BioShock 2 Interviews and Early Looks

Parz writes with word that new information is emerging about the much-anticipated BioShock 2. Eurogamer has a detailed write-up about the game, saying that it raises curiosity and exhibits plot-depth in a manner similar to the first game. Gamespot has a video interview with some of the developers, in which they talk about some of the new environments and how they're able to do more with the story in a sequel by not having to explain the fundamental characteristics of the setting. In an interview with Gameplayer, Lead Level Architect Hogarth de la Plante said, "You'll see locations in BioShock 2 that are completely flooded interior structures that you can walk through out in the ocean." A gameplay trailer was recently released, and screenshots are available as well.

Comments

Consider me unimpressed

[aztektum]

So you walk around and can either save/kill+harvest the lil girls and there is someone talking to you over the radio, this time with a drill on your hand! This is a sequel? Sounds more like an expansion pack.

Same but better...

[spiffydudex]

The original, but better story and gameplay. Just like a sequal should be.

Unlike some other titles... *cough*FEAR2*cough*

What's the big deal.

[Dyinobal]

I played through Bioshock, it didn't impress me at all. I was surprised it even got good reviews. I'm a long time PC gamer though, all these multiplatform reviews seem to skew things a bit. Beyond nice looking water I can't really think of anything that made me interested in the game. Maybe it's the steampunk novelty that everyone digs.

Re:What's the big deal.

[Fallingcow]

I was surprised it even got good reviews

The story was very good, by FPS standards. Not Deus Ex good, but good. A couple levels were well done. Good atmosphere throughout. The gameplay was average or a bit below average.

If any of that strikes you as being a reason to give the game a good review, then that's probably why. I would say it's one of those shooters you don't really play for the shooting, if that makes any sense.

I do think that the gaming press in general is prone to praise anything that doesn't completely suck, and often pushes games that are OK at best as if they were truly great. I also think it's gotten worse since console gaming took off, for whatever reason.

Re:What's the big deal.

[SparkleMotion88]

I played through Bioshock, it didn't impress me at all. I was surprised it even got good reviews.

The art direction in Bioshock was possibly the best I've seen in a video game. The visual design combined with the voice acting and soundtrack created an outstanding and coherent setting for the story of the game. In addition, Andrew Ryan is one of the most interesting and memorable video game characters of all time. The gameplay was also fairly creative.

That being said, the story (once you get past the terrific setting) was forgettable, and the gameplay got somewhat repetitive once you got used to it. I also wasn't impressed by the "morality" aspect of the game (though I never am impressed by morality elements in games). So the game was generally enjoyable to play, but there are much more "fun" games out there.

The art direction alone is enough to make this game significant, and it should be appreciated for its achievements in this area, if for no other reason.

Re:What's the big deal.

[Ephemeriis]

I played through Bioshock, it didn't impress me at all. I was surprised it even got good reviews. I'm a long time PC gamer though, all these multiplatform reviews seem to skew things a bit. Beyond nice looking water I can't really think of anything that made me interested in the game. Maybe it's the steampunk novelty that everyone digs.

The big deal, I think, was the atmosphere/setting/storyline/whatever.

The game mechanics were fairly unimpressive. Run around, shoot guys, maybe do the occasional 'hacking' mini-game... Nothing special.

The atmosphere though, was pretty impressive.

Very nice, very novel visuals. Impressive architecture slowly giving way to the sea... Constant presence of water... The sensation that tons of pressure were bearing down on you... Constant dripping, groaning, creaking...

There were a few good characters, too. Andrew Ryan was one of the more interesting villains in recent history.

Re:What's the big deal.

[nine-times]

I think-- and admittedly, this is just my guess-- that part of the hype was due to younger console players who'd never played games like System Shock or Fallout, and maybe haven't really played many FPS outside of Halo.

If you've been playing computer FPSs and RPGs for the past decade or two, Bioshock doesn't seem like it's all that Interesting. Portal, for example, was much more interesting and innovative (short as it was). But I think I might have been wowed by the aesthetic and some of the gameplay if I hadn't played the games that Bioshock is rehashing.

Re:What's the big deal.

[Polumna]

I'm 27. I played the Fallouts (less Tactics) religiously, and both System Shocks before Bioshock. I still think Bioshock deserved the vast majority of the hype it got. (Some of the nonsense about the story being the best thing since sliced bread, I felt, was a little misplaced or over-exaggerated, but other than that...)

Why can't it just be good in its own right? Virtually everything is a rehash. You can't possibly expect every game to be Portal, and I don't think you can reasonably expect people to only get excited once every ten years when a Portal-class game comes out. Bioshock wasn't terribly original. It was beautiful, fun and engrossing. Better yet, it gave me another game to play in a similar environment to its aforementioned predecessors.

I'd rather studios continue to make good games rehashing those ideas than just let those environments and feelings die. I don't want to have to play Fallout YET AGAIN in a dos emulator on Linux 3.432.2 in thirty years to get that same feeling. So when a derivative comes out, and it's good, I'll continue to get almost as excited as when those old games I'm reminded of did... I can know the roots of the games I like without being shackled by them.

Re:What's the big deal.

[mjwx]

There were a few good characters, too. Andrew Ryan was one of the more interesting villains in recent history.

This was one of the few things that Bioshock did right, the departure from the Hollywood requirement to have a clear hero/villain. Well until after you meet and kill Ryan, then it becomes horribly formulaic.

Besides, The story was just a rehashing of System Shock 2 in a steampunk setting. Altas/Fontain was a direct analogue to Polito/Shodan. Ryan was an analogue to the Many\Diego, whilst they succeed in making the player question weather Ryan was truly a villain they did it in the exact same way as they made the player ask if the Many were truly evil. To me the story of Bioshock was a cut down version of System Shock 2 with less interesting characters in a leaky 1950's setting.

Now the gameplay was where they really dropped the ball, Firstly the combat mechanic wasn't too bad but it lacked variety so each encounter was almost exactly the same. In SS2 there were clear differences in the weapon you used where as in Bioshock you just equipped something and shot it, it didnt matter what approach you took you'd just end up shooting the enemy. In SS2 the environment was a bit more usable then in Bioshock, you could hack turrets which could be quite effective against opponents in SS2 but in Bioshock you had to end up shooting them yourself as a turret would take half an hour to kill the weakest enemy.

But the worst parts were the ones that were taken out or dumbed down for the console audience, firstly the RPG style skill system used in SS2 was gone and replaced with a somewhat weaker "enhancement" system which had little real bearing on you ability to operate any weapon. Any kind of real management of money (nanites in SS2) was gone, and there was no inventory management to speak of, in SS2 you had to make choices of what you would carry in Bioshock you could grab anything not nailed down, you were every weapon in the game and the plasmids were more useless then most of the psionic powers in SS2 plus they were interchangeable so you never had to actually decide on what kind of character you were going to have, not that it mattered in Bioshock as every character had to focus on the gun combat.

Not that it really mattered if you completely sucked at Bioshock because you could never die, as soon as you were killed you would reincarnate at the nearest glowing re-incarnation station with all your equipment and no penalty for dying what so ever and of course this only worked on you.. I know System Shock had a reincarnation system but there was a penalty for using it (cost) and it had to be activated so there was a real chance the player could die (lose progress) before activating the reincarnation system. This mechanic alone made the game pointless to play on any higher difficulty level.

Re:What's the big deal.

[mjwx]

I would love to see a SS3 in the same way SS1/SS2 were ...

Me Too.

But unfortunately EA own the rights to System Shock (most games developed by Looking Glass IIRC), even if Levine and the other original Dev's were reunited under EA's flag there is no way in hell that EA could stop themselves from interfering in the dev process to make the game "more accessible" and have "greater mainstream appeal", which is marketdroid speak for dumb it down so far that a one handed heroin addict with down syndrome could play it and fill it with T&A until it will not pass the censors without a bribe. But maybe I'm just a cynic.

Personally I think that Ken Levine wanted Bioshock to be a sequel to SS2 if not in name but ended up being interfered with by 2K games. I remember reading a thread on the 2K forums called "the stupidity of Ken Levine" where IrrationalLevine (Ken Leivne's board name) tried to explain this and the DRM but the thread ended up being deleted as some board member threatened the 2K manager responsible for the DRM's introduction.

I still love this game and whenever I play a game nowadays I just think they are all pretty much dumbed down and simple. More "Mass" appealing. Not bad per se, but just not as exciting as they were 10 years ago.

I think that its the focus on Graphics that is doing the damage to PC gaming. Crysis wasn't a bad game apart from the fact that most rigs at the time had trouble playing it, Crysis was by no means a great game let alone the defining moment in gaming history that its developers still imagine it to be but it was good enough and I don't regret buying it. Back to my point however, too much emphasis was put into Crysis' graphics and not enough was put into the storytelling or game play. FarCry 2 was an abomination however, if you need an example of how to do a game wrong then this is it.

Playing my old favourite games I begin to realise how much is missing from modern games, it may just be the fact I'm getting older but its harder for me to get drawn into a game world and actualy care about it. I haven't seen a game since Deus Ex that had such an involving story line, having real consequences for your actions like in KOTOR and DX, the immersion of System Shock 2 and Half Life 1 and 2.

The best games I've played in recent years have been Portal and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. both had great stories and excellent game play (STALKER you have to forgive a little, it was written in Russian(Ukraine) and translated into English, I'm used to English being broken/inconsistent a little so I had no problem)

Sign me up!

[its_schwim]

I found the first Bioshock to be fantastic. Even if it is a rehashed storyline, It'll end up on my PC. The first was a refreshing change to the standard alien invasion FPS.

Bioshock 2:

[flitty]

I have a sinking feeling this is the game that everyone will point to in the future to show what exactly is wrong with sequels. No matter how technically competent the game is, exploring the same environment, same philisophical questions, and (from what i've seen) fighting the same splicer enemies is not a sequel. It's an expansion pack. Ctrl-X "Big Daddy" Ctrl-V "Big Sister".

Personally, I would have loved to have seen a real prequel, where you see an Ayn Randian utopia slowly fall apart, where you help businessmen reach their highest potential, which eventually leads to the collapse of rapture. That's an interesting story to tell, and leads right into Bioshock. But no, the game will start with the first crazy splicer you have to kill, and it will be a splicer run and gun.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but from what i've seen, I doubt I am.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[flitty]

Let me explain it for those of you who didn't play the game.
Instead of aliens or supersoldiers/science-gone-wrong as a basis for a shooter (99.5% of shooters that exist are one of these two premises), Bioshock uses Objectivism (Rand's Philosophy) as a basis for the story. Pretty damn daring to explore an economic/philosophy in a video game. The game presupposes that taking Objectivism to it's full potential leads only to collapse and failure. Of course, we don't see this in the game, we just see the aftermath of what happens when man's potential is FULLY exploited. Seeing the collapse of Rapture (the underwater city you explore in bioshock) has it's own interesting aspects that were not explored by Bioshock.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[Ephemeriis]

Oh god how I wished Bioshock was more like systemshock 2.

Agreed.

SystemShock 2 was a superior game in just about every way. I still play through it at least once a year. Very good stuff.

When they were first talking about BioShock it was supposed to be SystemShock 3 - but in some kind of WWII bunker with genetic manipulation instead of cybernetics. Sounded great to me.

Then they tweaked it a bit... SystemShock 3 in a flooding underwater city with genetic manipulation. Still sounded great.

But the end result really isn't terribly SystemShock-y. There's very little character development... There's very little threat from most of the enemies... There's almost no backtracking or exploration... There's no inventory management... Basically a FPS with only the slightest hints of character development.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[msormune]

Your prequel's plot description is too much like the world we are living in now :)

Re:Bioshock 2:

[DdJ]

In what sense is it daring? Seriously, how many potential buyers would really care about the game's view of objectivism?

Actually, that's exactly the sense in which it's daring.

It's a video game. How many potential buyers expect it to include any kind of analysis of philosophical systems at all? The target market for video games isn't exactly known for having in-depth discussions regarding the differences between the epistemology of Hume and Descartes. So, regardless of which philosophy is under analysis, whether a pro or con stance is taken, what the outcome is, et cetera, the framework of exploring a philosophy via a video game is itself somewhat daring.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[Ephemeriis]

They touted the element of "choice" as being central and relevant to the outcome. I can't even call that an exaggeration. It was an outright lie.

The only choice you actually had, at any point in the game, was whether you'd kill the little sisters or not. And that choice was completely irrelevant. You got rewards either way. It did not significantly impact the gameplay or storyline. All it did is change the ending. Nothing more.

I also agree that the enemies were not very threatening. When I first read about the game, I got the impression that there would be battles with normals, which would be easy, battles with "splicers," which would have the same calibre and variety of genetic powers that you have, and battles with Big Daddies, which would make you weep for mercy. Nothing of the sort.

For the most part, there was no challenge to any of the enemies. Enemies are supposed to be an obstacle to be overcome. They're supposed to create conflict of some kind. They were too easy. Even the big daddies could easily be avoided or manipulated.

The gameplay was sufficiently fun

It was. The mechanics were decent enough... And the setting was terrific... It certainly wasn't a bad game.

but I was really expecting a more cerebral combat experience. Not necessarily a more difficult combat experience. That can be achieved with faster, stronger, tougher enemies. I just wanted smarter, more interesting enemies.

In a shooter, the enemies are your primary source of conflict. And conflict is what makes a game interesting. If the enemies are too easy, there's no conflict, and you lose interest.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[Ephemeriis]

Quake was also a multi-player game, that's why I brought it up.

It was, but not terribly team-oriented.

I've never played the single player version of any FPS games for more than 5 minutes at a friend's house. Too boring. "I gotta shoot 100 of these bots before they shoot me!"

And that's the problem with ignoring the stories in games.

With a multi-player game you don't have much of a plot. There's still a setting, a backstory of sorts. But there isn't a whole lot of plot. You don't typically have huge twists or betrayals scripted into the game. It's you (and maybe your team) against them. The game doesn't have to generate any conflict to create interest - you do that yourself.

A single-player game doesn't have a 'them' - it only has the plot. And if you're ignoring the plot, then you're just killing AI bots. What makes a single-player game interesting isn't the challenge of killing a bot, it's progressing the plot along. Discovering the world you're in, uncovering answers, whatever. The enemies are just there to bar your progress, slow you down, create conflict. They're no different than a locked door that you have to find a key to.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[Ephemeriis]

Business guy: We want all people in our target group. This is too hard on them. Make it simpler.

This is the big problem. They always want to appeal to the widest market, to sell the most copies, rather than produce a high-quality product.

Imagine baking the most kickass chocolate cake. Everyone raves about what a great chocolate cake it is. You get tons of chocoholics declaring that it's a must-have cake. They go out of their way to buy your cake. You get a few folks who whine that they don't like chocolate.

So you go to make a new cake, and the business guy points out that not everyone likes chocolate. He insists that you bake a plain yellow cake instead and just put some brown frosting on it so it still looks like a chocolate cake.

And then you've got all your chocoholics complaining that the cake isn't chocolate. And you've got the chocolate-haters complaining because the frosting looks like chocolate, even though it isn't. And you've got some other people asking who the hell makes brown frosting in the first place.

You might get a good number of sales because your first cake was so good... But after the second cake, very few people are going to be coming back for more.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[lgw]

The political analysis was (thankfully) deeper than merely assuming that "taking Objectivism to it's full potential leads only to collapse and failure". It points out a specific flaw in a specific example objectivist government, gives the backstory of how that flaw was exploited and was the benefit was do doing so, and at least a suggestion as to why the weakness was overlooked by the leadership.

There were any number of isolationist "utopias" that were tried and failed in America leading up to the timeframe in which the story was set. They all failed, often violently. Even if you believe that Objectivism is the One True Answer, the game was still interesting in it's backstory, not merely flamebait.

Sadly, none of that added to the actual gameplay, but it made it worthwhile to hunt for the various recordings and diary entrties to get the backstory.

Why are so many games set just after all the cool stuff happened in the game world? It seems to be the most common pattern in FPSs that yo show up after everything went to shit in some colorful and entertaining way, and instead of participating in that, you read about it. It's exasperating. Half Life broke that mold, but no one else seemed to get the point.

Re:Bioshock 2:

[drinkypoo]

So, regardless of which philosophy is under analysis, whether a pro or con stance is taken, what the outcome is, et cetera, the framework of exploring a philosophy via a video game is itself somewhat daring.

That's really not true. There's been deep shit in video games since forever. You could point at Star Control 2, for example, which discusses the concept of racial cleansing and religious fervor. Or for that matter, the classic Marathon.

Also, it's not like Bioshock forces you to understand any of the philosophies in question to play the game. So they're really not exploring philosophy via a video game. The philosophy is window dressing.

I'm calling it now...

[JoeLinux]

Bioshock 2 is not going to be as good a sequel as System Shock 2 was to System Shock.

Virtually no RPG elements, and a tired re-tread of Bioshock with vaguely new elements (I.E. taking the one "protect the little sister" element from the first one and repeat it several times in this game). It's going to be, at most, a "meh" experience.

Re:I'm calling it now...

[Burnhard]

I don't know about this. I thought artistically and aesthetically Bioshock was a great game. Sure it's not ground-breaking, but the scenes in the theatre (for example) where you're attacked by splicers with the Blue Danube playing in the background I thought showed genuinely good production values.

When you look at games like Half-Life 2 and the way they've moved the story on through Episode 1 and 2, with only a few gameplay innovations, you can see how it's possible to provide a fun gaming experience that continues to engage the player. But I suppose it's hard to bring the Bioshock story on when the first game saw the death of the main protagonists and our "hero" live happily ever after.

Re:I'm calling it now...

[JoeLinux]

Seee...that's part of the suck-fest. In this one, you play a prototype Big Daddy (only done so they can explain how you can upgrade your gun/drill/use plasmids), who has to protect the little sisters from a little sister who grew up, returned to Rapture, and spliced herself into an ultra-agile big-daddy style suit (think "ninja" big-daddy).

Lame-sauce.

Re:I'm calling it now...

[Lisandro]

In all fairness, BioShock is to System Shock what Deus Ex 2 is to Deus Ex. It's ok, looks spiffy, but after the novelity wears off it's just another FPS with amazing presentation but shallow story and gameplay.

Re:just gimme

[X0563511]

Did you look at the screenshots?

I think you do! Probably not THE Mr. Bubbles, but you have a drill on your hand, a big helmet, and you can harvest or adopt the girls.

will it work?

[Lord Ender]

Will this work with Vista 64? Bioshock is the only game I have that just plain fails on Vista64. I never got to finish it. I kinda want my money back. How could a game publisher overlook such a widely-deployed platform?

Re:will it work?

[Amranu]

I dunno what you're talking about, Bioshock works fine on Vista 64 for me

Re:will it work?

[Cythrawl]

Remove the Pen Tablet features in the add remove windows components and you will find that it works just fine after that

Re:will it work?

[paralaxcreations]

Are you serious? I hope that's a joke...
Why the fsck should Pen Tablet features prevent you from playing a video game?

I'm a graphic designer by trade (bet you can't figure out my OS of choice...), so I use a pen tablet almost exclusively between 9 and 5, but I also enjoy playing video games in my off time...am I to believe that I need to make a choice between my profession and my hobby because Microsoft allows a PEN TABLET DRIVER to prevent an app from running properly?

Sure, the game should have been tested more on Vista64- hell, it probably was...on a system WITHOUT a pen tablet- but the fact that such an obscure issue could still exist (from one of the oldest and most successful companies in the biz no less) in 2009 just baffles me.

Re:will it work?

[Lord Ender]

He's serious. I found this on some Bioshock support forum. Apparently it fixes some Vista64 problem, but it didn't fix mine.

I even filed a support ticket with 2k, including the dxdiag output (as their ticket system requested). Their support personnel got back to me and said "please include the dxdiag output." That's when I gave up and bought a different game. I suspect this is their standard "go away, we already have your money" response to ticket, and that they never actually read the support tickets.

Re:will it work?

[Cythrawl]

No joke, See here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showpost.php?s=49a5273d84c63b82e5a1c76662b85940&p=300859&postcount=4
I actually have a Wacom tablet and to be honest the optional TabletPC functions in Vista are not needed to use the Wacom. The driver and everything else still works fine. I can still use my pens in Photoshop and Zbrush and on the desktop. You just lose all the handwriting recognition, Penflicks that kind of (IMO Useless anyway) stuff.

DRM?

[MobyDisk]

This is probably a tired point, but I'd like to know what they are doing with DRM in BioShock. BioShock is the kind of game I'd love to play, but I am not buying an XBOX to play it, nor will I tolerate their DRM.

I know I'm in the .000001% minority, so I doubt I had any effect on their sales. But I'm still hopeful for a non-DRM (or less draconian) version.

Re:DRM?

[Cythrawl]

Umm the DRM was removed like nearly a YEAR ago now.

Jeez, Ken Levine said it would go away eventually and would only be on the game for the short term. Some of you need to get a grip.
See here: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/06/20/bioshock-drm-removed/1
and here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=296125#post296125

BioShock shouldn't have been a shooter

[Junks Jerzey]

Atmosphere, art direction, and writing were all spot on. But none of them made any sense in what amounted to a generic shooter.

As much as I like action games, I got very annoyed with how the gameplay got in the way of the overall experience. It should have been an adventure game or something else with a slower pace, not hyper action shooter part 50.

Good environment, bad game

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to say I played all the way through BioShock--oh wait, no I wouldn't. But I couldn't anyway due to the fact that the 360 version didn't allow control configuration. After a day of frustratingly shooting the floor and ceiling, it went up on craigslist. How hard is it to include an option to swap joysticks?

Also, I never quite figured out why there were a thousand clones of the same four zombies inhabiting an underwater city... "The environment was awesome." Yeah, which clearly left them zero time for character design and animation. You can only kill the exact same zombie so many times before it starts to get boring no matter how underwater you are.

Escort Mission

[mrdoogee]

Can't really see myself enjoying this one, even though I was pretty happy with Bioshock. Mostly I'm sure it will be a tedious chore of a multi-hour escort mission, one of the cardinal sins of game design. I absolutely hate the "Keep incompetent person X alive" section of most games. I can only imagine that most of the game will be like the stage in Bioshock where you have to keep the little sister safe so she can open the doors with the tiny holes in them.