I found Lamb's character really interesting, actually.
She starts off as a foil to Andrew Ryan: an embodiment of all that represents communism and socialism, completely neglecting herself for the betterment of society. You find that one audiolog where she talks about playing poker, she decides who needs the winnings the most and makes sure that they walk away the winner of the night.
But just like Andrew Ryan was flawed, so is Lamb. When shit stops going her way towards the end of the game, she embodies the same selfishness she despises so much. She completely loses the cool, rational thinker aspect and just starts reacting to you, doing everything she can to make sure things go HER way, never considering what's best for the most people involved (which at this point consists of her, Elanor, and Delta). She's completely given up everything she stands for, and doesn't even realize it. That's the main thing that makes her a worse dictator than Ryan: Ryan eventually realized what a fool he was being.
Ryan never came to his senses.
He was exactly the same when he died as before (burning his forest rather than letting the government take it/trying to destroy Rapture rather than let Atlas have it).
He never had a point where he realised he was doing the wrong thing (from his point of view, anyway), and he only killed himself as a way to die on his own terms; he knew he wasn't getting out of it, so he essentially committed suicide to make a point.
He knew he was beaten, but he never thought he was wrong.
yeah, there's even a tape to that effect where ryan convinces himself not to doubt anything he did
Nuzak on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I think the creepiness was definitely sorely missed in Bioshock 2. Some of the most striking moments of Bioshock 1 were where the game genuinely freaked me out---like for example the first time you meet a Houdini Splicer or that one room in the first level where you can see a guy with a meat cleaver as a large shadow in a place with very low light.
In Bioshock 2 I suppose the enemies were menacing in the sense that they can impede your progress but a lot of the eerieness is gone.
mynameisguido on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I think the creepiness was definitely sorely missed in Bioshock 2. Some of the most striking moments of Bioshock 1 were where the game genuinely freaked me out---like for example the first time you meet a Houdini Splicer or that one room in the first level where you can see a guy with a meat cleaver as a large shadow in a place with very low light.
In Bioshock 2 I suppose the enemies were menacing in the sense that they can impede your progress but a lot of the eerieness is gone.
See, I think if we had never played BioShock, we'd find BioShock 2 creepy. The fact is, we have played BioShock, so aside from Big Sisters and the Brute Splicers, there really isn't much to "scare" us in BioShock 2. I think it's really just a product of trying to make a sequel to a game like BioShock, not so much something the developers did wrong.
Yeah, I think the creepiness was definitely sorely missed in Bioshock 2. Some of the most striking moments of Bioshock 1 were where the game genuinely freaked me out---like for example the first time you meet a Houdini Splicer or that one room in the first level where you can see a guy with a meat cleaver as a large shadow in a place with very low light.
In Bioshock 2 I suppose the enemies were menacing in the sense that they can impede your progress but a lot of the eerieness is gone.
See, I think if we had never played BioShock, we'd find BioShock 2 creepy. The fact is, we have played BioShock, so aside from Big Sisters and the Brute Splicers, there really isn't much to "scare" us in BioShock 2. I think it's really just a product of trying to make a sequel to a game like BioShock, not so much something the developers did wrong.
I'd have to agree with this. The game in and of itself is pretty creepy, it's just that you already know what Rapture is capable of sending at you if you've played the first game. When you played the first you had no idea what was lurking in those shadows and what could attack you at any moment. Here, you do, and there isn't much they could have done short of completely introducing a ton of new enemies, which would be kind of weird in a way, since you'd wonder where they were in the first.
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Quaz and Wally on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
It didn't help that you got the camera around the time that you run into the splicers feigning death, and that the camera would let you take pictures of them and would keep reeling. So even if you thought you were photographing a corpse, you would then wonder why it's letting you rack up points on the cadaver, I mean usually it stop when they- ooooooooh
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
It didn't help that you got the camera around the time that you run into the splicers feigning death, and that the camera would let you take pictures of them and would keep reeling. So even if you thought you were photographing a corpse, you would then wonder why it's letting you rack up points on the cadaver, I mean usually it stop when they- ooooooooh
Yeah. Also, re: creepiness -
the section where you played as a little sister creeped me out for no apparent reason
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
It didn't help that you got the camera around the time that you run into the splicers feigning death, and that the camera would let you take pictures of them and would keep reeling. So even if you thought you were photographing a corpse, you would then wonder why it's letting you rack up points on the cadaver, I mean usually it stop when they- ooooooooh
Yeah. Also, re: creepiness -
the section where you played as a little sister creeped me out for no apparent reason
The way they see the world blew me away though.
Skull2185 on
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Bioshock 1 was a critique and subtle satire of Ayn Rand and objectivism.
Bioshock 2 seems like a full on fucking parody. Don't get me wrong, I thought Ryanland or whatever it was called was hilarious, but the first seemed a lot more believable and immersive.
There was an audio diary in Ryan Amusements of Ryan talking about this:
I know this facility is vital to the preservation of secrecy in Rapture. But seeing myself transformed into that... lurching, waxen nightmare... do children truly respond to this? Still, I spoke to a young man exiting the park after the grand opening, asking him what, if anything, he had learned here. He said his chores didn't seem so bad anymore -- as long as mother wouldn't send him to the surface.
Ryanland is amazingly over the top, but at least they give some sort of justification for it.
I was freaked out by Big Sister cries, but she wasn't as bad an opponent as I had feared.
Jintor on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
Yah, the Big Sister cry didn't freak me out at all. I found Spider Splicers in BS1 to be far, far more creepy and freak worthy, they way they talk to themselves quietly then scream when they see you.
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
It didn't help that you got the camera around the time that you run into the splicers feigning death, and that the camera would let you take pictures of them and would keep reeling. So even if you thought you were photographing a corpse, you would then wonder why it's letting you rack up points on the cadaver, I mean usually it stop when they- ooooooooh
Yeah. Also, re: creepiness -
the section where you played as a little sister creeped me out for no apparent reason
The way they see the world blew me away though.
It took me a while before I realized what was going on. One of the best parts of the game IMO
Big Sisters scared the bejeesus out of me, especially early in the game when they could really wreck my shit. They were cake at the end, but the first couple of times I knew I was in for a terrible fight. I played on Hard the first playthrough, and was always low on health and ammo at the beginning.
wallaka on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
The only time I squealed was when a splicer jumped out from hiding among some wax mannequins. The simple fact that I've seen all these splicers before took a lot of the spook out of the game.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
It didn't help that you got the camera around the time that you run into the splicers feigning death, and that the camera would let you take pictures of them and would keep reeling. So even if you thought you were photographing a corpse, you would then wonder why it's letting you rack up points on the cadaver, I mean usually it stop when they- ooooooooh
Yeah. Also, re: creepiness -
the section where you played as a little sister creeped me out for no apparent reason
The way they see the world blew me away though.
It took me a while before I realized what was going on. One of the best parts of the game IMO
I spent about twenty minutes just walking around reading the posters that show up in that segment. It was so so cool.
Big Sisters scared the bejeesus out of me, especially early in the game when they could really wreck my shit. They were cake at the end, but the first couple of times I knew I was in for a terrible fight. I played on Hard the first playthrough, and was always low on health and ammo at the beginning.
Or better yet, I constantly forget about the dang things. So I finish off the last harvest fight with the last little sister in an area, go to a vent free/harvest the little sister, then hear the big sister shriek... Crap I'm out of everything
They really should have randomized when the Big Sisters came or something, because once you figure out that they come with the last little sister you just prepare to fight them beforehand and it's really no big deal.
They really should have randomized when the Big Sisters came or something, because once you figure out that they come with the last little sister you just prepare to fight them beforehand and it's really no big deal.
Yea, I think that system could have worked a little better.
Well, that's pretty cool. I certainly disagree with what the YT poster said about it being anticlimactic, I couldn't think of a better ending to the MP story.
That said, he said he's the first rank 40 person on PC in the world. Has it really taken this long? I was under the assumption that a lot of people had already hit that on consoles. That said, I certainly struggle to find matches on PC, but I thought that was because I'm in no-mans land and no one around me was playing.
Ugh, I'm sorry. I gave multiplayer a fair shake, I really did, but that shit is just too clunky to be playable. I really liked the campaign, but I'm very glad I only rented the game.
Raiden333 on
There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
Earlier tonight I ran into a bug at the end of the game, where I collected a radio diary and as I held A to play it Lamb got on the radio as well, and it totally screwed up the radio talks to where they don't have voice and hide away after the subtitles show up on screen for a second.
It's really frustrating (and it happened right near the end) to the point where I had to go back to my last save before it happened.
BioShock's one of those atmospheric masterpieces of the medium that people usually talk about. A real gem of a game. Well, I never beat it. Never spent more then 40 minutes on it, actually. Back when it first came out, I mean. Recently, because of BioShock 2... I kinda felt like, hey yea, now might actually be a good time to play through this game that won all those GOTY awards. So I've been playing it. Right now, I think I'm right where I left off last time... in that Medical Pavillion area. It's still near the beginning of the game, I think. Haven't killed any Big Daddies yet. Pretty creepy game. Little scared here and there.
And uh... some things do stick out to me. Stuff that I'm not quite fond of. They're not gonna stop me from finishing the game, but they're irksome and it does sorta explain why I stopped playing the first time. They're not major dealbreakers, just annoyances. Let's dive right in.
First of all, the looting kinda sucks. It requires a lot of precision and maybe I've just been spoiled by ME2's looting, but it seems needlessly time consuming. First you've gotta loot the body of the splicer itself. Then you'll need to look around and see if they dropped a gun, cause you'll need to loot that separately. Or EVE hypos, sometimes they drop those and you'll need to point around for those. Then you'll need to see if they're lying on any sort of health kit or stacks of money, those can be difficult to see cause they're under the body. All of this is even more difficult to see if they're lying in a pool of water. There's water everywhere, and trying to spot a pistol lying near a body in water is kinda not that easy sometimes. Then you'll want to go and loot all available trashcans and crates, half of which won't contain anything at all, yet still gave you the option to loot them, which just resulted in wasting time. I dunno, it's all pretty tedious and requires a bit too much effort.
Oh, and of course there's tons of alcohol and cigarettes lying around that you have to be really careful not to accidentally loot cause then you lose health. That's just UGHHH.
I mean, I guess it is realistic to have to loot everything individually, but honestly... this is a game about Big Daddies and giant cities underwater in the 1950s and superpowers... I could've done with an easier but slightly less realistic approach to looting. It would've been A-Okay with me!
Second issue I've got: The fucking drone security bots. You know, the flying helicopter ones. It's nice that you can hack em to be your allies and all but uh... they're really fucking annoying. Like, you activate em so they'll fly around and help you in combat, but... all the while, they're chugging along and making that loud annoying ass rotary noise that drowns out all other audio cues. And they're flying really close so they get in your way half the time... it's just irritating after a while. But you feel compelled to keep the fuckers around cause they provide an ingame benefit by helping you kill splicers. So you're asked to sacrifice real peace of mind and comfort for a gameplay bonus. It's just an awful dilemma to place players in.
EDIT: Ugh, the hacking minigames are terrible too. They're kinda like the ones in Elite Force 2, except you've always got this time limit to work with. I'm not dumb, I can do the minigames, but sometimes there's just not enough time to uncover all the blocks and rearrange everything within the time they give you.
BioShock's one of those atmospheric masterpieces of the medium that people usually talk about. A real gem of a game. Well, I never beat it. Never spent more then 40 minutes on it, actually. Back when it first came out, I mean. Recently, because of BioShock 2... I kinda felt like, hey yea, now might actually be a good time to play through this game that won all those GOTY awards. So I've been playing it. Right now, I think I'm right where I left off last time... in that Medical Pavillion area. It's still near the beginning of the game, I think. Haven't killed any Big Daddies yet. Pretty creepy game. Little scared here and there.
And uh... some things do stick out to me. Stuff that I'm not quite fond of. They're not gonna stop me from finishing the game, but they're irksome and it does sorta explain why I stopped playing the first time. They're not major dealbreakers, just annoyances. Let's dive right in.
First of all, the looting kinda sucks. It requires a lot of precision and maybe I've just been spoiled by ME2's looting, but it seems needlessly time consuming. First you've gotta loot the body of the splicer itself. Then you'll need to look around and see if they dropped a gun, cause you'll need to loot that separately. Or EVE hypos, sometimes they drop those and you'll need to point around for those. Then you'll need to see if they're lying on any sort of health kit or stacks of money, those can be difficult to see cause they're under the body. All of this is even more difficult to see if they're lying in a pool of water. There's water everywhere, and trying to spot a pistol lying near a body in water is kinda not that easy sometimes. Then you'll want to go and loot all available trashcans and crates, half of which won't contain anything at all, yet still gave you the option to loot them, which just resulted in wasting time. I dunno, it's all pretty tedious and requires a bit too much effort.
Oh, and of course there's tons of alcohol and cigarettes lying around that you have to be really careful not to accidentally loot cause then you lose health. That's just UGHHH.
I mean, I guess it is realistic to have to loot everything individually, but honestly... this is a game about Big Daddies and giant cities underwater in the 1950s and superpowers... I could've done with an easier but slightly less realistic approach to looting. It would've been A-Okay with me!
Second issue I've got: The fucking drone security bots. You know, the flying helicopter ones. It's nice that you can hack em to be your allies and all but uh... they're really fucking annoying. Like, you activate em so they'll fly around and help you in combat, but... all the while, they're chugging along and making that loud annoying ass rotary noise that drowns out all other audio cues. And they're flying really close so they get in your way half the time... it's just irritating after a while. But you feel compelled to keep the fuckers around cause they provide an ingame benefit by helping you kill splicers. So you're asked to sacrifice real peace of mind and comfort for a gameplay bonus. It's just an awful dilemma to place players in.
EDIT: Ugh, the hacking minigames are terrible too. They're kinda like the ones in Elite Force 2, except you've always got this time limit to work with. I'm not dumb, I can do the minigames, but sometimes there's just not enough time to uncover all the blocks and rearrange everything within the time they give you.
You realise the alcohol and cigarettes don't just take off health, they give you Eve as well? Plus, all lootable items should shimmer every now and then to help you spot them. It might be something you have to turn on in the options.
That, and er, the drone security bots are meant to force that choice. Trade stealth and hearing ability for more firepower and decoys. How is that such an awful dilemma to place players in?
Hacking does indeed suck though. Thank God they changed that minigame for number 2.
Anyway, as far as looting goes, It's best to actually not bother looting unless you actually need it. There's very few instances in the game when there's anything genuinely important on corpses, and when there are, those corpses will be very obvious (either glowing quest objects, or else placed in such an interesting fashion that it's natural to loot them). I found that you should ignore loot most of the time, unless you are running low on something, then just run around blindly mashing the loot key on everything you kill/find.
I actually liked the looting in the game (the first one this is). Really added to the desperate survival atmosphere of the game when you could search damn near everywhere for useful stuff. In the second one I thought it was a bit weird that you would resort to eating what, at this point, are very rotten chips and coffee and whatnot.
Also, while you're right that the weapon drops, anything which is on the body will be on the body - if they fall on something, it was already there. There's no items other than the weapon which suddenly spawn into being after you kill someone.
Also, while you're right that the weapon drops, anything which is on the body will be on the body - if they fall on something, it was already there. There's no items other than the weapon which suddenly spawn into being after you kill someone.
Yea, this wasn't a kill, it was actually a corpse that I found on the ground. I think I nudged it a bit or something, cause its legs were covering up some item and it took a while to loot it.
In the second one I thought it was a bit weird that you would resort to eating what, at this point, are very rotten chips and coffee and whatnot.
Hey, this is the scientific city of wonders, where people fire lightning and bees and lightning bees from their hands. Preservatives.
If anything I'm surprised people who find it odd that you're eating rotten chips, coffee, etc haven't freaked out because it would basically require you to take off the heavy diver suit that you're wearing, or at least the helmet to do so. not to mention the question of how/what you do when acquiring items while completely submerged.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
It's kind of odd. In BioShock 1, I never felt the need to be OCD about exploring and finding stuff, I just went along with the story. In BS 2, I find myself obsessively poking in to every corner of the map. I think it's because the BS2 map design, to me, is quite a bit better than BS1. I think this is one of the areas the game really improved between iterations.
I disagree with the poster above who said you shouldn't loot everything. Maybe by the end game, yah...but early and mid game? Loot everything. You'll need all the ammo and all the cash you can get your grubby hands on. In BS2 I just made it through the second major area (after getting incinerate), and I am just now starting to have comfortable amounts of money and ammo available to me 90% of the time.
I am starting to agree with some reviewers and PA opinions that the difficulty curve is very...odd. When you first start, you are so weak. The game is actually quite challenging in parts, especially your first Big Sister fight. Now as I reach the mid-game, I've found enough Power To The People stations, and have accrued enough ADAM, that I am starting to become a beast, and the game is getting easier. Honestly, I think this is on purpose...this is how they wanted the game to play, so that you felt yourself getting more and more powerful.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Yea, brutes show up through the whole thing.
But there isnt a ton of them though, so be sure to wrap up the research in good time.
Also you can stack Armored Shell 1 and 2.
Proven Mortal on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Yea, brutes show up through the whole thing.
But there isnt a ton of them though, so be sure to wrap up the research in good time.
Also you can stack Armored Shell 1 and 2.
Yah, I've done research on every one I've seen so far. Almost to level 3 on the track.
That's interesting about the two plasmids, I wasn't aware they stacked, I figured the second level one replaced the first. Once I have all my tonic slots open, I'll probably stack them just because I hate dieing.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Yea, brutes show up through the whole thing.
But there isnt a ton of them though, so be sure to wrap up the research in good time.
Also you can stack Armored Shell 1 and 2.
Yah, I've done research on every one I've seen so far. Almost to level 3 on the track.
That's interesting about the two plasmids, I wasn't aware they stacked, I figured the second level one replaced the first. Once I have all my tonic slots open, I'll probably stack them just because I hate dieing.
There will be a long period of time without them, but more will appear. I was stuck at roughly 95% of level 4 for a LONG time.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Yea, brutes show up through the whole thing.
But there isnt a ton of them though, so be sure to wrap up the research in good time.
Also you can stack Armored Shell 1 and 2.
Yah, I've done research on every one I've seen so far. Almost to level 3 on the track.
That's interesting about the two plasmids, I wasn't aware they stacked, I figured the second level one replaced the first. Once I have all my tonic slots open, I'll probably stack them just because I hate dieing.
I read alot of places that people had tested it, and they said it seemed to stack, havent really tried myself though. Adam is quite a bit more abundant in Bioshock2 (even when saving little sisters)
so you should definately get all the tonic slots opened. (unless you want all plasmids, and that they all are at level 3)
Edit: I think I got Armored Shell 2 quite early on, maybe even in Paupers Drop, Research gives bonuses depending on how much "action" there is, and it can be multiplied quite a bit.
Posts
yeah, there's even a tape to that effect where ryan convinces himself not to doubt anything he did
Ahh, awesome, good to know. Thanks for that.
In Bioshock 2 I suppose the enemies were menacing in the sense that they can impede your progress but a lot of the eerieness is gone.
See, I think if we had never played BioShock, we'd find BioShock 2 creepy. The fact is, we have played BioShock, so aside from Big Sisters and the Brute Splicers, there really isn't much to "scare" us in BioShock 2. I think it's really just a product of trying to make a sequel to a game like BioShock, not so much something the developers did wrong.
I'd have to agree with this. The game in and of itself is pretty creepy, it's just that you already know what Rapture is capable of sending at you if you've played the first game. When you played the first you had no idea what was lurking in those shadows and what could attack you at any moment. Here, you do, and there isn't much they could have done short of completely introducing a ton of new enemies, which would be kind of weird in a way, since you'd wonder where they were in the first.
Yah, I've had a couple of heart pounding moments, like when a splicer I thought was a corpse jumped up and started beating me in the head, but not near as many as BioShock 1. Again, I just think it's a product of already sort of knowing what is possibly around the next corner.
The one "creepyness" thing I do think the developers screwed up was Big Sisters. They aren't creepy, or scary, at all. That banshee scream they do might as well be the numanuma song, because it's not frightening, and all it does is alert me to their presence. If they wanted creepy, they should have looked at Spider Splicers in BioShock 1. THOSE were creepy.
Yeah. Also, re: creepiness -
The way they see the world blew me away though.
There was an audio diary in Ryan Amusements of Ryan talking about this:
Ryanland is amazingly over the top, but at least they give some sort of justification for it.
I spent about twenty minutes just walking around reading the posters that show up in that segment. It was so so cool.
Or better yet, I constantly forget about the dang things. So I finish off the last harvest fight with the last little sister in an area, go to a vent free/harvest the little sister, then hear the big sister shriek... Crap I'm out of everything
Yea, I think that system could have worked a little better.
I wish
Reward video for getting level 40 in MP
Gee, I wonder which plane that part was from, huh.
That said, he said he's the first rank 40 person on PC in the world. Has it really taken this long? I was under the assumption that a lot of people had already hit that on consoles. That said, I certainly struggle to find matches on PC, but I thought that was because I'm in no-mans land and no one around me was playing.
It's really frustrating (and it happened right near the end) to the point where I had to go back to my last save before it happened.
And uh... some things do stick out to me. Stuff that I'm not quite fond of. They're not gonna stop me from finishing the game, but they're irksome and it does sorta explain why I stopped playing the first time. They're not major dealbreakers, just annoyances. Let's dive right in.
First of all, the looting kinda sucks. It requires a lot of precision and maybe I've just been spoiled by ME2's looting, but it seems needlessly time consuming. First you've gotta loot the body of the splicer itself. Then you'll need to look around and see if they dropped a gun, cause you'll need to loot that separately. Or EVE hypos, sometimes they drop those and you'll need to point around for those. Then you'll need to see if they're lying on any sort of health kit or stacks of money, those can be difficult to see cause they're under the body. All of this is even more difficult to see if they're lying in a pool of water. There's water everywhere, and trying to spot a pistol lying near a body in water is kinda not that easy sometimes. Then you'll want to go and loot all available trashcans and crates, half of which won't contain anything at all, yet still gave you the option to loot them, which just resulted in wasting time. I dunno, it's all pretty tedious and requires a bit too much effort.
Oh, and of course there's tons of alcohol and cigarettes lying around that you have to be really careful not to accidentally loot cause then you lose health. That's just UGHHH.
I mean, I guess it is realistic to have to loot everything individually, but honestly... this is a game about Big Daddies and giant cities underwater in the 1950s and superpowers... I could've done with an easier but slightly less realistic approach to looting. It would've been A-Okay with me!
Second issue I've got: The fucking drone security bots. You know, the flying helicopter ones. It's nice that you can hack em to be your allies and all but uh... they're really fucking annoying. Like, you activate em so they'll fly around and help you in combat, but... all the while, they're chugging along and making that loud annoying ass rotary noise that drowns out all other audio cues. And they're flying really close so they get in your way half the time... it's just irritating after a while. But you feel compelled to keep the fuckers around cause they provide an ingame benefit by helping you kill splicers. So you're asked to sacrifice real peace of mind and comfort for a gameplay bonus. It's just an awful dilemma to place players in.
EDIT: Ugh, the hacking minigames are terrible too. They're kinda like the ones in Elite Force 2, except you've always got this time limit to work with. I'm not dumb, I can do the minigames, but sometimes there's just not enough time to uncover all the blocks and rearrange everything within the time they give you.
You realise the alcohol and cigarettes don't just take off health, they give you Eve as well? Plus, all lootable items should shimmer every now and then to help you spot them. It might be something you have to turn on in the options.
That, and er, the drone security bots are meant to force that choice. Trade stealth and hearing ability for more firepower and decoys. How is that such an awful dilemma to place players in?
Hacking does indeed suck though. Thank God they changed that minigame for number 2.
Anyway, as far as looting goes, It's best to actually not bother looting unless you actually need it. There's very few instances in the game when there's anything genuinely important on corpses, and when there are, those corpses will be very obvious (either glowing quest objects, or else placed in such an interesting fashion that it's natural to loot them). I found that you should ignore loot most of the time, unless you are running low on something, then just run around blindly mashing the loot key on everything you kill/find.
I actually liked the looting in the game (the first one this is). Really added to the desperate survival atmosphere of the game when you could search damn near everywhere for useful stuff. In the second one I thought it was a bit weird that you would resort to eating what, at this point, are very rotten chips and coffee and whatnot.
Hey, this is the scientific city of wonders, where people fire lightning and bees and lightning bees from their hands. Preservatives.
Yea, this wasn't a kill, it was actually a corpse that I found on the ground. I think I nudged it a bit or something, cause its legs were covering up some item and it took a while to loot it.
If anything I'm surprised people who find it odd that you're eating rotten chips, coffee, etc haven't freaked out because it would basically require you to take off the heavy diver suit that you're wearing, or at least the helmet to do so. not to mention the question of how/what you do when acquiring items while completely submerged.
I disagree with the poster above who said you shouldn't loot everything. Maybe by the end game, yah...but early and mid game? Loot everything. You'll need all the ammo and all the cash you can get your grubby hands on. In BS2 I just made it through the second major area (after getting incinerate), and I am just now starting to have comfortable amounts of money and ammo available to me 90% of the time.
I am starting to agree with some reviewers and PA opinions that the difficulty curve is very...odd. When you first start, you are so weak. The game is actually quite challenging in parts, especially your first Big Sister fight. Now as I reach the mid-game, I've found enough Power To The People stations, and have accrued enough ADAM, that I am starting to become a beast, and the game is getting easier. Honestly, I think this is on purpose...this is how they wanted the game to play, so that you felt yourself getting more and more powerful.
Speaking of plasmids, do Brute Slicers appear throughout the game once they've been introduced? That is a research track that I really want to finish, for the Armored Shell 2 plasmid.
Yea, brutes show up through the whole thing.
But there isnt a ton of them though, so be sure to wrap up the research in good time.
Also you can stack Armored Shell 1 and 2.
Yah, I've done research on every one I've seen so far. Almost to level 3 on the track.
That's interesting about the two plasmids, I wasn't aware they stacked, I figured the second level one replaced the first. Once I have all my tonic slots open, I'll probably stack them just because I hate dieing.
There will be a long period of time without them, but more will appear. I was stuck at roughly 95% of level 4 for a LONG time.
I read alot of places that people had tested it, and they said it seemed to stack, havent really tried myself though. Adam is quite a bit more abundant in Bioshock2 (even when saving little sisters)
so you should definately get all the tonic slots opened. (unless you want all plasmids, and that they all are at level 3)
Edit: I think I got Armored Shell 2 quite early on, maybe even in Paupers Drop, Research gives bonuses depending on how much "action" there is, and it can be multiplied quite a bit.