an ominous red glow burning through the single porthole of her diving suit headpiece, and a spider's-web cage on her back to carry Little Sisters, and she cuts a mournful figure in stills - hunched, closeted in tight strapping, with Polio braces on her legs and little bows tied to her back. In motion though, she is imperious. "What Jordan wanted was unstable grace, which are two very distinct visual qualities," says Jeff Weir, who supervises the animation. We see this in action during an attack on the player, where she scores a crescent gash across a broad glass wall, releasing thousands of tons of water into your path. She leaps and scrambles across the transparent surface with balletic composure before dropping into an arthritic landing.

The reason she wants you dead - and the way 2K Marin dodges the conditioning issue - is that you are not really a Big Daddy: you are a prototype whose conditioning has been broken, and you are being guided by the familiar voice of Dr Tenenbaum, who once again implores you to help her liberate the Little Sisters. But rather than reducing your options to simply "saving" them and then helping them to a nearby escape vent, BioShock 2 gives you two options: you can still "harvest" the girls' ADAM and use it to unlock new plasmids and tonics to enhance your abilities, but you can also choose to adopt them.

At some stage, this will allow you to spirit the Little Sisters out of Rapture, but in the meantime you can help them do their job: harvesting ADAM from the corpses of dead splicers. When you discover a glowing body, your Little Sister can go to work extracting ADAM with her oversized syringe gun, and while this goes on, Rapture takes notice, and puts you in the firing line.

The section 2K Marin shows off brings everything we've seen before to bear: thuggish splicers, leadheads, nitros, spiders and Houdinis, who attack in mixed waves. The Big Daddy may have little trouble deflecting a few with his interchangeable drill dash and rivet gun, but when they confront you in numbers, they're a serious threat, and dealing with them is a full-time job complicated by the Little Sister's exposure. If she is killed, you lose all that ADAM, so you need to control the crowd, making use of whatever weapons and plasmids you have, including whirlwinds, fire and electricity.

There are other Big Daddies to worry about too, including some "surprising variations you haven't seen before". What's more, "There definitely will be enemies we introduce over the course of the game that feel a little more like they could go toe to toe with a Big Daddy," according to lead designer Zak McClendon. Splicer combat is described as "popcorn between meals". And worse is to come, as Jordan Thomas explains: "[The Big Sister] is incited to attack the player by his interactions with the Little Sisters."

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 3

"The first Big Daddy is missing in action during BioShock 1," says creative director Jordan Thomas. "I can't really tell you how, but the timeline does not intersect during Jack's stay. He is elsewhere."

"You take a certain number of them out of the world, and she gets angry, and hunts you down anywhere in a level. And there's a countdown, which gives you a chance to prepare, so you can rush over and hurriedly punch the clown until it gives you goodies, and hack every turret in the room, and blanket it with trapbolts and so on before she comes. Because when she does, you are going to have the fight of your life." It's at this stage that the demo ends, because the player is simply no match for the Big Sister, who terrorises him, just as surely as the Bouncers ripped Jack back to the last Vitachamber when you dared to provoke one in the Medical Pavilion.

Rapture's cultural isolation means that the city itself has evolved ecologically but not stylistically, which 2K Marin combats by creating new locations, rather than returning you to Neptune's Bounty or Fort Frolic. "There will be links to stuff you've seen," says Jeff Weir, "but all the primary environments are totally new places that you've never been to before. Rapture is a huge city. The first game was only a small part." Thanks to your permanent diving suit, BioShock 2 also takes you outside onto the ocean floor, through floral corridors of reefs and vegetation. And you do go back to Fontaine Futuristics.

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 4

"It takes a long time to understand the vernacular of BioShock," says Weir. "It's not steampunk. There's more things that it's not. It's a unique combination of Deco, horror and whimsy that's really quirky and earnest."

And thanks to that sucker punch, Rapture has also had to evolve philosophically, although Thomas is adamant that BioShock 2 must reinforce the original's objectivist foundations - and Andrew Ryan himself. "How can I possibly return you to Rapture without having Ryan be a presence?" he asks. "Without objectivism, without the influences both literary and philosophical that gave birth to Rapture, it wouldn't be BioShock. Taking you back to Rapture and showing you how Rapture changes has to begin with the ideas that setting was built out of.

"From there, however, to add a new mystery to Rapture, there has to be a contrast. One of my buzz-phrases for this brand is 'an indictment of extremism', that the interesting thing about BioShock 1 was whether you agree with Ayn Rand or burn her books regularly, you can see it exaggerated massively in the form of Andrew Ryan in the form of Rapture, and you watch how the attempt to bend reality to a fairly rigid set of abstract principles fails and succumbs to this yowl of entropy."

It raises an obvious question. Given what Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged meant to BioShock, what's the equivalent here? Thomas deflects. "If I told you what the influences to the motives of our characters are right now, it would spoil a lot about the plot," he says. "This isn't time for that yet. I will say that I find characters, whether they're heroes or villains, as ideologues very compelling, and you have to kind of know the material before you can write somebody like that and have it resonate in any way, and everyone on BioShock 1 had a bellyful of Rand... There was a lot of, 'Oh my god, if she mentions another sharp angular face again I'm going to strangle myself.' Well, in BioShock 2, we are doing similar research, I just can't say on what yet."

With Thomas's background in horror - designing The Cradle in Thief 3, and Fort Frolic in the first BioShock - that side of the game is also amplified. "Because you play this sort of armoured prototype who's pretty much designed to survive, I kind of have to strike the player obliquely on the fear front," he says. "I have to wage psychological warfare against the player."

"I think BioShock 1 was very much a tragedy - the horror of loss, and of exposure to the dysmorphic effects of these characters who have been distorted by ADAM - and in BioShock 2, I hope there will be a horror of emotional context as well, that I can cause you to experience massive cognitive dissonance from time to time and keep you guessing. That's at the very least my goal. I think fear is very important to BioShock, as is tragedy, and it's toeing the line between those two that is both what makes the challenge compelling and BioShock unique."

Thomas says that BioShock 2 "validates all possible choices the player could have made" at the end of its predecessor, and there's a consensus about choice within the game. "The kind of levels that we want to put you in are more about the old Warren Spector/Looking Glass dichotomy of problems rather than puzzles," says lead level designer JP LeBreton. "Puzzles have an explicit hard-wired number of designer-intended solutions, and for the most part we want to put a lot of different tools in the environment and the player's hands."

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 5

"One of the things we are really driving for is getting more sane people in front of the player more often," Zak McClendon says with a smile.

On a purely mechanical and structural level, this will mean a return to the mixture of map-based exploration and genetic augmentation, although the team will only discuss the way the game plays out in generalities, promising stronger FPS fundamentals and things like that. You will get to splice yourself silly again, for example, but we aren't told much about how the combat has changed, except to say you can now dual-wield weapons and plasmids. We're also promised online multiplayer, but nobody will say what that entails.

Throughout the time I spend in Marin, the narrow parameters of the discussion are a stumbling block. But in a sense this is also encouraging: it was the nature of BioShock that every answer generated a dozen more questions. Even months after the game was released, the debate surged back and forth about the significance of details and design choices. The fact that fifteen minutes of BioShock 2 gameplay and two hours of interviews leave so much open to interpretation (the butterfly in the trailer, for instance) is the game's most important, and promising, characteristic.

'BioShock 2' Screenshot 6

Does the Big Sister speak? "In a game about ideas, it would be a damned shame if you never heard any of the ideas of any of your antagonists," says Thomas.

"I am very interested in systems of play as kind of gardens in which you can plant the seed of a question and allow the player to shape how the thing grows," says Jordan Thomas, explaining his ambitions. "And specifically, that doesn't really work unless your mechanics are very unified with the kind of story you're telling, and so I am striving, shall we say [he grins], to generate a similar resonance from the sort of the high themes all the way down to the base mechanics.

"I can't really say how, because it would be a giant ass spoiler, but it is important to me that BioShock 2 is worthy of the name - not just as narrative, and not just as a kind of series of meaningful player decisions, but also particularly as a videogame that asks interesting questions, and from which players can derive meaningful statements."

In other words, you may be a Big Daddy, but they get what that means.

BioShock 2 is due out for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this autumn. Check out the Editor's blog to see what else the developers had to say.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (108) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Donny #1 3 years ago

    Sounds good apart from the "dealing with them is a full-time job complicated by the Little Sister's exposure. If she is killed, you lose all that ADAM." I know they're optional but still...escort missions are very rarely fun.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 00:13

  • ShiroBen #2 3 years ago

    So they take the single most irritating and unfun part of the first game--the escort mission--and expand it into a full game? Seems kind of odd. Unless they're trying to make some kind of point by having it so rescuing little sisters leads to irritation, thus making it into an actual gameplay choice--harvest and have fun, or save and be annoyed. In any case, I'm now looking forward to this a little bit less.

  • RedSparrows #3 3 years ago

    It's not a classic escort mission i guess - seeing as I presume it'll play intuitively and contextually as you progress through an area. And chose to do it. And you carry the LS around, rather than waiting for pathfinding AI/set routes. It's like the Big Daddy fights from 1, but in reverse. But with the same fights from 1 being there too. Plus I can't imagine the loss being game breaking. Maybe it is!

    anyway

    WANT
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 00:18

  • IMadeThis #4 3 years ago

    My God I wanna read that article... and all your wonderful comments... But don't want it spoiled!!!

    That's it, I'm going!

  • aaronali #5 3 years ago

    What a breath of fresh air. Intelligent people are designing a great game!! I've been a fan of these boys since system shock/thief era. I'll play anything they make, why not a masterpiece. High hopes on this one.

    Oh, and wtf is Ken Levine working on now? I want details!
    Edited by 2 at 20/04/09 @ 00:44

  • Martin85 #6 3 years ago

    I'm apprehensive about this. I think it has a massive potential to be a let-down, even if it's very good. Even if it's as good as the first game, that won't be enough, for me. I don't just want a re-run of the first BioShock.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 00:54

  • aaronali #7 3 years ago

    no, we don't want a retread of bioshock. but consider: it is an amazing world to be in, why not revisit it. plus, they're inventing completely new areas for the bulk of bioshock 2, and they're exploring a new (undisclosed) philosophical touchstone for the new storyline. they want to incorporate ryan and objectivism, but go beyond that. they are integrating more thoughtful puzzles and are emphasizing a more open style of gameplay and mission trajectories. it doesn't sound like they are thinking retread one bit.

  • AphoticCosmos #8 3 years ago

    Looking good! Apart from Mass Effect, if there's a single world that deserves a comprehensive revisiting from the golden age of games in 2007, it's Rapture.

    I need to play through #1 again . . .

  • frankfurter209 #9 3 years ago

    I can't bring myself to care about this game. Bioshock doesn't need a sequel

  • Pro_Gamer #10 3 years ago

    I think Bioshock was the MOST overrated shooter for years. I WANTED to like it, but it just, wasn't fun. It had nice graphics and sound, but the actual gameplay was rubbish when compared with Halo 3 for example. Bioshock just doesn't have the depth or physics to be much more than an average shooter. If you need proof of this, ask yourself why there is NO multiplayer mode whatsoever.

  • starbug1978 #11 3 years ago

    It raises an obvious question. Given what Ayn Rand's novel Atlus Shrugged meant to BioShock, what's the equivalent here?


    Isn't it Atlas Shrugged?

  • dsmx #12 3 years ago

    Would you kindly tell me what possessed you to base a lot of the game around escort missions which as far as I can remember have never been anything but annoying, boring and unnecessary in the entire history of gaming?

  • SPKRFCKR #13 3 years ago

    @ STKD

    Yes, if you keep playing it on Easy difficulty.

  • red_shift #14 3 years ago

    STKD:
    Your next to last comment may very well be true, but that doesn't mean that Bioshock wasn't one of the most atmospheric and utterly compelling games of the last 5 years.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 02:58

  • Martin85 #15 3 years ago

    "no, we don't want a retread of bioshock. but consider: it is an amazing world to be in, why not revisit it. plus, they're inventing completely new areas for the bulk of bioshock 2, and they're exploring a new (undisclosed) philosophical touchstone for the new storyline. they want to incorporate ryan and objectivism, but go beyond that. they are integrating more thoughtful puzzles and are emphasizing a more open style of gameplay and mission trajectories. it doesn't sound like they are thinking retread one bit."

    That may all be true (or not, as it may turn out), but that doesn't solve the issue of just how much of an instant-classic BioShock was, and the fact that it was all rather self-contained. BioSock didn't particularly call for a sequel of any kind. In my opinion it should have been left at that, and all the screen shots and videos don't particularly inspire much confidence. This game needs to be utterly amazing just in order to not be a disappointment, in my eyes. That's an extremely tall order. I imagine that it'll ultimately be a pretty good game in it's own right, but a bit of a smudge on the legacy of the original. We'll see. I'm open to the possibility of it being astounding, but I just don't see it happening. The freshness of Rapture is gone, new environments or not, and I don't particularly think the new features sound like they add much. An 'amazing' sequel needs to be more than tweaks and refinements, especially if the preceding game was BioShock.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 03:10

  • Reihn #16 3 years ago

    hunched, closeted in tight strapping, with Polio braces on her legs and little bows tied to her back.

    Shouldn't that be corseted in tight strapping?

    Just saying, is all.. : )

  • Reihn #17 3 years ago

    @ Pro_Gamer

    Dude, if that's how you think about games, then BioShock is most definitely Not For You. You don't like it? That's fine - it doesn't like you either. It's a breathtakingly atmospheric, creepy, philosophical game. I feel it was done in first person primarily for the immersion value, not because it's trying to be anything like a Tom Clancy style 'shooter'. It's rich in qualities which probably wouldn't seem of value to you, if all that matters to you are top notch physics and multiplayer.

    If I want world-standard setting multiplayer and balanced gameplay, I go to Halo 3.
    If I want atmosphere and a thought provoking story, I sure as hell don't. Bioshock would have been so, so much less if they'd not been entirely devoted to the single player narrative, and instead insisted on including multiplayer (see: The Darkness et al).

    Lastly, if that's how you really feel, why exactly are you even posting in this thread? Do you live under a bridge?

  • aaronali #18 3 years ago

    @Martin85

    I agree that it needs to completely blow away expectations in order to stand next to the original. Whether it will succeed in this I'm not sure. I'm just really encouraged by the A-Grade level design team in place and thoughtful underpinnings they are creating the next story with. Like you, I wouldn't want to go back to Rapture for 10 more hours of Bioshock. In fact, that's kind of what the last 3 hours of the first game felt like (!). I am keeping fingers crossed that the Bioshock 2 designers understand this, too.

  • Svecke #19 3 years ago

    So... System Shock 3? No? Bah, humbug!

  • Martin85 #20 3 years ago

    @ aaronali

    I agree. Rapture almost out-stayed it's welcome first time round. When the game ended, it was just about right, and I wasn't hankering for any more running around in that setting. I was hoping for the sequel to go somewhere else, or perhaps chronicle the days leading up to the first 'outbreak'. Or something. But even then I'd rather they just didn't bother, and left it at one game. I find what they have proposed in the actual BioShock 2 to be rather uninspiring. They've already touched on Randian philosophy, and rather than explore that further in a different setting, they're now talking about going into different philosophies. In my opinion, this has a large potential to negate much of the intricate plot of the first game.

    Ultimately, there's many pitfalls that BioShock 2 needs to overcome in order to be a proud entry to the series, rather than just a decent but pointless game that everyone wishes never got made. They created something so great with the first game, I think they'll just end up undoing it all with this sequel.

  • Kenshin001 #21 3 years ago

    @Reihn, Bioshock was as thought provoking as peeling a banana. Go read a book, maybe Atlas Shrugged. Anyway, hope the ending is better than the first. For such a critically lauded, overhyped game the ending was stupid.

  • Pro_Gamer #22 3 years ago

    @Reihn

    NO! This is a 'comments' section which CAN and WILL include fair critiscisms. If you don't like it then post elsewhere.

  • dsmx #23 3 years ago

    The ending stunk of we don't know how to finish the game so we'll just through something together that seems vaguely plausible even if it ruins the whole tone of the game.

  • aaronali #24 3 years ago

    @kenshin001

    ..."as thought provoking as peeling a banana?" I'm curious to know: what games do you find more thought-provoking than bioshock? is that really a fair criticism to level at this game; my opinion is that it's one of the more intelligent interactive experiences i've seen in the last few years. please school me if i'm missing some great ones.

  • Reihn #25 3 years ago

    @ Pro_Gamer

    Okay, sure - I'm all about fair comment and criticism. But you've stated that Bioshock was overrated and wasn't fun (for you) because the gameplay, physics and mulitplayer don't stack up against Halo 3.

    I'm pointing out that if that those are the standards by which you rank your games, if those are the things which matter most to you, then Bioshock is most definately not going to be your cup of tea. Which you've said. Which I've agreed with.

    But I also think that there's a much smarter, more engaging way of phrasing your point, if you actually wanted to open a dialogue about it with your fellow Eurogamers.

    @ Kenshin001

    Bioshock was as thought provoking as peeling a banana. Go read a book, maybe Atlas Shrugged. Anyway, hope the ending is better than the first. For such a critically lauded, overhyped game the ending was stupid.

    . . .well, if you feel that way, then that's your prerogative, but with respect I think you are categorically incorrect. I've said that I found Bioshock to be an atmospheric, creepy and philosophical game with a thought provoking story, and I think the majority of games journalists and consumers would agree on that front. Again, that doesn't mean that you have to like it. But it does mean that bashing it on forums with no backup to your argument makes you seem a little silly. Agreed that the ending was very genre-formulaic in gameplay terms, but as Kieron put it (iirc), "MAYBE THAT WAS THE POINT". All in all, I thought it was a fantastic game, one which I feel is much more worthy of time and attention than a lot of the military combat FPS games out there, which are great fun, but are also pretty similar to each other and don't attempt much in terms of story or artistic value.

    As for reading books, well, I read widely and voraciously. I also enjoy video games a great deal. Are you trying to say that all thoughtful or artistic video games are a waste of time, because I could be reading even more? Actually, I'm not sure what your point is on that front. Please explain?

  • barnard666 #26 3 years ago

    I loved the fiorst one, becau7se it was fresh, and mysterious. This looks dull, the gameplay was never particularly great, it was the narrative and world that pulled you through. I felt this game didnt need a sequel, maybe a prequel would have been better, starting off as this great utopian dream, you could have helped build the station, and see it in all its glory, then in some way be forced to destroy it...hell you could even haveplayed the bad guy from the first one, and learnt to understand what turned him...

    but this sequel has little to hold my attention, hell some of the environments are even the same as the last game, but now in deeper water...it just feels cheap somehow.

  • Eraysor #27 3 years ago

    I still have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to overcook it, but feel free to prove me wrong.

  • Reihn #28 3 years ago

    Also, @ Pro_Gamer (sorry all, if I'm flogging a dead horse here..)

    NO! This is a 'comments' section which CAN and WILL include fair critiscisms. If you don't like it then post elsewhere.

    Errr. . that is not actually a response to anything I said. Perhaps you should read my post again and try to respond to it. I'm in no way against fair comment and criticism! I'm saying that it seems to me that you only like one particular style of game - 'hardcore' FPS action, with a focus on the mechanics of gameplay, and devoid of story. This is my assumption, based on A: your rather telling choice of a handle, B: your comments above, and C: the fact that you feel "Jap[anese] RPGs are a joke . . . why can't the japs put some effort towards a FPS? I'd really like to see what they could do to the FPS genre . . . "

    Hence my question 'why are you even posting here' is a fair one, which you haven't responded to.
    Also, FYI, 'Jap' is a racial slur. You're doing yourself no favours by using it.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 07:10

  • bad09 #29 3 years ago

    I don't know what to make of this TBH. I loved Bioshock played it on PC and on 360 when I replayed a while back, but this one isn't selling to me right now. That will change when I play it I'm sure.

  • busboy33 #30 3 years ago

    re: the ending of Bioshock1:

    I remember seeing an interview with Ken Levine, where he made comments in the vein that the ending was essentially dictated by "higher-ups", and was not how the game was supposed to end.
    Perhaps time has twisted my memory of the comments . . . I can't remember where I saw the interview, and haven't been able to find it since (to be honest, I haven't looked too hard).

  • JetSetWilly #31 3 years ago

    Plot sounds like a contrived justification for why the game environment hasn't changed.

  • Quint2020 #32 3 years ago

    Story sounds pretty contrived to me, it looks lovely (as expected) but it sounds like a real rehash, they could have done a lot more with it imo, setting it in modern day for example? Say a team of military types find and investigate the city only for el shit to hit the fan, I don't know something more interesting than "it's exactly the same but this time you're a big daddy and get to protect the little sisters!!".

  • Les #33 3 years ago

    Well, the good thing is they won't use a terrible writer and philosopher as Ayn Rand as inspiration for the sequel. Maybe this time it will have a story that isn't too intrusive. And if it will actually have decent gameplay it might turn out to be a nice game for the people that can actually stand the horrible art direction of 2K. The sound will probably alleviate that problem to some extend.

  • morriss #34 3 years ago

    Vita Chambers? Are they in the game?

  • Blockhead #35 3 years ago

    I wish BioShock would play more like Fallout. The combat in BioShock was way off. They should've made it an RPG instead, or something inbetween. Say no to drugs and shooters!

  • dominalien #36 3 years ago

    Claiming it was the second coming of narrative, however, was a bit much - it was great, but no SS2.

    Actually, it was exactly like SS2 - it is revealed that the person guiding you is not who they say they are and their objectives are not what you thought they were.

    Anyway, @Pro_Gamer:

    You seem to like FPS games (to the exclusion of anything else?) and you didn't like Bioshock. Fine. Here's a possible reason: Bioshock is not an FPS. Proof: I would not have liked it had it been one.

    The common assumption these days is that if a game is first person, then it is a shooter. For me, it's all about emphasis. If the emphasis is on running around and shooting things (and in first person), then it's an FPS and I won't even bother playing the demo. If the shooting is, say, just an element of a bigger whole (reading logs, upgrading the character, solving puzzles, etc) then I'll like it and I'd rather call it an FPRPG, if we need a new acronym at all.

    Ultima Underworld was not a shooter. SS1, and SS2 indeed as well, were not FPSs in my book either. Thief was not a shooter either. Deus Ex was not a shooter. All first person games. All allow you to shoot. Shooting is not the main element.

    This is all IMO. I'm not pretending it's fact.
    Edited by 2 at 20/04/09 @ 09:16

  • GreatUncleBaal #37 3 years ago

    I'm looking forward to returning to Rapture, but like others I'm worried about the impact of the "ongoing escort mission" element with the little sisters on the pace of the game - in the last section of the first game, I felt hamstrung by having to dawdle around while little madam defiled splicer corpses. Mind you, I didn't feel like I was really playing as a Big Daddy at that point, despite the scenario. Perhaps if they get the feel right, it will work better.
    I'm also not too fond of the idea of the Big Sister as a recurrent enemy, as a character who keeps coming back to annoy you through the game, which means you won't actually be able to kill her until the end. But that's probably more a personal thing, since Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 irritated the hell out of me too :)

  • DFawkes #38 3 years ago

    Big Sister - Still would ;)

    I'll be all over this game. Although I have concerns, like many have above (escort mission as a central game mechanic), I'll look past them and give it a go. Don't hang about on the demo Take 2, I'm impatient.

  • dominalien #39 3 years ago

    But that's probably more a personal thing, since Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 irritated the hell out of me too :)

    You are not alone.

    Even worse: having to fight and kill Wesker again and again in one game after another.

  • kangarootoo #40 3 years ago

    @Pro_Gamer

    Comparing Bioshock to Halo 3 is like comparing GTA to Gran Turismo. They share some characteristics, but they are only tenuously in the same genre.

    For my money Halo 3 is a pure combat FPS, Bioshock is a horror adventure game (that just so happens to have first person combat).

  • Yossarian #41 3 years ago

    "I am very interested in systems of play as kind of gardens in which you can plant the seed of a question and allow the player to shape how the thing grows," says Jordan Thomas, explaining his ambitions. "And specifically, that doesn't really work unless your mechanics are very unified with the kind of story you're telling, and so I am striving, shall we say [he grins], to generate a similar resonance from the sort of the high themes all the way down to the base mechanics.

    I want to kiss Jordan Thomas on the mouth. Although this quote does encourage me to write more 5,000 word rants about games in the future, because it appears to work.

  • DjFlex52 #42 3 years ago

    I am so glad Bioshock was released on all 3 platforms. If not, then this thread would have turned into another console argument.
    I'm actually reading uninterrupted comments and opinions about a videogame and i'm not in a forum :)

    @dominalien

    I totally agree with your opinion about FPS games.

  • Notez #43 3 years ago

    I wonder if there are finally going to be some of the much hyped RPG elements...

  • YobRenoops #44 3 years ago

    This is a game that doesn't need or want multi-player. Why can't people understand this?

  • rudedudejude #45 3 years ago

    Bring Back System Shock!

    Less of this underwater bio-nonsense.

  • Reihn #46 3 years ago

    @ Yossarian

    Right on!

    Also, is your rant on this site somewhere? I'd love to have a read.. : )

  • spekkeh #47 3 years ago

    After stealing and raping Rand's philosophy, I surmise that the next game will probably revolve around freeing Plato from his cave. And then they'll get lots of awards and pats on their backs for yet another philosophical masterpiece in gaming. Oh well, at least they're trying.

  • TheTingler #48 3 years ago

    I was massively inspired by the mention of Looking Glass. At least Thomas knows his heritage.

  • thedaveeyres #49 3 years ago

    Really excited about this. It sounds like it's going to be a great game to me.

  • AgentCool #50 3 years ago

    Bioshock was the most disappointing game of 2007 for me. The story, atmosphere and level design were all excellent but the actual gameplay was average at best. If ever a game needed a regenerative health system, this was it. I mean, it would work perfectly in the context of the plot but, no, they just had to go down the 'health pack' road. That actually works in games like Resident Evil 5 or Half-Life where you have a level of control over the pace and balance of combat but here it just felt completely wrong because many of the enemies - particularly the Big Daddies - were so fast and lethal and your attacks next to useless against them. As a result, the early parts of the game in particular were simply a series of drawn-out battles of attrition where you'd just attack a Big Daddy, die, attack the Big Daddy again, die, finally kill the Big Daddy, carry on. I really wanted to like Bioshock as, from a production point-of-view, it was truly sensational but, as a game, it was badly flawed.

  • dominalien #51 3 years ago

    @AgentCool

    Nah, I just think you're not very good at it ;-)

    Played through on normal with Vita Chambers turned off; it's certainly doable. Yes, at the beginning the Big Daddy fights were tricky, but they became really easy later on with upgraded equipment.

    I guess you're approaching this as an FPS (as does Coin-Op), which it simply isn't.

  • VicViper #52 3 years ago

    @Co-Op
    I liked the first game even though it had a really shit last boss and a whole bunch of useless plasmids + kinda shitty gun play for a FPS. And oh yeah the replay value was zero. It also had those crappy mini games that you had to repeat about 10 million times. And a really lame inventory system that had you juggling all kinds of ammo all the time.

    Why don't you tell us how you really feel? Na I kid all pretty valid points. I loved the game up to the twist then things went down hell then underground at the final boss. It had some brillant set pieces and some nice steath references to other games, after you work out the vita chamber are a free rez then the horror falls away and even need to really care about ammo/eve.

    That said I can't say anything till I either see a review or get it in my hands, so far it looks pretty much just Bioshock 1.5 to be honest

  • Yossarian #53 3 years ago

    @ Yossarian

    Right on!

    Also, is your rant on this site somewhere? I'd love to have a read.. : )

    Nope. It's nearly two years old now, but...

    http://streetlightsasfairgrounds.blogspo...

  • Bremenacht #54 3 years ago

    One of my buzz-phrases for this brand is 'an indictment of extremism'

    That sounds very pretentious to me. And does a fan of any game or film or book ever call it a 'brand'?

  • RedSparrows #55 3 years ago

    Yoss: Mogwai reference? I read that article a while back, wuz good.

    'One of my buzz-phrases for this brand is 'an indictment of extremism'

    That sounds very pretentious to me. And does a fan of any game or film or book ever call it a 'brand'? '

    How is that pretentious? Cos it tries to deal with a relatively broad and common socio-cultural motif, that of 'fuck extremism'? It might end up being bad, but that doesn't necessarily entail that it is pretentious.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 12:05

  • rhinoxious #56 3 years ago

    I'd rather see it set elsewhere as well, but ...

    At least they've hinted that the underwater setting will actually make someuse of being underwater this time. The first game could have been set anywhere, they made no gameplay use of being at the bottom of the sea.

  • thedaveeyres #57 3 years ago

    It's pretentious because that's the in-thing to say to describe Bioshock.

    There's always CoD4 - No pretentions to being anything other than a linear shooter there. Hallelujah!

    Zzzzzzz

  • chudders #58 3 years ago

    I must say, this sounds pretty poor. 10 years on and the place hasn't flooded? 10 years on and the splicers are still knocking about? Why haven't they killed each other? What do they eat? What the fuck do they do down there anyway? What's Dr Tenebaum still doing down there?

    I've never really liked the gameplay mechanics based around the little sister/big daddy relationship. The much vaunted 'moral dilemnas' around harvesting in the first game were pretty poorly done, and as such you could completely avoid the situation for the most part. Big daddy's were quite intimidating to begin with, but by the end I was such a hunk of beef I could slap them around for fun. The escort missions (as everyone says) were an exercise in rubbish game design and the thought of the sequel revolving around all of these just puts me off a bit. I imagine the tag line this time will be 'This time, you're the big Daddy!' Poor.

    I would have preferred a prequel, set as suggested, at the beginning of the 'troubles'. I also would have preferred less emphasis on out and out violence and a more tense, thrilling and more variably populated experience, more akin to a survival horror. Seeing NPC's 'living in rapture and being caught up in the madness to wind up on your own would have been perfect. Being able to use plasmids AND a gun is hardly a ground breaking step.

    Saying that, I absolutely loved the setting of the Bioshock universe and think it's great in any medium, the story was well delivered through use of audio snippets and as such, the atmosphere was ace. I am also speculating heavily on a game that's not even out yet, so I shall reserve judgement until it's released.

    TTFN

  • MikeN #59 3 years ago

    I was hoping that for the sequel they'd deal with issues like how the wider world reacts to the plasmid technology. But instead it seems like they're trying to re-hash the original by dragging you back down to Rapture.

  • TheComedian #60 3 years ago

    "The kind of levels that we want to put you in are more about the old Warren Spector/Looking Glass dichotomy of problems rather than puzzles,"

    The single only fact that has me somewhat excted about this game. With the guy who designed Fort Frolic and The Cradle (two of the best levels ever) at the helm, it's going to take a lot to make this shit, but I kind of get the feeling it will be anyway.

  • dirigiblebill #61 3 years ago

    @ Yossarian

    I recall reading your "rant" a year or two back. Good stuff - would like to see more. Do you write regularly for any sites?

  • JeroenZM #62 3 years ago

    I'd like to see Big Daddy versus Giant Green Lantern in the next Bioshock.

  • JeremyRPS #63 3 years ago

    Cynicism is so hip. It totally makes people look smart too.

  • miiiguel #64 3 years ago

    OMG!!!! Oracle bought Sun!

  • Azazel #65 3 years ago

    @miiiguel: I kno! lulz!1

    Sunacle?

    Orasun(d bridge)?

    Will this splicing cause PL/SQL and Java to mutate together into some kind of unstoppable monster? On topic see!

  • miiiguel #66 3 years ago

    Dear Oracle would you kindly leave my Solaris alone ?

    /Googles for a DBA plasmid... or else will be out of coinzzzz.

  • Azazel #67 3 years ago

    You know I saw a copy of Atlas Shrugged in Waterstones the other day and... fuck me! It's huge! I'd need to take a week off.

  • space_ace #68 3 years ago

    interesting, yet slippery potential...

  • kangarootoo #69 3 years ago

    @Bremenacht

    "And does a fan of any game or film or book ever call it a 'brand'?"

    That is just the sort of phrase that people working in the business might use. I will frequently refer to games as "product" in certain situations. It doesn't mean that I don't care about the content, it just means I see the broader picture and know that the end result has to sell as well as be artistically valid.

    Please lets not start trying to throw up these tired them-and-us, "all they care about is the dollar", "only real fans know what is right" attitudes. The guys making Bioshock almost certainly care about making a game that is GOOD as well as saleable. Don't forget, they were all fans well before any of us had even heard of Bioshock.

  • kangarootoo #70 3 years ago

    "Cynicism is so hip. It totally makes people look smart too."

    Heehee, good work :)

  • dudefella #71 3 years ago

    Man they could not have picked a better director for this game I think, after reading this interview. He thoroughly gets it, and I hope that shines through in the final product. I remain skeptical, but not as much as before, I think this fellow can definitely follow op on Bioshock in a worthy, non cash-in way.

  • Mudo #72 3 years ago

    I hate how every game aspiring to a certain intellectual level is dismissed as pretentious by some people.
    Woe is the video game medium.
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/09 @ 19:07

  • Tuffty #73 3 years ago

    After reading this and the article in this months gamesTM, I have total faith in this team. They know what made the Bioshock great, have ideas that doesn't read like a simple rehash of the first game and look to improve in the gameplay department.

    I'm not too worried about escort missions. The gamesTM article says how the developers knows the escort missions from the 1st game were probably the least enjoyable for gamers and they're looking at a number of ways to improve upon it.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #74 3 years ago

    starbug1978:

    "Isn't it *Atlas* Shrugged?"

    As explained on the Editor's blog, I am a charlatan and an idiot. Thank you for pointing it out - I have corrected it.

    morriss:

    "Vita Chambers? Are they in the game?"

    They didn't talk to me specifically about it (and I forgot to ask, because I was too busy trying to disguise the fact I had no idea what I was doing), but I think there was something in the Game Informer piece about a similar mechanic. Go look it up - you or Pat probably have the scans, and then you can do a post on vg247 ;-)

    A lot of folks:

    "That bloody escort mission!"

    I thought that too, but the reason I didn't dwell on it too much in the text is that it wasn't possible to gauge just how much of a likeness there is between the way BS2 wants to play out and how that part of BS1 did. What I would say though is that I think there's something innate about Jordan, Zak etc.'s understanding of BS1 through and through. They get the minute significance of key things about BS1 that should buy them the right to reveal more about the game later without suspicion falling on them about that yet, in my book.

  • Nithron #75 3 years ago

    I personally reckon it'd be way more interesting to follow on from the first game's "bad ending"... But whatever.

  • Azazel #76 3 years ago

    I'm so cynical that everything is pointless.

  • fluff_the_tiger #77 3 years ago

    i don't know if I can play another game that is a rehash of the original System Shock, i dunno, the template is just too familiar now

  • Yossarian #78 3 years ago

    @ Yossarian

    I recall reading your "rant" a year or two back. Good stuff - would like to see more. Do you write regularly for any sites?

    I don't, but then I've never tried. Occasionally I get the urge to write lengthy things about stories in games and how they do and don't work. The Bioshock thing is one of the few times I've acted on that urge.

  • dirigiblebill #79 3 years ago

    What's your occupation? Literary? Academic?

    From what I can remember of it, that article wouldn't have looked out of place on Gamasutra.

  • Bremenacht #80 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    The amount of tat on shop shelves suggests that 'artistic validity' is not often a concern when making games. Where it is, it's often used as a crutch to support a weak game - making up for something lacking. Bioshock was neither. It was a unique game, presenting cohesive gameplay, story and imagery. I don't give a toss whether it's not as good as a previous game, or that it uses an unpopular gameplay mechanic at some point, or that it gives up it's secret a bit early - KOTOR did that too, and I don't recall seeing many complaints about that.

    What I do give a toss about is reading some high-brow bullshit bingo quality copy from it's developers. Maybe it's Tom's fault - he doesn't seem entirely comfortable with the article. However ignorant of Ayn Rand he claims to be, I'm sure I'm even more ignorant of her work than he his (I must be - I'm a cynic after all). Writing from this position of ignorance, the developers seem to me to already be eulogising their new development off the back of the old. That seemed arrogant to me, although Tom's recent comment has tempered my point of view.

    FEAR2 keeps springing to mind for some reason - a game critically hampered by the purity of it's predecessor.

  • Svecke #81 3 years ago

    "It is huge, but well worth a read. There's one speech that goes on for about 50 pages of tiny print, which is a bit of a challenge to stick with, but she's such a good writer that you hardly notice how long the book is for most of the time."

    ...and here's a different opinion: http://ww w.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/26/...

  • Martin85 #82 3 years ago

    @ AgentCool

    I never had that problem. On my first (and only) play through of BioShock, I was sent back to a Vita Chamber all of four or five times. I found that imaginative use of plasmids and the environment (hacking sentry bots and turrets and so forth) allowed me to tackle Big Daddies well enough. Early on it was tough, but I still usually won without dying.

  • Reihn #83 3 years ago

    @ Mugwum

    What about my closeted - corseted suggestion/correction? Or did I get that one wrong? ; )


    At any rate, the whole idea of a Bioshock sequel got off on well and truly on the wrong foot with me. When I first heard it was happening, I didn't like the idea (thinking: the first one was a completed narrative, could only be soured by further exposition etc) and then . . hearding it was subtitled 'Sea of Dreams', my opinion sunk lower. That title reminds me of nothing more than the parents' 1950s Americana school prom in Back to the Future! : ) Either that or a Mills and Boon telemovie (if such a thing exists..) I was ready to hate.

    However, reading this article, and analysing Jordan Thomas' words and intention, I'm holding out hope. Because I never felt that I didn't want to return to the world Bioshock, I just felt that I'd rather have nothing at all than have a dull, uninspired sequel. It looks like, with any luck, Bioshock 2 will be neither.

    If this can capture the darkness, the creeping, unsettling horror of the first one, improve the gameplay where possible but still really focus on the story, that would be awesome in by book. I want -more- RGP elements. It was a big downer for me that you could just pick up any weapon you found and use it. Having been a fan of SystemShock 2, a huge part of the joy of that game was that it had classes. If you went for a soldier-type, you could level up quickly to using shotguns, rifles and rocket launchers. If you were a psychic, you'd have to rely much more on pistols, however you had magic instead. Same sort of pro/con choices with going the tech route.

    Ken Levine said in an interview (on the Bioshock bonus DVD) he made a conscious design change during development of Bioshock to 'open the game up for the player, to be less restrictive' and . . well . . I didn't like it. I feel that if you force players to make choices, like by saying 'you can only choose one out of the big crazy gun and the awesome crazy plasmid', then it's more rewarding. I know if I make that choice, I'll place more value on the gun or the magic I've gone with.

    So, I guess in that way, I'd like it if Bioshock2 was more like System Shock 2. I'd like a smidge more 'RGPness' along with my shooting and storytelling. : )

  • Reihn #84 3 years ago


    Apparently, I can't stop typing today..

    Masterstroke of Bioshock 1? The audiobooks. Reading everyone's logs in Systems Shock 2 was amazing - back in 1999, I'd certainly never experienced that kind of storytelling in an FP game, and it worked so well. In Bioshock, being able to have the same experience without it stopping you or making you access a menu was better still. Listening to the mournful voice of a dead person describing their last days, while standing in their home, among their personal effects and the hard evidence that what was being described had in fact transpired, was at once harrowing, compelling and beautiful. Those audiobooks were such a huge part of the Bioshock experience, for me.

    On Bioshock 2 and Multiplayer:

    I'd really rather they focus on the single player experience, but . . . . if they're doing mutliplayer, what about a co-op mode where one person is the Big Daddy and other a Little Sister? It's a pretty obvious way to go, but executed right it could be gripping. As for competitive multi, they could do something in the vein of Fat Princess with (say) four players per team, three either big daddies/sisters and one playing a Little Sister, who has to be escorted across an area safely by either running herself or climbing onto the backs of her teammates. Maybe whoever's carrying her can use the Adam stored in her syringe? Possibilities abound. However, trying to create and balance such modes would probably just detract from the main game, and could cheapen the atmosphere a bit .. I'd likely be happier if they scrapped any idea of team multiplayer and just delivered a knockout singleplayer game. It's what sold the first one, after all!

  • Grayvern #85 3 years ago

    It could be good but withought an evil right wing bitch as counterpoint then it loses some of its hook.

    Still some people would be wise to remember that system shock 2 was far more of a traditional sequel in some ways than this one. At least this one has a differant antagonist.

    Also its EA i believe who own the liscence to the system shock brand, id trust them to make the game but not the narrative.

  • kangarootoo #86 3 years ago

    @Bremenacht

    I an as allergic to highbrow hyperbole as anyone, I was specifically leaping in to try and stop the use of the word "brand" by the developer colouring the whole discussion.

    As for whether the devs are eulogising BS1, it was a very well regarded game for the most part so I think it is fair for them to assume it was good AND therefore base the sequel in part on the things that were deemed to have worked in the first installment. They may be blowing their trumpets a little early, but as to whether it is arrogant or not.... I don't much care. Its not a personal insult aimed at any of us, so what does it matter? They are bound to want to evangelise about their new PRODUCT ;)


    @Reihn

    I pretty much agree. I got multiple playthroughs out of SS2 purely as a result of their varying character paths. BS by comparison felt pretty unvaried. In particular the weapons, which could ALL be fully upgraded if you hunted around enough (a result of the achievement system perhaps?).

    I really enjoyed BS1, but certain aspects of it weren't as deep as SS2 and for me that was a bad thing. However, for many others it would have been the right thing and we all have to recognise that the sucess and growth of gaming has changed it, not for worse but just into something else. Its always been the case, and I am sure there are people who were teens in the early who frowned on the direction games were taking circa late80s/early 90s.

  • Yossarian #87 3 years ago

    What's your occupation? Literary? Academic?

    From what I can remember of it, that article wouldn't have looked out of place on Gamasutra.

    BA in Philosophy/MA in Creative Writing, now I do freelance copywriting.


    Ken Levine said in an interview (on the Bioshock bonus DVD) he made a conscious design change during development of Bioshock to 'open the game up for the player, to be less restrictive' and . . well . . I didn't like it. I feel that if you force players to make choices, like by saying 'you can only choose one out of the big crazy gun and the awesome crazy plasmid', then it's more rewarding. I know if I make that choice, I'll place more value on the gun or the magic I've gone with.

    There's a lengthy thread on GAF at the moment about Bethesda RPGs/Fallout 3, and those of us who dislike them have attacked this kind of design philosophy as well. Most modern devs seem to be terrified of putting restrictions or limitations on the content the 'average player' will experience, and so allow their players to do everything in one playthrough, doing their best to shepherd them through any obstacles which might result in them switching the game off in frustration... which renders any purported 'choices' about character development/role-playing pretty inconsequential. I suspect this is a fairly recent trend (last five-ten years).

  • HermitArcader #88 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Reihn #89 3 years ago

    @ Vertical Stand

    Short answer: Yes.

    We're all aware the Ken's working on an unannounced project. Which is exciting, but not worth getting excited about just yet - it's gonna be a long while before we're playing his next game!

    I wonder if it'll be something with the Xcom license . . all I want is a modern remake of the original. Must. Be. Turn based. : )

    Edit But yeah - more to your point . . I suppose thats true. I should hope that the success of Bioshock, a being new, 'different' game, will have given him a lot of credibility in the eyes of the folk who make financial decisions. It's really nice that Bioshock sold so well, as often studios and publishers seem overly obsessed with "Triple A sequels'" to "proven I.P."
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/09 @ 10:40

  • TheComedian #90 3 years ago

    spekkah: After stealing and raping Rand's philosophy, I surmise that the next game will probably revolve around freeing Plato from his cave. And then they'll get lots of awards and pats on their backs for yet another philosophical masterpiece in gaming. Oh well, at least they're trying.

    By quite some way the best comment I have ever seen on EG.

  • TheComedian #91 3 years ago

    I know this has been said many, many times before; but they should have done a prequel :(

    The ONLY thing that could have supplemented Bioshock's philosophical and narrative canon is by seeing the initial demise of rapture at the hand of those turning into monsters and changing their environment to reflect their inner torment.

    Would have been awesome - the player could have been the last decent man trying to escape to a sub. I honestly can't see why they skipped over this opportunity.

  • metalangel #92 3 years ago

    NO NO NO!

    It's as if they wrote down everything that would make a good, worthy sequel to Bioshock - and then did the exact opposite. Everything I read sounds like design by sickening marketing execs (think of the TV execs from The Simpsons).

    Big Daddies are cool, yeah? But what if we made one a CHICK? Yeah, she's be, like, all sexy and fast and stuff. And you have to fight her, like, constantly, but you can't kill her until the end of the game. AWESOME!

    And Rapture, that place freakin' ROCKED, dude. Make up a whole bunch of new places for it! I don't care that absolutely no mention of them would've been made in the first game, people want more!

    This sounds like a total disaster. Constant, pointless attacks from a baddie that you won't be able to kill. Infuriating protection missions. A nonsensical plot (so a Little Sister didn't 'take' to the surface? And no mention of this was made in the ending for the first?) mixed with incredibly tenuous links to the original (so, what, we're going to somehow visit all these places that were completely disconnected from the rest of the city that we explored in the first game?) and a focus on the appalling combat instead of the exploration and discovery?

    Oh, and as for the ending... Levine is a putz if that's true. Those who played System Shock 2 will remember the complete travesty that was the ending for that, if Levine loves his games so much why does he allow it to keep happening? Oh wait, perhaps because Bioshock was nothing more than SS2 in an art deco skin, all the elements had to remain the same, including a shit ending. Yes.

  • HermitArcader #93 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Azazel #94 3 years ago

    Plus, there'll probably be another fucking WHALE in the intro.

  • Reihn #95 3 years ago

    I'd like to see another whale. Whales are badass. ; )

  • sirtacos #96 3 years ago

    A lot of people seem pissed off about this.

    I loved Bioshock. The first 3/4 of the game more than made up for its underwhelming finale. No other videogames, apart from a select handful that are firmly entrenched in my 'top 5' list, have immersed me so completely in their world right off the bat (the brilliant intro certainly helped).

    As for the sequel...

    It seems contrived, but I hope it doesn't suck. For now I'm keeping my mind open.

  • Vortex808 #97 3 years ago

    I'll be trying to keep an open mind too, i really want this to be good, but do have a few reservations after all that's been mentioned thus far.......

  • JammyPez #98 3 years ago

    What the...

    Complicated? Over-thought-out? Huh?!

  • JeremyRPS #99 3 years ago

    When a person says it seems "contrived", what are you actually meaning by that?

  • MisterCraig #100 3 years ago

    I don't like these 'protect the little sister while she does her thing' climaxes.

    They always come off frustrating if a player fails. And besides, the Big Daddy could surely just drag the body of interest to a safer spot?

    I loved Bioshock, but this isn't looking to great right now.

  • sirtacos #101 3 years ago

    I can't speak for other people who used the word, but by 'contrived' I was referring to the plot. It doesn't seem like a natural progression of the first game; it seems like a forced extension of it.
    A Little Sister returns to Rapture because she took a liking to psychotic substance abusers (probably has something to do with her dad) and prefers a crumbling submarine dystopia to the comforts of the normal world. She takes over the city somehow, etc...

    I know Bioshock's plot was ridiculous and contrived' in more ways than one, but... fuck it, we'll just wait and see.
    Edited by 1 at 24/04/09 @ 00:27

  • metalangel #102 3 years ago

    MisterCraig, I don't want to protect a little sister while she 'does her thing and climaxes' either. The Daily Mail brigade will be outside my house with torches and pitchforks.

  • Rodchenko #103 3 years ago

    As long as EG doesn't write another pathetic defence piece on why they gave it the inevitable 10/10

  • Grayvern #104 3 years ago

    Bioshock's plot wasn't ridiculous and contrived it was quite simple, philoshophy aside it was a story of identity and power.

    Also you should know that the big sister can be killed before the end of the game. Skeptics should read the Games tm article.

    + From what I understand the little sister only needs protecting during harvesting, also since you can get adam from the slugs themselves outside.

    + A return to the setting cant really be criticised my main complaint with bioshock wasn't the fact the fps and roleplaying elements were somewhat half baked, it was that such a small part of rapture was open for exploration.

    + In reality the game a marketing machine would make would be one where plasmid biomodification came to the surface.
    Edited by 2 at 25/04/09 @ 02:46

  • Gecks #105 3 years ago

    just make it better, or at least as good as system shock 2 this time, mmm?

    for one, i never quite understood why they got rid of the real-time inventory and hacking - those contributed to some of those scariest moments in SS2, but the stop-start nature of bioshock let you 'game' the system too easily (running up to turrets with no risk, swapping to the ideal weapon mid-combat with superhuman quickness, etc).

    other than that, a different plot to SS2 would be nice! i suppose with bioshock so fresh in everyone's minds, that much is almost g'teed.

  • darc #106 3 years ago

    "a return to the mixture of map-based exploration..."

    Speaking of which, will they do away with that ridiculous, incomprehensible cartoon map from the first game, with all of its arbitrary swooping arrows, etc, and replace it with something with some kind of spacial coherency? I spent much of BS1 wandering in circles, hoping to eventually find my way by chance.

    "...promising stronger FPS fundamentals"

    We can only hope. As an FPS - in terms of feel and precision - BS1 was a real disappointment IMO.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #107 3 years ago

    Hi guys. Sorry I haven't dived back into this before now. My bad.

    Reihn:

    "Ken Levine said in an interview (on the Bioshock bonus DVD) he made a conscious design change during development of Bioshock to 'open the game up for the player, to be less restrictive' and . . well . . I didn't like it. I feel that if you force players to make choices, like by saying 'you can only choose one out of the big crazy gun and the awesome crazy plasmid', then it's more rewarding. I know if I make that choice, I'll place more value on the gun or the magic I've gone with."

    I think, then, that you'll be disappointed. Admittedly, nobody at 2K told me they don't plan to restrict players based on their choices, but the feeling I got from the discussion (especially with JP LeBreton here: http://ww w.eurogamer.net/articles/the-bi... was that this will be inclusive on that level. My interpretation was that they want to make a significant, thoughtful game, but they want to avoid frustrating players through overt (or, indeed, invisible) restriction in gameplay choices. I suspect there will be a degree of restriction, but probably only as much as there was in BioShock - i.e. do you spend ADAM on *this* or on *this*.

    Yossarian:

    "Most modern devs seem to be terrified of putting restrictions or limitations on the content the 'average player' will experience, and so allow their players to do *everything* in one playthrough, doing their best to shepherd them through any obstacles which might result in them switching the game off in frustration... which renders any purported 'choices' about character development/role-playing pretty inconsequential. I suspect this is a fairly recent trend (last five-ten years)."

    Admittedly, I've not "done" Fallout 3 yet to that degree (and it feels like a "done";), but it's interesting to hear that you felt restricted by it. I can only suggest - based on the 10 hours of FO3 I've played and my three completions of BioShock 1 - that you'll feel the same way, although I'd question whether it condemns BioShock outright, as I felt - as somebody who bought the special edition at launch - that I got value for money. It may be a relative value vs. gameplay depth thing I guess.

    The Comedian:

    "The ONLY thing that could have supplemented Bioshock's philosophical and narrative canon is by seeing the initial demise of Rapture at the hand of those turning into monsters and changing their environment to reflect their inner torment."

    Well, The Comedian would say that - he died on page one :-) But seriously, while I understand the point, I don't think the way BioShock 1 played out excludes the setting from subsequent contemplation (look at The Godfather, for instance). It's not an obvious way to go with it, but if anything it's interesting and ambitious - I mean, many of the rules were set for a prequel, assuming it was in Rapture. Going *after* is tabula rasa, and a bit scarier. Kudos for trying, no?

    metalangel:
    I get that. That's how I felt going over to see it. And even in light of what they showed off of the actual game, I had massive doubts too, and still do. The thing is - and the most important thing is - these guys inhabited the original game as we did. They adored it and then got to choose how to build upon it. For all our doubts and horror at the idea of a sequel, what they've *said* now (mainly) deserves the benefit of the doubt. Ultimately, we'll know a lot more by the time it ships - enough to make a buy decision - and I don't think you could disguise a poor BioShock sequel to that point. Do you?

    sirtacos:

    "I can't speak for other people who used the word, but by 'contrived' I was referring to the plot. It doesn't seem like a natural progression of the first game; it seems like a forced extension of it."

    To bring up The Godfather again, wasn't Part II contrived? All that Cuban stuff, mostly? Fredo? Or the De Niro origin story! Of course it all fits in hindsight, because it fits in hindsight (and, er, there were books - oops). BioShock 2 may not fit (we'll see), but the key point, as I said to metalangel, is that for now there's nothing to suggest it can't. There's the superficial "big daddy boobies lol" view, but that seems a bit shallow next to the depth of their commentary at this early stage, and it wasn't the way the Big Sister was designed. Benefit of the doubt for now, I reckon.

    Actually, it's something Rob Fahey (formerly of these parts) and I disagree on *enormously*. He can't accept episodic stories if the designers don't know where they're going. For me, sometimes the best stories emerge from experimentation - even with the Stephen King "On Writing" thing of 'just start and see where it goes'. With this, it's somewhere in-between. They had a finished thing, BioShock 1, then they got to work out how to continue it. They did. The cool thing is that they also clearly worked out the whole thing before they started actually making it - and that would not least have been informed by the difficulties Ken Levine and others had completing BioShock at the 11th hour.

    Rodchenko:

    "As long as EG doesn't write another pathetic defence piece on why they gave it the inevitable 10/10"

    It should be pointed out that, as a fan of the first game, I commissioned that, and edited it (you know, a little). It's entirely my fault. If it offended you, blame me, and hate me. Kieron just did what I asked. As Harvey Smith once said, I believe in accountability. It wasn't so much to defend a 10 as to address a growing backlash that I felt was miscalculated.

    That said, I love BioShock, and would have given it 10. Kristan (then editor) reviewed it differently to the way I would have done, but we disagreed less on BioShock than on a lot of stuff we did in those years. There's a lot of things I would have written against it, but in this world of videogames, they settle into grooves that run off the first one's general superiority, and BioShock was superior to a degree beyond the majority that year. It still makes me happy to think about the time I spent playing it, and that's why I went to see the sequel in the first place.

  • Bremenacht #108 3 years ago

    Worth bumping this in case the posters referenced missed the reply.

    Re Episodic - Mugwum, are you saying that Bioshock will become Episodic?