That's our first bit of bad news. Big Sister, who was previously presented as BioShock 2's hyper-agile, Terminator-unstoppable, main villain - isn't alone. Worse, she's part of an army of Big Sisters. Plural. But the really bad news is that they're being led by an all-new, previously secret, villain, Sophia Lamb, a political rival of... Andrew Ryan, one of the main antagonists of the original game. But can a second visit to Rapture be as, well, rapturous? Our exclusive hands-on - in San Francisco, home of its developer 2K Marin - suggests the sequel still has the capacity to thrill.
If you thought Rapture was a mess the first time you battled through its gloomy tunnels, you should see it now. The splicers are even more grotesquely mutated - one new type, the Brute, can hit you like a train, smashing even your bulky body across large rooms, the sea is reclaiming entire sections of the city as it falls into disrepair, and a battle is raging between the Big Daddies and a group of Big Sisters and splicers under the command of the aforementioned new villain Sophia Lamb.
Her motives are unclear, but we do know that she wants to take control of Rapture and, in the same way founder Andrew Ryan did, use it as her own personal utopia, where everyone lives by her ideals. But, at the beginning of the game at least, this isn't your concern. So what is your part in this horrifying play?
You are Delta: the original Big Daddy. You were the first lumbering, diving suit-wearing hulk in Rapture. You've awoken with one goal; find your Little Sister; the ADAM harvester (ADAM is the miracle material that lets you 'splice' your genes to wield godly powers) you were charged with protecting when you were first created. Sadly, Lamb's followers are also after her - convinced that she's the next step in mankind's evolution.
So while a lot about BioShock 2 is familiar - from the setting to the art design and core gameplay - it's a very different beast. The story is less about a single man and more about the fate of the entire city. And as a character, prototype Big Daddy is a lot more robust than Jack ever was. He can use Plasmids and weapons at the same time, comes equipped with an enormous drill and can take a beating.
The level we played takes place about an hour into the game. As we hunt for our Little Sister, we're led through Ryan Amusements, a theme park designed by Andrew Ryan to teach quizzical children born in Rapture about the city's creation, and what's on the surface above it. And as you'd expect, it's a thinly-veiled excuse for Ryan to spout propaganda and his paranoid political views through a series of interactive 'exhibits'. As you play through the level you hear more about his grand philosophies and details about how Rapture was built.
We're aboard an express train (bathyspheres are no longer the only way to travel), but the path is blocked by an iced-up door. A voice crackles on a radio, that of plasmid designer Sinclair (who sponsors your multi-player character and offers them in game rewards for 'testing' Sinclair Solutions weapons and tonics), telling us that we need to find some ADAM and buy the 'Incinerate' plasmid from a vending machine to melt the ice. The structure is very similar to the first game; as you make your way through the city, areas will be blocked requiring a detour through splicer-infested areas to continue.
We find another Big Daddy protecting a Little Sister. This one is a new type of 'Daddy - a Rumbler. He can deploy turrets, and shoot rockets from the cavernous shoulder-mounted launcher on his shoulder. However, we've got the smarts to beat him, using our Telekinesis Plasmid to send almost every rocket right back at him. This is what BioShock 2 is all about: getting creative with a bunch of brilliant new powers and weapons. We approach the now guardianless Little Sister, but this time we get the opportunity to adopt her as our own.
We pick her up and place her on our shoulders. Then we hold square and a trail of pheromones appears. Following this will lead us to a corpse that the Sister can drain of ADAM, getting us closer to that Incinerate Plasmid. But it isn't going to be that easy.
The moment the Little Sister starts to extract the ADAM, every splicer in the area suddenly springs to action. This is where the gameplay really takes a departure from the first game. Rather than just blast away at the splicers, you have to use your noggin. You can to set up a perimeter of proximity mines, cyclone traps and miniature turrets. Then you can hack nearby security bots to fight on your side, and set security cams to be triggered by enemies. The new remote hacking gun lets you hack things from a distance, so you don't have to leave your Li'l Sis alone. You can even use your new rivet gun to plant small mines around the level. When the splicers do eventually come charging in, we have the upper hand, and they don't get near our precious Little Sister and her sweet ADAM.
These siege scenes are really impressive, both as set-pieces and as a way of letting you use the game's myriad weapons and plasmids in an intelligent, creative way. But someone else is looking out for the Little Sisters, and finds you to be a threat to them - the terrifying Big Sisters. They're viciously fast, can hurl objects with telekinesis, and are a nightmare to kill. We can see why Sophia Lamb uses them as crack troops in her bid to dominate Rapture. Nab too many Little Sisters and these terrifying dopplegangers come after you, nimbly leaping across the environment, clinging onto walls and swooping onto you from above.
Luckily you have a few new tricks up your diving-suit sleeve too. Delta can mix Plasmids. That cyclone trap we mentioned earlier; you can make it even more effective by blasting it with your ice Plasmid. This will not only hurl a splicer or Big Sister into the air and smash them against the ceiling, but freeze them too. Then you're free to wade in and do damage with your drill. The drill is an interesting new weapon: 2K Marin have balanced its awesome power by forcing you to constantly hunt for fuel to drive it, but at the same time, they've introduced a brand new upgrade system for making it even more devastating. Fully upgrade your drill and it becomes a bullet-shield. Slugs ping off it as you charge nearby splicers, and skewer them with one swift blow. Every weapon in the game (and 2K have confirmed there are loads of new ones) has a special 'max upgrade' ability'. Another example we were shown was the Dart gun. Sounds weak, right? Wrong. The Dart gun perforates enemies and literally pins them to the wall.
The hacking mini-game has totally changed too. Whereas before the game would freeze, hacking now takes place in real-time, meaning you're open to attack or being spotted by enemies. The new mini-game sees you stopping a rapidly-swinging dial on green sections of a gauge to hack vending machines or recruit security bots. The faster the dial, the more precious the loot in the safe, or more useful the security features will be. It's a more elegant way of hacking, and less intrusive than the old method.
All these new abilities and tactics can all be used in multi-player too. We played a brand-new game mode called Save the Little Sister. Players are split into two teams; one charged with protecting the Sister, and the other with grabbing her and taking her to a 'vent'. It's basically Capture the Flag, but with a typically imaginative BioShock-style twist.
Things get even more interesting when one player is randomly selected to be a Big Daddy. There is regular death-match and team death- match, but it's this mode that intrigues us the most. The multi-player is even tied into the game's mythology too: it's set during the Atlas/Ryan civil war that kickstarted the events of the first BioShock.
BioShock 2 is building on everything the original did well. The tightened set-pieces, new action elements and, of course, multi-player make it feel like a truly worthy successor. Despite all the big bangs and horrifying enemies, though, it's the story we're most excited about. Rapture and its rich, tragic history deserves to be explored further, and this brief taste of big splicers, Big Sisters and even bigger Daddies has only whetted our appetite again for this dark, damp sunken distopia.
good preview. the videos on gametrailers are awesome too. f**king sweet new weapons, strategies, characters etc... absolutely love that andrew ryan appears throughout his little theme park. my girlfriend is going to give me the perfect present this year, no not that... BIOSHOCK 2.
I'm sorry, but as much as I love Bioshock (it's right up there with my favourite games of all time) I have to say the sequel just seems... A bit rubbish.
Personally I don't think a sequel should exist at all. Bioshock was perfect, almost a work of art. Ken Levines vision was amazing, and the execution of that vision exemplary.
The additions to the sequel only serve to dilute that which was created in the original. Big sisters? Bigger daddies? Mulitplayer (who the hell asked for that one)? It just seems they are adopting the Hollywood ethos 'bigger is better', and we all know how that usually turns out.
Bioshock didn't need to be touched, and if it was going to be, it should have been in a thoughtful, subtle and considerate way that was faithful to the original vision, not an attempt to cram as much extra stuff into the sequel as possible...
Somethings should be lest a lone. But like GTA it's not so much the characters of bioshock that tell the story, but the setting. I always got the feeling that rapture had many more tales to tell, and it looks like they've taken the elements that made the first game great and evolved them in a logical and respectful manner.
Ken Levine wasn't the only one that worked on bioshock, 90% of the original team are also working on the sequel. To pin it all on one man is to undermine the hard work of everoyone else that put poured thier energies into it.
Roll on bioshock 2. It's gonna be interesting. and say what you like about the game itself i've never seen such a thought provoking, interesting and well executed viral marketing campain as we have for bioshock 2, If thats the effort and imagination they've put into the marketing just think what they've done with the game.
I'm not going to 'be quiet' pal, what makes you believe your view is more valid than anyone elses? I read the preview, it sounds rubbish to me. Sounded good to you, right? Good on you, I'm not going to tell you to shut it... forum posters who don't understand the concept of 'forum'. Priceless.
I wasn't taking anything away from the rest of the team involved in Bioshock, but it was Ken Levines baby, just like System Shock was. No one man could take all the plaudits, but he was at the helm of the creation, hence the name check.
I'm actually inclined to agree with MONKEY... Rapture as a setting is certainly rich and full of possibility... Perhaps it would be fairer for me to say that I don't agree with the direction they are taking it in. Of course until the full game is released it is difficult to gauge exactly how much of Raptures subtle nuance, atmosphere and history has carried across, but from the information released so far, I am underwhelmed and given the glut of releases out at around the same time, I doubt I doubt this will be anywhere near the top of the list.
I wasn't taking anything away from the rest of the team involved in Bioshock, but it was Ken Levines baby, just like System Shock was. No one man could take all the plaudits, but he was at the helm of the creation, hence the name check.
I'm actually inclined to agree with MONKEY... Rapture as a setting is certainly rich and full of possibility... Perhaps it would be fairer for me to say that I don't agree with the direction they are taking it in. Of course until the full game is released it is difficult to gauge exactly how much of Raptures subtle nuance, atmosphere and history has carried across, but from the information released so far, I am underwhelmed and given the glut of releases out at around the same time, I doubt I doubt this will be anywhere near the top of the list.
personally i don't think this is the best preview on the net. The one over on Games radar although having a few more spoilers in it gives a better idea of where the series is headed and i quite like it. The idea of having a protagonist that is literally the antithesis of ryan in every way is a bit cheap i'll admit, but could serve as an interesting commentary although it might just end up becoming a little conformist in as much as the series would be given the moral that all forms of extreme political ideology are wrong or incredibly flawed.(its an easy assumption i know, But boring nethertheless) But whats really peaked my interest is the idea of the splicers adopting religion. It was hinted at in the original with some of the splicers singing sunday school hymns and the revelation that Ryan had someone found preaching christianity crucified. But the idea of people falling back on superstition when technology fails has always been an interesting topic. for me anyway.
It might not be perfect but it'll probably be a lot more thought provoking than 99% of the competition.
You two should get a room. Would be a stunning evening discussing the various narrative threads in Bioshock and the merits or otherwise of a sequel. Count me out - I just wanna get my hands on some more plasmids and blast you two away on-line.
The theme park idea sounds good, following on from the ferris wheel that was in one of the Challenge Rooms from the original Bioshock. I once commented that they could have trains between different sections (something that I'd expected to see in the Metro area at the start of the original game) so it's good to hear of that.
As some others have said, I think that the atmosphere is paramount above all else.
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