Bioshock 2: Not What You Expected, but Still Pretty Good

[Otogi]

So, Bioshock 2 is out, and surprised/impressed there isn't a thread for it yet, or one that hasn't been updated recently. Regardless, I wanted to know what you guys think about this game.

For me, (like so many other games) it's one word: exaggerated. In more than one sense, to boot, but unfortunately, that's a double-edged sword.

Everything in the game is bigger; the city, the amount of enemies, some enemies, the protagonist, the weapons, the graphics, the way you travel, the emotional (yet subtle) moments and the fun factor. Even the Little Sisters seem a little taller. And it's odd, because even though the first game's story and character conflict was one of it's main strength, it's not as big here. The atmosphere is still high without being a pain in the ass, but is undercut by the fact that you're a Big Daddy and the power you get, so it more or less stays the same.

If you haven't played the game, but plan on the getting it, I recommend you don't trust the trailers and leave it that. But if you really wanna know
While it looked like the plot was you work with Tenenbaum to rescue all the from a super-powerful Big Sister, who you'd think would be the main antagonist or at least The Dragon and fight multiple times, while that is what happens, the story is completely different. You see Tenebaum exactly once in the beginning, and while Big Sister is boss' dragon (or should I say dragons, since there's more than one) she leaves less than an impact than you'd think. Ultimately, kinda disappointing by how they hyped her.

But, otherwise, to me it was a good game, just not what I really expected. You guys?

[Dixieboy]

Tenenbaums lack of presence confused me a bit, as she explicitly mentioned being able to monitor everything you did.

Am I the only one who doesn't think Lambs philosophy made too much sense by the end? (Her reason for not being around during the events of bioshock 1 also made zero sense to me.)

[Lord of Rapture]

I'm already kinda put off because I heard the main antagonist is basically a huge ***hole fanatic throughout the whole game. Andrew Ryan and Atlas were both great because they had believable, human reasons for being petty, selfish bastards who brought Rapture to ruin, if not at all sympathetic. Lamb, on the other hand? Sounds more like a caricature rather than an actual character. :smallyuk:

[Calemyr]

This is how the plot goes in my book.

1) Social unrest forces Ryan to accept a psychologist into Rapture. They pick Sophia Lamb because her work seems to fit the objectivist mindset best. In fact, she's a collectivist.

2) Sophia decides to prove her case with a child, Eleanor. Of course, Sophia is too busy and arrogant to carry or birth the girl herself, so she gets a surogate to do that. She then procedes to brainwash the child, creating some funny ideas in the girl's head about human-like canibalistic dogs.

3) Sophia gets arrested, arranges for Grace Halloway to take care of the kid in her absence. In the new environment, she takes an interest in Stanley, who assumes the child can tell he's a fraud. Stanley panics and sells Eleanor to Fontaine's orphanages, where she's pulled into the Little Sister project.

4) Some diver popularly referred to as "Johnny Topside" finds Rapture by accident. Assuming the outsider is a spy, Ryan panics and orders Stanley to sell Johnny Topside to Sinclair, who in turn sells him to Fontaine for his experiments.

5) Eleanor Lamb and Johnny Topside are used in the first successful bonded pairs. The two continue to operate in drug-addled synergy until Sophia gets out of jail.

6) On the night of Atlas's rebellion, Sophia arranges a splicer attack on Eleanor to draw Johnny (now Subject Delta) out. She uses a Hypnotize Big Daddy plasmid to neutralize him and force him to kill himself as Eleanor watches in horror.

7) Bioshock happens. Ryan and Atlas are killed, Tannenbaum leaves, and Sophia gains access to the the Little Sisters. Sophia learns that elements of the people who the Adam is harvested from remain in the Adam itself, and decides to try to create a "Utopian" or "perfect being", possessed of all the talents of all the best society has to offer - namely, the population of Rapture.

8) Her first experiment fails when Gil Alexander begins to become mentally unstable, eventually devolving into Alexander the Great. Realizing that the Little Sisters are immune to the psychotic effects of Adam, Sophia decides to return to her original goal, using her still transformed daughter as the basis for a true "Utopian". Unfortunately, the aging little sisters aren't enough to gather all the Adam in the city, so she arranges them to go out and kidnap girls from the coasts to supplement their numbers. Tennenbaum learns of this and hurries back to Rapture to stop her sins from getting any larger.

Late game:

9) Eleanor is designed to have no ego, but secretly feels a deep-seeded need to possess one. She uses her ability to possess little sisters to find Delta's body, steal a blood sample, and program it into the Vita Chamber. She succeeds at the beginning of the game and Delta is resurrected for the first time in ten years. She then proceeds to use her possession ability to steal plasmids and items to deliver covertly to Delta.

10) Over the course of the game, Eleanor uses Delta to provide her with the ego she desperately lacks. Delta's actions determine who she becomes.

11) After Delta frees Eleanor and Eleanor returns the favor, the two seek to escape the city. As they attempt to escape, howeve, Delta's body continues to shut down. By the time they complete their escape, Delta collapses on the vessel after seeing Eleanor's ultimate expression of her newfound ego. Unwilling to let her father go, she personally drains his Adam and incorporates it into her to serve as her conscience and guiding light.

12) Shake in your boots, world. The first Utopian has arrived on the surface and she has the ego of her big daddy guiding her!

[Dixieboy]

Where do you get surrogate mother?
I didn't collect all the audio diaries, so maybe it was stated there.

[Calemyr]

A message very early in the game (pre-incinerate) from Sophia says something to the equivalent of "Of course I didn't carry her, why should *I* suffer for the fickle bias of nature?" There are, of course, a few ways to read the remark, such as a test-tube baby, but in that case it wouldn't be any more hers than it was Delta's, besides which she brags about the girl's intelligence as if they shared some genetics. On the other hand, that's assuming she uses the same logic I do and that's clearly not the case... So it's just Occam's Razor at work.

[onasuma]

A question Ive been wondering about for those who've played the game:

Is killing Alex the Great the morally good or morally evil option? Its been annoying me, because I cant work out what the developers decided for it. He asked to be killed while sane, so surely that should be the moral option, but then he begs for his life and its just confusing.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Personally, I found the multiplayer component to be absolute garbage.
Too hard to kill people, and it gives a huge bonus to those who are higher level.

[Calemyr]

A question Ive been wondering about for those who've played the game:

Is killing Alex the Great the morally good or morally evil option? Its been annoying me, because I cant work out what the developers decided for it. He asked to be killed while sane, so surely that should be the moral option, but then he begs for his life and its just confusing.

After sparing Grace and Stanley, I killed Gil, mostly because I felt I owed it to the guy. It's one of those rare situations where killing is an act of mercy while sparing him feels sadistic. I think I got the good ending (Eleanor learned mercy), but I don't know what the other two endings are.

[Hardcore]

I am playing it now on Hard difficulty setting. It is nice like the first BS but I am a bit annoyed by all the ammo and stuff lying around everywhere. Rather than enjoy the scenes and ambience I am too busy go looking for stuff.

[Inhuman Bot]

I liked the first Bioshock more, actually, but it's still a great game.

I like the multiplayer too, which surprised me.

[onasuma]

There are 6 endings:

1) Save sisters + spare NPCs = Elenor works with sisters to boil off water and saves her mother.
2) Save sisters + kill NPCs = Elenor works with sisters to boil off water and saves kills her mother.
3) Save some, kill some + spare NPCs = Elenor kills the sisters to get the adam and then regrets it and saves her mother before she goes all emo on us. You also die. Its a sad ending.
4) Save some, kill some + kill NPCs = Elenor kills the sisters to get the adam and then regrets it and kills her mother before she goes all emo on us. You also die. Its another sad ending.
5) Kill sisters + spare NPCs = Elenor kills all the little sisters for adam and says its just survival. She saves her mother for some reason and then kills you and takes your adam.
6) Kill sisters + spare NPCs = Elenor kills all the little sisters for adam and says its just survival. She then kills her mother and then kills you and takes your adam.

In 1,2,5 and 6 you live through it all, inside elenor "wispering from her sholder." In 3 and 4 you refuse to let her preserve you, ashamed of what you have done.

[Dixieboy]

After sparing Grace and Stanley, I killed Gil, mostly because I felt I owed it to the guy. It's one of those rare situations where killing is an act of mercy while sparing him feels sadistic. I think I got the good ending (Eleanor learned mercy), but I don't know what the other two endings are.

You only have to save one for her to learn mercy, be that Grace or Alex the blob.
I personally killed him because that's what Alexander wanted, and he was a rather dangerous "individual".

[Comet]

Whoah, we can't have this thread resting in peace, now can we? Bumping time!

Finished the game just now. The last couple hours or so were fantastic. I played as a drill-only merciful saviour and I can only say that the finale was so full of hot-blooded rebellious fighting spirit, heroism and courage that I couldn't stop grinning like a fool even after the credits had rolled.
Considering the poor ending that the first game had, this one was absolutely epic. I really can't remember any recent FPS games that had me on the edge of my seat in such a way.

Also, drills are a man's romance. God, I loved my freezedrill. Shatter, enemies! Shatter!

So yeah. In my opinion this one was way more satisfying than the first one, even if some of the mystique and mind-bending plot twisting was absent.

[Mewtarthio]

Freeze drill? How does that work?

[Pie Guy]

Freeze drill? How does that work?

Same way everything else does, magic.

[The Rose Dragon]

Same way everything else does, magic.

Not just any magic. SCIENCE! magic.

[Somebloke]

I liked quite a lot:

I liked the lack of a complete twist like the first one- nothing really would have compared, and I think they knew that too. This is especially true for Sinclair- I would have stopped the game had he turned around and betrayed you. I loved the way that plasmid use could be a lot more creative this time around, and the fights with the alphas. I got the good ending, and was suitably heartbroken. Above all though....best 'Bring your Daughter to Work Day'. Ever. I went from vaguely disliking the character with her pseudo-british schoolgirl accent to being filled with pride.

I have to say though...the repetititve harvest fights and the discovery that the mysterious big sisters were just another elite mookwas a real downer. There also isn't really a level I could point to that really matched up with the medical facility or Fort Frolic in no. 1.

[Optimystik]

Obligatory Yahtzee (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1494-BioShock-2)

I definitely agree with him - escorting the little sisters was the worst part of the first game... and now they stretched that one bad sequence out to the entire game. ARGH!

[onasuma]

I actually enjoyed many of the harvest sections, planning out how I can defend, hacking all the machines around, setting out exploding traps then sitting back and watching. Then again, my build was about not fighting, I was there for the spectacle.

[Somebloke]

Obligatory Yahtzee (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1494-BioShock-2)

I definitely agree with him - escorting the little sisters was the worst part of the first game... and now they stretched that one bad sequence out to the entire game. ARGH!

I loved the game, and that was still bloody amusing.

[Comet]

I loved the game, and that was still bloody amusing.

Yeah, that was one of the freshest reviews he has done in a long time.

As for the part about how letting the player be a Big Daddy is a silly marketing trick... When I saw the concept art teasers for the first game, I fully expected that the bloke in the big-ass diving suit was going to be me. At least the second game managed to deliver on that :smalltongue:

Still debating whether or not I should have another playthrough with this game. Probably not, at least in the near future. Maybe later, when I have nothing else to play. I still haven't tested out all the clever weapon/plasmid combos.

[The Rose Dragon]

Plasmid / weapon combinations? No, no. There are plasmids. There is a drill. All of the combinations involves hampering your foe in some way then drilling the crap out of him.

Hail to the mighty drill! It is truly a man's romance!

[Comet]

Plasmid / weapon combinations? No, no. There are plasmids. There is a drill. All of the combinations involves hampering your foe in some way then drilling the crap out of him.

Hail to the mighty drill! It is truly a man's romance!

Setting a foe on fire with my burning passion, then drilling into him with the power of winter until he shatters into a hundred pieces? That's how I beat the game the first time :smallwink:
The 'drill specialist' tonic was a really nice gift from the developers, I thought.

Then again, you can modify your harpoon gun to put a spin on the projectiles it fires. In which case you would practically be firing miniature drills out of that thing. Certainly something to think about.

On a nearly unrelated note (heavy endgame spoilers):
I had been using the incinerate plasmid combined with a drill practically the whole game. Imagine my surprise, then, when Eleanor first bursts into the room to fight by your side.
She was wielding a piercing weapon on her arm. And shot fire out of the other.
I was so proud :smallbiggrin:

[Somebloke]

Setting a foe on fire with my burning passion, then drilling into him with the power of winter until he shatters into a hundred pieces? That's how I beat the game the first time :smallwink:
The 'drill specialist' tonic was a really nice gift from the developers, I thought.

Then again, you can modify your harpoon gun to put a spin on the projectiles it fires. In which case you would practically be firing miniature drills out of that thing. Certainly something to think about.

On a nearly unrelated note (heavy endgame spoilers):
I had been using the incinerate plasmid combined with a drill practically the whole game. Imagine my surprise, then, when Eleanor first bursts into the room to fight by your side.
She was wielding a piercing weapon on her arm. And shot fire out of the other.
I was so proud :smallbiggrin:

So long as the trap rivets remain, I will be happy.

Every time in a harvest fight I heard the *tink tink* *whoosh* *eeeeeeyyyaaaaaaaa* combination I giggled like a schoolgirl on crack.

[Hann]

I personally loved this game to death. I identified with Subject Delta much more than Jack in the first game, and even though it was shorter, the story was much more satisfying, especially the ending. I cried manly tears.

The drill dash is officially the best thing ever.

I was expecting some kind of twist The twist being that there isn't one but it was still great.

I do however think that Sofia Lamb was a less than stellar antagonist. Also there weren't as many entertainingly insane people such as Steinman or Cohen. Sinclair and Alex the great were fantastic though.

As for multiplayer, I think they did a good job. It starts out a little slow, but once you unlock enough stuff it gets pretty fun. My personal favorite loadout was the shotgun, the crossbow with Rate-of-Fire upgrade, Winter Blast, Telekinesis, and my fave tonics were the one that lets you jump super high and the one that makes your body explode.

[The Rose Dragon]

I find it interesting that a certain gaming magazine gave the sound / music of Bioshock 2 7 out of 5 stars.

Yes, Bioshock sounds so great that it scores 140% at excellence.