I know that Doom Eternal is out but it can't be helped my laptop doesn't have
sufficient RAM and space. Any game with 1 TB spaces, feel too much for me. But
at least i can play Bioshock 2 (2010) which is developed by 2K Marin, 2K Australia, 2K
China, and Digital Extremes. Both game are FPS with badblood wields brutal
melee weapon, right? Caution! This article contains spoilers from both
Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2 because i'm garrulous sod.
Here we are in Rapture, the
underwater city. The deep-sea fishes seem not bothered with the (relatively to
them) blinding light of the metropolis. Good for them, i guess. At first, i
refuse to play Bioshock 2 because i heard that you will play as Big Daddy thus
mitigating the tension/thrill significantly. If you new to Bioshock or Rapture,
you most likely don't know Big Daddy although he appears in PlayStation
All-Stars Battle Royale. To put it simply, Big Daddy is monstrous giant man in
diving suit that lurks around Rapture. His task besides structure maintenance
(mainly from outside the premise, on ocean side), is guarding small girl called
little sister whenever she goes. Recently, i decide to play this game because
of Steam sale, besides to ease my disappointment because i can't play Doom Eternal or at least until i get it
in physical card for my Nintendo Switch. Anyway, let's start the game!
The loading screen is filled with
selectable hints (pressing left and right to select them) and bit of scenery.
Also there's 1950-style song plays here. How elaborate of them.
1958,
Beneath the Atlantic Ocean
It's the usual routine of Big
Daddy to pick little sister from an air vent and escort her. Through mirror
reflection, i can see myself being dragged by a little sister. I know i weight
almost quintal (or maybe more) but i willing to be pulled like this because of
fatherly love, sort of.
After the little sister sucks
blood from a corpse, she run ahead of me to find another corpse (which she call
angel). As i go after her, there's an illusion glimpse of this refined
atmosphere although i believe this place is supposed to be the same ruined
underwater city.
There's group of ragtag that dare
to harm my small girl. Big Daddy is known to carry big drill and i'm not afraid
to use it to drill anyone that hostile to either me or my princess there. So
rule of thumb: don't engage Big Daddy in melee combat! Big Daddy may not have
refined close combat technique of Benkei but his giant drill and strength are
more than enough to defeat anyone in melee combat.
One of those punks manage to
throw 'Hypnotize Big Daddy' plasmid at me and i can do nothing about it. Then
this old lady appears and order me to shoot myself in the head with this gun. BANG!
Then game's title appears.
Ten Years
Later
I awake to someone's call and
here i am at the tutorial section. As why i'm still alive even though i shot
myself? I will explain that later.
After i bash some coral to make
my way, i get to use drill to bash some splicer that shot another splicer. It's
okay to kill him as splicer is humans that addicted to plasmid/Adam to the
point makes them go banana. Meanwhile, plasmid is basically magic ability that
you get from special gene alteration in Rapture and Adam is goo extracted from
sea slug that's used to alter your gene. I hope you can keep up with these
terms.
Sweet! I find Eve dispenser that
provide me with Eve syringes for free. But i can only carry 5 of them at most,
at least for now. Eve is basically Mana/Magicka/MP in this game.
Not far from those Eve dispenser,
i get whisper from (presumably) my little sister from that time. She tell me to
get that one big bottle of plasmid: Electro Bolt, that she manage to sneak.
After some cutscene of my hand
electrocuted as result of injecting the plasmid (just like what happen to Jack
in Bioshock), i'm down momentarily
and another little sister comes to me. She tells me that Eleanor (my little
sister back then) needs my help. Suddenly, she's snatched by someone in diving
suit. No, i don't think it's another Big Daddy as we're slow and big fellow.
That one there is fast and slim.
Naturally, i chase that mysterious
creature. But i can only find this lone splicer yells at empty swimming pool.
The game wants me to zap him and bash him with my drill afterward for critical
damage, so i do that. This is like Pyro's 'Puff n Sting' method in Team Fortress 2, where he burns his
target first and then slash it with Axtinguisher to inflict critical damage.
But the difference is i don't need to switch weapon here. Left mouse button for
plasmid and right mouse button for weapon attack, very intuitive and fast. Unlike
in first Bioshock where you need to
switch between plasmid and weapon on your hand.
Hey! I found a room that need
number code to unlock. The number is obviously in that steamed window door. So
all i need to do is to go to keycode panel on right and insert '1540'. Very
simple!
Oh, come on! I'm not a baby, game.
I can remember the numbers very close from the panel just fine! Here's my big
complaint about the game. It's way too much handholding the player. Another
example: there's always small message to direct me to explanation about item
container every time i loot for items from small box or desk. It's quite
annoying, to be frank. Especially when i'm playing as freaking Big Daddy. I
mean he's dumb and such but i don't feel need for handholding that much.
Good job, bro! I wish there's
button to give 'thumb up' gesture to this guy.
Not long after that, i find my
first gun. It's not your standard handgun. It feels heavier but thankfully it
has minimum recoil. I think the game doesn't suggest me to do
aim-down-the-sight but i do it anyway because that way i can aim his head and also
result in critical damage.
There's a hall with no light but
thankfully i can turn on my light automatically. Here i find another little
sister. Do you think little sisters are normal girl? Besides like to drink
blood and extract Adam from corpses, they have bright yellow eyes. They don't
look so angelic but they still need our protection, you see.
Suddenly, that mysterious creature
(which named Big Sister) appears again but this time she attacks me so i fight
back. Fortunately, she stand on water puddle. so i can zap her for extra damage.
Sadly, i can't hit her with my drill while electrocuted. I mean, i can but i
will get electric damage as well if i go to that puddle.
She ran away when i was about to
run out of ammo, luckily. I chase her for a bit and as i arrive in this great
hall, she break that glass. So i got flooded. As i'm obviously in diving suit,
i'm fine with that. I don't know how that poor Jack's doing if he's in my
stead. Dead, probably.
Thus i'm on non-combat section of
underwater walk (but you can collect some ammo and medkit around). Bioshock 1 has bathysphere travel to get
"the welcome to Rapture" feeling. Here, you only have manual slow
walk. Tough luck. Anyway, it's funny that the sign says "Rapture is your
beautiful city" while in truth it becomes ruined slum infested with crazy
Adam/Plasmid addict. That's what you get by naming your city with the word that
has same rhyme with rupture!
Atlantic's
Express
Finally, i'm out from that boring
walk but i have to wait this aircycle lock system first before i get to violent
action again although i admit that this is realistic procedure and it reminds
me of Dead Space 3. Anyway, the one
who awakes me by sending that call is Brigid Tenenbaum, the one who discover
Adam and now she protect little sisters. She's considered "mother" of
little sisters. By the way, she speak in German accent like Medic in Team Fortress 2.
What's also new to this game is
this hack tool that allow me to hack machineries from distant but it requires
ammo so called Remote Hack Dart. Also, the hacking minigame change to this
"Land this speeding needle to correct zone" instead of Pipe Dream clone. Landing on green zone
results in success hack. Landing on blue zone results in bonus effect such as
free item in vending machines or increased damage for hacked bot/sentry. Landing
on red zone will triggers alarm. Landing on white zone will electrocutes me. Hey!
I only take notice now that there's option that allow me to pass the hacking
process by spending 200 dollars. Silly me!
Once i enter an elevator, Sopia
Lamb (the main antagonist) makes contact with me. She taunts me and send splicers to
kill me. They shoot me through glass and i can deal them quite fine. But the
elevator becomes on fire and i'm forced to get "scripted defeat".
Fun. [average fish-school sized sarcasm]
Ah, yes. The security camera.
It's quite dangerous to deal with in previous Bioshock. It emit spotlight and if you're on it, the camera will
sounds the alarm that will summons flying bots to kill you. You can carefully
walk while dodging the spotlight and hack the camera from close range. Or you
can be lazy like me and use hack tool instead. Do you see small flying machine
with green-lit propellers? That's the flying bot that i mentioned. The
propeller's tip are green, means that it's on my side and will follow me
everywhere. Yellow lit means neutral but they're summoned via friendly security
camera. Red lit means hostile. You can only have 2 of these guys maximum.
There's another plasmid that
Eleanor leaves for me. It's the good old Telekinesis and there's old American
style cartoon plays when i equip it. Scout_cheers04.wav
I don't think i use Telekinesis
plasmid many times in previous Bioshock.
But here, it's essential to pull that pipe that jams the gears of door's
mechanism. Removing it, will open the door and allow me to progress further.
Engineer_yes03.wav
Finally, "Circus of
Value" vending machine! But it lacks of the clown's voice. Too bad. Maybe
i'm the only one who feel missing with that clown's voice of either
"Welcome to Circus of Value!" and "Hehehe!". Thankfully,
the voices are back in DLC.
I arrive at this floor via
one-man elevator and there's this splicer scrounges at that corpse. Against my
expectation, he runs away from me instead attack me. So far, he's the most
sensible crazed man but he run toward that laser-trip trap and gone for good.
This scene demonstrates how trap rivets work. They will launch rivet instead of
explodes like what i always think about any trap that emit laser besides
triggering alarm
I meet Tenenbaum at ticket booth
with bulletproof glass (to prevent troll player kills this good lady). Her
briefing is interrupted with Sofia's announcement to her splicer follower to
kill Big Daddy Delta which is me. Later Tenenbaum and the little girls evacuate
from here.
Of course, i have to deal with gauntlet of enemies. But
thankfully, there's health station which can refill my health to maximum at the
cost of 9 dollars if hacked first (you can see one of them behind beam on the
left, with cross symbol), explosive gas canister, and security camera that i
can hack. So i don't feel too overwhelmed here. After the situation settles
down, Augustus Sinclair contacts me. He will give me the briefing, replacing
Tenenbaum.
Ryan's
Amusement
I take underwater train to this
place where Sinclair resides. I have to stop my train here because the gate
ahead is frozen otherwise the train will be wrecked along with me. Sinclair
suggest me to find "Incinerate!" plasmid to thaw the frozen gate. He
said i can find one inside of Ryan's Amusement.
As i want to search for the
entrance ticket, i find this Upgrade Station instead. It allows me to upgrade
any of my weapon once for free! There's ultimate upgrade for every weapon but
you have to get the first 2 upgrades before get it. I don't think it's on
previous Bioshock. Of course, i
upgrade my drill first. It's a must. Besides making my drill to have ability to
reflect projectiles at enemies, sounds really awesome!
After getting the ticket, i find
this maniac bashing on glass display for nothing. I mean it's already opened
and he keep punching the glass. The
whacko. Hey, is that a Gatling gun there?
Yes, it is. Sadly, the Gatling
gun is not so reliable like Tommy Gun in Bioshock
1. It's not so accuracy. Even with recoil reduction upgrade, it's still
quite inaccurate. I think the gun has terrible grouping (bullet spread). Maybe
it's just my suggestion but aim down the sight should make the gun more
accurate.
After passing the entrance,
there's free-sample tonic for me to take. It's Sports boost tonic that will
increase my movement speed slightly. I reckon it's useful especially if i want
to get to my enemies to drill them, faster. Tonic is passive ability that will
take effect once equipped. Slots for plasmid and tonic, is different. Mind you.
All right! I find the El Ammo
Bandito vending machine. Again, i missed the voice of the machine. This time
it's Mexican desperado's voice and i love it. Although the voice is probably
racist and thus worse than Circus of Value's clown voice. Again, they fix the voice
in DLC. What's the difference between El Ammo Bandito with Circus of Value? The
former is more focused on selling ammunitions while the latter has more
variation on the goods such as First Aid Kit, Eve Hypo and foods (to refill
health by small amount).
I find this soda drink
advertisement on Gent's restroom. I find this interesting because i reckon this
soft drink is the one that (USS) Laffey like to drink everytime.
Another new to this game is
pressing Lshift for quick melee button. If i remember correctly in previous Bioshock, it's used for running. In
return, i can't run at all in this game. You can use any weapon for melee
attack (like in this screenshot, i use the gatling gun) but the drill still the
strongest melee weapon as there's weapon upgrade and tonic to increase its
(melee) damage. You can also see Vita-Chamber in this screenshot. It allows you
to revive yourself everytime you die without any money cost. It's akin to that
resurrection machine in Borderlands 2.
I feel that the Vita-Chamber is the biggest casual/friendly factor of the game.
I mean yes, Borderlands 2 also has
it. But on BL 2, there's leveling factor and also it halves your current money
everytime you use it. In Bioshock 2, there's no such thing. You can disable the
Vita-Chamber function in option setting therefore you have to rely more on
quicksave or manual save. By the way, Vita-Chamber is the reason why i come
back to alive after shot myself back then. I can confirm that there's
Vita-Chamber behind me at the beginning of the game, proofing i was resurrected
by Vita-Chamber in the story.
What? I have to rob little sister
from another Big Daddy? I feel really bad doing that. You should know that
Bouncer type of Big Daddy from box art of Bioshock 1 or PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale like i mentioned before. He has
weird body posture where his head and torso seems united, diving helm with lots
of "eyes", and also giant drill for arm. Remember the rule of thumb:
don't engage melee combat with Big Daddy? Yeah, i'm not doing that unless i'm
out of ammo. Thankfully, the rivet traps doesn't trigger on Big Daddy
immediately. I still need to put more.
Now that her Big Daddy dead, i
have to adopt her and carry her to "angel" so i can get more Adam.
During the process of extracting Adam, group of splicer will come after her. If
they manage to go to her, they don't kill her or anything. They just pester her
so the Adam extraction is halted. But still anyone who touch my princess,
must perish!
"But the parasite said
"No! No Hentai!" and thus the artist stand there without any glimmer of spirit while
his boner is slowly and painfully dying." Not really. :P
There's another angel inside this
animatronic ride. It contains animatronics view that illustrate how the
parasite (most likely refers to government) will makes you suffer such as:
farmer works hard but it demands share of his harvest, scientist that discover
astounding invention is put down by it as the invention is beyond regulation,
or how it will snatch your kid to conscript. I think i can understand the latter
as the date setting is near (after) World War II. Unless the parents don't want
to "create child" anymore if you know what i'm saying. Okay! Enough
with "cheesy" humor!
By the way, the narration is
voiced by the founder and the big boss of Rapture himself: Andrew Ryan. There's
his animatronic. I will break it later because i really hate him for the fact
he's just big capitalist bastard. The thing that i like to show you is: my
shadow there. You can see the little sister perch on me. How adorable. As
there's no more "angel" in
this level, i have to carry this little one to air vent.
Here's the usual Bioshock's moral
choice: you can either harvest Adam out of little sister for more Adam and
killing her in process or rescue her, making her into normal little girl but
you get less Adam. Obviously, i rescue her and Sinclair seems not satisfied
with my deed. But the soft voice of the little one saying thank you is very
rewarding to me. So to hell with you, Sinclair! >:)
Now that i have enough Adam to
purchase "Incinerate!" plasmid (no, you can't buy it with money no
matter how much you have). Sinclair points out vending machine that sells
plasmids, in this section. Here's the moment before accident happens: two
splicers argue about that broken turret. All i need to do: put this dart on it
and it will kill those two. Engineer_specialcompleted08.wav
Here's the vending machine to
purchase Plasmids and Tonic: Gatherer's Garden. Sinclair said that i have just enough Adam to purchase "Incinerate!" plasmid because i choose
to rescue that little sister. You know what? That's rubbish! As you can see, it
cost 90 Adam and i have 160 Adam. That's more than enough! I also purchase
health upgrade because Big Daddy is supposed to be tank-y. That "Eve
Link" tonic allows me to refill Eve a bit whenever i use first aid kit. I
don't think it's necessary so i pass.
"M - What is this?"
That's clearly enemy, game! Just let me kill her with my drill...oh shoot! I'm
out of drill fuel. My Rivet gun also dry so i have to resort to Gatling gun.
Everytime you rescue/harvest all the little sister in a level, big sister will
be out to kill you. She can conjure fireball or using telekinetic to throw
rubbles at you. She's also dangerous in close range and sometime does
"spring dropkick" move on you
momentarily disarm you while she jump to safety. Just remember to use
the instant health kit occasionally and refill your ammunition, you'll be fine.
Or if you feel adventurous, you can counter her telekinetic throw with your own
telekinesis.
I got more Adam from deceased big
sister. Thus i buy more tonic at Gatherer's Garden in this kitchen display that
once frozen. I definitely takes the Armored Shell tonic because despite i'm Big
Daddy i feel that i can't take lots of punishment as supposed to be. Maybe
because developer think the game will be too easy if i'm still strong i
was comma for 10 years that i'm weakened. Tips for those who like to rescue
little sisters and get the minimum amount of Adam: always prefer Tonic over
Plasmid. Plasmid is useless if you don't use it at all while Tonic will take
effect even without you realize.
After i melt the ice on the gate
and open it from this booth, Sinclair comes out from his room and enter the
train. He will come with me to get out of this junkie's paradise and rescue
Eleanor. I know that he's swindler but he's nice enough to care about Eleanor.
After he enters the train, splicers ambush this place. That's why i
preemptively put trap rivets there. The traps won't kill Sinclair, don't ever
think about it.
Pauper's
Drop
As soon as we arrives at Pauper's
Drop station, i witness a leadhead splicer (the shooter type) is killed by
brute splice which also new for this game. I guess i can stop here but wait!
On much much later, i'm on very
strong bind and need rescuing myself. But before i'm rescued, a little sister
put the large syringe on me and i'm possessing her. From her view, we see the
ruined city becomes beautiful and fine. As for the "angel", they
looks dies elegantly with roses petal and light graffiti of wings and halo
while in truth they just corpse of miserable junkie.
As possessed little sister, my
main task is to collect big sister's gears (which are wedding cloth set in
little sister's view) and give them to Eleanor. Soon, she frees me from the
binding and gives me special plasmid to summon herself. I know you grow from that
faithful moment. But it seems you lack of development in that area, sweetie. Ok!
Father feels sorry to say that.
Minerva's
Den
Meanwhile in DLC which takes
place in Minerva's Den where Rupture's Supercomputer resides, Big Daddy Sigma
plays Spitfire (which is primitive version of XQuest). It's borderless but the
enemies spawn relentlessly. I'm controlling the cross thing there, by the way.
Relax there, sport! As i mentioned
before, El Ammo Bandito and Circus of Value's voices are back. Although on some
of the machines, they're muffled. In addition to that, you can get new plasmid
and weapon. This Gravity Well plasmid allow me to throw a powerful orb that
will suck any enemies and friendly bot (sorry, fella!) at spot that you thrown
and later explodes loudly. This cannon laser emits continuous beam that cut
enemies. The research camera is nowhere to be found here but if you dislike the
"combat photography" part of the game, this could be good news for
you. To put it simply, the DLC is worth your money although it only consists of
3 levels.
Bioshock 2 (2010) is Bioshock 1 with more content, for sure.
Overall the weaponry is better. But because Delta dual wields plasmid and
weapon, he has to settle with sawed of shotgun with clip size of 2. But you can
upgrade it later so it can carries 6 shells at once. My big problem with the
large weaponry and each with 3 different ammunition type: there's lacks of HUD
that tell your remaining ammo like in classic Doom or Blood. It's quite
often for me, to prepare weapon that don't have sufficient ammo while in dire
situation. If said HUD exists i won't be in that problem many times. It takes
lots of space on the screen but it will be very useful. You can get more Adam
than in previous Bioshock and also more Tonic and Plasmid (plus upgraded
version of them) to spend your Adam with! The procedure of getting Adam is more
complex. It's more than defeating Big Daddy and harvest/rescue the little
sister like before. You can escort her to extract Adam for you or you can
straight take her to vent. The choice is up to you. There's also lootable Adam
in Big Sister's corpse or in form of the raw: sea slug. Like in previous
Bioshock, you can get compensation if you choose to rescue all the little
sister instead of harvesting them. The moral choice also more than
harvest/rescue the little sister. There's 3 key persons to spare or kill. Of
course the moral choice determines the ending. Delta feels heavy with inability
to run or jump higher. Also his steps sounds hefty. Maybe for some of you, the
"protect the little sister" part of the game isn't welcome and i
can't blame you for that. Although you have many tools to ease your escort
task. There's hacked security cameras (if existed), turrets, and flying bots.
Plus you can set traps such as: rivet trap, cyclone trap plasmid (if i remember
correctly it's also in first Bioshock
as DLC at the cost of 1 Adam), proximity mine, spear trap, decoy plasmid, and
mini sentry. If that's not enough, there's a number of plasmid that can hit
multiple enemies such as Gravity Well, Electro Bolt II, or Incinerate! II. Or
you can use Hypnotize and Security Command plasmid to manipulate other for your
benefit. Big Daddy may not be so bright but that doesn't mean he can't be cunning.
There's a hint of music but they are obscured by explosion and intense gun
fire. The atmosphere is brilliantly dark.
I may or may not review first Bioshock in future. But you can read this review in mean time if you're curious.
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