'Bioshock 2' review: Now that it's finished...

Last Thursday I posted my first thoughts on Bioshock 2, based on having played about four hours of the game. I was unimpressed and felt the title was falling way short of its glorious predecessor. However, I have since completed the game and can now say with confidence that Bioshock 2 is a very good game which not only lives up to, but improves upon, the original in most respects. I should probably start by directly explaining the reasons for this change of opinion.

Bioshock 2 is a slow starter. As I mentioned before, you begin the game a little underpowered. But any misgivings I had about the weapons at the beginning of the game were long gone by the game’s climax. Not only can you power up the original weapon set so that it becomes quite effective, but the game also introduces a number of more powerful weapons (not least among these: the shotgun and spear gun) which dramatically improve your offensive options. While I never ended up feeling like an all-powerful “Big Daddy”, I did end up really enjoying the combat the game offers.

A big part of the combat in both Bioshock games is the ability to use “Plasmids”, injections which genetically alter your character enabling you to acquire superpowers, and these powers are better balanced and more refined than those in the original game. There are two good examples of this. The first is that the only Plasmid I ever felt I needed to use in the original game was telekinesis. In the first game the telekinesis plasmid was overpowered to the extent that you could pick up any item (a tin of beans say) and hurl it at an enemy with the effect of killing them. I saved a lot of ammo that way and it was pretty fun, but it wasn’t great game design.

The second example of an improvement in balancing the Plasmids comes in the shape of combining what were once two separate (and therefore largely pointless) abilities into one much more effective one. In the first game you could use the “Enrage” Plasmid to make an enemy fight against his comrades, whilst using the “Hypnotise Big Daddy” power enabled you to force one of those hulking guardians to come to your aid. Now, in the place of these is an improved “Hypnotise” Plasmid, which at its lowest level causes enemies to fight amongst themselves and at a more advanced stage enables you to convince any enemy (Big Daddy’s included) to defend you. So two Plasmids I never bothered to equip last time became the one Plasmid I couldn’t do without, in the sequel.

It is also fair to say that the game has some interesting locations which rival those seen in the original. Whilst I was at first concerned that it lacked the same personality, as the game progresses you reach some really nicely realised sections of Rapture, which never feel repetitive or too similar to those seen in the first game. Whilst I am still unhappy that the developers removed some of the games personality (for instance by removing the jingle from the vending machines), Bioshock 2 is not a personality free zone, as I had orinally thought.

In my original post, I also expressed some concern about the games story, saying that Dr. Lamb was not as compelling an antagonist as those battled in the previous game. Well, as with just about everything else, the story really got going after that initial spell of playing, and whilst it is certainly worth criticising the game for failing to really capture my imagination from the start (in the manner of the original), it is also worth pointing out that this game improves on its predecessor’s sloppy ending. Without giving anything away, Bioshock 2 does build to a good climax and the story ends up enriching the story of Rapture (and its fall) in a way I never expected. I had wondered how a character that was never mentioned in the first game could suddenly become such an important part of the story, but the game addresses this issue satisfactorily and does well to keep continuity with the original.

I’ll stand by some of my initial complaints though. Enemies don’t really seem to fear you (but then again they don’t seem to mind taking on the regular “Big Daddys” this time around either) and the “Little Sisters” you protect don’t have enough personality about them. They do occasionally chime in with “look daddy another angel” or something similar, but this is merely functional and not done to provide that illusive “atmosphere” Bioshock 2 ultimately rather lacks. Perhaps they need to be singing nursery rhymes or something. I can understand why a developer might cut something like that out in order to avoid annoying the player, but I think it would have added something, and would have made me feel a little creeped out (which is how the spooky corpse-inspector children should be making you feel, right?).

I don’t want to get too far into talking about the new online multiplayer mode. This is partly because I haven’t yet put the hours into playing it, but mostly because there is a lot I had to write about the single player, which takes precedence. However, I will say that from what I have played the multiplayer it is a solid addition to the game. I was impressed by the effort that has gone into its setting, as the Bioshock 2 multiplayer is based during the fall of rapture, and as such tells as story (complete with collectable audio logs) which serves to complement the main event. It is certainly nice to glimpse Rapture in a less run down state and it is refreshing to come across a mulitplayer mode that has clearly had some effort put into it.

Ultimately, Bioshock 2 manages to improve upon the (excellent) first game in terms of the gunplay, with a slightly improved control system, as you can now wield a weapon and a Plasmid at once. Add to this the refined set of weapons and Plasmids and the combat is quite brilliant. The additional gameplay element of defending the “Little Sisters” is welcome and quite enjoyable, although it is not exploited enough during the campaign. The story is a little stronger this time around and the end section (including the ending itself) is much improved over the original, although it lacks the original’s pacing, taking longer to get going. In terms of atmosphere Bioshock 2 fails to generate the same tension and never pulled me into Rapture completely, despite some nice level design and interesting visual elements (like the shrines around some of the “Little Sister” vents). Perhaps this is simply because I have been to Rapture before, rather than that the game is made inferiorly, as I can’t really put my finger on what is missing. However, the fact can't be avoided that Bioshock 2 is a sequel and so can't really be expected to make as great an impact as the original.

I would definitely recommend Bioshock 2 to fans of the original game. And although I would probably advise new players to experience the original for a proper introduction to my favourite city under the sea, playing the first is by no means essential to the Bioshock 2 experience.

Bioshock 2 has been available in the UK since the 9th of February and is rated an '18' by the BBFC. For a look at the game from a technical view point, head over to IQGamer.

Rejoice for the SEGA All-Stars (and, again, that bloke from Shenmue)

After railing against console-brand-biased fanboys earlier this week, it is time for me to be a big hypocrite and don my SEGA fanboy hat. Last night I played the 360 demo for “Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing” and loved it. I know Sonic’s track record for spin-off titles isn’t great, with lacklustre games like Sonic Riders and All-Stars Racing developer Sumo Digital’s previous effort SEGA Superstars Tennis scoring poorly with reviewers. However, from what I played, this new Sonic racing game was pretty good fun. In the same way that Sumo’s Sonic tennis game was based around the principles of SEGA’s Virtua Tennis franchise, All-Stars Racing seems to have been based on the driving mechanics of the arcade series Outrun, in that you must drift to turn corners. As a pretender to the Mario Kart throne, the game seems to be a lot better than it has any right to be and may provide PS3 and 360 fans with the opportunity to enjoy a decent game of that type without having to go cap in hand to Nintendo.

As I said, though, I am a bit fanboyish about this topic. Most of my time playing the demo was spent gawping at the references to other SEGA games, most of which come from the Dreamcast era and pointing them out to my girlfriend (who couldn't care less). There are playable characters and stages from Space Channel 5, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio and Samba Di Amigo and nods to other neglected games like Chu Chu Rocket. I also loved the fact that the music for the Sonic-themed stage of the demo was taken from directly from Sonic Adventure. I hope all the stages take their music directly from these old games. I couldn’t tell from the demo whether Shenmue’s Ryo Hazuki is voiced by the legendary Corey Marshall, but I remain hopeful (despite the fact his IMDB entry doesn’t list the game).

Basically, as you can tell from that last paragraph, a fair slice of my enthusiasm for this game comes from loving many of the franchises which it is cynically cashing in on. I knew I’d like that aspect of the game when it was first announced (it had me at “hello”), but what surprises me is that the game seems playable enough for me to actually buy it. It seems off though that this game should be released now and continue the Sonic Adventure-era branding of Sonic, seeing as SEGA are trying to bring the franchise back to its roots and put an end to this kind of crap. Anyway, enjoy the video of Shenmue's hero getting his race on below:



Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing is rated '7+' by PEGI and comes out in Europe on February 26th... which come to think of it, clashes with the release of Heavy Rain.

Heavy Rain demo available!

Anyone who read my first post on this blog will know I am keenly awaiting Heavy Rain, the PS3 exclusive crime-thriller game. Developed under the direction of David Cage (the man responsible for the interesting Fahrenheit as well as the underappreciated Omikron: The Nomad Soul), Heavy Rain has attracted a lot of interest since it was announced way back in 2006. Much of this interest has been raised by the games mission to be a genuinely emotional experience, with realistic and interesting characters.

Personally, Heavy Rain excites me for many reasons, the first and most frivolous being that it bears some resemblance to the notorious Dreamcast flop, Shenmue (one of my favourite games of all time - pictured above). The resemblance, as I see it, is in the way both games feature mundane actions as gameplay elements. For example, Shenmue saw players waiting at a bus stop on their way to work every morning. You could also open pointless drawers and pick up the various pots and pans... for no reason whatsoever. Heavy Rain seems to allow similar scope for relatively pointless moments, such as playing with your son or opening a fridge. Of course, none of these moments are pointless within the context of the game, as they create a world and an atmosphere. The other similarity both games seem to share is a reliance on reaction times in responding to on-screen button prompts, popularly known as QTE’s (quick timer events).

Shenmue likeness aside, the main reason I am excited by Heavy Rain is that I want to see whether it lives up to its ambitious goal, and makes me cry (or at least feel something for the characters). In that earlier post, I discussed whether games could be considered art, and I see Heavy Rain as a potentially interesting chapter in that ongoing saga.

The reason for writing this now is that a playable demo has arrived on Playstation Network. In it you are allowed to play two brief scenarios, which introduce you to the games control system, as well as setting up two of its characters. I have played this demo and can now give my proper first impressions on the title.

I’ll start with the bad. Well, nothing I played was truly bad. The one thing I really wasn’t sure about was the control system. Pressing the “R2” button (the lower-right trigger on the control pad) causes your character to move forwards (this is again similar to Shenmue) and this took some time getting used to. Moving your character in this way lacks fluidity and this seems to undermine the realism of the game, as my character changes direction like a robot. The QTE’s themselves work well, but I was thrown by their inconsistency. For example, at one point in the demo I was told that pressing down “L2” would always present the option of hearing my characters thoughts. However, this didn’t prove to be the case more than half of the time. Another minor gripe is that the early previews of the game made the characters facial animations appear much more detailed and fluid then they would seem to be in the final game.

The single worst thing I can say about Heavy Rain, so far, is this: the all-important believable story and characters are falling into the trap of aiming for “cinematic”. The story and the dialogue do indeed feel cinematic, but only because they feel cliché. In one section of the demo I played as an FBI agent, complete with the standard banter with local law enforcement about jurisdictions and people saying “look, just remember we’re both on the same team here”. All the dialogue, from what I’ve played in the demo, seems directly ripped out of a million cop shows and movies. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t groundbreaking either. It certainly isn’t “realistic”. Within a minute of starting the demo I was asking a hotel receptionist whether Abe Lincoln would jog his memory. It’s that sort of thing.



It was all curiously affecting, however. Once the demo was over I was surprised that I was really hungry for more, despite having some reservations about what I’d seen. Most encouragingly I was left feeling that even though I had only spent limited time with them I knew both the characters I had been playing as. This will be vital in a game which splits between multiple characters fairly frequently. The game also had a decent atmosphere, with the titular heavy rain lashing down throughout. I must also say that the QTE fight scene I had in the first half of the demo was pretty good. I missed lots of prompts and was rewarded with bruises and busted limbs, rather than having to replay the section as with other games that feature QTE’s. I need to replay the demo and check this out, but it certainly felt like I could have walked away and not had the fight at all, or like I could have come out of it without taking a beating or even that I could have been truly smashed up by the end of it. One of the most intriguing elements of all this is seeing how these different outcomes will affect the remainder of the story. Of course, the demo gives me no insight into this.

It remains to be seem whether the story is emotionally affecting, but overall I am left excited by the prospect of getting deeper into it and I am looking forward to playing the full game (and reviewing it here) later this month.

Heavy Rain is released on Playstation 3 on the 26th of February and was rated a 15 by the BBFC.