The same night I picked up Mass Effect 2for my wife, I also picked up BioShock 2. I’m a big fan of the first game, for a variety of reasons I covered in my review. I’ve put in a few hours already and am eager to play through more of it, but there’s an aspect of the game that strikes me as somewhat perplexing.
I don’t mind the notion of playing through scenarios set in the tumultuous civil war of Rapture that broke out on New Year’s in 1959. On the contrary, I think it’d be fascinating to see Rapture when it had more rational people in it than spliced-up foamy-mouth quasi-zombie Splicers. However, since this setting is being used for multi-player, it’s unlikely much time would be spent looking at Rapture since if you get distracted you’re likely to wind up face up on the ground with some kid from Albuquerque teabagging you while the respawn timer counts down. I still might try it out, but the inclusion of multiplayer into a shooter that was strictly single player up until now just strikes me as odd.
I know the BioShock games are powered by the Unreal engine and it’s developed for multi-player environments, and I have no objection to multi-player in and of itself. I used to play Counter Strike on a regular basis, and every once in a while I blow the dust off of Team Fortress 2 to make sure my skills haven’t atrophied entirely. But the multi-player of BioShock 2, at least on a concept level, feels a little tacked on. I’m not entirely sold on the idea, and I’d rather get back to playing through the story.
I think that if you want to really capitalize on a multi-player environment with an established single-player franchise, the best move is likely to spend the time and resources developing a separate game that focuses entirely on that experience rather than tacking it onto a single-player game. I mean, Mass Effect doesn’t have any arena or deathmatch play, but then again, if BioWare were to develop a multi-player environment for that universe, I’d pray to the gaming gods that it would be less like a multi-player shooter and more like an MMO.
My wife likes chocolates, shoes and shiny jewelry as much as the next woman. But the truest way to her heart involves things far nerdier than such pedestrian items.
See, I married a gamer. She carries dice in her purse, she knows the ins and outs of many character classes in a variety of games and she’s got very well-reasoned opinions on what’s worth playing and what’s a waste of time. She blogs about these things. And then there’s the fact that I met her playing World of Warcraft.
So when it came to picking something up for her in celebration of Singles Awareness Day (her name for the holiday commemorating St. Valentine), I knew I had to think beyond the normal bouquets of flowers and boxes of sweets. Of course, she’d just finished Mass Effect and its sequel was released late last month, so it was obvious what she really wanted. Even if she hadn’t reminded me in her signature subtle fashion. (That’s what we call “sarcasm,” kids)
I brought the game home last night, along with a box of chocolates, because hey, some traditions aren’t all that bad.
Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart. I know it’s actually tomorrow, but you prefer spontaneity in your gifts, not obligation.
Like my review of Mass Effect, this is in preparation for my acquisition of Bioshock 2, which was released in stores yesterday. Now, I know a whole lot of people are all over this sequel and you’ve probably already moved on yourself, but until I too have gained enough of that arbitrary capitalist-fuel bank-managed digital data called “money” – because, let’s face it, most wealth is measured in 1s and 0s than it is in bullion these days – I’m still playing older games since I can’t afford the new ones. Except Star Trek Online.
Yes, I know that makes me dull, shut up already.
Our story begins in 1960 with a spectacular plane crash. The protagonist, Jack, is the only survivor. Amazingly, at no point does the perspective shift away from that of Jack, keeping us immersed in the experiences of living through a traumatic event, struggling to survive in the vastness of the ocean before we pick up anything resembling a weapon and the discovery of the vast underwater city known as Rapture. Once we descend into the hidden metropolis, accompanied at first only by the chilling introduction of the city’s themes and philosophy by Andrew Ryan, we are confronted with an environment both alien and familiar. There’s something special about Jack, and only by surviving the experience of wandering through Rapture and encountering its inhabitants will the truth be revealed.
Stuff I Didn’t Like
What? Pipe Dream? Rapture runs on Windows 95?
I know the game has a water theme going on, being at the bottom of the ocean and all, but circuitry is still circuitry even in a vaguely steampunk setting. Did the hacking system really need to be a clone of Pipe Dream? I mean it’s nice for all of the gibbering Splicers and menacing Big Daddies to wait for me to finish rearranging the flow of water (or whatever it is) to hack a turret so it’ll tear them to shreds, and it looks as good as anything else in the game, but considering how much of the game is focused on the action, including this kind of simplistic puzzle-solving is, to me, a little cognitively dissonant.
Speaking of action, this game is billed as a ‘spiritual successor’ to System Shock 2. I loved the hell out of System Shock 2, and not just because it was an immersively atmospheric shooter. There were elements of role-playing as well, from the beginning where you picked your branch of service to the specialization that came from collecting cybernetic modules. If you wanted to use the BFG 9000, and weren’t a Marine, you’d better’ve hoarded those modules since the start, mister. In BioShock, on the other hand, Jack can pick up and use any weapon or psi-power (“Plasmid”) he finds in Rapture no matter what it might be. A Chemical Thrower is every bit at home in his hands as the magical heat-seeking bees that live there after you pick up a particular Plasmid. It keeps the game flowing in an action-related sense but it could have added another layer to the game.
The Vita-Chambers that restore you to life are another hold-over from System Shock 2. However, in the previous game you had to find missing components on the level in question and install them at a specific location in order to essentially unlock a spawn point. In BioShock, Vita-Chambers are sprinkled liberally throughout Rapture, and using one doesn’t cost you a dime, while bathroom stalls charge you for their use. In an objectivist utopia, you’d think that a machine that does something so otherworldly as bring the dead back to life would cost you a fortune. But no, you just pop out of the thing after that Big Daddy stomped your face into the floor.
Jack: “MY TURN NOW, BITCH!”
Me: “Okay, now I’m kinda bored.”
There’s a moral choice system at work in the game, but your choices are “Savior of the Universe” and “Absolute Bastard.” There’s no room for you to be a normal, flawed guy just trying to survive.
The third act of the game is kind of disappointing, for me.
Stuff I Liked
“Why’s he shooting at us, Daddy? I just wanna play with him!”
The inhabitants of Rapture are a varied and interesting bunch. It comes to a point where you can pick out what’s waiting for you around the corner if you listen for a moment. The sound design in BioShock is top-notch. Like the aforementioned predecessor, a big part of the atmosphere is in the sounds made by the structures and creatures. Also, like Fallout 3, there’s some soundtrack dissonance to be had as something swing-era and gentle plays while you’re backing away from the Splicer hurling obscenities and bullets at you as you attempt to defend yourself. And the occasional public announcement really adds to the somewhat disturbing atmosphere.
The undercurrent of Ayn Rand’s philosophy running throughout the game makes the experience even more interesting. I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, so I’ll just say that this feeling lasts for a very long time, up to and including your encounter with a pivotal character in Rapture’s history. After that encounter the game moves into its third act which, as I said before, kind of let me down.
Stuff I Loved
Rapture itself makes up for a lot of shortcomings.
I’ll begin my gushing with the art direction. A lot of games rendered for current consoles look good, but BioShock‘s setting, characters and sequences all feel remarkably fresh and hauntingly nostalgic at the same time. There’s an old-fashioned sensibility about Rapture, the clothes people wear there and even the weapons you pick up that really reinforce the period feel of the game.
The storytelling in this game is outstanding. From the overall arc of the plot (even if it does waver a bit at the end) to the characterization of major NPCs, the game is written extremely well. If the art and sound design weren’t enough to draw people in, the plight of the people who speak with Jack and the emotions they convey drive the point home and yank us into the experience.
Jack begins as your standard-issue silent protagonist. But the more we get into the game, the more we realize that he is a fully-realized character, and there’s that one sequence that helps us feel moments hesitation and even fear despite facing down Big Daddies and surviving quite a while in Rapture’s hostile environment. He many never say a word, but we get to know Jack pretty well, and our connection to him begins to extend beyond his role as a player surrogate.
The Big Daddies and Little Sisters. Not only are these folks icons for the entire game and its dissonant themes and mood, but they’re extremely well realized characters that, again, need very little dialogue. We never see the face of a Big Daddy, as they convey emotion through body language and whale-like sounds alone. Little Sisters, barefoot in pretty dresses, are all the more menacing for their unassuming appearance, especially when they start screaming for our blood when we open up on their colossal protectors. We need them, though, and the mysterious substance they collect from the dead, and as much as you might hate them and choose the ‘Harvest’ option every time, seeing them sobbing over the inert body of a Big Daddy, for me, tends to give a moment’s pause. How much is survival worth? Is it enough to merely survive, or should we struggle to do something more, to be better than an animal vying for the right to exist? It’s a question that is posed to the player without a single mention of such a line of thought in any of the written or spoken messages in the game. Then again, that could just be me.
Bottom Line: I adore BioShock. In spite of the things I don’t like about it, the little bits from System Shock 2 that could have made the game even better, this is a solid, well-produced and fantastic shooter that manages to be more than just another run-and-gun title. It’s got something to say. It’s actually about something. And that’s more than most shooters could ever hope to claim.
If you haven’t bought it already, it’s worth the money.
I’ve been playing Dragon Age: Origins when I’m not playing Star Trek Online. As much as I want to return to Mass Effect to prepare Shepard for the impending arrival of the sequel and write a review for Dragon Age, I think I should finish at least one play-through of the fantasy RPG first.
The problem is that Dragon Age is, for me, long.
Maybe it’s because I’m playing a mage and further complicated my life by going for the Arcane Warrior specialization rather than focusing on big high-damage “OH CHRIST MY FLESH IS MELTING OFF YOU BASTARD” spells, which can make some of the boss fights pretty frustrating affairs. I’ve rearranged my party a couple times and I think I’ve gotten it down now, though. It could also be due to the fact that I’m conversing with my party members because I have this weird notion that I should get to know the people willing to lay down their lives for my somewhat bland-expressioned protagonist. And maybe I’m just playing in the wrong order, since I’m over 20 hours in and have only just now picked up the spirit healer NPC, who is awesome in her magic skills but considering that I’m going for something a bit like a D&D CoDzilla, she’s a bit redundant at this point.
I’m already thinking of playing through again at least twice, once as the Dalish elf I created before the game even came out, and once as a human noble because I hear that backstory’s pretty interesting. My darling paramour (in real life, not the one I picked in the game) has played the City Elf & Dwarf Noble backstories but has been sucked in completely by the Mass Effect universe which is part of the reason I’ll be picking it up next week. But the point is I can’t start a new game quite yet because the old game isn’t done and I’m not inexcusably stuck.
Anyway, I need to shovel out my car, but suffice it to say that I hope to have my Dragon Age review up soon. I’m hoping there will be more moments like the one pictured above. In case you don’t know, you meet the person responsible for the creation of golems, and that story, along with all the peripheral stuff around it, is pretty damn awesome if you ask me.
See that? Even our kitten likes games. I thought I’d take a moment of your time to remind you that no gamer exists in a vacuum, and tell you about what some of the other important gamers in my life are up to and blogging about.
Epixaricacy has been playing Mass Effect. I’ve talked about the game before and now find myself drawn back towards it, despite the fact I haven’t finished Dragon Age yet. It’s something she regularly reminds me to do, and if I can plow through it I should get a review up for that as well. In the meantime, check out what my better half has to say about Mass Effect. Her perspective is interesting, to say nothing of how liberally she sprinkles curses into her words, and it’s nice to have her writing about something she enjoys.
Scionical has posted a review of Bayonetta. I doubt I’ll be picking this one up. I wasn’t that much a fan of the Devil May Cry series, and if Bayonetta mostly serves as eye candy while pretending she isn’t Dante, why not just download pictures of her and leave it at that? Apparently, Scionical went the extra mile and rented the game, and like Epixaricacy, serves up his thoughts with a huge helping of lovely profanity. Why, you might ask? So you don’t have to.
So what about games that are even newer? Perhaps those still in the testing phase? Surely I have no insight into that part of the industry…
But, lo! What is this? The Gamer Panda is more than willing to share her thoughts and experiences in being a tester of games. She’s also a masterful herder of cats, well-trained in the use of a pen, and I even hear she makes soap and sells it on the Internet. She may or may not also live on Paper Street.
Time for me to be off and slay some dragons. Excelsior!
