deKay's Gaming Diary

I never bothered with the other Bioshock 2 DLC, as the online stuff never really appealed (although I did play online a few times). A completely new story, though? Couldn’t resist.

Once more, they managed to find bits of Rapture that hadn’t previously been visited (it’s a big place, clearly), and like in the main Bioshock 2 game you’re a Big Daddy. It’s pretty much more of the same, really – just with new locations, story and some new weapons and stuff. The main new enemy, a Lancer Big Daddy, is a bit of a joke though, since he’s actually easier to kill than most of the normal baddies.

It took me 4 or 5 hours in total to finish the story, which was (once again) clever with a great twist. I’d seen the twist coming, but the reveal was excellent anyway.

Certainly all well worth the asking price, I’d say.

At a rough guess, I think I’ve put around 18 hours into this. My understanding is you can complete it in under 10, but since I have OCD, I had to search everywhere, examine everything, access every bit of the map, open every door, hack every machine, rescue every Little Sister, max out every research track, buy every plasmid and gene tonic slot, and listen to every audio diary. I even found myself using up ammo just so I could collect more ammo to replace it. Yes, I clearly have a problem.

How to sum up the game without spoilers? Well, it was more of the same of the first game really. Some improvements (dual-wielding plasmids and weapons, better “where am I going” hints, less getting lost), and some let downs (more linear game, too many “collect X of Y”, less powerful storyline, no proper end boss). Still an excellent game, but perhaps a 4/5 rather than the 5/5 of the original.

Strangely, the thing I missed most from the original was something I thought quite irritating at the time – all the vending machines singing “Welcome to the Circus of Values!” and stuff whenever you went near them. They rarely did it in the sequel.

Since completing Lego Indiana Jones 2, Bioshock 2 is pretty much the only game I’ve played. I’ve not played it terribly far in, either, having only picked up the film camera about an hour’s play ago, and I’ve only just finished the Sinclair Hotel bit. I don’t know how far that puts me through the game, but if I assume the train line map is an indication, then perhaps a quarter?

Things I’m liking so far:

• It’s Bioshock. Mostly. Only more of it.
• The story is keeping me hooked – I know there’ll be a twist, but what?
• My OCD is well catered for with research and Fallout 3-style item searching.
• Lots of plasmid/weapon combinations for varied kills.

Things I’m not liking so far:

• It doesn’t feel “right”. It’s not quite BioShock.
• I’m a Big Daddy, but Splicers can hammer me? What?
• It’s a bit easy – only one death so far, and that was only because I didn’t use a first aid kit in time.
• Big Sisters can die in a fire.

It’s certainly enjoyable, and it’s nice to be back in Rapture. I think it’s a shame that the original seemed to have all the “best” locations (so far) as the amusements were little more than a single “ride”, and Pauper’s Drop is dull. The hotel is almost a clone of the apartments from the original too. Doesn’t look like you get to revisit anywhere from the original either.

I suppose it was never going to be as good as the first game, and it’s not bad at all, so I can live with all that. Needs to have an OMFG AMAZE reveal like “would you kindly” though.

So I went back to the game to find other stuff. I reloaded the save from just before taking the lift to the final boss, then made my way back through the game. Went to Fort Frolic first of all to spend all my money on the slot machines (although I got it all back when I hit the jackpot, as required for an achievement), and then I set about exploring elsewhere for more “Power to the People” weapon upgrade points. I didn’t find any, but did find some areas I’d previously missed.

I was right – there was very little else to do. I had to assemble the parts of a Big Daddy for reasons I can’t really say, and then with the help of a Little Sister I made it into a museum, where Fontaine was waiting for me. Well, once I’d got through the museum, anyway.

Unfortunately, the museum was pretty much an escort mission, which I hate. You have to stop a Little Sister from being killed as she leads you round the museum and through doors only they can open. Thankfully, I could scout ahead and hack some cameras and turrets to be on my side, helping when the splicers attacked. Amazingly, my third (and last possible) photo of the final camera in the game was just enough to get the maximum research for them, and thus the achievement for “PhD Research”.

Once through the museum, it was the final showdown with a spliced up Fontaine. A very easy to kill spliced up Fontaine at that. It was soon over, and I’d only used one first aid kit and barely half a “tank” of Eve.

So, that’s it. I am tempted to go back round Rapture with an earlier save to get the achievements for Jackpot and Weapons Specialist, though.

With everything done in Olympus Heights, it was off to Apollo Square (the run down part of town) to find some more formula. That wasn’t too difficult, but I’m getting a little concerned I’m very close to the end of the game now and haven’t taken all the photos I could have done. Managed to get the last shots of the Little Sisters and turrets, but I’ve hardly taken pictures of the security cameras at all.

Anyway, found Atlas’ hideout in Apollo Square, killed some more Big Daddies and rescued Little Sisters, and my plasmids are back to normal again now.

Then I went to Point Prometheus, which is the place where they seem to create Little Sisters and Big Daddies. Haven’t done much here yet, aside from kill a couple more Big Daddies and rescue the last Little Sisters (netting me an achievement). I’m really close to the end now – this is the build-up (and power up!) for the final battle!

With the bomb in the core, Ryan decided it was best to just completely destroy Rapture. Obviously. Not only that, but when I found him, he made me kill him. Very odd.

Then… a big fat spoiler. Which makes the next bit somewhat hard to mention, really. I got out of Ryan’s office, and met up with Tenenbaum and all the Little Sisters. More revelations occurred, and it now seems that Fontaine (who isn’t dead after all) is the guy to go after.

I made it to Olympus Heights, killed Cohen (who decided he loved me and wanted me dead as a result – freak) in his apartment, found a formula which has made all my plasmids go nuts, and now I’m off to find some more of it. Of course!

Also managed a few more achievements today, including maxing out all my tonic tracks and some more research, as well as some normal story-progression ones.

So today I was mostly progressing through Hephaestus, which involved killing lots of Big Daddies, and collecting bits for a bomb (many of which were on the Big Daddies – hence their increased prevalence in this areas, it would seem). At one point, I had two Big Daddies in the room at the same time, and I had hoped that the “Hypnotise Big Daddy” plasmid might allow me to get them to fight each other, but it didn’t seem to work when there were two in the room at once.

So I killed them using my New Best Favourite Big Daddy Killing Technique instead: fire loads of shock bolts across a corridor between you and the Big Daddy, then shoot him with your pistol. He gets angry, runs through all the bolts (getting injured by each) and, if you’ve done it right, drops down dead at your feet. It’s wise to have a shotgun ready though, just in case…

I think I can stop saying Big Daddy now.

So, into Fort Frolic I went. It’s clearly the “entertainment” area of Rapture, with a casino, a theatre, a record studio and a strip bar. It’s also run by Cohen, who is a complete loon and asked me to dispense with four other people around Fort Frolic, take their photos, and add them to “an art” he was creating.

I half expected to have to kill him, but no. I did kill three more Big Daddies and saved the Little Sisters they were protecting. These Big Daddies were like the ones on the box for the game, but were called “Bouncer” and “Elite Bouncer”. I don’t know what that means.

I’ve also maxed out some more research and bought some more “slots” for tonics.

Ran through Arcadia, killed a few more Rosies (are they really Big Daddies?) and rescued a couple more Little Sisters. Ryan decided it’d be good to kill all the plants in the area, so I had to find some ingredients with which to create a formula to revive them all.

This meant finding the Farmers Market, and an area past it where there were lots of bees, seaching their nests for stuff, then finding a wine factory where I had to get some distilled water. Made it back to the lab where I could administer the Lazarus formula to bring plants back from the dead, and then moved on to Fort Frolic.

Also managed to upgrade my pistol today, as well as find a chemical gun, make use a loads of “U-Invent” stations to build things, and increase the numbers of slots I have in my tonic “tracks” for more power-ups.

As I was leaving Neptune’s Bounty on the way to the submarine, I was told I hadn’t harvested or rescued all the Little Sisters in the area. I hadn’t actually seen any, so I had no idea where they were. I looked around a bit and found a couple more Big Daddies (who were pretty easy to kill with my grenade launcher thing) with Little Sisters in tow. Rescued them both, but forgot to “buy” anything with my Adam. Oh well.

Then it was off to the submarine, which somehow blew up (something to do with Andrew Ryan, I think). Now I’ve just stepped into Arcadia…

Sometimes a game comes along which is great, but I don’t actually play it because I feel I have too many other, shorter, games that I should be getting out of the way so I can play it uninterrupted. In some cases, those great games just never seem to get played at all – I still haven’t really started Zelda on the Wii yet, even though I’ve owned it for the best part of a year.

For some reason, I played Bioshock today. I was going to wait until Sonic Rush Adventure was completed and I’d tired of MySims, but I was in the mood for some shootin’ and stuff rather than runnin’ and jumpin’ and/or buildin’ and growin’. So, how did I do?

Well, I died a lot. Of course, technically you never actually die as such – you’re regenerated over and over – but you know what I mean. I’ve killed a couple of “bosses” (if you can call them that), passed through the Medical Facility and into Neptune’s Bounty. I found my first Little Sister, and because I’m Nice and Good I saved her rather than harvested her. I hope that doesn’t make the game more difficult in the future though.

I’ve killed a few Big Daddies. Although I think, in fact, only one was actually a Big Daddy as only one had a Little Sister in tow. The rest appeared to be called “Rosie” anyway, and they’re all a bit bloody hard. I also had to go on a photographing spree to get into what seemed to be a cold store, where I had to fight a bloke Atlas seemed to think was on my side as well as a million Splicers. And now it’s on to the next bit!

It would appear that not only was Monday a “new game day”, but today was too! Both this and Phoenix Wright 3 for the DS arrived from Play Asia today.

I didn’t play Bioshock much, as I’m concentrating on Super Paper Mario at the moment, but I wanted to make sure it worked since it’s the NTSC-J version that Play Asia are selling.

Imagine my horror when it didn’t work. I put the disc it, it started to load, and then a message came up telling me that in order to play the game I needed to put the disc in an Xbox 360 console. Oh noes!

Luckily, removing the disc and putting back in again and all was well. Phew!

And it is, of course, ace. I played through the same bit that was in the demo, and found it much easier going. Apparently, this is because they filled the demo with extra splicers to make it a bit more exciting. It certainly feels less like a FPS and more like an exploration-game-with-combat title, which is a Very Good Thing.

And the water is still gorgeous.

Oh. My. Word.

This has to be the best looking console game ever made. Nothing I’ve seen (not even Oblivion) comes even close. The attention to detail, the water and fire effects, the style, the smoothness – everything. Amazing.

And the game? Staggering. It’s fantastic. If this isn’t voted Game of the Year, then either the demo isn’t a representation of the full game at all, or people need their heads seeing to.

The setting (a 1950s underwater city) is genius. The concept is genius. The execution is flawless. I’m really looking forward to the full game now, and I haven’t anticipated an Xbox 360 game this much before. Aces.