brandonh83
Banned
Cep said:
Well, it is. I guess when I say emotional I mean, heartfelt/sad but obviously that's trying to give the term a more specific reason and that's wrong of me. Still, I guess I had stronger emotions in the second game.
-
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BioShock 2 |OT| of Big Sisters, Delta Daddies, and Creepy Uncles
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
Well, it is. I guess when I say emotional I mean, heartfelt/sad but obviously that's trying to give the term a more specific reason and that's wrong of me. Still, I guess I had stronger emotions in the second game.
Son of Godzilla
Banned
Whole game was fantastic and left me very satisfied. Downright impressed actually, especially since before I played it this seemed like the dumbest idea ever (Their retarded "HAY NOW U PLAY AS A BIG DADDY AND THERE R BIG SISTERS" pr didn't help *at all* either).
The narrative is sooo much better done than the original, to the point that Bioshock feels like it could have worked as this game's prologue and that would have been fine. Also this ending didn't scar me for life like Tenenbaum's awful shit.
The narrative is sooo much better done than the original, to the point that Bioshock feels like it could have worked as this game's prologue and that would have been fine. Also this ending didn't scar me for life like Tenenbaum's awful shit.
Majima Everywhere System
Member
I beat the game this weekend between Saturday Night and Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to not let my rushed play through affect my feelings about it. Overall it was pretty good.
I think I'll be the opposite of most people and say the first half of it is better. The game definately does its own thing in the last 1/3rd, but I rather it didn't. It is the most interesting when they give you an area of rapture with a theme, and a boss that rules over that area. You explore that area to see the sights and unravel just who this boss character is.
Stuff like
was excellent. The whole game felt like it was some sort of really expensive water ride for first 2/3rds of it, and it was truly something to behold. By the end you were in
Still it's a great game. The amount of detail in the environment is super-impressive
.
I think I'll be the opposite of most people and say the first half of it is better. The game definately does its own thing in the last 1/3rd, but I rather it didn't. It is the most interesting when they give you an area of rapture with a theme, and a boss that rules over that area. You explore that area to see the sights and unravel just who this boss character is.
Stuff like
Journey to the Surface
generic dilapidated FPS land. You get to visit such exciting locations as holding cells, medical bays, and power stations. There is no real purpose to the layout. You need to collect little sisters at the end, so they just make half of the level an orphanage.
Still it's a great game. The amount of detail in the environment is super-impressive
.
funkmastergeneral
Banned
Will I be ok, Adamwise, if I don't do the little sister protecting missions? I'm not having fun with those at all and I seem to be eating through most of my healthpacks during them.
I had more than enough Adam to upgrade the plasmids I used most often (Electricity, Traps, Winter Freeze) and buy all of the plasmids + slots + health upgrades. I'm sure if you don't do them you'll be fine.funkmastergeneral said:
Or if you want to make them more fun, use your Trap plasmid + the Trap ammo for your guns + hack some security for yourself and find somewhere nice to hide
Hey guys, I just released a Bioshock 2 Reference Guide app for iPhone and iPod Touch. It's called 'BS2: Reference Guide' by Shlice Ideas. It's pretty cool, has character bios, all plasmids, tonics, their locations, achievements, research bonuses, weapons and their upgrades, etc.
It's only $.99 but here are some codes to get it for free. And if you have the time please just give it a good review, thanks.
J6JK96LNYKA9
LTKTWYXRWRET
HMEXFHFWAYHH
FRTAK679J3F7
ELAYTHARR7RJ
93TF3KNM9FXJ
PW33FEW6JKAW
M6R3XY377XJL
RYHHR3AM3P93
It's only $.99 but here are some codes to get it for free. And if you have the time please just give it a good review, thanks.
J6JK96LNYKA9
LTKTWYXRWRET
HMEXFHFWAYHH
FRTAK679J3F7
ELAYTHARR7RJ
93TF3KNM9FXJ
PW33FEW6JKAW
M6R3XY377XJL
RYHHR3AM3P93
BobTheFork
Member
WOOT my Splicers Unite canister came in today. I thought was very funny that whomever sent it put my user name under my real name....and spelled it wrong lol. So it says 'BobTheForek" on the package. Here's what it looked like, I cool t-shirt and a 'wings plasmid'
Thanks for the contest, this going to my awesome free game swag pile.
Thanks for the contest, this going to my awesome free game swag pile.
Majima Everywhere System
Member
funkmastergeneral said:
Easy Mode for sister sequences (plasmid recommendation):
Using Hypnotize level 3. I would rarely have to use a health pack. The NPCs would fight each other and leave the girl alone. If they didn't have an NPC to fight, they would turn their guns to you and not the girl. Those sister sequences went from being the most exhausting thing in the game to easy. It doesn't work so well in the final level with sisters because of an extra enemy they throw into the mix. Just kill him first and hypnotize away.
Nostalgic Nightmare
Member
I'm trying to finish the game right now, PS3 port, loved the first game, absolutely loved it.
What's bothering me is that while it feels like more of that same world, that same level of quality, it feels well, the same. That should not be a bad thing based on how I loved the first game, but for some reason, I find myself wanting to just finish this thing already. It feels very linear and seems as if most of the time, I'm just rummaging through everything looting more than anything. I hope it gets better in the later stages, maybe my tastes are changing, I don't know. As always the art and music are fantastic, I just feel like while the first trip to rapture felt isolated, this one is even more so, to the point that it doesn't have the charm of the first.
What's bothering me is that while it feels like more of that same world, that same level of quality, it feels well, the same. That should not be a bad thing based on how I loved the first game, but for some reason, I find myself wanting to just finish this thing already. It feels very linear and seems as if most of the time, I'm just rummaging through everything looting more than anything. I hope it gets better in the later stages, maybe my tastes are changing, I don't know. As always the art and music are fantastic, I just feel like while the first trip to rapture felt isolated, this one is even more so, to the point that it doesn't have the charm of the first.
Nostalgic Nightmare said:
I felt that way at the end of the first game. The dragged out ending made me want it to end. I feel like this game was all in all more of the same stuff as the first game, nothing new or imaginitive. And nothing that made you say "Wow."
Every level for me was:
1. Load up and max out all your health, ammo, eve, etc.
2. Here comes big daddy battle, use everything.
3. Load up and max out all your health, ammo, eve, etc.
4. Here comes big sister battle, use everything.
Rinse and repeat.
There is no penalty for dying. When I would go to hack something and fail and here comes security, I would just let them kill me. I"m not gonna waste eve and health fighting flying security bots. I'll just die, no reason not to.
Again, it was fun setting up traps and proximity mines during eve collection battles. But even then, why waste your time. If you die, oh well, your little sister will be waiting for you when u get outta the vital chamber and you can start over.
My other gripe. Hypnotize 3 is too dominant. The entire last two levels I would just hypnotize 3 the first alpha series i saw. He would run with me the entire time. And the last battle was a joke. Big sister, alpha series, brute splicer all on my side thanks to hypnotize 3.
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
NJ x Falkor said:
I felt that way with the first game, not so much the second (but still a bit) :/
Anyhoo, went through a second time on Hard (for the acheevs partly
), surprisingly not as hard as i thought, only dieng once because i was distracted from using a health kit by someone in the room :lol Winter Blast 3 + Fully upgraded grenade launcher is far too much gratuitous fun. All acheevs obtained too I also think this time round i noticed the "oily" look people mentioned about the game running in DX10. I noticed in
Fontaine Futuristics, the part where your on stage being attacked, the metal all around you was very wierdly coloured, as was many guns depending on the light. Strange....
Still a far better game than most stuff out there imo. Its fun to be able to have a long list of guns/plasmids old school PC style, even saving the game was felt classic
I went through the game twice. The first time I did all the gathering quests for every little sister and then saved them, and the second time I just harvested all the sisters right after killing the big daddy (so no gathering at all). In both cases I was able to buy all the plasmid and tonic slots, and all the plasmids and tonics that I really needed. So yeah, you can probably avoid doing any gathering without missing out on much (especially if you don't play on hard).
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
a new game + feature would have been amazing
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Ending question:
Here's mahhhh review:
All in all I thought the game was a step back from BioShock. Many of the plot elements seemed pretty absurd to me. Setting aside the literally hundreds of occasions where I found myself frustrated that none of the plot elements of BS2 are even hinted at in BS1, I still had major issues.
Plot problems
1) Rapture's introduction video basically says "If you're a collectivist, get the fuck out. No hard feelings."--so why on earth are there a bunch of working class blue collar socialists? I get why Lamb would be persuasive in her argumentation, I just don't get why the audience would be looking to be persuaded. It's not like you accidentally move to Rapture without knowing the rules, and the city hadn't been around long enough for second generation citizens to take onus with laws. The entire central debate of Rapture's political sphere wouldn't take place.
2) I'm a little skewed on the timeline here.
3) Whenever you make a sequel or prequel to a seminal work, you face the challenge of establishing an antagonist or conflict which is at least as urgent if not more urgent than the antagonist of the previous work. This tends to lead to a lot of really stupid situations where subsequent works have increasingly implausible levels of evil and destruction. Sorry, reader/player/viewer, the ultimate evil you just saw our heroes destroy was actually just some random grunt, here is the NEW ULTIMATE EVIL! A good sequel is going to establish its new antagonist without attempting to minimize or marginalize the original villain. . BioShock 2 doesn't even pay lipservice to this concept. An inordinate amount of audio diaries are dedicated to specifically showing that Ryan and Fontaine were not powerful or credible antagonists. They were unable to get simple jobs done, they were more inept and self-consumed than maniacal or evil. Ryan was not a charismatic, gifted orator as he is presented in the first game--he's just some chump lolbertarian. The contrast in applause in the Ryan vs Lamb debate audiodiaries is intended to show that Lamb was vastly more persuasive.
In the end, I felt like BioShock 2 didn't build anything interesting for me to invest in, but did manage to tear down all the investment I made in BioShock 1.
Gameplay
The new hacking minigame is mercifully shorter than the old one, but it's less fun at first and it seems to me that the buyout costs are higher this time around because by 50% of the way through BS1 I was just using the buyout on everything, whereas here I was stuck dealing with the crap minigame.
I don't feel like the new weapons added much new. The Speargun was very fun and very well executed, but the drill feels like it's nerfed compared to the wrench which is pretty silly when you think about it. Most of the other guns just felt like Big Daddy versions of the guns I'd already used in other FPSes.
I didn't like the new research camera system. Neither game's research system really makes much sense, but the first game's felt more fun to me. Literally every encounter in BioShock 2 would go research camera start recording -> plasmid blast to hold enemy while switching to a weapon -> switch to weapon -> kill enemy. It just felt clunky, like it was getting in the way, whereas in BS1 it felt like it was almost an alternative to fighting, or at least more varied.
I felt like I spent too much time beating up splicers and not enough time navigating levels. I also felt like every enemy had too much health and did too little damage--so fights were easy enough that I was never worried, but long enough that I was always frustrated. This wasn't even fixed by the end of the game, where I was generally using WB3 -> Grenade Launcher. I tried mixing up my weapon usage to correspond with enemy weak points, but the amount of time it takes to switch weapons ends up more than making up for the time saved doing so.
Movement speed is too slow, even with the upgrade--the stock movement speed in multiplayer is a little slow for me so you could imagine how I felt about the single player.
(I played on Medium with Vita Chambers turned off.)
Level design
The game still needs a minimap. The navigation arrow is a concession that the level design is sufficiently complex to merit user assistance; that assistance would be much more productive in the form of a minimap. I ended up using the map screen map quite often because since you can't return to earlier levels, I felt compelled to make sure I had fully cleared a level in terms of items / audio diaries / little sisters before moving on. If someone is accessing a menu every ten seconds to see a map, a minimap would have been useful.
The level design this time around is still better than most games and a few segments (Journey to the Surface in particular) are great. The game also avoids the 3rd act collapse that plagued BS1's plot and level design. The problem is that it avoids the collapse by basically being short enough so as to not run out of gas, and the level design is never really spectacular the way BS1's first 4-5 hours consistently were.
In particular, I hated the Inner Persephone level design. It seemed like the developers said "What kind of things ought to be in Rapture that the player hasn't seen yet?", came up with some stuff, and then said "whoops, the plot requires
so let's stick what amounts to
in the middle of a
".
Moral choice
The first game sold up the moral choice between saving or killing the Little Sisters. The idea was that you were supposed to genuinely feel bad taking the selfish route, but not want to sacrifice the perks. That choice isn't present here. You get plenty of ADAM rescuing the Little Sisters, you already know from the first game that the impact of your choices will be superficial, and it's just not presented as a dilemma at all. You just get "Hi, I'm Sinclair, kill dat kid" "No, I'm Tenenbaum, don't!"... err, ok.
Sparing/killing the
people didn't even register on my emotional radar. The ending seems to be impacted, but I really didn't feel like the ending was any more substantial than BS1 so why should I have cared?
Multiplayer
Multiplayer seems fun enough. Did a few rounds of Deathmatch, a few rounds of Team Deathmatch, and a few rounds of Capture the Flag so far. I like the Trials and the levelling up, although around 50% of the time I seem to be matched with people who are clearly overpowered because they have better plasmids/tonics, and around 50% of the time I seem to be matched with people who have the exact same setup as me and thus there's not much use to change loadouts. I can't imagine many people will be playing 6 months from now.
I'm also really weirded out how Multiplayer is very obviously not the same game or executable file as single player. When you choose multiplayer from the main menu, you get a 1+ minute load time. Subsequently you get the exact same main menu, but if you choose multiplayer, it loads instantly. If you choose single player, you get a 1+ minute load time. It's very clear what's happening there. In multiplayer, everything is different; you walk over hypos to pick them up instead of selecting them, health regenerates (weirdly, too, in little chunks), hacking is a button-hold process, researching is a button-hold process... the UI is different (no radial menus for switching weapons or plasmids, plasmid name doesn't appear anywhere so you have to look at your hand to see what plasmid you have equipped, etc)
It's like the multiplayer teams, instead of being asked to make a multiplayer mode for BioShock 2, were asked to create a multiplayer game inspired by BioShock in general... and then they happened to ship that product with BioShock 2.
Overall
I would say that this is a generally good game and pretty playable, but it's a much less significant game than the original, doesn't really bring many incredible moments, and I really wouldn't recommend anyone jump in to buy it full price. To people reading the thread and saying "I enjoyed BS1, but I'm skeptical about this--is it necessary, is it worthwhile?", I'd basically say that you're not going to kick yourself if you do buy or play this, but otherwise your skepticism is well founded and you shouldn't feel like you're missing much.
I played for ~10 hours including multiplayer on a free rental and got ~800/1000 achievement points.
Why does your character die? The explosion he survived is certainly no larger than the pounding he takes during everyday combat, and it strikes me that even if he did die, he'd just respawn in a Vitachamber. It's not like he'd drown if he did, either.
Weirder still is the Eleanor just accepts your death and is like "lol dad you will always be with me *needle*" when the last time you died she moved mountains to bring you back from the dead and reunite you with her...
Weirder still is the Eleanor just accepts your death and is like "lol dad you will always be with me *needle*" when the last time you died she moved mountains to bring you back from the dead and reunite you with her...
Here's mahhhh review:
All in all I thought the game was a step back from BioShock. Many of the plot elements seemed pretty absurd to me. Setting aside the literally hundreds of occasions where I found myself frustrated that none of the plot elements of BS2 are even hinted at in BS1, I still had major issues.
Plot problems
1) Rapture's introduction video basically says "If you're a collectivist, get the fuck out. No hard feelings."--so why on earth are there a bunch of working class blue collar socialists? I get why Lamb would be persuasive in her argumentation, I just don't get why the audience would be looking to be persuaded. It's not like you accidentally move to Rapture without knowing the rules, and the city hadn't been around long enough for second generation citizens to take onus with laws. The entire central debate of Rapture's political sphere wouldn't take place.
2) I'm a little skewed on the timeline here.
Lamb goes to prison, BioShock 1 occurs, Lamb leaves prison (at this point Ryan is dead)... BioShock 1 leaves us the impression that shit in Rapture is so fucked that the city actually stopped functioning altogether. It's not like stuff got a little beat up and everyone went about their merry way. Shit is seriously screwed. BioShock 2 implies that Rapture still went trucking along just fine after the events of the first game, which seems pretty absurd to me. The structural integrity of Rapture, physically, wouldn't even seem to allow for much of the second game to take place.
3) Whenever you make a sequel or prequel to a seminal work, you face the challenge of establishing an antagonist or conflict which is at least as urgent if not more urgent than the antagonist of the previous work. This tends to lead to a lot of really stupid situations where subsequent works have increasingly implausible levels of evil and destruction. Sorry, reader/player/viewer, the ultimate evil you just saw our heroes destroy was actually just some random grunt, here is the NEW ULTIMATE EVIL! A good sequel is going to establish its new antagonist without attempting to minimize or marginalize the original villain. . BioShock 2 doesn't even pay lipservice to this concept. An inordinate amount of audio diaries are dedicated to specifically showing that Ryan and Fontaine were not powerful or credible antagonists. They were unable to get simple jobs done, they were more inept and self-consumed than maniacal or evil. Ryan was not a charismatic, gifted orator as he is presented in the first game--he's just some chump lolbertarian. The contrast in applause in the Ryan vs Lamb debate audiodiaries is intended to show that Lamb was vastly more persuasive.
In the end, I felt like BioShock 2 didn't build anything interesting for me to invest in, but did manage to tear down all the investment I made in BioShock 1.
Gameplay
The new hacking minigame is mercifully shorter than the old one, but it's less fun at first and it seems to me that the buyout costs are higher this time around because by 50% of the way through BS1 I was just using the buyout on everything, whereas here I was stuck dealing with the crap minigame.
I don't feel like the new weapons added much new. The Speargun was very fun and very well executed, but the drill feels like it's nerfed compared to the wrench which is pretty silly when you think about it. Most of the other guns just felt like Big Daddy versions of the guns I'd already used in other FPSes.
I didn't like the new research camera system. Neither game's research system really makes much sense, but the first game's felt more fun to me. Literally every encounter in BioShock 2 would go research camera start recording -> plasmid blast to hold enemy while switching to a weapon -> switch to weapon -> kill enemy. It just felt clunky, like it was getting in the way, whereas in BS1 it felt like it was almost an alternative to fighting, or at least more varied.
I felt like I spent too much time beating up splicers and not enough time navigating levels. I also felt like every enemy had too much health and did too little damage--so fights were easy enough that I was never worried, but long enough that I was always frustrated. This wasn't even fixed by the end of the game, where I was generally using WB3 -> Grenade Launcher. I tried mixing up my weapon usage to correspond with enemy weak points, but the amount of time it takes to switch weapons ends up more than making up for the time saved doing so.
Movement speed is too slow, even with the upgrade--the stock movement speed in multiplayer is a little slow for me so you could imagine how I felt about the single player.
(I played on Medium with Vita Chambers turned off.)
Level design
The game still needs a minimap. The navigation arrow is a concession that the level design is sufficiently complex to merit user assistance; that assistance would be much more productive in the form of a minimap. I ended up using the map screen map quite often because since you can't return to earlier levels, I felt compelled to make sure I had fully cleared a level in terms of items / audio diaries / little sisters before moving on. If someone is accessing a menu every ten seconds to see a map, a minimap would have been useful.
The level design this time around is still better than most games and a few segments (Journey to the Surface in particular) are great. The game also avoids the 3rd act collapse that plagued BS1's plot and level design. The problem is that it avoids the collapse by basically being short enough so as to not run out of gas, and the level design is never really spectacular the way BS1's first 4-5 hours consistently were.
In particular, I hated the Inner Persephone level design. It seemed like the developers said "What kind of things ought to be in Rapture that the player hasn't seen yet?", came up with some stuff, and then said "whoops, the plot requires
tons of little sisters
orphanages
jail/hospital
Moral choice
The first game sold up the moral choice between saving or killing the Little Sisters. The idea was that you were supposed to genuinely feel bad taking the selfish route, but not want to sacrifice the perks. That choice isn't present here. You get plenty of ADAM rescuing the Little Sisters, you already know from the first game that the impact of your choices will be superficial, and it's just not presented as a dilemma at all. You just get "Hi, I'm Sinclair, kill dat kid" "No, I'm Tenenbaum, don't!"... err, ok.
Sparing/killing the
three
Multiplayer
Multiplayer seems fun enough. Did a few rounds of Deathmatch, a few rounds of Team Deathmatch, and a few rounds of Capture the Flag so far. I like the Trials and the levelling up, although around 50% of the time I seem to be matched with people who are clearly overpowered because they have better plasmids/tonics, and around 50% of the time I seem to be matched with people who have the exact same setup as me and thus there's not much use to change loadouts. I can't imagine many people will be playing 6 months from now.
I'm also really weirded out how Multiplayer is very obviously not the same game or executable file as single player. When you choose multiplayer from the main menu, you get a 1+ minute load time. Subsequently you get the exact same main menu, but if you choose multiplayer, it loads instantly. If you choose single player, you get a 1+ minute load time. It's very clear what's happening there. In multiplayer, everything is different; you walk over hypos to pick them up instead of selecting them, health regenerates (weirdly, too, in little chunks), hacking is a button-hold process, researching is a button-hold process... the UI is different (no radial menus for switching weapons or plasmids, plasmid name doesn't appear anywhere so you have to look at your hand to see what plasmid you have equipped, etc)
It's like the multiplayer teams, instead of being asked to make a multiplayer mode for BioShock 2, were asked to create a multiplayer game inspired by BioShock in general... and then they happened to ship that product with BioShock 2.
Overall
I would say that this is a generally good game and pretty playable, but it's a much less significant game than the original, doesn't really bring many incredible moments, and I really wouldn't recommend anyone jump in to buy it full price. To people reading the thread and saying "I enjoyed BS1, but I'm skeptical about this--is it necessary, is it worthwhile?", I'd basically say that you're not going to kick yourself if you do buy or play this, but otherwise your skepticism is well founded and you shouldn't feel like you're missing much.
I played for ~10 hours including multiplayer on a free rental and got ~800/1000 achievement points.
I just recieved my bioshock 2 print, again a big thanks to 2k and especially Dax for setting the contest up. I am a bit disappointed though, not with Dax or the contest but with UPS as they delivered my parcel and subsequently my print water damaged and creased. I'll be taking it up with them but doubt they will do anything as it won't have been insured.BobTheFork said:
Not a happy bunny right now
.The Interrobanger
Member
Stumpokapow said:
Pretty much how I felt. Bioshock 1 is still a 10/10 for me while this is teetering around a 7.5.
brandonh83
Banned
Still waiting for mine, but now that people are getting theirs I'll start expecting it
Joei
Member
I just finished the game today and I thought it was just as good as the first. The story was pretty good as well. It was pretty much what I expected. I didn't expect anything as "good" or surprsing as the first, but I think it did a pretty good of telling the story it needed to. As for the gameplay, I didn't like that there was no backtracking. I can understand it, kind of, with the way the story progressed, but it would have been nice to include. I loved the dual-weilding; I thought it made the combat feel a lot smoother and fresher. I really liked the level 3 plasmids. I actually found myself using more plasmids and more weapons in this game than in the first one. The spear was just awesome. Targeting an unsuspecting enemy from a distance and putting a spear through their head never got old to me. :lol The different shotgun ammos were awesome as well. For the plasmids, the Level 3 Bees ended up being my favorite by far, lol. I just love that plasmid. It made for some very entertaining fights near the end of the game. I really enjoyed doing the, for lack of a better word, "escort" missions with the Little Sisters. It was pretty cool using the Level 2 Cyclone trap with different elements or bees inside, using the rivet traps, prox. grenades, etc, and then setting bees off at the enemies. The miniturrets were also a fantastic addition. Overall, I thought all the weapons were much better than the first, and the way they did the plasma upgrades were sweet as well. Scout seemed like a great one, unfortunately, I didn't try it out till close to the end of the game, but I wish I had used it earlier. Next time I go through, I'm keeping Fire and Lighting at L1 and probably upgrading and using scout/decoy more often. They seem like they can add a new feel to the game going through. And I'll have Bees upgraded to Level 3 asap, lol.
One thing I wasn't too fond of was the onslaught of enemies. While I have no complaints about the combat in the game, there were times when I was searching around a level because I knew I couldn't come back at the end and the splicers kept pouring in. That got a little tiresome. It would have made for a lot quicker exploration if they didn't regenerate so quickly. And while I liked the story, sometimes it seemed a bit hacky the way they tried to implement the first game's story as a part of this. The pacing is much better in this game though. I thought the end kind of dragged on a bit, but as a whole, I thought the story was delivered much, much better than in the first. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and I'm definitely looking forward to any new content they come out with.
One thing I wasn't too fond of was the onslaught of enemies. While I have no complaints about the combat in the game, there were times when I was searching around a level because I knew I couldn't come back at the end and the splicers kept pouring in. That got a little tiresome. It would have made for a lot quicker exploration if they didn't regenerate so quickly. And while I liked the story, sometimes it seemed a bit hacky the way they tried to implement the first game's story as a part of this. The pacing is much better in this game though. I thought the end kind of dragged on a bit, but as a whole, I thought the story was delivered much, much better than in the first. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and I'm definitely looking forward to any new content they come out with.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Just played another two hours of multiplayer. I definitely enjoy pretty much every mode, but the more I play, the more like it seems like a totally unrelated game. Everything about it feels different than the single player, all of the levels come from BioShock 1, and even the "Ryan vs Fontaine" err... plot fits with BioShock 1.
RiccochetJ
Gold Member
After 18 hours of multiplayer playtime, I've finally rescued a little sister! (not all of it was Capture the Sister but a significant chunk was...) WoooHooo! 1000/1000 here I come! Probably the hardest achievement/trophy to get in the entire game.
While playing tonight, there were people chatting about how things are not properly port forwarded for this game on the Xbox. Any truth to that? I thought Xbox has it's standard ports for online requirements...
While playing tonight, there were people chatting about how things are not properly port forwarded for this game on the Xbox. Any truth to that? I thought Xbox has it's standard ports for online requirements...
Rez said:
I usually do not like NG+ because being overpowered is not my idea of fun, but seeing as you are over-powered anyway, I would have liked more time to play with some of the new toys.
Especially if a higher difficulty level was Introduced. Anyone know if they are working on a mod for this?
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Just got off the train at Fontaine Futuristics (wasnt I here in the first game?) stopping for the night, about how much game time is left? Wondering if I can finish before I leave for GDC
A Link to the Past
Banned
As someone who loved BioShock and doesn't regret buying it on PC and PS3 for $20.00 each, do you think I'd mind buying BioShock 2 as my "big game purchase of the month" [aka, my $60.00 purchase]? I'm getting GameFly, but I'm not sure if BioShock 2 will be a game I will want to own or just play.
A Link to the Snitch said:
I honestly can't recommend to buy it for $60 given how much better the first is but the multiplayer is really fun so you might want to try it as soon as possible given the fact that it'll be dead with a few weeks.
Personally the single player disappointed me but the multiplayer surprised so I'm kind of at a middle ground.
Even more than in Bioshock I miss diversity in graphics/environments. Everything looks like a huge junkyard (a brilliantly designed junkyard, no question) but I feel no reward for discovering new areas, the same greenish brownish waste littered environments all the time.
Not that they didnt try to give them different themes (actually it is done very well) but still all areas feel the same. No radically different environemts like completely technical, completely natural, completely undestroyed etc.
Not that they didnt try to give them different themes (actually it is done very well) but still all areas feel the same. No radically different environemts like completely technical, completely natural, completely undestroyed etc.
Playing it again, I'm actually enjoying the opening area a lot more than the rest of the game. Bioshock for me is at its best when you're only fighting a few enemies once in a while, each splicer a threat on his own.
While the combat mechanics are better, I think there's too much combat in this game.
While the combat mechanics are better, I think there's too much combat in this game.
speculawyer
Member
I finally got around to finishing it. I got put off because it crashed on me once and I knew I would have to do a part over again, so waited until it would be fresh. It was very nice that it did not wear out its welcome like the first one did.
I couldn't stop playing and had to keep playing until I finished it.
I liked the way that when you
. . it was very Manchurian Candidate.
And I like that at the end of the credits they let people put in their own little messages.
Maybe I try a little multi-player now but I'll probably just get killed badly. I'll want to play through again to get various achievements I missed and see how different choices change things.
I couldn't stop playing and had to keep playing until I finished it.
I liked the way that when you
played the little sister it would change between this fluffy nice world and the ugly real world .
And I like that at the end of the credits they let people put in their own little messages.
Maybe I try a little multi-player now but I'll probably just get killed badly. I'll want to play through again to get various achievements I missed and see how different choices change things.
GodfatherX
Member
so just beat Bioshock 1...yes almost 3 years late ..sorry 2k community person who sent me the game for review...anyway I saved all the little sisters...but now i'm curious how differently does the game play out if you harvest them all? different ending?
i searched but couldnt find the bioshock 1 thread
i searched but couldnt find the bioshock 1 thread
I finished the game a few hours ago, overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not as good as the first but a worthy sequel.
Pros:
- I like that they fixed the hack system, its much better this time around.
- Combat is tuned up as well, plasmid combat feels much better.
- Atmosphere is still top notch, as are the characters and dialogue.
-
Cons:
-
- While the atmosphere itself is still great, many of the areas simply look too similar to what we saw in Bioshock 1
-Story wasnt as good as the first, maybe because there wasnt really any big surprises, versus the first game.
Now I still have a few unanswered questions:
1. What happened to
2. I'm surprised there were next to no mentions of Sander Cohen in this game, technically he was still alive depending on how you played the first game. No audio logs from him was a bit odd.
3. What happened to Mark Meltzer?
Pros:
- I like that they fixed the hack system, its much better this time around.
- Combat is tuned up as well, plasmid combat feels much better.
- Atmosphere is still top notch, as are the characters and dialogue.
-
The part where you take control of a little sister was great
Cons:
-
That last area was pretty weak, wandering around collecting the little sisters wasn't that fun, the whole ending was somewhat anti climactic, the final wave of bad guys instead of a big final boss was just lame.
-Story wasnt as good as the first, maybe because there wasnt really any big surprises, versus the first game.
Now I still have a few unanswered questions:
1. What happened to
Tenenbaum? I mean she said her sub was destroyed, did she escape at all? What are her real motives, her character definitely leaves room for a 3rd game. I wasn't never quite sure if she was on the up and up anyway, iirc Fontaine seemed to think she wasn't just there to help the girls in the first game.
2. I'm surprised there were next to no mentions of Sander Cohen in this game, technically he was still alive depending on how you played the first game. No audio logs from him was a bit odd.
3. What happened to Mark Meltzer?
quetz67 said:
Bioshock 1 had incredible diversity in level design. And Bioshock 2, while not quite the heights, still had an amazing array of level design. Siren's Alley looks totally far and away different than Fontaine Futuristics, and Fontaine Futuristics looks like a totally different world from Dionysus Park. The only recurring themes they share are big windows where you can peer into the oceans and their vending machines/heal machines.
I think you're confusing consistency of location (they are always in Rapture, therefore there is an underlying art style they adopted. Mainly, art deco, neon lights, and same basic technology) with diversity of location.
BurritoBushido
Member
Rickard said:
:lol
BurritoBushido
Member
oh damn it, double post fail
A Link to the Past
Banned
Another question - if I can play BioShock on PC on low settings well, would BioShock 2 run on it on its low settings?
Wiggum2007
Junior Member
Ronabo said:
I'm a fan of the neutral ending myself.
soul creator
Member
speculawyer
Member
I don't know aboutInstro said:
Tenenbaum but I suspect that a third game would focus on Elanor Lamb somehow. So in Bioshock you play as a normal guy, BS2 you play as a (weak) big daddy, and in BS3 . . . you play as a big sister?
Stumpokapow said:
Joei said:
Truant said:
This was my biggest complaint, and made the last third of my experience with the game a chore. I was still enjoying exploring the world and taking in the story, but the obnoxious amount of enemy encounters just made me want the game to end. It's great that they improved the combat, but it became far too much of a focus - honestly, who loved Bioshock for the combat?
Just finished it. Was purposely avoiding this thread.
My (very positive) minireview:
I liked it equally to the first as a game, and nearly as much as a piece of narrative storytelling. The oh-my-god holy fucking shit twist moment of the first isn't in there, but it likely would have felt contrived on its reveal if there had been one. The big character moments got me nonetheless, and a couple of them in particular will really stick with me. In terms of gameplay additions, I loved the drill dash and the powerhouse I became with the frozen drill tonic, the Scout plasmid, and the ability to charge up Hypnotize to become Befriend (in the first, this equalled multiple plasmids, right?).
I also wanted to congratulate the game on the following: the last 25% totally rocks. More and more games these days are guilty of "running out of steam," overexhausting their development cycles on the initial part and middle of a game only to have a lackluster final act. In this game, toward the halfway point I really started to rush through at a faster clip, but when I got to the final stages I really enjoyed every moment (and couldn't stop playing until it was over).
Storyline stuff with spoilers:
Anyway, really good stuff. I'd like to see everything that changes based on the choices you make, can I youtube that?
My (very positive) minireview:
I liked it equally to the first as a game, and nearly as much as a piece of narrative storytelling. The oh-my-god holy fucking shit twist moment of the first isn't in there, but it likely would have felt contrived on its reveal if there had been one. The big character moments got me nonetheless, and a couple of them in particular will really stick with me. In terms of gameplay additions, I loved the drill dash and the powerhouse I became with the frozen drill tonic, the Scout plasmid, and the ability to charge up Hypnotize to become Befriend (in the first, this equalled multiple plasmids, right?).
I also wanted to congratulate the game on the following: the last 25% totally rocks. More and more games these days are guilty of "running out of steam," overexhausting their development cycles on the initial part and middle of a game only to have a lackluster final act. In this game, toward the halfway point I really started to rush through at a faster clip, but when I got to the final stages I really enjoyed every moment (and couldn't stop playing until it was over).
Storyline stuff with spoilers:
-Okay, the sequence when you play as a little sister is just incredible. I had always wondered if they saw the world differently because of the glow in their eyes, but it exceeded my expectations. Tiny touches like blood being rose petals or the dead fish being little wind-up shark toys REALLY made the experience feel real. The "reality break-in" moments, where you see that the glorious-looking dress is really the dingy Big Sister armor and so on, are great, as is the ability to finally see what it's like to use those vents!
-I don't have a child, but... this will be a game I replay when I do. The encounter with Eleanor did not go how I expected at all, and when she finally hands you that plasmid... the rest of the game was bliss for me. I loved it, I loved her character, I loved her taunts while carving her way through Rapture as the baddest of big sisters, I loved the way all of the seemingly incongruous tapes of her as a small child suddenly made so much sense... just great character work and interaction in a game which has been a particularly lonely experience up until that point.
-I never trusted Sinclair, but he met a far crueler fate at my hands than I expected him to. Lamb is a total bitch.
-Mark Meltzer- whoa. When I hovered over him (I have full closed captioning on) and it didn't say "Rumbler" but "Mark Meltzer," I froze in my tracks. I was lucky enough to find all (I think) his tapes on the way to that moment. I thought it might be possible to rescue his little... daughter while leaving him alive, but alas. Lamb is seriously a total bitch. That was a fast trip to the vent and hard tap of the 'F' key on that one. Seriously did anyone fucking harvest her? TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.
-So was killing Stanley good and leaving him alive bad? That was a very interesting narrative moment. I hoped for just a tiny bit more exposition from Eleanor after I smashed the fuck out of that creep.
-Did anyone else find Schroedinger's cat??? Fucking awesome.
-What was the deal with the Unstable Teleport Plasmid? Just an unrelated mindfuck? :lol
-I don't have a child, but... this will be a game I replay when I do. The encounter with Eleanor did not go how I expected at all, and when she finally hands you that plasmid... the rest of the game was bliss for me. I loved it, I loved her character, I loved her taunts while carving her way through Rapture as the baddest of big sisters, I loved the way all of the seemingly incongruous tapes of her as a small child suddenly made so much sense... just great character work and interaction in a game which has been a particularly lonely experience up until that point.
-I never trusted Sinclair, but he met a far crueler fate at my hands than I expected him to. Lamb is a total bitch.
-Mark Meltzer- whoa. When I hovered over him (I have full closed captioning on) and it didn't say "Rumbler" but "Mark Meltzer," I froze in my tracks. I was lucky enough to find all (I think) his tapes on the way to that moment. I thought it might be possible to rescue his little... daughter while leaving him alive, but alas. Lamb is seriously a total bitch. That was a fast trip to the vent and hard tap of the 'F' key on that one. Seriously did anyone fucking harvest her? TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.
-So was killing Stanley good and leaving him alive bad? That was a very interesting narrative moment. I hoped for just a tiny bit more exposition from Eleanor after I smashed the fuck out of that creep.
-Did anyone else find Schroedinger's cat??? Fucking awesome.
-What was the deal with the Unstable Teleport Plasmid? Just an unrelated mindfuck? :lol
Anyway, really good stuff. I'd like to see everything that changes based on the choices you make, can I youtube that?