BioShock 2 Impressions
I could hardly contain myself as I rushed home yesterday with my CE of BioShock 2 tucked under my arm. I felt a bit like Charlie Bucket after he found the Golden Ticket. I couldn't wait to get home and dive into the depths to reach Rapture once again. I'll have to admit that I got a wee bit verklempt as the doors opened and I saw that wonderful, rotting, art deco masterpiece laid out before me.
I played about ten hours into the game, and was utterly fascinated the entire time. The team at 2K Marin have gone above and beyond, creating a world that is at the same time familiar and also brand new. And it still manages to be a logical extension of the original game. It was akin to reading the next volume of a really great book.
I haven't played it through to the end so I can't really give it a proper review at this point, but I can say with complete confidence that BioShock 2 in every way reaches the high bar set by the original and in some cases, surpasses it. If you were on the fence about picking this up, you can rest assured that it is well worth the purchase price and then some. I will say however, that you'll want to have played the first game before you launch in to this one. You could probably play it cold, but so much of the storyline involves throwbacks to the original game's plot, you'd be doing yourself (and the game) a disservice by dropping in in the middle.
I plan on trying to finish it over the next few days so I can give it a proper review next week. So, if you still aren't convinced by the mad ranting above, look for the full review then. If you haven't done s already, don't forget to leave your impressions about your return to Rapture in the comments of yesterday's article!
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 10 February 2010
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: 2k games, bioshock 2, rapture
The art book, record, and the box it all came in was beautiful too. Well worth the extra 40 bucks.
Katsuya: I have to say that it was one of the first times I ever actually WANTED the extra content in a deluxe edition pre-order pacakage. It looks to fit the feel of Rapture so well.
As for the game it self? I was a little concerned about how the plot was going to work, given how far gone the world was in the first game...but Bioshock 2 seems a very plausable step in the game world. Ryan's capitolistic self interest failed...and horribly, so people took the opposite tack. (Though I still can't figure out the "Daughter of the Lamb" stuff.) So far the down and out blues singer Grace Holloway's been my favorite character.
(Even the hack system, which I loved about the first, got a faster, less complicated tweak that really works to keep the game running quickly)
As for the combat system, I had to check a few times to make sure I didn't have it on the Hard difficulty. Strategy is everything and some of the "Gather" sequneces w/ the Little Sisters can be brutal. Still, it feels like there is more of a difference between choosing to harvest or help the Little Sisters this time around, and it feels like the game choices have more weight all around.
Haven't tinkered with the Multiplayer much aside from one match (where I got evicerated), but it seems really cleverly done. This is a game that takes what was grand about the original and improves in almost every capacity.