Be Excellent To Each Other

We can probably rope GJ in at some point.

Sorry, I should specify: someone good.

I did wonder. Cheeky bastard.
There are still some achievements we could go for.

It was staying true to the source material (System Shock 2)

This has arrived, but I haven't been able to play it after, stupidly, promising to wait for Miss Malabar to finish work so she can watch. I'm an idiot.

Anyway. Reading through the manual, Pipe Dream is gone! It's been replaced by a back-and-forth needle, where a simple press of A over the correctly coloured zone nets you a successful hack, as such:

Green: Success
Blue: Success with a bonus
White: Nasty shock
Red: Sets off an alarm

The camera has changed, into some sort of video version; set the camera rolling on an enemy, and attack it with a variety of powers and attacks to see which works best. Fill the meter to progress. Hopefully not as much grinding this time.

Pretty!

I wonder if you still have to record different 'subjects' in order to fill the meter up. The whole camera thing was grindy as hell in the first one - letting yourself get attacked so you could get the closest possible pictures. And now just spamming random attacks at them to fill the meter again? Meh.

I liked the camera. It made me think of Project Zero.

I love the idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Grindy as hell.

Youreallgonks review is up, yum yum yum, 8/10. More of the same, it says, but the defend little sisters bit isn't as horrific as THAT BIT in the original was. Moans about how long the game takes to get going, and how similar the opening bits are. Reckons the new structure (protect little sisters, eventually a big sister comes to get you) has enough pace to keep you interested.

All the reviews I've read so far are along those lines. I think I might get this.

That's spot on so far. The similarities are very striking at the moment, even down to needing a fire plasmid to melt the ice and progress.

Helping the Little Sisters isn't even nearly as bad as in the first game. You find one, kill the Big Daddy escorting her, then plop her on your shoulders and go off in search of corpses for ADAM. Plonk her down and defend her from the hordes of splicers as she drains the body. There's no following her around this time so far.

The Big Sisters are terrifying, with a horrific howl and blinding speed and strength. They're very tough to beat, and on my first proper encounter had to use the Vita Chamber a couple of times.

I'd say my one criticism so far is how much damage even a lone splicer can deal to you. As a Big Daddy, I was under the impression you'd be able to defeat them with ease, but suffer when they attacked in groups.

The hacking is a lot more enjoyable, and can be done from afar with your little Hack gun. Much better.

Very good so far. Much of the same, but without being as annoying.

The architecture should still be lovely, and some of the new splicer models are horrific and chilling.

Plus you get to drill people!

Indeed, the setting is as lovely as in the original. There's a lot of the story of Rapture on show through various bits and bobs; the attention to detail they put in is extremely admirable.

The drilling is fun. I can't wait to unlock the charge attack with it.

Looks 10x better than the shitty looking first one, too. But: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! OH MAKERS OF BIOINGSHOCKER WHY?!"Atlarrrrrrntic Ocean"?! *weeps into beard at voice acting*

You're officially broken.

It doesn't look any different to me*. Beautiful as ever.

*Admittedly from memory only

BioShock 1's a bit messy when you go back to it. The gunplay is all over the shop, and the level design is far messier.

BioShock 2's endings are amazing, by the way.

The first one is incredibly low rez. It also does this stupid camera trick of trying to focus for you which my eyes are already doing quite adequately.

Really? Because I find my eyes just focus on my TV, which is in a flat plane, thus meaning everything in the game world is in focus all the time regardless of how far away it is.

This is true, but it's better than feeling you've had great gobs of vaseline slapped into your grotty orbs if you notice movement off in the distance and the game has wisely thought to unfocus that bit for you.

I quite like that effect sometimes. Like when you bring up a scope on a gun and things in the foreground are blurred. But it can be a bit distracting at other times when it only focusses on what is in the dead centre of the screen.

I can understand it on a scope, as that's a mechanism that would be in your way in real life. When the game's trying to emulate the workings of my eyes it can fuck off.

I'm still not excited by this game. Going to be a ten-quider for me this.

Played a bit of it last night and am suffering from the same ennui I had with the first one, so I stopped. The opening cutscene got me genuinely angry at what they were doing to my "daughter" though.

It's not really though, it's just trying to not present everything in focus all at once so as to add a sense of depth. The same sense of depth you get watching a film. Do you sit there in the cinema being distressed about films trying to "emulate the working of your eyes"?

Not really, as flim doesn't often rely on you have to keep aware all the time of things attacking you and killing you so you can't carry on watching the flim. Flim is also directed by an director who decides what's important to be looking at for the continuation of said story, rather than letting the audience have control of the camera looking at the pavement. Plus flim is in the real woyld, so objects don't often have a physical presence that extends beyond what you can see, so the camera focus doesn't get trapped looking at the invisible clipping rectangle of a wall when you're clearly trying to focus on the maniac bearing down on you over that wall.

As I said I have occasionally found focus effects distracting but I've honestly never really had those sorts of problems. Overall I quite like it, I think it works most of the time. Although it is done better in some games than others.

I wasn't able to lose myself in the game as it kept reminding me that I was playing a game and the game was gaming of game.