BioShock 2 Released 209
BioShock 2 launched today for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows, ending the wait for a sequel to the original 2007 blockbuster. The events in BioShock 2 take place 10 years after the story from the original game. This time around, players control a prototype Big Daddy in an attempt to overthrow the new leader of Rapture. Early reviews for the game are quite strong, though the developers were prepared for fan backlash over some of the changes they made. The Guardian's Nicky Woolf praises the new storyline, and adds that "there is a fundamentally excellent shooter here too, with some of the best combat dynamics in the business." Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Alec Meer also had good things to say about the combat: "I can't stress this enough – as a game about shooting people, it's very responsive and very rewarding." However, Meer expressed disappointment that some of the impressive new concept art didn't get used and that the story and environment couldn't match the novelty of the original game. "Part of Rapture's great wonder was that it was just believable enough, if you squinted your brain a bit (or a lot), but this lathers on so much wild sci-fi that it's much harder to connect to it. The Sisters are elevated from horrifying genetic/psychological experiment into all-powerful messiah figures capable of pulling any old deus ex machina out of the hat. Making them into so much reduces the power and the sadness of what they are. As a result, the concept feels too exhausted to ever be used again."
DRM? (Score:3, Interesting)
What kind of DRM does the PC version have?
I never bought the first game, due to the draconian DRM. By the time it was eased, there were so many other great games on my list to purchase and play that I never got back around to Bioshock. The end result: They lost my business.
Re:Ending the wait? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or half-life, Doom, Quake, or...
I'm still skeptical though. The original bioshock didnt even keep the same mouse sensitivity through level loads/changes, that's a pretty fundamental problem.
Metacritic alone is proof that "reviews" don't mean anything about the quality of a game, just look at Far Cry 2: The "professional" rating is near perfect and the aggregade of ~500+ user ratings is pretty much the opposite.
What's new? (Score:3, Interesting)
I really enjoyed the first game. It had a lot of new elements thrown into it. Far from being a straight-up shooter, there was quite a bit of exploration required. Some areas reminded me of Thief for the PC. I liked the options to "level up" your character, and the moral choice to harvest / not to harvest the Little Sisters. (Although I didn't realize that it was all-or-nothing with that, so while I only harvested 1 Little Sister [the first one] I got the "bad" ending.)
Graphically, the first game felt a little dated, even at launch. But it was a great example of what a great story and plot arc can do to overcome graphics.
That said, I'm not looking forward to the sequel at all. I'm going to skip this one. Meer reflects the same thoughts I had when I first learned of a Bioshock 2: "Part of Rapture's great wonder was that it was just believable enough, if you squinted your brain a bit (or a lot), but this lathers on so much wild sci-fi that it's much harder to connect to it."
I don't think the follow-up will hold up. Part of that is that too many gamers (like me) would keep comparing a sequel to an original game that was (in many ways) groundbreaking. And it's awfully hard to live up to that.
Re:DRM? (Score:1, Interesting)
Why is he getting buried? This is a good question and the one thing I really want to know. I personally won't support stupid DRM scheme's and generally wait till I hear good/bad things and buy or pass on the game then.
Flamebait? Wanting to know what DRM a new release has? Seriously?
Re:Ending the wait? (Score:2, Interesting)
Final Fantasy: Dirge of Cerebrus got bad reviews just because the fanboys were expecting the same old shit. I thought a Final Fantasy FPS was a welcome departure for the series, and it was very well done for an afterthought.
Re:Immersion (Score:4, Interesting)
>I'm a little bit afraid of the person who thought Bioshock was "believable".
Dunno, obviously the fantastic elements are ridiculous, but there's no shortage of Randians and other nutters looking for some kind of new floating society. The last time I heard about this nuttiness was "The Freedom Ship," kinda a libertarian/randian/right-wing fantasy about living on the seas tax-free (ignoring the massive ship assessment fee of course!). I think its 100% believable to think that fanatics would attempt to try to start their own little society or compound. Religious types seem to do it all the time.
Re:What's new? (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess I'm one of the critics to ignore (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ending the wait? (Score:4, Interesting)
Where they were going... (Score:1, Interesting)
They were going somewhere subtle and then all of the sudden you have no choices (despite supposedly the game being about choice) ...
To me it seemed obvious the game was about the illusion of free will, serving as a rather well-executed illustration of determinism. Given that video games do have the power to completely control our actions within them, its message was uniquely suited to its medium.
Re:Whine all you want, it's still an awesome game (Score:4, Interesting)
Screw the critics. I love BioShock. The storyline, the drama, the graphics, the subtle all-pervading insanity.
How are deformed mask wearing cannibals subtle? Seems pretty obvious the level of insainty.
"Ooh, the concept appears unbalanced." ... "Waah, it's not as believable as the original." ... You know what? Put down the MacBook and the horn-rimmed glasses, back away from the Frappuccino, slowly, and STFU with all the art-school metaphysical crap.
I fail to see what a Mac Book, coffee products, or the rest of that bigotry has to do with the game.
The original kicked ass, pure and simple. How many other games offer that combination of determination and sadness, beautiful scenery and horrifying monsters, fast action and beautiful cutscenes?
99% of most games. I can't think of a Final Fantasy game for instance that didn't provide everything you just mentioned.
The environments, the puzzles, the music and sound effects - BioShock created an amazing world to rival Alice and Firefly, and engaged the player immediately and completely. Enough plot twists to make M. Night Shyamalan green with envy, culminating with finding out the truth about the voice on the radio, and the awesome "Man Vs Slave" cutscene.
The story is basic and most saw the double cross in the first 5 minutes. Atlas was far too much in the know to be as benign has he claimed to be.
The scenery is standard 30,40,50 thematics used in Fallout and a variety of other post-apocalyptic settings shooting for a Film Noir feel (see Dark City as a good example of the reuse of that era for effect.) I kept waiting for a Pip Boy ad.
The graphical elements were further more a re-use of Jules Vern crap and the Little Sister could be either The Stepford Wives or Village of the Damn. Take your pick. Both rather one dimensional.
The time line is inconsistent with more anacronisms within it's own lore is was barely tolerable.
The degeneration of the Plasmid users was nothing more then a set piece of zombie fantasy. The quickest and CHEAPEST way in a story to detach from conventional society is to use "The Zombie" be it fast running cannibals (28 Days) to the slow lumbering doomwalkers (Night of the Living Dead) they are cheap tools used to remove conventional society (almost as cheap as a nuclear apocalypse) from the world. Add in some uncanny valley-like responses from the audience by keeping them semi-human (rather then 80% rotting we want to unnerve the audience by keeping them 'fresh') for cheap effects.
The character development was non-existent save for a single woman pining over the leader described through audio tapes. Hell Borderlands had twice the character development with just the Tannis character alone.
Don't know about the critics, but I personally have enough faith in the sequel to have pre-ordered it. Especially considering all the bonus stuff that's included. :D
Sadly video games have come a long way in the ability to tell a story... but they have a long way to go. Enjoy it for what it is, a game. It is far from literature that people will be reading\playing in a 100 years...
Re:DRM? (Score:1, Interesting)
I also agree... PC gaming is dying because many PC gamers will simply refuse to buy something or even try it if it has terrible/any DRM on it. I know it has caused me to not consider buying many games that I had once hoped to buy and in some cases that I was really looking forward to.
I'm sure Spore would have sold a heck of a lot more if it didn't have the DRM that it had. I'm sure there are MANY other games out there who would have had a net increase in sales if they hadn't included any DRM.
Re:Ending the wait? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh crap, don't remind me of Lost in Translation. After hearing so much about it I rented it and watched it with the family. We all agreed that it was a terrible movie.
Professional reviewers seem to review more on polish than actual fun. My favourite examples here are MaBoShi's Arcade (WiiWare) and Earth Defense Force 2017 (Xbox 360). MaBoShi is extremely polished. Really to an insane degree, you can even download it to your DS and play on the go. The only downside is... the core gameplay is uninteresting. Most people got bored by the game. EDF on the other hand is extremely unpolished and that's because all that polish money went into more missions and weapons and whatnot, the game's crazy awesome fun but the lack of polish makes critics call it a "guilty pleasure". While they admit it's fun they won't rate it highly because it just doesn't look expensive. That's the reason I'm already ignoring Famitsu's review of the next game by the developer (Zangeki no Reginleiv, Wii), their main complaint was a lack of polish.
The polish demand also leads to a continuation of the industrialization of gaming. Polish is expensive and the shinier you make it the more expensive it becomes. Today's "AAA" (maximum polish) games cost tens of millions of dollars to make while their core gameplay isn't anything outstanding. This keeps indie developers from competing with large publishers on even footing since the large company can throw more money at polish and thus get a default victory in the ratings. Indie developers get pushed into side markets like digital distribution where they serve as a cute novelty people look at between "real" games. The big publishers love high end graphics on game systems for that reason, they increase the maximum polish a game can have and thus widen the gap between an indie and a major publisher even more. Some suspect that this is the reason major publishers fight tooth and nail against this whole blue ocean and disruption deal that's going around since it nullifies their large company advantages and prevents them from getting a default victory against indies, without that default victory they risk losing against tiny companies because the values that are being competed over are no longer out of reach for an indie.
Re:DRM? (Score:2, Interesting)
That and unlike Steam you can't even tell Windows Live to download the patch while you browse the net or something, you have to start the game and stare at the progress bar that won't tell you how much time is left, if you alt-tab away it halts the download.
Re:Ending the wait? (Score:4, Interesting)
It would have been more interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
...if they had allowed you to play as a Little Sister, the target of every Splicer, crawling through the ducts for safe transit, popping out here or there to try and drain some Adam from a corpse, scampering around various Big Daddy's for protection (or deliberately drawing enemies to Big Daddys to get them killed), perhaps being able to set traps or sabotage things.
I suppose a scenario like that would've made the game more puzzle-like rather than a shooter, but I think it still would've been pretty interesting to play.
Re:Guess I'm one of the critics to ignore (Score:3, Interesting)
If you like FPS games I strongly recommend you try STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, if you haven't.
It didn't get a whole lot of press, but it's one of the best single player non-Valve FPS games to come out in--oh, years probably.
No console version, PC only, which probably helped. It's (sorely needed) proof that the genre isn't completely worn out.
It's available on Steam. Should be super cheap by now.
Re:DRM? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a sad day when you have to turn to the "illegal" venues to actually get accurate information about the DRM of a game you might have bought.