Finished it, due to a convenient schedule for playing. Observations, trying not to spoiler:
It’s about the same length (single player) as the original; fewer levels, but they’re bigger. The story is simpler but the characters are richer; there are more characters who matter, and more back story for them. Some old characters make appearances, generally just as diary entries for the ones who died in BioShock 1. Even though the game is a sequel (10 years later), the story is largely a prequel – how the little sisters and big daddies came to be. The story isn’t just a rehash of BS1 - I made some predictions of how it would end based on the BS1 experience, and was pretty much uniformly wrong.
You do play as a big daddy, but you’re much more maneuverable than when you dressed as one in BS1. They’ve got some special effects they’re proud of (and hence use a lot); including much better control of water – water levels can change this time around (and your character can function underwater). The weapons are all “heavy” weapons, as suits your new character. The over-the-top-gory spear gun is worth the price of the game alone, especially when you get the alternate ammo for it.
Mostly, though, I just liked the return to Rapture. This is a grittier, darker (sometimes literally) Rapture that’s seen another decade of decay with no one at the helm. Overall, I’d rate it as about 90% as good as the original, keeping in mind that the original was, well, original (especially if you’re too young to have played the System Shock games). Con: The UI has been crippled to make it more console friendly, particularly in hacking, but at least there are key equivalents for most of the stuff. Even the BS1 felt like a console game ported to the PC, this one more so.
Bees. Love the bees. As for weapon, I’m a sucker for the .50 cal machine gun. Both are entirely too useful during corpse harvesting. I use just about everything though. Trap darts and mini turrets are good for harvesting and big sisters. Incinerate, electroshock, and hypnotize are good also. I can make one hell of a mess using those. I like the change in camera mechanic as well. Click once and it switches automatically to the last weapon used before you selected camera.
I’m really enjoying this game. There seems to be a lot more strategy involved. I find myself very carefully picking fights with big daddies/sisters based on defense placement and the like. Same thing with harvesting.
I’m curious about this as well. I’m a straight rescue guy. Never even tried harvesting. Thus far I’ve had enough adam to take care of my needs. Anyone harvesting the little moppets?
Also, it didn’t fit with the plot so well. I expected the last couple of stages to be radically different from the “good” way. But aside from some different audio, it’s basically the same, and I didn’t feel tannenbaum’s actions entirely made sense.
btw I completed the game rescuing all, then completed it harvesting all. This is the way I always play games with moral decisions: 100% good then 100% bad.
It’s fun seeing the world from the two radically different perspectives, but still, they always advertise games like this as giving you many moral choices when in fact many gamers will make a single moral choice at the beginning of the game. That’s partly because of an awareness of the different game endings and partly because the moral choices are often just repetitions of the same scenario.
Do you get gifts of Adam and other stuff from Lil Sisters if you rescue, like you did in Bioshock 1? I just did my 3rd rescue, and didn’t find anything at the Gatherers Garden. All 3 I let the LS get Adam from 2 corpses, then rescued at a vent. In Bioshock 1, it was definitely a gift for every 3 rescues.
The Scout plasmid along with the bees is almost like cheating against the splicers. You can sting them to death with no risk to yourself, return to your body and loot their corpses. Other plasmids also work when you’re invisible, but I think the bees use less ADAM per kill.
For weapons I really liked the spear gun. A one shot kill most of the time for splicers, plus you can usually retrieve your ammo. I also love watching the rocket spears fire up and drag my victim around the room.
I’ve encountered some buggy behavior while trying to find my 3rd Little Sister in Dionysus Park.
I entered a the room at the end of a hall (where I had previously melted some ice to reveal a door) and it triggered a scripted scene with the guy who had locked himself in the ticket booth saying to the effect of “There she is. Now take out the muscle!”. There was a Big Daddy in the room and some splicers, but I never saw a LS. Then all of a sudden the BD and splicers got in a fight and I must have also hit the Big Daddy with something because he then came after me and I had to kill him and he had apparently not yet pulled the LS out of the vent, and that was apparently his only chance to do it successfully. Now all of the Roving BDs on the entire level just wander around banging and moaning with no LS. I was able to find one possibly relevant bug article, but it does not describe the specific behavior I have seen, just some general bugs with the types of scripted trigger scenes. Extra Little Sister Bug | BioShock Wiki | Fandom
I really don’t want to have to revert to my Siren Alley saved game, but at least that is an option.
I added spoiler tags here in case seeing it would ruin someone’s fun. If you all would rather see this type of information, I can add “Open Spoilers” to the thread title.
All three of the LSs on the Dionysus Park level were present an accounted for with their BDs. None of them were pulled out of the wall first, they were just there on the floor when I entered each room, along with the triggered script that accompanied them. I did the one I had trouble with first and had no problems. I do not believe any of the BDs on that level were named Mark, but I’ve definitely seen that coming based on the audio journals. I have no idea what happened the buggy time, but I was not able to proceed and will be saving more carefully from now on just in case.
Help!!! I cannot beat the big sister after getting the incinerate plasmid. I’ve just played for 3 hours dying dozens of times. I’ve tried every combo of weapons and plasmids and she’s just too fast for me. I had no problem getting to this point with vita chambers off on hard. Do I really have to turn the difficulty down to get past this part? Am I missing something important?
Dunno. I died once during the first fight, but that was because she cornered me and beat my face into burger. After that I surrounded my area with trap rivets and shot her all to crap with the .50 cal.
Having beaten the gme, my new favorite plasmid is level 3 hypnosis. Big Daddies pop up everywhere in the last two stages and being able to hypnotize them makes things so much easier. I’ll say it’s as good as the first. What it lacks in newness, it makes up for with the changes in gameplay. I liked the adam gathering and big sister fights. I like how the different levels of plasmids do different things now.
Now I have to play it through again. I know I missed some stuff, and I’ll pay more attention to the weapon upgrades.
Heh, right after I posted I beat her:cool: Zapped her with incinerate, jumped over the railing to the lower level and stood in front of the circus of values machine and just used telekinesis over and over until she charged me then whacked her with the drill. I still had 3.5 health packs when I was done.
Yes, it’s easy to underestimate the power of the drill. I just wish it had about five times the fuel capacity; it’s almost not worth using because it’s always out of fuel.
I have a hard time using the drill at all. Can’t seem to point it in the right direction so I always have drill fuel. I do more damage just whacking with with the drill arm.:smack:
The drill is awesome. The drill (with the ice upgrade) + the ice plasmid = pretty much instant Big Daddy death. Take your snapshot, ice him, drill-ram him, ice him again, and then just get close and keep drilling or whacking. The drill itself has a chance of freezing him alone, or you can just throw the plasmid at him a few more times and he’s dead without ever taking a step.
I also found fuel quite often on the bodies I’d loot.
