Playstation Gamer UK

Arguably, one of the biggest and best shooters of this generation was Bioshock, so it was no surprised when the teaser for Bioshock 2 was found at the end of the PS3 version of the original, and when it was formally announced a few months ago. It was recently revealed that in the upcoming issue of Game Informer magazine Bioshock 2 would be featured. Well, as often happens many scans from the issue have been leaked online and I have the details after the break.

First off, lets get to the story. According to the article the game is set in Rapture, ten years following the events of the original game. Once the hero from the first game left, and took the little sisters with him, the city fell into chaos (because it apparently wasn’t chaotic before?). Splicers began killing each other, fighting over the few small stores of Adam left. That was, until the Big Sister (pictured below) arrived. The Big Sister was once a little sister who has returned to Rapture to remake the city to the Rapture that she remembers and she’s brought the little sisters back with her.

According to the article you play as “the first ever” Big Daddy. Your Big Daddy is the prototype for the other Big Daddies (no doubt a design choice to explain why you’re different from the others) and an “outlaw.” Now, I bet a lot of you are thinking this is going to be like at the end of Bioshock, where you donned the equipment of a Big Daddy but the only gameplay change was the circle around the screen and some louder foot steps. Well worry not, this is going to be very different. Gone are the machine gun and wrench. Your new main weapon will be the famous Big Daddy drill. You can use the drill to whack enemies with and you can even make it spin, for a limited time, and “drill” your enemies. The spin time will be limited by an overheat meter. The drill isn’t your only weapon however, you’ll also be given a flamethrower and grenade launcher as well as an upgradeable rivet gun. You’ll also have the “shoulder dash” ability from the original game allowing you to smash enemies into walls.

One of the big staples of the first game were the plasmids and those are back and better than ever. Since your Big Daddy is a “prototype” he’ll be able to dual wield both weapons and plasmids. The upgrades are going to be a lot more impressive too. No longer will an upgrade just be an increase in damage there’ll be actual changes to the way a plasmid is used. For instance, the article mentions the incinerate plasmid. As you upgrade it you’ll unlock a charge-able fireball attack, which can be upgraded to a point where you’ll be able to unleash a constant stream of fire. There will of course be new plasmids and new tonics. With a big feature being the ability to combine two of the plasmids to create combos. For instance the incinerate and cyclone trap plasmids can be combined to create a flaming wind blast. The point of these changes to the plasmids is to make it so players have different skill sets at the end of the game instead of everyone having the same strengths and weaknesses.

Your enemies of course, will be the splicers again. With the Big Sister popping up every once in a while. Little sisters will, once again, be wandering around Rapture gathering Adam. They’ll still be defended by Big Daddies who you’ll have to kill before you choose to either “harvest” or “adopt” them. If you choose to adopt them then they’ll ride around on your Big Daddy, pointing out bodies to harvest. However, much like in the original, when they go to harvest the Adam they trigger waves of enemies who come to try to take the little sister and their Adam. Once you kill enough Big Daddies it will get the attention of the Big Sister who will attempt to hunt you down and kill you.

The story will still be helped along with the inclusion of the audio recordings. There will be respawn points however they will not all be vita-chambers. Details on the mutliplayer haven’t been announced however multiplayer will be included. The game is announced for PS3, PC and Xbox 360, and is set to be released this fall.

Unfortunately, I have a somewhat irrational skepticism about this game. A lot of people believe that this will be all that and a bag of chips but I’m not so sure. It all sounds good, and I haven’t really seen anything to indicate that it won’t be good but I can’t shake the hunch anyway. My first indication is that Ken Levine isn’t working on the game, in fact, it’s not made by the same studio at all. It’s made by 2K Marin, the studio responsible for porting the PS3 version. Then we have the little plea Levine made a number of months ago asking 2K not to make a sequel. It just seems to me like they’re selling out. The “oh shit” feeling from the first game, is gone. All of the mystique of Bioshock is gone and replaced with a feeling of invincibility. I get the feeling this is going to be like Halo if Master Chief was powered by steam and somehow stuck in an undersea city. It’s extremely early for this kind of thought but that’s just my opinion. We’ll see how it turns out. I hope I have to eat my words.

Update: The subtitle “Sea of Dreams” have been officially dropped. It’s now just Bioshock 2.