You thought you could beat Wilkins?

So I beat Bioshock 2. Remember when it had 'Sea of Dreams' on the title? I guess it's better that they didn't keep it. Here's a review/psuedo-rant on the game.

There's actually going to be a lot of spoilers, so if you care about that type of thing, I suggest you don't read on, also, congrats on being 12 years old and worrying about someone ruining the story of a video game for you. A man chooses to say FUCK SPOILERS AND READ

I don't know how else to start this. I suppose I could do it like the game, by shooting myself in the head and then magically be revived 10 years later.

In terms of gameplay, everything that was in the first game pretty much carries over into the sequel. It still handles really well, even on a console. The atmosphere and music are still impressive, and almost makes me wish that I paid the extra $30 for the special edition with the soundtracks from both game.

As far as the story goes, there is nothing really as fucking mind-blowing the whole "Would You Kindly?" thing in the first game. Like seriously, the first time I learned that I was pretty much like:

LOL, WAT

I have three major complaints with the game, actually it's only two, because the hacking minigame isn't that big of a deal to me only because the gun that fired the hacking darts makes the whole ordeal a little bit easier.

1.) So instead of the epic pipe matching game (go play No More Heroes 2 if you miss it), we get to do the active reload game from Gears of War, but sometimes you have to do it up to 4 times on one machine depending on the situation. If you are not retarded, you will probably miss 3 or 4 times out of the 100 times that you do it, and even if you find one that you can't apparently do, you'll probably have an auto-hack dart and move along.

And half the vending machines that you hack will give you Potato Chips. They restore exactly 3% of your health. You can pick them up with Telekinesis and throw them at Big Sisters but God help you if you do.

2.) I also preferred the original research process as opposed to this new one. In the first game, you simply took a picture of the splicer/Big Daddy and then kill it, and it basically depended on how many pictures you took. In the sequel, your camera is a movie camera, and it records the amount of damage you inflict on the target and then gives you a score. It's okay for the most part, but it seems like you need a ridiculous amount of points to max out a research track so you know when to stop trying. And it shouldn't be on a timer either. Because if you're fighting a Big Daddy or even a Houdini splicer it's going to be longer than 10 seconds. Yeah there are tonics to extend the time, but it's to like 12-15 seconds. Fuck you.

3.)The only real complaint I have is about the Big Sisters. Everything I had read about the game leading up to the release of the game was that there was going to be one solitary Big Sister, and it will rape you and fuck you over at every turn. The first two or three encounters managed to capture this feeling, as I managed to get sent to a Vita-Chamber for the first time and completely fucked my achievement and broke my spirit.

Then, shortly after I killed a Big Sister. I half-expected BIOSHOCK 2 to pop on the screen and receive a notification that I had beaten the game, but then I was told that every time I engage a Little Sister from now on there is a chance that a Big Sister will come. But my fear of Big Sisters was broken, and I teabagged my way all the way to the end. And then it was like:

"Gee, there sure is a lot of ammo and health packs around here, I assume there is going to be some sort of boss battle. This bitch is probably going to be possessed or some shit. I'm going to de-activate the quarantine anyways. SUDDENLY, TWO BIG SISTERS, AT THE SAME TIME. OH FUCKKKKKKKKKKK."

At that point I was the Big Daddy of...well...Big Daddies, and I managed to beat both of them and only using all my drill fuel and 2 med kits. But it doesn't matter because a leadhead splicer can take me down pretty much using only one clip if I'm trying to loot a corpse or hack something.

Remember when the game was nothing like this article said it would be?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.

If you played the first game, then you know that half the game is pretty much just radio transmissions from random people. At least in the first game, Andrew Ryan was sinister, and Atlas/Fontaine had epic accents. Lamb (I don't even remember her first name) needs to shut the fuck up. For some reason I just couldn't tune it out. All I heard was this droning on and on about having a vagina and wanting shoes or some shit.

Well hey sport, you're now reading the rest of this review in my voice

Thankfully, shit gets real towards the end of the game. You get matched up with your original Little Sister but she's being held captive by her mother, so the only thing to do is to turn into a Big Sister and fuck shit up. Then you are able to summon her and proceed to kill a ridiculous amount of splicers and Big Daddies before escaping to the surface.

Also, before that, you have to gather the pieces to the Big Sister suit, but you see it through the eyes of a Little Sister. It was cool to see how the Little Sister sees Rapture as this big golden palace as opposed to the shitty underwater asshole that it really is, but I also find that a lot of people praise this part of the game too much. Like seriously, you just killed two Big Sisters at the same time, and know you're going to make me be a little girl? Fuck that.

I felt that Lamb's forced-drowning at the end of the game was a fitting ending, but I almost forgot about that because the ending that I got (I harvested every little sister and executed a black woman and some fuckface named Stanley) I got stabbed and killed by new Big Sister companion and then she was like "LET'S RAISE SOME HELL LOL" She doesn't actually say that but it's implied.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Tenenbaum made a return appearance in the game, but I never heard from her again after that. I think it was because I started harvesting Little Sisters instead of saving them. I wish I knew that when I played the first game because she annoys me just as much as Lamb does.

I was even more pissed than the ending in the first game when the little sisters and I all escaped in an escape pod and lived happily ever after. I guess there's just no pleasing me.

Even though I played the Bioshock 2 completely different from the first Bioshock, because the first game I did everything right and was good, and I got shit for ADAM and ended up using just Electro Bolt the whole time, and got that queer ending, then I go and RAPE EVERYTHING in the second game and I end up collecting a large amount of near-useless Plasmids/Tonics and then getting punished at the very end for doing what I was supposed to do. I'm a fucking Big Daddy trying to get to my Little Sister. Don't fuck with me, I will fucking rape you. When they give you the option to drill Harriet Tubman in the face, you drill Harriet Tubman in the fucking face and then write about it in a blog later.

Let me tell you about the weapons:

• Drill - YOUR DRILL IS ONE THAT WILL PIERCE THROUGH THE HEAVENS. I didn't use it for the first half of the game, and it wasn't until I froze and shattered an Alpha Series in seconds 'til I was like, FUCK YEAR, DRILL
  
• Rivet Gun - I'm kind of pissed that I used the first 3 upgrade stations on the Rivet Gun for me to not use it the entire second half of the game. Having rivets that set people on fire was cool for like 2 minutes. Trap rivets were fun until I got the achievement.
  
• Machine Gun - I couldn't tell if there was a difference between Anti-Personnel and Armor-Piercing Bullets. They all seemed to do the same damage depending on the target.
• Shotguns - Always relevant. Shotguns with Tesla coils? Fucking win. Shotguns with Tesla coils firing shells that stick to the target and explode? Shotgun of the year, all years
  
• Spear Gun - The rocket-propelled spears were easily my favorite part of the whole game. You freeze a splicer, and then fire a rocket-propelled spear into the splicer, and the propulsion from the rocket sends the frozen splicer flying around the room like you let the air out of the fucking balloon, except the balloon fucking combusts at the end, killing several people. Also works on Big Daddies. Very reminiscent of Gmod.
  
• Grenade Launcher - When shit needs to be blown up. The game kept trying to give me proximity mines whenever I hacked an ammo machine, I used like one maybe the whole game.

Plasmids, can be fucking useless if you want them to be. You can beat the whole game using Electro Bolt 2. Winter Blast is also effective but when you smash most splicers you don't get ammo/item drops unless you have a specific tonic. Incinerate is good if you're 12 years old and want to set shit on fire. Insect Swarm is funny for the first couple of times. I can't wait to get to level 20 so I can just shout BEEEEES as I spray people with Insect Swarm in multiplayer


Also, it took an entire playthrough of both the 1st and 2nd game to realize that we were harvesting ADAM and replenishing your Plasmids with EVE

Multiplayer, is basically a rip-off of the present day Call of Duty multiplayer systems (which in turn, is probably a rip off of some PC shooter I never played). Customizable weapons loadouts, ranking system, trials (as opposed to challenges) to earn more XP (in this case ADAM). The only thing that is a little different is that you pick from a select cast of characters can customize what your character's appearance by giving them different masks and melee weapons.

But it doesn't matter who you pick really because everyone just uses the same loadout which consists of the tommy gun, the grenade launcher, and Incinerate.

• Amelia Earhart clone who apparently speaks in a New England accent but really sounds like English/Irish so I don't fucking know
  
• A housewife, for the weirdos who were excited about being a little sister
  
• A big fat guy that sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. Fucking awesome
  
• Wilkins, a college football player who often refers to himself in the 3rd person. I usually play as him and just shout WILKINS into the mic for like 3-4 hours
  
• An Indian guy, complete with a turban and accent. I bet he fucking smells like chutney or shit in real life.
• An angry factory worker

If you reserved the game you also got the option to fucking play as a fisherman or some sort of European actress. I reserved the game several months before this was even announced because I was expecting something amazing. Once again I was let down. I can't say that for most of the game though, because most of the time when I was playing I was enjoying myself.


Gameplay -8/10 - Handles great. Many weapon/plasmid combinations if you are willing to experiment. I miss the old hacking/research systems.

Graphics/Presentation/Story -- 8/10 - I took off points for Lamb being fucking annoying and for the Big Sisters not living up to expectations

Replay - 8/10 - Multiplayer is fun for now. But will you want to keep playing once you hit Rank 40? Multiple endings encourage more than one single-player run. (I know I will)

I made you a wallpaper, but it's in 1440x900. What? You don't have that resolution? Fuck you! It's not like I like you or anything ):