Bioshock 2

[Zeus]

Holy fuck the Special Edition is sexy. Might actually be worth the extra $40.

If anyone's getting this for the PS3, let me know. I'd like to do some multi sometime

[Eric]

I'm really undecided about this game.

While returning to Rapture is nice, I don't think I'll get the emotional attachment to a Prototype big daddy that I got to our nameless hero in the first Bioshock, or how his story played out.

[bovine]

http://www.giantbomb.com/giant-bomb-mai ... n/17-1988/

[Lox]

The video review on IGN sold me on the game. I want to be back in Rapture. It may not have quite the same impact story-wise as the first game, but the reviews make it sound like it's still a great story.

[SineSwiper]

Dammit, I need a break after obsessing over ME2 for a good week.

[Zeus]

Anyone else been playing this? I just beat it last night and it was freakin' great.

And Eric, you will have a much stronger emotional attachment to the Big Daddy prototype than to Ryan's son. They do a wonderful job of making the moral choices much better and really deepening the Big Daddy-Little Sister relationship to far deeper levels than the first one.

[Lox]

I'm maybe 2 hours into it and loving it. I had to put it down if I had any hope of doing a new game+ in Mass Effect because it's so addicting.

[Zeus]

I'm maybe 2 hours into it and loving it. I had to put it down if I had any hope of doing a new game+ in Mass Effect because it's so addicting.

It keeps getting better and better. It really is everything a sequel should be.

Oh, make sure you interact with everything in Ryan Amusements, it's great (you'll know what I mean when you get there)

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, I got the achievement there. (People who know what I'm talking about know what I mean.) It was quite funny because I was almost positive that it was an achievement, and there it was when I did it.

I'm about 4 hours in, or so. I started at Hard, thinking that it was similar to the difficulty on Bioshock 1. Wrong. It's a LOT harder. Closer to Insanity on ME2. I had to dial it back because having a slicer take a full bar on a regular basis was fucking with my enjoyment of the game. (Not to mention that the ammo it took to kill them was insane.) Even at Normal, the Adam extraction points are difficult.

I also noticed, at least from my first Little Sister, that there might actually be some consequences to saving every Little Sister. In Bioshock 1, if you saved every Sister, you would get enough gifts to offset the difference. However, I don't know if the same is true here, because (at least for now) I can't get to the Adam shop in Ryan Amusements to buy the upgrades over there.

Maybe I'll find that I can go back later on, and maybe the extra Adam will come later. Or maybe they "fixed" it so that you have to play good to get the good ending and play evil to get all of the upgrades.

[Zeus]

I ended up missing that one but it's a great achievement. But I absolutely adored the stations in the amusement park, they were awesome.

The Adam extraction points are a great idea (they actually appear on your map if you look for them). That helped a lot with the Big Daddy-Little Sister bonding. I thought they were a great addition and gave you even more to do after you got the girls as opposed to just saving or harvesting as in the first.

The difficulty will only ramp up from there (I beat it on normal). In the beginning, they're actually taking it easy on you in terms of fighting 'cause you just don't have the coin or the guns to fend off quite as many enemies. There's WAY more enemies walking around in this one and you fight a helluva lot more often. It's much more action-based than the first and some of the enemies get even tougher later. That's one of the major changes, they really ramped up the volume and difficulty of the fighting. For the first 2/3rds of the game, I was constantly buying up supplies.

As for the Little Sister consequences and whether they "fixed" it, we'll talk about it after you beat the game. Just FYI: after you beat it, go to YouTube and search for Bioshock 2 endings. Someone posted all of the endings in one video so you can see the differences.

[RentCavalier]

Also, from what I have heard, you can't backtrack, so make sure you get everything in every area while you are there.

[Zeus]

Also, from what I have heard, you can't backtrack, so make sure you get everything in every area while you are there.

Yep, you can't at all. In a way that's a good thing since there's no time wasted backtracking. Your 15 hours you spent in #2 vs #1 are in a far larger game. It's actually an extremely large and long game for an FPS. But at the same time, it's easy to miss an achievement here or there (I missed 2). For a more streamlined and deeper game, I'll live with that

[SineSwiper]

My packrat persona usually has me spend about an hour in each major ROOM, with about 4 hours per area. After all, each major room has upstairs and downstairs and other smaller rooms, etc. It really make me wonder how much I'm missing. I'm worried that I'm going to miss a recorder.

On the plus (or minus) side, I have more money than god, and my ammo is always full. I keep thinking that I could have played it on Hard, but then I'm reminded of how fucking hard some of these enemies hit. I wish I could up my capacity of health kits and eve.

[Zeus]

For the most part, there's no sense in over-searching the areas in Bioshock. You're not gonna get anything out of it and after the midway point of the game on not Hard, you really don't have money or ammo issues. The RPG pack-rat mentality ends up being more of a waste if you've already searched rooms. It's not quite as difficult to find stuff in that one, you just have to try and you can get 95% of the items. I think we ended up with more than 110 of the audio diaries of 129 and we were fast-tracking at the end.

[SineSwiper]

Six endings total *SPOILERS*:


Very interesting the way they play out because there's some depend on if killed all of the sisters, or only killed some of them, etc. Total breakdown here: http://robbaz.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/ ... tain-them/

I wish he detailed which ending was which, though. However, I'm glad they are tackling the grey areas, and not just pure good or pure evil. That was one thing that bothered me with Bioshock 1's bad ending. (Also, it bothers me with other morality games, where it's always about the two extremes.)

Spoiler: show

EDIT: The video is a bit strange, since the first two "endings" are actually part of the other endings. When I beat the game, I saw the Lamb get saved and then I reached the surface, which played out the holy ending.

Almost need a table to figure this out... Sigh, going into xkcd mode again...

EDIT EDIT: Okay, got it. How you space or kill Grace, Stan, and Gil affect the first two (save or kill Lamb), and the sisters (and live/die choice) affect the main ending. I wrote more detail here.

[Zeus]

Spoiler: show

Sine, don't you think the "right" choice was to kill Gil as opposed to letting him live? Man even asked you to do it himself in a recording. He wasn't even a human anymore. I missed out on the achievement 'cause of that and I wasn't very happy 'bout it. Morally, I felt that I was right

[SineSwiper]

BTW, make use of the spoiler tag.

Spoiler: show

Yeah, it's okay to kill Gil if you're saving every one of the girls, but you can't do it if you killed one of the girls. Frankly, I agree with you, and I think that's why they put in that exception for when you're saving all of the Little Sisters.