Shocks Past, Present And Future

Hello,

Sorry about missing last week's update. Today we talk about the Bioshock series, mainly Bioshock 2 and the recently announced third installment, Bioshock Infinite. Spoilers for Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are unavoidable, and what little I can spoil about Infinite I probably will. Also, I’ll deal with two very deep games worth of lore, so if you feel you’re in over your head, either go play Bioshock or read up on the BioShock Wikia.

I recently played through Bioshock for a possibly final time and then played through Bioshock 2 immediately thereafter. Now I'm going to try and compare these two games. If my understanding is correct, Bioshock is widely regarded as the superior game, but in my opinion Bioshock 2 is better. I will admit that in many ways Bioshock is the more memorable experience. When it comes to shooters I regard Bioshock very highly in that it dares to be different. While it does borrow heavily from its spiritual predecessor, System Shock, in the context of contemporary shooters it is highly original. Much of this originality stems from the setting. Taking place underwater is not that original, but an underwater steampunk vision of a 1950s city torn apart by a genetic arms race and socio-psychological deterioration is.

The city of Rapture was an excellent playground. Moreover, it was mysterious. Bioshock ran heavily on atmosphere and Rapture supplied that. Therein also lies perhaps the biggest drawback of Bioshock 2. The same sense of dread mixed with awe is gone now that we’ve already been on this ride once before. To its credit, Bioshock 2 isn’t even trying to bank on that. The narrative presented here is much more straightforward.

Now we enter major spoiler territory. In Bioshock you played Jack, a man who seemingly by chance crash-lands into the ocean smack-dab on top of Andrew Ryan’s underwater capitalist utopia, Rapture. We eventually learn that actually Jack’s return was just a part of a plot to make the power in Rapture change hands. The actual extent of this story twist is much more... uh, extensive, but let it suffice that this was the focal point of the plot.

Bioshock 2 does not attempt to tell a similar story. After Bioshock’s events power has again changed hands and Rapture is now controlled by psychiatrist Sofia Lamb. The player controls Subject Delta, one of the first Big Daddies ever created, as he tries to get back to his own Little Sister, who just happens to be Sofia Lamb’s daughter, Eleanor.

Bioshock is perhaps the most philosophical game franchise out there. The first game dealt in themes of choice and free will. Bioshock 2 on the other hand deals with the question of ultimate selflessness. Sofia Lamb believes that with the gene splicing made possible by ADAM she can create an individual who has no sense of self yet enough conscience to try and help others. The subject of this experiment is to be Eleanor.

The resulting story is in my mind much more touching and powerful than that of the first game. Make no mistake, Bioshock has a good story, but a story that is good by being unpredictable. However, I came to care much more about Bioshock 2’s characters, Eleanor and Subject Delta, than I did of anyone in Bioshock.

In terms of gameplay Bioshock 2 is also much better, as was expected. The main change is that instead of using either weapons or plasmid powers you wield both at the same time. This works very well. The Little Sisters are back. You still have to choose between either rescuing them or killing them, but there’s also the option to temporarily adopt them. This means you have to set them down on a corpse and defend them while they harvest ADAM. These sequences are intense like Bioshock never was.

The main palette of plasmid powers is largely the same. The weapon selection is pretty much completely revamped, but the new weapons fill the same jobs the old ones did. Still, no component of the game feels dated or worn. The hacking system is completely revamped, and that’s a good thing. The first game’s hacking sessions could get a little annoying if you had to hack several machines in a row. The new hacking game is less a puzzle and more a reflex test. It works a lot smoother and even adds to other gameplay in unexpected ways.

Bioshock 2 is shorter than Bioshock. I feel the ideal game length would be a little between these two games, as the first game drags out just a little bit, especially on later playthroughs, whereas the second could’ve run on just a little bit longer in my opinion. Well, now that I think about it, additional levels wouldn’t have worked as well in the confines of the current story, so maybe the shortness is a mixed blessing.

Just recently the announcement was made for Bioshock Infinite. Infinite doesn’t just reshuffle the deck, it changes the rules completely. The game takes place fifty years earlier and about ten miles higher. Instead of an underwater city we get a flying one. If any other developer presented this kind of development I’d be pissed. On paper it sounds like they’re trying to serve up the same meal in a different package. But these guys, I trust, are above that kind of re-treading.

It seems that Infinite has much to offer. The narrative will probably be highly different. Instead of a identity-less main character guided by people through glass walls and over the radio we’re promised a complete person, Booker DeWitt, who interacts with other full characters. Honestly, all I’m hoping for is that they add a new dimension to the existing ideas and themes of Bioshock.

Infinite’s development is in the middle stages, I believe, as the release date is currently set for 2012, so we’ve got a good long while to salivate over hype material. Personally, I look forward to it.