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[Felrender]

Big Sister is basically Nemesis/SA-X/Dark Samus, in other words.

Which is cool.

I love that gameplay mechanic when used well. I just hope they do it less scripted than the aforementioned games.

Her appreances, as far as I can tell, are triggered after you kill a certain amount of Big Daddies and harvest/adopt-with-hope-to-liberate their Sisters.  In the encounter the guys at GI saw, she flung random debris at you, until forming a shell of rubble and junk, before sending thew whole thing flying.  One fo ther chuinks comes sailing for your face.  Fade to black.

[Blue Kitty]

Remember that silly thing where they said they'd drop the subtitle Sea of Dreams?  Yeah, that's not quite true

[LTK]

By the way, do you remember why the escort mission sucked so much in the first BioShock? That was because the Little Sister could die. Now that they still have their delicious little sea slugs in their tummies that make them invincible, and how they vomit Adam for you to use, will certainly take out the dullness of escorting them, don't you think so?

I do wonder what your options are, though. Will you be able to save the Little Sisters this time by taking out the slug, or will the only two methods available be to harvest them or adopt them?

[Felrender]

Remember that silly thing where they said they'd drop the subtitle Sea of Dreams?  Yeah, that's not quite true

First Big Daddy, who somehow gaimed use of plasimds and Adam

HE IS A PROTOTYPE.
PLASMID CAPACITY WAS REMOVED FROM END MODEL.
IT IS ALL IN THE GI ARTICLE GODDAMN.

[AngelofShadows]

I get to set people ablaze and drill their face off at the same time.....me want. Me want now.

[Felrender]

YES
THAT IS CORRECT

[Blue Kitty]

MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MINDS

[Felrender]

"Sky is blue, wait red, shit, blue again,"

[Inlander]

Wait, are people really so absurdly over-excited about this game that they're devoting their actual time and energy to discussing and reporting whether or not the game is going to have a meaningless subtitle that will be completely forgotten five seconds after the box has been opened?

[Melodic]

YES.

[Ozymandias]

The dude who wrote Fort Frolic is actually the head designer of this one.

[Inlander]

Actually, if anything "Sea of Dreams" makes me think that the designers of this game might have a few original gameplay ideas (by which I mean "designing a game that revolves around something other than turning a fancy location into a bloodbath", NOT "turning a fancy location into a bloodbath in new and exciting ways").

But I know that's almost certainly a forlorn hope.

[Blue Kitty]

Actually, I was posting them because I was a little angry that it was all the news we've been getting for the game lately.

I mean we got the announcement about Big Sisters, then that the subtitle was dropped/reapplied/dropped again.

[LTK]

The dude who wrote Fort Frolic is actually the head designer of this one.

Fort Frolic? Seriously? That rocks. Sander Cohen was the best fucking character in the whole game. He was just brilliant in his blissful insanity. If the guy who made him made the whole game, I'm definitely going to buy it regardless of what anyone says.

[Felrender]

Here's hoping the boss fights are more than "Vanilla type of Splicer with more health and friends".

[KvP]

Why should they be anything else? They're just people who shot up Adam as well.

Because they're fucking boring?

[KvP]

Yes. There's a difference between presentation and gameplay. The Bioshock "bosses" were by and large set up perfectly, but acually fighting them introduced no real change in gameplay, they were just like every other enemy. Even lazy-ass techniques like "shoot the brightly colored weak spots on the enemy" (hello RE5) add welcome variety to gameplay. Having a boss that just moves or attacks differently is enough. The fuckers weren't even skinned differently than the other splicers. They were all stroke and no orgasm.

[LTK]

You thought Dr. Steinman was boring?

Well, yes, actually. I remember when I first encountered him as a boss fight, and thought he was kind of interestingly insane with having hallucinations of Aphrodite talking to him and stuff, and then I shot him, and he died like any other crazed splicer. That was kind of lame.

Come to think of it, the only splicer boss fight I actually found difficult was Peach Wilkins. I can't really recall whether I had played the game on Hard or not, I think I did...

[ackblom12]

Honestly I found it fairly nice to have a game where the bosses really were nothing more than just another character. Completely insane, much more memorable, but just as vulnerable as anyone else.

[KvP]

There was a disconnect, though. They spent all this time trying to make characters out of enemies that were by definition just like every other enemy in the game. I don't see the point in praising Irrational for half-assing the job of making their characters special. The bosses you fight aren't really the voices you hear on the radio, not really. The voices on the radio are masterful characterizations. The bosses you fight are the same shit in a different room. When you kill them the voices just happen to stop talking.

This seems to be another example of the definition issue that Bioshock elicits. There are three different ways you can see Bioshock - as a story, as a game, or as a game with a story. People who just see the story find it pretty much flawless. People who see the game find it an average (or poor) game. And people who see the game with the story find a flawless story wrapped around an average (or poor) game. I'm in the latter category, obviously. The story was great but the only thing that made the gameplay enjoyable was the art design. It's unfortunate that Bioshock has so many slavering fans because it increases the chances that the deep flaws in the game design will be corrected the second time around (see also: Morrowind -> Oblivion)

[Inlander]

I thought the point of BioShock was that the Big Daddies were the boss fights and the guys at the end of each level were just the guys at the end of each level.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

me too.

[KvP]

They're only bosses if you disregard what a "boss" is in the context of videgamedom. A boss is an enemy you have to defeat before moving on to the next area / level / plot point in a game. You don't have to kill any of the Big Daddies if you don't want to. You have to kill the level bosses. Even if we assume that Irrational/2K decided to defer development of end-of-level enemies in favor of making Big Daddies the premiere "enemy to beat" in Bioshock, they still failed miserably in providing any variety in that regard. Would Mega Man have been as fun as it is if the same 2 "X Man" bosses were in every level of the game?

But given the Big Daddy's use in the game's advertising it's easy to think otherwise.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

honestly, i never even considered Bioshock as having any bosses in it until just now. it never even occurred to me.

i don't know what, if anything, that says about me or the game though.

[KvP]

Fizzurst Gizzameplay Fizzootage

Good that they figured out how to do underwater segments. It was kind of ridiculous in Bioshock that the collapse of Rapture was this great threat and yet you only feel the effects of it the one time at the beginning.

Otherwise, looks like a lot of the same, plus a drill.

[LTK]

Oh, it looks like using the drill is optional. I kinda figured you were using either a variety of plasmids or the drill, but now I think about it that's kind of dumb. I do hope we get to nail splicers against the wall using it, though, just like in the first Bioshock where they introduced the Big Daddy.

It looks like they are staying with the old formula, there appears to be no major change in the weapons, enviroment and general gameplay. I do hope this is not going to be a FEAR 2, although even if it is, it'll still be good.

You know, now that you mention it, the gameplay of the first Bioshock wasn't all that outstanding. Maybe I should play it again to change my tune.

[öde]

You know, now that you mention it, the gameplay of the first Bioshock wasn't all that outstanding.

It was simple but well done and the fact that you don't just run through the levels pulling the fire button and occasionally healing makes up for anything else.

[KvP]

the fact that you don't just run through the levels pulling the fire button and occasionally healing makes up for anything else.

I have no idea what this means.

Details via PC Gamer / OXM UK:

• You're the first Big Daddy ever built, and by far the most powerful.
• Bioshock 2's story is entirely about the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters and the lives they once had.
• You’re the reason every other Big Daddy after you was brainwashed and crippled – you were too good, and you were involved in some unknown incidents that caused Suchong to abort his plans to make other creatures like you: “suffice it to say they decided to simplify”.
• Tenenbaum will be your advisor over the radio, as Atlas was last game.
• The Splicers that have survived for ten years are “apex predators”, who are at the top of the “Adam food chain”.
• You have the option, nicknamed the “superdick” option, which is to adopt a Little Sister, carry her around on your shoulder, take the ADAM she extracts from corpses and brings to you, and then kill her and take all of her ADAM.
• The game is nothing like the “horrible escort quest” in the previous Bioshock.
• Single Splicers or ones in a small group will flee when they see you.
• Whether you can go in it or not, there will be a sunken ship in the sea bed surrounding Rapture.
• There will be more people like Sander Cohen in the game.
• There will be more weapons you can wield than the drill and Rivet Gun, and you can upgrade all of them.
• Once you upgrade Cyclone Trap, you can combine it with almost any other Plasmid, not just fire, e.g. "Ice Traps", "Rage Traps", and even "Security Traps".
• When you drill a Splicer there is a large amount of blood, some of which splatters on your visor.
• Big Daddies will still put up a fight, and can top themselves up with health, so you can’t erode them down by constantly respawning.
• You will have “strong and unforgettable encounters with unspliced characters that you can develop genuine empathy for”.
• There is still hacking, and you can heal security bots.
• There are multiple endings and you’ll know which one you’re heading towards, you will make many choices that will resonate into the end-game.
• Underwater sequences are entirely optional.
• There will be no combat underwater, just a chance to punctuate the action and allow the art team to “go nuts”, but you can find and harvest live ADAM slugs on the seabed.
• Some of the really moody and emotional parts of the game will happen underwater.
• Tenenbaum is still grief-stricken ten years on, especially about the Big Sister due to her origins.
• The Big Sister, due to her mental conditioning, tried to turn herself into a Big Daddy when she realised she was too old to be a Little Sister, and started kidnapping girls to bring to Rapture to restore order.
• You are not on a quest to stop her, she is on a quest to stop you – you are trying to escape Rapture and to do this you use the Little Sisters for saving, killing or adopting so you can receive ADAM. This infuriates the Big Sister, as you are undoing her work to restore order to how she believes it should be.
• Some parts of the Big Sister, like her legs, show her flesh, and she is “skeletally thin”.
• The Big Sister has much more powerful versions of certain Plasmids – for instance a version of Telekenesis that hurls everything in the room at you in a "giant tornado".
• Big Sister can hunt you down anywhere in a level.
• There is an inverted form of the relationship you had with the Big Daddies in Bioshock 1. In that game, you followed around a Big Daddy until you had it where you wanted it and "jumped it". In Bioshock 2, you are the Big Daddy, and the Big Sister is doing the same to you, constantly stalking you.
• There are special things to the prototype Big Daddy and the Big Sister we don't know about yet that will be revealed later, like how you can beat her in each fight without killing her and how you can respawn without Vita-Chambers.
• The game will celebrate your “free will”, contrasting with the previous game.
• It still seems the game will not be a straight sequel, may be partly a prequel.
• Multiplayer is still not revealed, but will be in the next issue of PC Gamer.

I would have preferred permadeath, and the big daddy thing still seems a little too T2 for my tastes, but it will likely be a fun game.

[öde]

I just really enjoy any game that isn't Halo, basically.

[Catfish_Man]

I just really enjoy any game that isn't Halo, basically.

Tried Desert Bus yet?

[Blue Kitty]

Gamespot interview with 2k Marin

[LTK]

....Niiice.

[Blue Kitty]

Even more spoilers

[LTK]

Guys guys!

Bioshock multiplayer to be a prequel!

[lprkn]

That is pretty dang awesome. Romping around a pre-fall Rapture sounds like a treat.

[KvP]

Extended gameplay trailer

[Inlander]

I hope they improve the look of the sea-wandering sequences before release. The leaves and fronds of all the coral and kelp should be wafting, not standing stock-still like support columns in a building. I know, I know, I'm being disgracefully nitpicky and gameplay's more important than graphics and all that good stuff, but it really bothered me how undynamic that sequence looked.

[KvP]

As I understand it, coral isn't usually very flexible! Those "flower" things looked a lot like the tubes you'd find in deep-sea fissures. They're supposed to look weird anyway, because of the rampant ADAM mutating things on the ocean floor. Still, plants are obviously a dumb idea. I don't think UE3 (Irrational's build, anyway) can handle fluid geometry that well.

[Inlander]

Yeah okay I think that post was late at night and I was half-drunk but the kelp still looked rubbish.

[Blue Kitty]

[LTK]

Looks nice. But the helmet can't be right, you can clearly see in the video that it's supposed to be the same as Rosie's. Unless they're going to change it in the eventual game, which is not improbable.

Let me just say: There is no way I'm not getting this right on the release date. Even if it is sixty euros.

[Blue Kitty]

Alright folks, November 3rd it is.  Unless of course you live in Europe, then it's October 30th

[KvP]

Hope you're not itching for the game cause It ain't out till next year.

*sad trombone*

[JD]

on the other hand

[LTK]

Well, shit. Bioshock 2 was the game I looked forward to playing the most this year. On the other hand, a Bioshock novel has the potential to be really, really cool. I think there's a lot of potential in the game's characters to be put into words. Just think of Cohen!

[LTK]

Hey guys, I thought you should now that the website somethinginthesea.com has now a whole room to investigate as opposed to a world map with notes. There is a bottle of Arcadia Merlot on the file cabinet...

There are also several puzzles, and among the archives, recordings of O.O. Lutwige who was searching for Rapture, and apparently, found it. There is a box with a memory puzzle on the table, and if you solve the puzzle you get another cryptic message from Lutwige, and also a keyboard with music notes corresponding to longitudes, latitudes, and... times of day? There are sun icons along with numbers like 6:28 and 5:37, but no different hours than 5 or 6. There is a piece of sheet music on the tabel with the first line of 'Drunken Sailor', with the notes coloured, for use with this box, obviously. And... aw, hell, I left the box and now I have to do the puzzle all over again. Damn it.

There is also a safe on the right side of the room with the Ryan Industries logo on it. it has four tracks where you can move eight different buttons over. On some points of the tracks there are slots the buttons can fall in to move to another track. The buttons need to fall in the slot that is in the middle of the bottom line of the second track from the center, but in a certain order. Unlock it and there's another of Lutwige's recordings.

[LTK]

I didn't know this thread was about Bioshock. For me, the saving grace of the original (which was bright and brilliant at first but ultimately very tedious) was that you were a regular chap and you were in genuine peril from borderline everything. Being a Big Daddy ruins that completely. That's some really lame second guessing of the audience right there.

Can't wait until they bring out the next installation of the Half Life saga where you play one of those giant combine striders.

I don't know if you read all the previews, but if you did, you heard that because of how powerful the Big Daddy is they had to add another character that was even bigger and badder: The Big Sister. That's the factor that keeps the peril in the new game (hopefully).

[Scandanavian War Machine]

not to mention that it sounds as though you'll be protecting your fair share of Little Sisters from splicers and the Big Sister, so we may be getting a different kind of peril but it could (and hopefully does!) have the same kind of effect.
then again, the whole "Joe Schmoe" thing doesn't really apply to me: i never really got that feeling from the first game since i could, you know, shoot fire out of my hands and use any gun i happened to stumble upon with expert proficiency.

it's been said before but i'll say it again to reiterate: it wasn't the main character that made Bioshock what it is, it was the environment and, to a lesser extent, the supporting characters.

[ackblom12]

I still say Andrew Ryan's scene was probably the best scene I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

[LTK]

I have to agree with that. Sure, walking the ocean floor does get you closer to the sea, but when you look at everything else in Rapture that's out to get you, the sea doesn't seem all that threatening at all, does it? And nowhere in the game were you actually in danger of drowning or something, the leaking corridors never fill up and the bulkheads keep the walls of water away. If the sea was a character, it'd probably be the useless, annoying sidekick villain.

War Machine didn't mention the sea specifically, though. I thought the atmosphere played a large role in the Bioshock experience too.

Hey, another thing, am I the only one here who enjoys solving the puzzles and digging through that archive cabinet on the website?