How the first Bioshock should have been
To be perfectly honest I never climbed aboard the unending praise train for the original Bioshock released in 2007. While it tirelessly sucked at the teats of nearly every single professional video game reviewer and earned countless game of the year awards, I personally was left far from impressed. Instead of being the frequently promised spiritual successor to the amazing System Shock 2, what I ended up playing felt more like a watered down, console centric rip off, complete with the same entire storyline pasted into a different setting, no matter how fresh and original said setting was.
Worse still all the elements that made Shock 2 so unforgettable had been exorcised, such as the oppressive atmosphere and solid RPG mechanics that encouraged multiple play throughs. Players could carry every single weapon, find or buy all the plasmids and hack everything in sight straight off the bat. Likewise ammo and health were lying about all over the place like it was Doom or something. With those key elements missing what was left was a pretty but plain corridor shooter without the smooth and satisfying combat traditional shooters rely on. Weapons felt underpowered, mouse aiming was sluggish, switching between firearms and plasmid powers was a clumsy affair and the vita chambers removed every last scrap of challenge from the game, instantly reviving you upon death without any penalty. Every foe could be overcome by pure attrition and once you figured that out not even the Big Daddies seemed threatening any more.
It's amazing then what adjusted expectations and some small design tweaks can do for a game. Distanced from the daunting shadow of Shock 2 and viewed solely as a direct sequel, Bioshock 2 is surprisingly fun to play. While it does feel more like a full priced, stand-alone expansion pack at times, 2K Marin have refined every single element of the original game and fixed many of the issues that plagued it, making the return to the underwater city of Rapture far more satisfying this time around, even for those like me who found the maiden voyage so deeply disappointing. It is still more Doom than System Shock, but at least the mechanics feel solid now.
Of course one could easily argue that a sequel wasn't even warranted in the first place. The single greatest element of the original Bioshock was it's unique underwater setting and rich history that slowly revealed itself throughout the course of the game. The developers wisely chose not to directly continue the first game's tale for the sequel, but instead tell a far more personal side story set in the same fallen utopia with a new cast of characters. Players take control of a new protagonist called Subject Delta, a prototype Big Daddy designed to be a better, more empathic protector to the Little Sisters. After a fairly traumatic opening cinematic you awaken to find your assigned charge, Eleanor, missing and her absence is slowly killing you. This sets up what is a linear but enjoyable quest to retrieve little Eleanor who is of course more than she initially seems.
At first the idea of portraying a Big Daddy seems like an odd decision, what with them being soulless, lumbering behemoths and all. But then you quickly remind yourself that the main character from the first game was hardly a memorable character either, his twisted origins non-withstanding. Besides the opening cinematic he didn't even utter a single word. If anything Subject Delta's bond with his Little Sister makes him a far more interesting role to inhabit, and it helps that Eleanor herself is a constant presence, speaking to you telepathically via your bond. Your actions also have a direct effect on her behavior and help make the game's multiple endings far more emotionally rewarding than those found in the original. While the story may lack the sense of awe and wonder of its predecessor, it is still a well-told and satisfying tale.
Of course what really matters in a shooter, even one as story focused is this, is the feel of combat and thankfully that has been greatly improved. The player can now wield weapons and powers simultaneously and the weapons themselves, as familiar as they are, have a far greater kick to them. Enemies don't seem to scale up quite so dramatically over the course of the game so all your weapons continue to remain useful throughout. Plasmid powers now gain new behaviors as they are upgraded instead of plain damage bonuses so your Electro-Bolt will now dish out chain lighting and Telekinesis will allow you to grab enemies from across the room and hurl them head first into their pals Gordon Freeman style. Even researching foes is easier and more rewarding with a simple one click video recorder replacing the clumsy camera from the first game.
Speaking of foes, a few new ones flesh out the somewhat limited roster from the first game, all of which make return appearances. Tough Brute splicers charge at you like crazed berserkers and slam you about the environment. A new type of Big Daddy, who wields a rocket launcher and throws down mini turrets, occasionally guards the precious Little Sisters you'll need to get your hands on, adding a little variety to those inevitable battles. Other prototype Big Daddies will also make an appearance later in the game spicing things up. But the big new resident of Rapture is the Big Sister, one of those creepy little girls now all grown up, encased in armor, and royally pissed off. Once every Little Sister in a level has been either rescued or harvested a series of screeching wails precedes her arrival before she tears onto the scene hurling plasmids in every direction and flipping about like a ninja on too much Red Bull. She's a tough cookie to crack and a good deterrent to being too greedy.
The big new gameplay addition however has been the expanded method of gaining Adam, the resource that allows you to increase your combat skills by purchasing new plasmid powers and gene tonic stat boosts. You still have to find a Little Sister and dispatch the Big Daddy guarding her, but afterward you can, being a Big Daddy yourself, take on his former duty and adopt the now fatherless child. You can then lead her around the environment and find specific dead bodies that she'll then harvest while you protect her from a horde of incoming splicers. This requires setting up a defensive perimeter, laying down trip wires and other traps to try and even out the odds while you mop up the remainder. It offers a nice change of pace to the regular linear level progression and you can purchase specific gene tonics to make her harvest a little quicker if tedium threatens to set in. Or you could just harvest the little tyke and to hell with whole thing.
Other non-combat improvements are also on display. Hacking has been completely overhauled with a quick and simple sliding needle mini game replacing the time consuming, tile based plumbing one from the original which quickly became a chore. The vita chambers can now be disabled out of the box and I thoroughly recommend all players do so, along with the quest arrow, if they want some actual challenge. Best of all the mouse smoothing and acceleration issues that plagued the first game can now be disabled from the in-game options menu making the game feel much more responsive overall.
Unfortunately a few small issues have been carried over as well. As a byproduct of the Unreal 3 engine technology powering it, the field of view is still frustratingly narrow and can leave the player feeling disorientated when playing on a desktop monitor. A manual key bind can be added to an external config file to work around the issue but it would have been nice to see the option available in-game for once. Another engine issue is the lack of in-game FSAA support that can still only be enabled via external graphic drivers. The map is still as useless as tits on a bull (surprising since the one in System Shock 2 was damn right perfect) making it difficult to find your way to your next objective if you decide to disable the quest arrow, which simply leads you there by the hand and diminishes the element of exploration. Concerns were also raised about bugs and stability upon release but as of patch 1.03 I have yet to encounter any technical issues during my play through of the single player campaign. The game ran completely stable and smooth as butter on my quad-core, Nvidia GFX 280 rig.
Graphically the game has changed little from its predecessor. Thankfully the original game still stands up strong almost three years later and so does this sequel. While many of the environments feel overly familiar, the art design is still unique among its peers and the game as a whole looks wonderful throughout. One great sequence towards the end has you seeing through the eyes of a Little Sister and the effect is stunning. The heavenly environments with their bright bloom lighting really adds to the tragedy of those little girls especially when the effect is broken during certain moments and the real Rapture comes pouring back in. Audio wise most of the sound effects have been similarly recycled from the first Bioshock, but the new voice actors rise to the original game's standards and the new dialogue is just as well written.
In nearly every single way Bioshock 2 is an obvious improvement over its predecessor. With more fluid combat, increased gameplay variety, improved mini-games along with a more personal and satisfying story, this is how the first Bioshock should have been. If that had been the case maybe it would have taken the sting out of so many broken promises.
