BioShock 2 first impressions

So as already stated I've turned off the guide arrow, and the helmet cam and the vita-chambers too. I may also turn off the adaptive help as well as it happily informed me that the guide arrow would show me where to go and that I can turn it off if I wanted to; um yeah beat you to it.

First off this is BioShock in tone and mood; the music's right, the splicers are right everything starts out where you left off you could happily complete the first game then turn to this with a minimum of fuss. Is that a good thing? Well when BioShock was so darned good yes.


I've mentioned the ability to use both plasmids and weapons at the same time and that comes with a small catch, previously using square would reload your weapon if you had one selected, or your EVE level if you had a plasmid selected. Now with both up at the same time that can't happen. So now the square only reloads the weapon and to use an EVE hypo you need to pull up either of the weapon/plasmid selection wheels (which pauses the game) and use the square. This is much better, I was forever wasting hypos as I switched tactics.

As per usual you get the standard game difficulties the default being Normal which I left as is for the time being; and boy am I glad I did; it's surprisingly difficult. Your health is low, your EVE is low; and ammo goes by in a blur. In the previous game even on the Hard setting it was rare that I changed ammo types; in this it's a case of select the right type or die. As such I found myself for the first time pondering over what ammo types to buy with my dwindling supply of cash.

Speaking of weapons it's much of a muchness, it's the same selection process you hit L1 or R1 to bring up either weapons or plasmids then push the right stick towards the one you want. Perhaps it's just me but this seems a lot less 'floaty' than the previous game when you'd find yourself with a different weapon to the one you thought you'd selected. As before plasmids fill into slots and you can buy extra slots, the passive tonics, however, appear to have changed for the better. Previously you had tracks that could only accommodate certain types of tonic and there was no way at the time of purchase to check which track it would slot to and if you'd already filled it; now they're undifferentiated; find/buy a tonic and if you've a slot free there it goes.

Gameplay now, and as I've said it's hard you can't just stand there and go toe-to-toe you need to think about things. Nice touches remain even with the removal of the helmet cam such as the feel of how heavy you are. Step over something or jump and you know about it; yet at times it felt as if I was on a track and without those lumbering footsteps I wondered if the sound had failed.

Also the linear nature shows raises an ugly head; I've just reached a point which the game informs me is a point of no return. So if I've missed some Accu-Vox recordings and continue - tough never gonna get them now; and I hate that. Even if there's some legitimate in-game reason to prevent my return it still sucks to be told 'Make sure you've got everything because you can never return' though perhaps not so much as not being told.

Graphically it's sharper than its predecessor whether that's as a result of  it running at 1080p over 720p I can't be bothered to find out; yet at times you get the odd blur. As with the previous game when you load in it can take a second to assign the right level-of-detail textures although so far it's been quicker than the other. Yet some remain at the blur level, this might be an aesthetic touch as so far everything that's been slightly off is paper or could be paper based, and what with the water running about the place I'd expect such to start to blur. At times though it makes you stop and realise you're in a game; the periodic table for example was pretty much a blurred texture.

[Update - much has been made of the low water resolution, the only time this has cropped up for me is sloshing through big puddles, I like the water on stairs effects. One glitch so far has appeared or disappeared and that's a corpse. Step towards it to search and it vanished, step back and there it was, back and forth until it timed out and just went]

As for the story, well no that gets told as you play so that's that.

Multiplayer I've yet to get try, but I have high hopes for it. Not because of the game, but because of the level of player the game is likely to attract. Any LOL FAG boys who for some reason bought the first probably hated it so wouldn't touch the second.

Ah well single-player first.