Gaming Bioshock 2 review

Uuuuuurrrghn?

(Clomp clomp clomp.)

Urrhn. UUUrrrrhn.

(Clomp clomp).

Uuuuuuurrghn!

(Mithter Bubbleth!)

Uuurghn.

(Clomp)

 

Quick saves and checkpoints restore the enemies you killed prior to dying; Vita-chambers don't.

 

sure doom3 wasn't the first game to implement the audio logs as a way to tell its story, SS2 did it before but still, my point is that Bioshock had no innovation or orginality with the exception of settings and art design......apart from that, the game was nothing but a mindless shooter/RPG wannabe, it sucked as a shooter and it was very limited and shallow as RPG.....

SS2 was much deeper and more innovative than Bioshock, gameplay was better, story was better, it was more scary, RPG elements were deep, the game was challenging and had survival feeling to it and the gameplay was far more dynamic..

 

What? I've never had that happen before. If you kill an enemy, quick save and then load the game the enemy you killed is still dead. The only thing thing the vita chamber allows you to do that quick saves don't is to 'chip away' at enemies.

 

Yes, but that's an important difference. Vita chambers also move you and restore some EVE if you don't have any, making it occasionally beneficial to die if you want to use a cheap tactic. Quicksaves preserve the state of the entire game, including your supplies and position. Vita chambers don't preserve the entire state - they half-restore you, allow enemies time to heal occasionally and move you back to an area which you've already cleared, forcing pointless trekking and allowing you to whittle down enemies.

 

Good research there.

 

So in general they are just like checkpoints, as I already said...

 

Except if you go past a checkpoint then that's a save, right. So...

I go past a checkpoint, run around for two minutes, kill 2 guys and then get killed because I don't have an EVE left to fight him. When I reload at the checkpoint I need to do all that again, including kill the first two guys and with the same amount of EVE.

I go past a vita-chamber, run around for two minutes, kill 2 guys and then get killed. When I respawn at the Vita chamber I have half-health, half-EVE compared to what I did before, the first two minutes are now utterly empty and there's only one semi-hurt guy left for me to fight.

I don't have anything against Vita-chambers other than the fact that I like to control as much of the game experience as I can, but there are fundamental differences between them, quicksaves and checkpoints.

 

QFT. I've been playing this game for about 8 hours and it seems more like an expansion pack that a real sequel. I loved the original Bioshock, as much for the atmosphere and the fact that it's the closest gaming has come to literature since 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream' (remember that?). I spent hours of glee picking off Big Daddies while picking through the subtext. And now I'm a 'Big Daddy' myself, and it seems to largely mean re-skinned guns, mildly restricted view and a 'THWUMP' sound when I jump. I mean, couldn't they have at least tweaked the graphics? Still, I'm hopefully there an interesting argument put forward on the perils of collectivism to keep me going, rather than the usual 'communists under the bed' stuff...

 

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is undoubtedly one my most favourite short stories ever. Never played or been able to locate a copy of the game, unfortunately.

 

yay for franchise milking!
yay for innovation!
yay for profit!

honestly I sometimes wonder about you lot who actualy buy this ****, wasn't it obvious that this was a desperate milk or am I the only one sane non guilable person not to get swept up in the PR hype **** machine?

 

Well the boss fight surely was a good one, no doubt. but the ending did't feel as climatic and atmospheric as the rest of the game's plot, considering it was a single player only game. i had to replay the game thrice to ACTUALLY realize that the game was over. the ending was that much pathetic

 

HL2 is not a continuing story. It dumps the HL1 story in the toilet and goes off on a tangent. Thats why I hated it with a passion. The episodes are quite good tho.

/rant

 

BAH the game feels all TOO MUCH familiar with the first game. considering it had 3 years for development couldnt the developers use dx 10 a lot more or the textures a bit more solid. the eye candy feels VERY similar to BS1 . also many of the gameplay elements are recycled from the first one. i'll buy the game but with MUCH less enthusiasm then the first one (sigh !..........)

 

It certainly appears that way (and that's my major beef with the series too), but it actually doesn't.
Linky

 

Im afraid I still disagree with you. My (limited) experience of checkpoints is that if you die after passing one, you are returned to it with full health and then perhaps a limited amount of some other element, depending on the game. iirc Farcry would give you half armour following a restart from a checkpoint, this is no different from attaining some 'free' EVE from the vita chamber.

It makes sense that you are given a leg up after dying anyway since it is assumed that you need some degree of help in passing the section in question. If you have to constantly restart from the vita chamber with ever decreasing resources then it would potentially get to the point where the level would be impossible to get past.

 

Is there any variety in the hacking minigame this time? or is it like in Bioshock 1 where you do it once and then you have seen it all and just use autohack?

Anyway, I think they could have done so much more, but of course they had to just milk the name instead of expanding on the concept of the first game.

 

Bioshock 1 is actually the 2nd game in the last 10 or so years that gave me a headache while playing it (the 1st one being the incredibly glossy Return to Wolfenstein), so i for one have no desire to repeat the expirience... also of the people i know that are gamers i can't think of one that actually like the first game.

And as far as i see it anyone who plays it gets one of 2 opinions, hate it or love it... no middle ground.

 

The short story in question. It is excellent.

 

Bioshock was great, i loved it but i'm not that bothered about bioshock 2. Returning to rapture it doesn't sound like they changed very much, maybe i will pick it up in the sales or not at all.