The first BioShock was a breath of fresh air among the formulaic FPS’ that were beginning to crowd our store shelves in 2007. It was a FPS which was lauded as much for its plot and visuals as the underlying messages it drove home to gamers and critics alike. A game of incredible personality and atmosphere it was one of the most critically acclaimed FPS games of this generation. Memories of the fallen world of Rapture, the setting of BioShock are still fresh in our minds even today.
The announcement of a second BioShock game was met with much delight and a little trepidation by gamers everywhere. We were all eager to make a second journey into Rapture, however we also learnt that the game’s original creator Ken Levine and his studio 2K Boston would not be handling development duties this time around. As fans, we can only hope that 2K Marin can somehow one up or at least equal the experience we had in the first BioShock and preserve the essence that defined that game.
1. Playing as a Big Daddy: BioShock 2’s biggest change, perhaps, comes from the fact that you play as a Big Daddy. Now when we think of the Big Daddies from the first game we remember them for the hulking lumbering giants that they were. Though they were incredibly powerful, one might imagine that playing as one would slow down the pace of the gameplay considerably. 2K Marin assuaged our fears by letting us know that players don’t play as just any Big Daddy but a prototype Big Daddy; in fact the very first Big Daddy ever created. He is faster and more agile than a regular Big Daddy and has the ability to switch weapons and use plasmids. Perhaps the most important distinction is that this Big Daddy has somehow regained his free will and is not bound by a singular duty of protecting little sisters. Also as a player your experience is different and your perspective is vastly different since you are integrated in the ecology of Rapture instead of observing and manipulating it like Jack from BioShock 1. The idea of pummeling splicers with your drill also sounds really good.
2. Multiplayer: The first BioShock had long a development cycle. Even though the team had considered adding multiplayer to the game, they decided somewhere in between to concentrate only on giving players the best possible single player experience. Now with the game as an established IP and most of the technical elements already in place they decided to add a fully fledged multiplayer component this time around. Developed by a separate studio Digital Extremes, the game’s multiplayer is set one year before the events of the first game, during the civil war that destroys Rapture. Each player will have his personal apartment where he can upgrade his character and save weapon/plasmid loadouts. They have also wrapped a story around the whole multiplayer experience. A player is a product tester for Sinclair Solutions, a group developing new weapons and plasmids to profiteer off the conflict. As you test their stuff and level up, they make new products available to you. Another interesting component is a Big Daddy suit that spawns randomly on the map. The player who picks it up becomes a near unstoppable tank, but when he’s killed the suit respawns. This element will create an interesting dynamic throughout the matches wherein for a particular phase of the map players might co-operate to take down the Big Daddy. All in all its sounds like an interesting multiplayer experience that fits into the BioShock ethos
3. Big Sister: Big Daddies were the strongest enemies from the first game and they will be still present in this game. However, they were also relatively slow and attacked only when they perceived the player as a threat to a Little Sister. Big Sisters on the other hand are a much bigger threat to the player. She is an aggressive predator and lightning fast as compared to the Big Daddies. She will approach the player when he/she kills enough Big Daddies. Players are forewarned of the arrival of the Big Sister by the Little Sisters by the singing of a song. This gives players time to prepare environmental traps that will aid in dealing with her. A Big Sister is a grown-up Little Sister and she is able to harvest Adam from her enemies straight into her blood stream which gives her very powerful telekinetic abilities. These she will use as both an attack and defence mechanism against the player.
4. New ways to fight: The fighting mechanics in BioShock were sufficiently rewarding but did tend to grow old over the course of the game. This time around, 2K Marin has made some nifty additions to the fighting mechanics. Firstly players can now dual wield plasmids and weapons. Plasmids have a more compelling upgrade path and besides power their functionality also will increase with upgrades. Most of the familiar plasmids from the first game can now be combined in newer ways. Freezing an enemy and hurling them with Telekinesis, or having a Splicer hit one of your fire charged traps, being flung into the air, while on fire, and then finishing them off with a power Shotgun blast in midair can take down even a formidable opponent. There are many combinations like this, and the results can vary, allowing for modifying your tactics very rapidly. You can use the environment, new weapon upgrades and plasmids combinations to destroy your enemies in newer and exciting ways every time.
5. A new story: The plot of the first BioShock was widely hailed as what elevated it above mere entertainment and seriously placed a video game under the scanner as an art form. It was a captivating story with a brilliant twist and a game that assumed objectivist ideologies as its core theme. Objectivism, however, was not the only ideology of Rapture. 2K wanted to explore some of the other ideas that existed and drove people in Rapture, especially in the power vacuum that Jack left behind. The mystery of the Big Sister is one of the ways they are going to be exploring those new ideas. BioShock 2 takes place 10 years after the events of BioShock 1 and different people, with different ideologies stepped in to fill in where Ryan and Fontaine left off. In the last 10 years, the normal business of Rapture that took place under Andrew Ryan’s reign has not been taking place, and instead, splicers and survivors have been using whatever means possible to survive within the city. The story of how you the player became the first Big Daddy is central to BioShock 2.
6. Greater challenge: The enemies in BioShock consisted of a few types of Splicers and the mini boss like Big Daddies. Though they did pose a challenge in numbers they could be dealt with pretty easily once the player got the stronger upgrades. The wrench alone could be used almost throughout the game to take down pretty much any splicer. The Big Daddies though more challenging could still be effectively taken down using a few standard strategies. This time around even if 2K hasn’t specifically said anything related to this, we can expect newer varieties of splicers to fight considering that Rapture has evolved in the 10 years since Jack left. We also remember the Vita Chambers from the first game where players were instantly resurrected on dying while any damage they did to enemies was still retained. Some players simply kept respawning until the Big Daddy was dead. To alleviate these issues they have provided the option to turn off Vita chambers completely & they have also made what they describe as tuning changes to prevent the respawing strategy from being effective. Also, the biggest challenge will come from the Big Sister, a more powerful and agile enemy than any other from the first game as well as one that is able to use telekinesis.
7. Better final boss fight: Though a boss fight isn’t always a major issue in the grand scheme of things, in the first game it was the one aspect of the game that stood out and not in a good way. It was absolutely confounding how all the creativity and brilliance of the rest of the game was thrown out of the window in favour of the most pedestrian of final bosses. It was all rather anti climatic and left a bitter aftertaste after all the gaming sweetness players had enjoyed up to that point. Even Andrew’s non-interactive death at business end of a golf club was more enjoyable. 2K, when posed with the question about whether we could expect a better final boss, responded by saying that they had definitely learned from that experience. Hopefully this will translate into a game that ends with a bang rather than the ‘it’s over before you know it’ boss fight we experienced the last time around.
- By Shantesh Patil