It's Not You, BioShock 2, It's Me

[Susan Arendt]

It's Not You, BioShock 2, It's Me

BioShock 2 is almost identical to its predecessor...with one very notable exception.

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[Colonel Alzheimer's]

I'm actually getting the exact same feeling as you while playing through Bioshock 2. I beat Bioshock 1 in about 3 days of gaming nirvana. I got Bioshock 2 on release day and still haven't finished it. Like you said, it just fails to feel new to me, but it is really well done.

 

[Pocotron]

Maybe it's just me, and I'm not trying to start anything, but I didn't feel anything so fantastic with Bioshock.

I never found it too amazing to blow my socks off (nice phrase, eh?) although it was good.
Maybe it's just my lack of perception, but Bioshock almost felt cliche outside of the story.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

I'm still playing my copy of BioShock right now and trying to figure out how to power up the wrench so i can beat Fontaine's ass with it

 

[bladeofdarkness]

i've actually made a post before commenting about this very same point
it doesn't feel like a sequel
it feels like a really long expansion pack
a really GOOD expansion pack, but an expansion pack nonetheless

 

[Nimbus]

You're right, in many respects. I never got an emotional response from the big moral choices, (all 3 of which are boring "kill or don;t kill" scenarios), which the first Bioshock didn't have a problem with. I think Bioshock 2's main problem was the lack of interesting small villains. Sander Cohen, as you pointed out, was great. A very interesting character. You can see and hear what a giant loon the guy is, and you get a genuine emotional response. Bioshock 2 doesn't really have that, at any point.

Not that it's a bad game, at any rate. I personally thought the combat was FAR better than the first, the upgrades and weapons were more interesting, although the fact that I was always swimming in money and ammo wasn't giving me much of a "survival" vibe, it was, in retrospects, a better game. And the ending, OH GOD, THE ENDING! Seriously, that was some good stuff, right there. Basically everything from when you are... uh... tied down (keeping this as spoiler free as possible) was pure, solid, shining, diamond-encrusted platinum.

 

[Master Kuja]

I must admit, whilst I utterly enjoyed Bioshock 2, I had the same feelings as you when I was ploughing through waves of Splicers, sure, it looks pretty and it holds up well as a game of its own, it's very well designed and the gameplay is top notch, but there's that horrible sense of "been there, done that" about the whole experience.

To the game's credit though, it's pretty much polished everything from Bioshock to an absolute mirror shine, but I'm inclined to agree, the experience just doesn't feel new at all. Rapture enthralled me the first time round, but there's less of that sense of amazement the second time.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Susan Arendt wonders if there's an audio diary as heartbreaking as "Saw Masha Today" in BioShock 2.

Don't mind me while I cry uncontrollably...

Masha was the turning point for me in Bioshock, I didn't see the Little Sister's as ammo after that audiolog, and I stopped harvesting them.

I didn't play Bioshock because of the fighting, I didn't really like the way the guns and plasmids "felt", its to do with the lack of punch they had.

 

[Mewick_Alex]

Like you said, it just fails to feel new to me, but it is really well done.

Spot on. I love it, but it's just a more polished version of the first game. Not a bad thing I guess but the main appeal for the first game was the shock of amazing the setting was. It's worn off a bit now, but it certainly hasn't become stale.

 

[PDizzle418]

I completely agree it feels like more of the same and that in itself makes the game just feel weaker. If there had been a larger selection of plasmids and if they had made your main plasmid different than in the first one (electricity) I think it could have been a better recreation, unfortunately they just didn't set it apart from the original.

It's like all they wanted to do was bank on the success of the first one with as little effort as possible. Like the only people they hired again were voice actors, mappers and modelers and left the programmers and designers out of the loop, like they didn't get the memo to show up to work.

A solid experience none the less but just doesn't stand quite as tall as it's predecessor.

 

[SyphonX]

I never got into the hype of Bioshock, the original. While it was certainly well done, the best thing going for it was the unique atmosphere and polish. I just couldn't get over the fact that was merely a decent shooter. Just Point A-to-B shoebox shooting. Was never anything special to me, but I definitely appreciated it's quality.

Bioshock 2 rolls around, and I can honestly say I really don't care at all. There is nothing about the sequel that interests me. I mean, how can you have a sequel to a unique game that scores all it's points with story and character originality. To me, it would be like having a Dead Space 2.. more creeps in the ventilation shafts and long hallways with flickering lights.

All in all, I imagine it's a pretty good game, but they also lost me with the attention to multiplayer. Remind me again, why do we need multiplayer in a story driven game? Come on now.

 

[LTK_70]

I had fun with the things I did in Bioshock, and because I could also do all these things and more in Bioshock 2, I also had fun in that one. It did do a lot of things just like its predecessor, but that's not entirely a bad thing, because Bioshock did these things good, and so does Bioshock 2, although not always as good.

A very sad audiolog? There are a few, but none of them are as heartbreaking as Masha. The final audiolog you pick from Mark Meltzer's body is somewhat like it.

 

[CoverYourHead]

I must be crazy, because I was not impressed with the original BioShock at all. But hey, that's just me. And I've felt the same thing you feel about other games.

 

[Juan Regular]

First of all, you should finish the game before being so harsh about it. This is really a game you should judge after you´ve seen the ending. I know it falls short in terms of characters (Though I personally thought that Gil for example was far more interesting than Steinman) but there are a lot of things to love at the end. And replaying it for the second time I felt much closer to everything the story tried to tell.

 

[MetaKnight19]

I have to agree. BioShock 2 is a very good game, it just has too much deja vú about itself. Whilst playing through I was thinking about how much it reminded me of the first game, how some of the great stuff has stayed and how some of the other, less great stuff stayed.

I think that 2K played it a little bit safe and in doing so made a very good game, but just not as ground-breaking as the first. Overall I would say that BioShock 2 is on par with the first, but no better.

 

[Wolfram23]

Interestingly for me, the gameplay of the first was a bit of a deal breaker for me and I lost interest at some point near the end, eventually going back to finish it but again got bored chasing Ryan and even so close to the end I didn't actually finish BioShock 1. I did find the first 30 minutes of the game exceptional and engrossing, and maybe I just wasn't playing right but I found it fairly tedious. Then BioShock 2 comes out and I thought... meh! But, considering the upgraded combat system I thought I'd give it a go and guess what? I loved it! This game was amazing the story was great and the combat was exceptionally fun. Nothing like drill slamming Splicers and sending them flying 20 feet through the air. I suppose being a return to Rapture means there wasn't the same sense of wonder at this underwater metropolos, and as the article stated the opening of the first BioShock was legendary - but this time around I was itching to explore every nook and cranny, research and kill every baddie, and I again quite liked the recordings. Also, the new weapon selection I really enjoyed plus dual plasmid/gun wielding was just awesome and brought that much needed simplicity to the action.

 

[Woodsey]

Hmmm, I actually greatly prefer the second one.

The first game has exceptionally bad pacing, and just left me frustrated for the entire game. Having said that, I did spoil the story for myself before I played it.

The second one is a much tighter experience, with (in my mind) a more emotionally engaging experience.

 

[Regiment]

In regard to the "terribly depressing audio log", there is one that's almost as sad as "Saw Masha Today". I don't remember his name, but there are a few logs left by a man trying to find his missing daughter, who happens to have been (SHOCKING!) turned into a Little Sister. Anyway, eventually you

Spoiler

come across a Big Daddy- a Rumbler- and when you kill him, his corpse is named, and it's that man. He's carrying an audio diary, in which Sophia Lamb explains how she found this man looking for his daughter, and now she's all he needs. It's tragic, because now you have the power to save her... but only after killing her father.

This, children, is what we call a pyrrhic victory.