BioShock 2 Exclusive Impressions - First Look
We head back to Rapture with 2K Marin for the exclusive first preview of the sequel to BioShock.
How do you follow up the critical, commercial, and artistic success of 2007's BioShock? The narrative-driven shooter was one of those rare games that managed to balance art style, and gameplay into a cohesive package. The game's commercial success for 2K and the fans' demand for more pretty much guaranteed a sequel of some kind. So, as you can probably imagine, we've been curious to find out what's going on with the sequel, which is being developed by 2K Marin, a newly minted studio in the 2K stable created specifically to work on the game. Since Marin is just a stone's throw from GameSpot's home office, we stopped by the new studio to get a look at the game and chat with the team about its work on one of the most anticipated sequels of 2009. Please be advised that this preview may contain story spoilers.
In case you missed the original BioShock, the game was a moody, atmospheric shooter in which you played as Jack, a hapless individual who finds himself exploring the undersea city of Rapture--a place that sounded great in theory, yet took a turn for the worse after a seemingly random series of unfortunate events. The once-glorious city was founded by business mogul Andrew Ryan in the hopes of creating the perfect society. Sadly, these lofty ideals were no match for basic human nature, and a civil war between two factions left the city a twisted and ruined version of what it was once intended to be. Instead of being a bustling borough full of shiny, happy people, Rapture became a bleak and dangerous world forever altered by Ryan's genetic experimentation, populated by hostile mutants known as "splicers," genetic collectors known as "little sisters," and the gigantic metal monsters known as "big daddies." Another key aspect of the game was that it had a fairly self-contained story that ended pretty definitively. This posed a challenge for 2K Marin, but the studio has taken the world of BioShock and used it to tell a whole new story.
BioShock 2 is set roughly 10 years after the events in the first game and tiptoes around the various possible endings in BioShock. You play as a prototype big daddy freed from his conditioning by everyone's favorite meddling scientist, Dr. Tenenbaum. The creator of the little sisters has come back to Rapture out of a sense of responsibility for a recent wave of kidnappings. It seems that young girls are being kidnapped by a mysterious creature, a "big sister," and being taken under the sea. While the specifics of the story are still being kept under wraps, Tenenbaum clearly has some knowledge of what's happening and feels responsible. (And let's face it, the lady's a little screwed up in the head, so it wouldn't surprise us if she were at least partially to blame.)
From what we understand, Tenenbaum seems mainly involved with one little sister in particular. It seems that this new big sister might have been one of the original little sisters who were freed by Tenenbaum or Jack at the end of the first game--but who didn't really cope too well on the outside. For reasons that aren't clear, she returned to Rapture and, as a result of some undisclosed process, became the big sister. (And yes, it's safe to say that this creature is also pretty screwed up--spending most of your young life in the ruines of Rapture, harvesting the genetic substance known as "ADAM" will do that to you). Following her transformation, she apparently began heading out and started kidnapping girls. Again, the BioShock 2 team remained cagey about the exact story details but did let slip that the big sister may be working with--or for--a potentially important and powerful enemy character and that this important character may not even be the big bad boss of the game. At the start of the game, your role is as Tenenbaum's champion. The doctor tasks you with helping her free the little sisters who have been converted, as well as with stopping the big sister.
Our demo of the game, titled "Hunting the Big Sister," helped set up this part of the story. We began with Tenenbaum rousing us to consciousness via radio. This time around, your character's identity is made clear, as you see your character's reflection in a pool of water. However, you won't be a typical, off-the-shelf kind of big daddy. Those that played the original BioShock will remember the big daddies as lumbering powerhouses. But apparently big daddies were much faster and more versatile back in the day.
Tenenbaum's chatter is big on tough love and urges the newly awakened big daddy (that's you) to get going. We were able to see the behemoth start walking, much more quickly than the big daddies from the original game, and use his drill (which can be charged up to deal extra damage). But it was much more interesting to see the big daddy use firearms and plasmids. Apparently, before the design of the big daddy was finalized to the models in the original BioShock, these guys could pretty much do it all. We watched our boy as he lumbered around a new section of Rapture, and the team pointed out that the original game let you check out only a small part of the massive ruined metropolis.
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