Well once again Easter is just about here. 

This is just about the only change I’ll get to post anything for a bit as, you know, it’s just that time of the year for churchs !

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Well this is as late as it can be, but things have been CRAZY busy lately and I havent had a lot that I wanted (or could) talk about.  So, here is an end of the week offering. 

Well, more of a few thoughts that I wanted to mention that perhaps other people haven’t said.  I wrote a review of the game when I had finished it and then realized that most everything I had to say . . . was said much better by someone else.  So I’m just gonna’ make a few observations here and tell you how I felt about it.

First of all, I think that one of the problems I have with Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2 has to do with a . . . well kind of a strange thing in my past.   I grew up in Florida surrounded by the ocean (and a strong, almost overbearing fascination with it), and with an Aunt and Uncle who told me wonderful stories about the sunken city of Atlantis since I was old enough to understand language.  My earliest doodles in school (you know . . . when you doodle instead of taking notes in class) were always of an underwater city, usually in various stages of decay since it was super old or had been destroyed . . . though my citied were much less sky scraper-ish and more dome-like or squat boxes.  Usually I imagined living in the city, having to take care of it, if we were at war with another underwater city or with the surface or whatever. 

So . . . yah . . . I’ve had this fascination with the ocean and with an underwater city since I was a kid.  Strange, I know, but that’s me.

So when they first started to release some early design concepts for this new game taking place under the ocean with this old ruined feeling to it . . . I was completely fascinated and immediately had a connection to it.  I was immediately taken back to my child hood fascination with living in an underwater city.  Come on , you know you had strange fascinations like this as a kid !

Much as I did with Bioshock 1, I had a lot of preconceptions going into Bioshock 2.  In the back of my mind, I expected the game to be (basically) like the underwater city I had imagined from my childhood (I grew up in Florida with family who told stories of the lost city of Atlantis . . . and have always had a fascination with underwater anything.  That’s the kind of thing that happens when you grow up surrounded by water and the space program I guess). 

Anyways . . . from the moment I saw concept art for Bioshock 1 I was hooked.  I immediately saw the city I daydreamed about as a kid !  I think it was that fascination with the very concept of the game (an underwater city in the midst of a civil war and half ruined), and the story, that drew me to make some (erroneous) conclusions as to what the game was going to be like.  Well the game is a shooter with a good story, and I think I wanted a perfect story that was a also shooter (I think I wanted it to be more like Mass Effect).  I had the same problem with Bioshock 1.  I wanted it to be something it was never intended to be.

What Bioshock 2 IS, however, is a pretty satisfying shooter with a good story behind it.  While this time around I felt a more personal connection with the story, along with a better sense of who the citizens of Rapture were and who they have became . . . I still have some issues with the logic of the plot. 

You are told certain things in the game. . . lead to believe certain things . . . that turn out not to happen, with no explication as to why.  Not that you are deceived, that I could buy and was expecting.  But you are told ‘do this, and then this will happen’.  But it doesn’t happen, and you are never given an explanation as to why.  Also, you are presented with a weak explanation as to why certain things must be done . . . with obvious other routs you could take with much better endings . . . but you are just expected to accept that there is no other way.  I think evoking an emotion from the player took precedence over logical story telling in some places. 

Though I did feel a better connection to the main characters, you only interact with them through the radio . . . meeting them only occasionally and usually through a glass wall.  You just fight splicer after splicer after splicer to progress one of their objectives . . . though the reasons they fight you are different this time.  But, that’s why this game is a shooter first and a story driven piece second. 

As for the game play, it’s more of the same with a few new things mixed in.  I felt more at home with my spliced powers then I did in Bioshock 1, though there is a delay when you pull the left trigger a second time to use your powers again . . . leaving me to shock the wall as I turn away from an already dead enemy. 

I though the sound design was as good, and in many places better, then Bioshock 1.  I turned around a couple of times to see if a sound was from the game or actually outside my apartment door.  The difference of each level via music (which is less music and more ambient sound made with instruments) is awesome. 

The level design was better this time around.  Rapture has gotten a little more run down then in the first one, not 10 years more run down (a complaint of mine . . . you only ever see someone repairing anything in the game once.  I guess they just built it THAT well. Other then one area that was flooded.).  The layout of each level is different enough to keep it interesting, and some of the areas have very good and differing themes, but you never get quite the variation you did in the first game.

Multiplayer, though not liked by many people, is probably the most fun I’ve had with the game.  Yes, there are lag issues . . . not like at launch but they are still ocasionally there.  But I feel like I am constantly rewarded with new stuff, I level up pretty quickly at first and unlock a lot early on.  I am constantly changing my strategy, doing different things, mixing it up . . . and even when I loose I leave the game with a good feeling.  It’s basic in some peoples eyes, yes.  It’s not COD.  But there is something fun about it that I just cant quite put my finger on . . .  I am always happy to play it.  The levels offer opportunities to do different things (is that guy in water?, shock him.  Look, there’s a turret to hack.  An oil slick to burn.  A balcony to jump down from.  A vent to hide in.) . . . they feel less like geometry to run around in and more interactive environments to use to your advantage. 

I think a lot of what it boils down to is this . . . the new design team played it safe design wise and you can see that in just about every area of the game.  It looks almost exactly like Bioshock 1.  It plays like Bioshcok 1 (with a few improvements).  It sounds better the Bioshock 1, but still overuses the radio as an in-game plot advancer.  The story has some interesting characters, like B1, but none are better then in the first game.  There are a few new Plasmids, and the upgrades for each plasmid are MUCH better then B1 . . . but you still have mostly the same old plasmids to deal with.  The plot is interesting, but so full of unanswered questions and holes that it feels like they designed the levels first and THEN made up a story to connect them together . . . which is not cool.

I want to like Bioshock 2 more then I do.  It’s a good game.  If you like B1 then you’ll like B2 . . . but it ultimately feels like Bioshock 1.5 and only 90% done at that.  IF they had put a little more time into the story and fixed a few things from B1, then it would have truly been B2.  Still, perhaps I pick apart at it precisely because I see so much potential in it.  I enjoyed the game.  It was fun.  I even like the multiplayer !