Ever since I first got my hands on Bioshock, I was amazed by the under water metropolis that is Rapture. I mean who wouldn’t be? Who ever crafted such an in depth and amazing city deserves a medal in my book.
Early FPS fans can look back to retro games to see were Bioshock got some of its inspiration. Let me take you back to 1994. Your in a space station, the year is 2072 and you are a hacker following the words of an AI known as SHODAN. I’m talking about System Shock. This was the first 3D shooter of its kind. Back in ’94 you still had Doom II as one of the top shooters. Anyway so you are following the AI’s every word trying to save her, until midway through the game she turns on you, she is the one who has been controlling all the evil on the space station since the start of the game. Sound familiar? Well for those of you who have played Bioshock (and please for those of you who have not look away now) Doesn’t SHODAN remind you a little bit of Frank Fontain?
For those of you who Haven’t played Bioshock, would you kindly keep reading from here on now please.
Bioshock 2 is just around the corner, and Rapture has a new threat, in the form of a sleeker more mobile, more agile creature. This creature by far in a new challenge for the colossal big daddies and she goes by the name of… Big Sister.
“Mr. B, Mr. B… Big Sister doesn’t want you playing with me…“
Who is this big sister? Well if you remember the good ending of Bioshock 1 (and if you haven’t played the first you shoul…… come to think of it why are you reading this?) Jack, brought back a load of little sisters from the underwater world so they could grow up as proper human girls. However one of the little sisters was infatuated with Rapture, she saw it as her home and so has gone back. Through exploring Rapture she has found materials to make her own metal suit and now goes by the name of the Big Sister.
So with this new threat what is Rapture going to do? You would think a little sister returning home would be a good thing right? Wrong! She is stealing all the little sisters and giving the big daddies a run for their money, and to top that off a new form of genetically enhanced splicers have been running a muck. This is seven years after the events of Bioshock 1, and Jack didn’t really kill all the splicers, in fact he didn’t save all the little sisters either.
So what the heck do you do against such an awesome power? I mean she has extensive knowledge of the place and is pretty much the most dangerous enemy that Bioshock has to offer. Hell she has effectively taken the place of Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontain and pretty much runs Rapture. The only way to stop this new threat is to look back and revive an old friend….The first Big Daddy.
That’s right, in this Bioshock outing you play as the first big daddy ever created. At your disposal you will be able to wield, the huge one arm drill, the supped up rivet gun and (this is the cool part) you will be able to walk, and explore underwater. This element opens up so much more to Rapture, and that’s not all. In Bioshock 1 you only explored a tiny bit of the city, Bioshock 2 promises more exploration inside and out. Making this a pretty divers platform for the FPS genre.
Right so the big daddy has all its normal big daddy things like the drill and the rivet gun. But as you are the first big daddy you have plasmids at your disposal. That’s right, a big daddy with plasmids, you can do the whole flame thrower trick, freezing people etc etc. But in some cases you will have to use your plasmids tactically. One of your key objectives here is to find little sisters, once found you can choose to adopt or harvest, a lot like Bioshock 1. Choosing adopt you have the little sister sitting on your shoulder and you have to find bodies for her to harvest the ADAM. So you find a body, great, now here is where your tactical plasmids come in. As soon she is down she is venerable to splicer attack, so you can combine plasmids to set up traps. Whirlwind trap with fire for instance. This gives you a great opportunity to play around with the plasmids. They are also upgradeable this time round. Level 1 incinerate see you throw small fire balls, Level 3 on the other hand sees you throw a huge stream of flame.
It seems to me that Bioshock 2 has a lot to offer fans of the previous game. But at the same time welcomes newcomers with a story that doesn’t really depend on the events of Bioshock 1, but it would be a nice addition to at least know about it before digging into Bioshock 2 I think.
Bioshock 2 is due for release Q1 next year for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. If you want to know about Bioshock 2′s Multi-player element CLICK HERE
- Garv!
