Take Two Disappointed With BioShock 2

[Logan Westbrook]

Take Two Disappointed With BioShock 2

Game making can be a risky business, and sometimes you can be a victim of your own success.

BioShock [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=61768] was about as complete as a game could be. It was innovative, had fun gameplay and told a compelling and complete story. The sequel, however, received a much more lukewarm reception when it was released back in February.

Take Two boss Brian Feder believes that the familiarity with the setting afforded by the first game meant that much of the sense of wonder was lost, which in turn hurt sales: "The surprise factor is always going to be there," he said. "Sometimes they work for you and sometimes they work against you. Our goal is to have them work for us, more often than not."

Feder said that the BioShock series has plenty more life in it, calling the franchise "viable", but said that while BioShock 2 [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=73955] had done reasonably well, it had not been a stunning success: "BioShock 2 is profitable for the company," he said. "It was ultimately successful, but not hugely successful."

If/when a BioShock 3 does come, it will be interesting to see where the game goes. Will it risk another trip to Rapture, or will it abandon the sea for some new location? It's hard to imagine a BioShock without an undersea setting, but that might be just what is needed to make the game a success.

Source: Venture Beat [http://venturebeat.com/2010/06/28/take-two-interactive-ceo-says-red-dead-redemption-breaks-the-grand-theft-auto-curse] via VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2010/06/28/bioshock-2-was-not-hugely-successful-admits-feder/]



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[Jelekk]

Bioshock is one of my favorite games of all time. The second was mediocre in every sense of the word. They never should have made it a franchise in the first place, and I really hope they let it die. Why bother forcing out another sequel? Especially if it leaves Rapture.

 

[Irridium]

It was a success. The game faired well, just because you filled one giant money pit instead of two doesn't mean you should be disappointed.

I'm sure there are many companies who would kill for a "disappointed" like this.

EDIT: And another thing, Bioshock doesn't seem like a "franchise" to me. The first one was its own little world, and wrapped up nicely without leaving any real room for sequels.

Not every game needs a sequel. Not every game needs to be turned into a franchise. Not every game needs multiplayer.

 

[Sonicron]

I believe what this franchise needs is a departure from its current setting, location and main gameplay elements to make it a stunning success again - effectively rendering 'Bioshock' useless as a franchise for future installments. Just give us a new Shock, Feder... it doesn't have to be a Bio just because the last one was good.

 

[JaredXE]

Funny, I think many players were disappointed in Bioshock 2 as well.

 

[shaboinkin]

Some games aren't meant to be a franchise.

 

[Woodsey]

If I was new to the internet I might dare ask, "am I the only who thought Bioshock 2 was better than 1?".

 

[Gigaguy64]

I loved both both Games.
I thought BioShock 1 was better Story wise.
And BioShock 2 was better Gameplay wise.

Id love to see a different setting, the whole idea Genetic Reconfiguration is still interesting and fresh, but a different setting where you can get new ideas for Plasmids would be a good idea.

Can anyone say Secret lab high in the Mountains?

 

[Cowabungaa]

Bioshock is one of my favorite games of all time. The second was mediocre in every sense of the word. They never should have made it a franchise in the first place, and I really hope they let it die. Why bother forcing out another sequel? Especially if it leaves Rapture.

I still want a prequel, one that shows Rapture before it's fall. During that game we could see it slowly descend into madness, more and more rioting and fighting, more people (because it'd be nice to see the city alive, with people going about their business) splicing themselves up too far, you name it.

It would also be nice to have the more open-world feeling of the first BioShock return, only with more purpose. In the first game you could return to previous areas, but there was little reason to do so. In the prequel you'd get new missions as time (and the rise of Atlas and at one point the civil war) progresses.

I've got the whole thing worked out in my mind, it could be fantastic and not just a copy of the first BioShock, something we must very much avoid. BioShock 2 showed why that wasn't a good idea; the "wow" factor of Rapture was pretty much gone.

Also, I must add that BioShock 2 was very obviously based on different Ayn Rand novel, namely The Fountainhead. Sofia Lamb was 100% Ellsworth Toohey. That's why I enjoyed BioShock 2. Sure the "wow" factor was gone, but seeing that book come back in BioShock 2 was pretty cool. The upgraded combat (dual-wielding weapons and plasmids) made it a lot more fun too.

 

[Legion]

While I enjoyed Bioshock 2 very much, it was not the location being familiar that made the game weaker than it's predecessor. A lack of imagination in anything beyond combat and a story that just went bizarre near the end would be the main factors.

My favourite parts were the very beginning and the very end, around about 2/3rds of the way in they lost track, just like with Bioshock. The difference is that they didn't have an amazing twist or revelation just before it to make fans less critical.

I loved both both Games.
I thought BioShock 1 was better Story wise.
And BioShock 2 was better Gameplay wise.

Basically yes. Although the issue is that fans of Bioshock were almost unanimously because of the story and atmosphere as opposed to game-play and so they really should have dug deep to have a story as good as the firsts.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Take two aren't the only ones dissapointed with bioshock 2. the first game was a masterpiece, the only game to ever leave me in absolute hand-on-mouth (bio)shock.

why can't they just leave that wonderful game to stand proud in gaming history without people in the future having to remember it along with its mediocre sequel(s).

 

[Cynical skeptic]

Also, I must add that BioShock 2 was very obviously based on different Ayn Rand novel, namely The Fountainhead. Sofia Lamb was 100% Ellsworth Toohey. That's why I enjoyed BioShock 2.

See, that was another problem I had with the game. First game was all about how and why ayn rand was a dipshit. Then the second game honors her philosophy? Please.

Bioshock 2 was clearly made by people who had close to zero understanding of what made the first game amazing. Mindless executives regurgitating barely understood market data to hundreds of codemonkeys who had no real say in any matter.

You can almost see the original developers refusing to make a sequel, and some brainless executive going "OH YEA? WELL WE DON'T NEED U!" to the facepalms of all within earshot.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Bioshock in a desert, I want it now.

Some devoid-of-life place where someone is trying to build a self-contained society, similar in premise to Rapture, it doesn't need water to be Bioshock, it needs to be well-written and have talented voice actors/actresses.

What would it's point be? To improve the gameplay.
When the most effective forms of attack in your game are wrench and rocket launcher, you need to fix some things.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

Heres an idea...how about they just make a new IP and call it...DesertShock? Or...MountainousregionShock? See? I've already got some names for them.

Seriously though, Bioshock didn't need a sequel, wasn't set up for a sequel, and didn't need to be turned into a franchise. If they slapped a "From the creators of BioShock" on whatever the next game would've been from them of that quality, it would've sold just fine.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm one of the noted few who didn't like either, and I don't really know why.

Actually...I know exactly why...and it's got nothing to do with the game, more the setting.

Underwater....brrrr.....

But even dealing with the clasping at my throat when the whale went past, it felt like I was walking through an art gallery. And everytime you interacted with one of the fantastic pieces of art, there was a mental 'disconnect' as you jumped back into FPS mode and then a reconnect to the "Story" mode; and that mental flickering between the two was too much to hold onto.

In the end, you just worked out the fastest route and ran past all the paintings...

I can see why it was "GotY", but I really didn't like it at all.

Also, adding MP(PvP) to SP(PvE), or vice versa usually breaks both. There's been only a handful of games ever that can do both well.

 

[UnravThreads]

I loved both both Games.
I thought BioShock 1 was better Story wise.
And BioShock 2 was better Gameplay wise.

Got to agree with you, I think. I liked BS2, but it wasn't BS1.

BioShock 2 would have been better if it had stayed with the BS1 devs, IMHO. Whilst BS2 was a good game, I expected too much from it and I think that played against it for a lot of people. You expected a new WYK moment, you wanted to learn so much more about Rapture, but it never really happened.

Whilst adding MP was a good idea (and they used another company to do so), I felt it was a bit tacked on, but I suppose it did make the asking price a bit less painful. It was £30 (PC)/£40 (Consoles) for a 6-7hr game, maybe a bit longer if you took your time, explored every nook & cranny and found all audio files. Surely they could have squeezed a few more hours out of it?

But Eleanor Lamb? Mrawr :3

 

[Arec Balrin]

If I was new to the internet I might dare ask, "am I the only who thought Bioshock 2 was better than 1?".

I'm ambivalent about it. I think large late design changes were made to Bioshock in the last year of development, again because of stupid console-tards, developers need to dumb down to meet that market. Take-Two decided it should be a 'shooter with RPG elements' like Unreal under the sea instead of a 'first-person RPG' like Deus Ex. It basically should have been more like Arkham Asylum(a game that got compared with Bioshock funny enough) and an idiot would say "Batman:AA is a fighting game" just because most of the controls are for fighting, Batman fights most of the characters he encounters and the fighting is rather good. But Batman isn't a fighting game like Devil May Cry is. Re-spawning enemies are a testament to just how ill-conceived Bioshock's finished combat design is.

Bioshock had virtually no character interaction except fighting and the fighting wasn't good because it doesn't appear to have been worked on for very long unlike Bioshock 2. I believe combat early on was somewhat more puzzle based and going back to Batman: fighting in that game is essentially a form of Tetris where you're prioritising and reacting to fists and skulls rather than blocks. In early videos combat was represented as using a gun to get flaming gas pouring from a pipe, using telekinesis to set an object on fire over the pipe and then throwing the object. In practice, this is almost ineffective in the game; it's been badly balanced so that all-out shooting is far more effective.

Bioshock 2 basically is what they intended to make Bioshock at a late stage but stumbled on getting it right. It got me thinking that if Batman came out when Bioshock did and Bioshock came out when Batman did, they would have been a lot more confident making it into the game it was supposed to be.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

Rapture is in the same league as Silent Hill, in that it should be treated as a character, not a location. It grows, it can change. Rapture is what needed to be expanded on, not the lore of their own Mr Scary, the Big Daddies. What BioShock 2 failed to do was expand on Rapture itself, instead expanding the mythos and hence ruining what was so fascinating about the first game. Rapture was what horrified me, not the Splicers, not the Little Sisters, Rapture. Similarly, it was Silent Hill that made me crap myself, not Pyramid Head or the glistening products of James' sexually frustrated mind.

Of course, BioShock 2 did need some form of plot to flow with, the only downfall of said plot was that it was too damn focused on explaing Rapture's inner workings. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, look at The Matrix: Reloaded. The problem with sequels and prequels alike is that they have bizarre tendancies, making them feel obligated to have to explain EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DETAIL. Was I the only one slightly pissed off at the Architect's ramblings, explaining everything, yet making no sense whatsoever? I somehow doubt it. Another example? Star Wars: Episode I: The Phatom Menace.

I have one thing to say about that movie.

What the fuck are midichlorians, and why do we give a shit? There's something called suspension of disbelief that most of us are capable of using.

This of course, is just my opinion.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

So, um... was anyone not disappointed with Bioshock 2?

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Why did we even need a Bioshock 2? The first one rounded up things pretty well if you ask me. Making a third one is just pushing it.