Iraqi Kidnap Victim Subjected To PlayStation
British hostage Peter Moore will soon be returning to the UK from Iraq, after spending the last six months of his two-and-a-half year period of captivity with only satellite television, a laptop, and a PlayStation to keep him occupied.
Peter Moore and his four bodyguards were kidnapped in May of 2007 by what is understood to be an obscure militia known as the Islamic Shia Resistance. Over the course of the following months three of his bodyguards were killed, with the fourth presumed dead. After two years of rough treatment, his captors changed their tune in June of 2009. According to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, from then on, Moore was given access to some more luxurious amenities.
Frank Gardner said that since June, Mr Moore had been given markedly better treatment by his captors, effectively placed under house arrest, with en suite facilities, access to satellite TV, a laptop – though not online – and a PlayStation.
What a surreal experience that must have been for the man. Two years of hopeless bleak despair, his bodyguards killed, and then all of the sudden he might as well be hanging out at my apartment for six months. Part of me wonders about the psychological effects the rapid shift in treatment would have on a man, and is glad to see that Mr. Moore will be returning home after such a long, terrible ordeal.
The other part of me wonders what games he played.
A third part of me would like to point out that he received access to a PlayStation, and not an Xbox 360 or Wii. I wouldn’t call the Islamic Shia Resistance Sony fanboys, mainly because my name is on this post. Those of you hiding behind screen names in the comments section are free to savor the sweet release of anonymity.
Not to make light of a serious situation. I’m just trying to wrap my head around an extremist organization that supplies a video game system to a hostage. The world is a very strange place indeed.
Behold! Some Person’s Nintendo Theme Christmas Tree
As sent in by reader D.Funky!
Divinity II Demo Out Now
Between now and Friday, I’m loading up on every free or borrowed video game-related thing I can to keep me from going out and buying anything before Christmas. The Divinity II demo fills the bill nicely.
The demo of Divinity II: Ego Draconis is on Xbox Live and out for PC download today. It gives players the chance to try out some of that non-Witcher morality I was talking about in my preview — like Mindreading — as well as a look at the skill trees. Sadly I don’t think you get to sample the dragon gameplay. But it sounds like you might get to fight one at least.
Check it out on XBLA or get the PC demo from one of these mirrors:
-Worthplaying
- FilePlanet
- Big Download
- Spawnpoint
- Atomic Gamer
- Extreme Players
In the meantime, anybody else got any suggestions for my not-going-out-shopping entertainment? I borrowed a copy of Assassin’s Creed II, I’ve got the Divinity II trailer queued for download and I finally have time on a long airplane ride to Texas for Scribblenauts.
Try Out Team Fortress 2’s Bots
Valve have quietly been tinkering under Team Fortess 2’s hood for some time now, and today would like you to try and help them test something out: officially-sanctioned, AI-controlled “bots”.
It’s to be noted that these guys are in the early stages of development, so don’t expecting them to go pushing carts or pulling off rocket jumps just yet. What they can do, however, is play a little King of the Hill, so if you’d like to see what it’s like playing Team Fortress 2 with no friends, follow the steps below:
- To add bots to your game, use the console command tf_bot_add. This will drop a random bot onto a random team (assuming there is a free player slot). The tf_bot_add command can also take up to three optional arguments: , , and , in any order. For example, tf_bot_add 10 will add 10 random bots to the game with auto-assigned teams. Typing tf_bot_add pyro blue will add a Pyro to the blue team. Entering tf_bot_add red 5 will add 5 random bots to the red team. The command tf_bot_add red 3 heavyweapons will add three heavies to the red team.
- In order to put specific bots on specific teams (for a bots-vs-humans game, for example), you may want to disable automatic team balancing. To do this, enter mp_autoteambalance 0 followed by mp_teams_unbalance_limit 0.
- To remove a bot, use the console command kick . To remove all of the bots in the game, use the command tf_bot_kick all.
And that’s it! Just make sure you’ve got some player slots left open for the bots, as they need to occupy them to enter the game.
Hit the link below for more detailed info.
Erectin a dispenser [Valve]
The Nintendo Download: And The 500th Downloadable Wii Game Is…
What game could Nintendo have possibly chosen as the 500th downloadable title for the Wii? It would have to be something super, yet smashing at the same time. The mind boggles!
Okay, I suck at giving subtle hints. The original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 is the 500th downloadable game for the Nintendo Wii. 1,000 Wii points scores you the grandfather of one of the biggest games released on the Wii, or the father of one of the best things going on the GameCube. Between that and the original arcade version of Ninja Gaiden (600 points), which takes place before TECMO mastered breast physics, the Virtual Console could be your best bet in this week’s Nintendo Download.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of titles coming on the WiiWare front this week. You’ve got Nintendo’s first-person shooter Eco-Shooter: Plant 530 (1,000 points), which pits you as a recycling plant worker fighting against an evil alien race that has brought Earth’s empty cans to life. It’s a message about recycling that even lets you recycle a useless piece of plastic – the Wii Zapper. Eco-Shooter is joined by Gameloft’s TV Game-Show King 2 (800 points), Playstos’ action platformer Pallurikio (1,000 points), and Happy Holidays Christmas from 505 Games (500 points), an application that lets you create Christmas cards and send them to your Wii friends. Aww.
Finally we have DSiWare, with Dragon’s Lair making it’s downloadable debut (800 DSi points), High Stakes: Texas Hold’Em (500 points) and Hot and Cold: A 3D Hidden Object Adventure (800 points) filling in the H category, and My Notebook Green (200 points) adding green to the colors that My Notebook comes in.
As always, check out the official descriptions below, and be sure to log into the Wii Shop Channel to wish it a happy 500th game.
Virtual Console
Super Smash Bros.
Original platform: Nintendo 64™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Cartoon Violence
Price: 1,000 Wii Points
Description: Choose from an all-star cast of Nintendo characters in a frantic melee to prove who will be the ultimate brawler. Utilize the easy-to-learn but hard-to-master controls and battle it out in the single-player mode, earning point bonuses and unlocking hidden characters along the way. Enter VS Mode to take on up to three other players simultaneously. Inflict damage using each character’s unique set of special moves, familiar items and power-ups, eventually winning by knocking your opponents off the screen in one of the interactive stages, each with a Nintendo theme. Need a moment to catch your breath? Polish your skills in Training Mode or destroy targets in Bonus Stages specific to each character. Are you ready to test your mettle against all comers, including the powerful Master Hand?
NINJA GAIDEN™
Original platform: Arcade
Publisher: TECMO
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Alcohol Reference, Suggestive Themes, Violence
Price: 600 Wii Points
Description: Take control of a ninja, master of the Five Ninja Fighting Arts of assassination passed down since the chaotic times of feudal Japan, and enter “Jungle,” a terrifying American city, to crush waves of foes who are part of an assassination syndicate. Use three buttons to execute exciting moves like the Flying Neck Throw, the Hang Kick and the Triple Blow Combination. Each stage is based around popular Western misconceptions about ninja and Japan, making the game world a fantastic mix of ninja and American pop culture. Game settings such as the starting number of player characters and the difficulty level can also be adjusted.
WiiWare
Eco Shooter: Plant 530
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Fantasy Violence
Price: 1,000 Wii Points™
Description: Earth’s empty cans have been brought to life by the Cannoids, an alien race determined to destroy the planet. Only Mack, a technician from the recycling facility Plant 530, stands in their way as Earth’s last line of defense. Step into Mack’s shoes in this guided first-person shooter as he takes on the invading aliens with only his trusty recycle cannon and a can-do attitude. Blast and vacuum (yes, vacuum) your way to victory, keeping in mind that every shot counts. Your ammo also doubles as your health, and every enemy you destroy leaves behind Can Energy that you can vacuum up and use as ammo. Uncomplicated controls (including optional use of the Wii Zapper™ accessory) give everyone the chance to save the planet, while advanced tactics like consecutive hit combos and the tough Challenge mode give even the best players a run for their money. Are you ready to step up and put a dent in their cans?
TV Show King 2
Publisher: Gameloft
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Drug Reference
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: TV Show King is back for a second round. There are 8,000 questions sorted into 12 categories on the program, including general knowledge, sports, movies, music and more. And that’s without counting the questions that you can create yourself. Here’s everything you need to compete with your friends, or with players all over the world thanks to Nintendo® Wi-Fi Connection.
Pallurikio™
Publisher: Playstos Entertainment
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 1,000 Wii Points
Description: Jump and roll with Pallurikio, a fast-paced action platformer that’s easy to pick up yet challenging to master. While playing a mysterious board game he found with his friends, Rusty is sucked into a dimensional vortex and finds himself in a mystical and wondrous world where he assumes the aspect of the round and bouncing Pallurikio. Using the Wii Remote™ controller, make Pallurikio jump and roll and help him find his way through more than 50 enticing levels while surviving all kinds of pitfalls and trickeries in Bakumbala Jungle, the far reaches of Palluro Prime and many other weird settings. Featuring physics simulation, Time Attack mode, collectible cards and space rockets to boot, Pallurikio is a game you won’t want to miss.
Happy Holidays Christmas
Publisher: 505 Games
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Planning a Christmas party and want to grab guests’ attention? Or want to send greeting cards without the hassle of licking stamps? Here’s the solution: Create and send fun Christmas cards with this unique WiiWare application. Happy Holidays Christmas lets you make fun Christmas-themed e-cards and send them straight to friends’ Wii™ consoles. Add a tree and decorations; choose frames, stickers and music; then write a message to friends you’ve registered in your Wii Address Book. It might not snow this Christmas, but with this fun new software your holiday is guaranteed to be a happy one.
Nintendo DSiWare
UNO
Publisher: Gameloft
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Get ready to call out “UNO!” on your Nintendo DSi™ system. The world-famous card game has been faithfully reproduced for the Nintendo DSi system and features exciting new rules. With a multiplayer mode that can be accessed by local wireless play or with broadband Internet access and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, playing UNO has never been so fun and easy, so be the first to get rid of all your cards.
Dragon’s Lair
Publisher: Digital Leisure Inc.
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: You play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. Control the actions of the daring adventurer and find your way through the castle of a dark wizard who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your journey to the dragon’s lair. Dragon’s Lair is a fully animated classic arcade game from legendary animator Don Bluth.
Hot and Cold: A 3D Hidden Object Adventure
Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: You’re getting warm…warmer…hot! You’ve found Hot and Cold: A 3D Hidden Object Adventure, the new game that puts you on the job of finding people’s missing stuff. A voice in your head tells you whether you’re Hot or Cold when searching for things. Investigate cases all over town using your unique ability, and discover the secret behind the mysterious voice in your head. Throw objects out of your way, maneuver your way through a 3-D world, follow your Hot and Cold meter and more in this unparalleled hidden-object adventure.
High Stakes: Texas Hold’Em
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Simulated Gambling
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Hudson proudly presents the definitive Texas Hold’Em game for Nintendo DSiWare with High Stakes Texas Hold’Em. High Stakes allows players of any level to enjoy Texas Hold’Em game play. The popular No-Limit rule set used in many tournaments is included, so anyone can play with the big boys. With the added functionality of DS Wireless Communications, players can compete with others and test their skills. It’s the core Texas Hold’Em experience on your Nintendo DSi system – anytime, anywhere.
myNotebook: Green™
Publisher: Nnooo
Players: 1
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: myNotebook allows you to take notes wherever you are. Just pop open your Nintendo DSi system and jot down your thoughts. Make a list and cross it off, or even play your favorite pen-and-paper games (games not included). You can even personalize your notebook by drawing on the cover and changing the paper type with 18 unlockable squared and lined paper styles. Use the pen or pencil to make your notes or doodles, then erase the bits you don’t like. With five ink colors, you’ll always be able to make your notes and doodles look stylish.
To Catch an Xbox Live Predator
Halo fanboys aren’t the only creeps on Xbox Live: 27-year-old Edward Stout was convicted of seducing a 15-year-old girl over Xbox Live and then driving 30 hours nonstop to meet and have sex with her.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but it’s a pretty sobering reminder of why parents should pay attention to how their kids play games. The usual concern is violence in the games themselves and dumb kids blithely screaming “fag!” at each other, but there are obviously way worse things out there.
I know MySpace purges known sex offenders and many states require them to register all online identities, including Live gamertags, but I’ve never heard of any particular campaigns where Xbox Live went after them, so I’d be curious what kind of safeguards they have in place, if any. [SF Gate via Max Console]
A 2009 View From The Top: One Man’s Year Making Assassin’s Creed II
If you made Assassin’s Creed II this year, it was a good year — even if you had to trim the game, even if things didn’t click until August, even if, for five minutes, you had to suppress your accent.
Patrice Desilets, creative director of Assassin’s Creed II at Ubisoft Montreal, believes that “2009 was my best year ever,” he told Kotaku in an interview recently.
Desilets and a team of more than 200 developers made a hit, a critically acclaimed game. That was just part of Desilets’ year. He “learned to be dad,” he said. He learned to deal with a two-year-old daughter “who could answer me back.” He bought a house and renovated it. “It was a big beautiful year for me.”
It’s the gaming stuff that would probably most interest readers of Kotaku, and it’s the gaming part of Desilets’ year that was probably out of the mind of many Kotaku readers for much of the year, when Assassin’s Creed II was just a whisper of a public relations campaign, when the aftertaste of the top-selling first Creed still lingered a bit sour.
For Desilets, however, 2009 and the making of Assassin’s Creed II was a wild ride, one of nervousness and frustration, some far-flung trips, at least one bout of vertigo, the affirmation of one major addition to the game and the painful decision to make a few — possibly temporary — major subtractions.
Before 2009, when the work to make Asssassin’s Creed II, a sequel to the 2007 hit, began, things were going well. Approaching the new year, though, that couldn’t last. “It went pretty smoothly,” he said, “And then six months through, we said, ‘We’re never going to make it.’” The game had to come out in November. But this second Assassin’s Creed, a vast Italian Renaissance expansion of the template established in the geographically smaller and less structurally complex first game, seemed unwieldy. “We were in the middle [of development] and we said, ‘How the hell can we finish that? How can we test that and make sure it works all the way through?’”
In the early days, the 2008 days and beginning of 2009, when most of us knew nothing about Assassin’s Creed II, the stresses were about scope. They were also about variety, which, Desilets explained, wasn’t good enough. When the game was released, reviewers and players would rave about ACII’s “secret locations,” linear missions requiring puzzle-solving and acrobatics by the game’s Renaissance lead character, Ezio. These missions weren’t originally in the game plan. “In the middle of production we felt the game may have been lacking some scope, some things to do,” Desilets recalled. “We thought: Maybe we could add some new elements that are not in the game world we are building and are on the side.” The Montreal Ubisoft team figured out a solution. Those levels got made, Desilets revealed, by a new team added to the project at Ubisoft Singapore. As best Desilets can recall, making a game bigger mid-way through production was new to him. “It was the first time in my career that it happened.”
The end of spring 2009 was going to bring Desilets his most crucial moment of the year. The moment would last five minutes in early June, and he prepare for it for over a month. As his team toiled with the creation of the game, he and a developer toiled also with what would be a five minute live gameplay demo of Assassin’s Creed II during the Sony press conference at the biggest gaming trade event of the year, E3.
“This little five minutes was almost a live or die thing for us,” he said. “Of course it’s just a video game, but we’re showing you the game for the first time…. We hadn’t shown you anything. We’re showing you a brand new setting, a brand new character. Do you buy it or not?” Desilets is French-Canadian and to a largely American audience his English accent could seem thick. He worked to suppress it with the help of a presentation specialist. He ran through his pitch twice a week for a month, identifying and speaking key words and phrases, and memorizing the thing. The day he finally did it for real, on a stage for Sony, it went great. The press conference aired in Montreal, and Desilets’ girlfriend called him to say that their little girl recognized her dad on the screen.
Past the nervousness of preparing the big presentation in June, one of the main sensations Desilets had was frustration. As the game’s creative director he long ago had the game in his mind, months before it would be working on a development system.
“It’s part of my job to have the game in my mind before everyone else,” he said. The year 2009 would be, by its halfway point, a frustrated wait for what he had envisioned to actually work. “It’s more frustration than being nervous. ‘How come it doesn’t work yet?’ Then I see one build and it always happens like that. It happened on [my previous games, Prince of Persia] Sands of Time. It happened on AC1. I take a build home and I play in my environment, in my gaming room, and I can say, yes it is good or not”
This was in August. The build of the game he brought home was rough. You couldn’t save in it. But a lot of it was there and Desilets got to have his “first playthrough of a broken game.” It was the first time he could experience Assassin’s Creed II’s interlocking systems of assassination and economy all working together. “I said, ‘You know what? It’s going to be good, and it’s going to work.’” Come September, he said, he was relaxed.
There was a stress, though, in the middle portion of the year. That’s when it was clear that some planned parts of the game would have to be cut. In order to meet a November release date, they’d have to go. One thing removed was the ability to replay any mission in the game. The team didn’t think they could test it successfully (”Eventually maybe we’ll come out with some way to do it somehow,” Desilets noted).
The other cut, the one many Assassin’s Creed II players have figured out by now, was content for which development would be backburnered and later re-prioritized and issued as the game’s forthcoming January and February downloadable content. These would be the game’s marked but missing 12th and 13th chapters, more or less. “I felt that, ‘Okay, there were too many things to do and to finish.’ So we said, ‘Ok, let’s take a portion of the game that was planned and we’ll give it in DLC.’ We’ll remove some stress to the team while giving more to fans and people who like Assassin’s Creed.” Desilets liked the idea of giving the game added life and content beyond its initial release, saying it’s something that he regrets not offering for Assassin’s Creed — “I feel like we left people alone afterwards.” —and given how big the game was and how it had gotten bigger during development, he didn’t think most players would feel shortchanged. “I think we gave them so much content that they cannot say that we owe them, that we didn’t give them a lot for their 60 bucks.”
By September, Desilets was giving a much less-rehearsed and fully-accented presentation of Assassin’s Creed II at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. The game was nearly done, with some crashes being debugged out of the process. By early October he recalls it being almost clean.
By October he had all his Christmas presents purchased. He’d been traveling the world this year, picking up souvenirs in Australia, France, Italy and Japan to give to relatives later this week. He wasn’t going to give away Assassin’s Creed II. By Christmas he would have already handed it out.
About that 2009 trip to Italy: It was the second for him during development. “We went at the beginning and then at the end just to acknowledge that we did a good job,” he laughed. He went to the real life version of the game’s villa and had a strange moment in Venice on the Ponte Vecchio, where virtual reality messed with his sense of the real. He’d played the part of the game on that bridge so many times before stepping on it this year for real. “That bridge seemed like it only existed in 3D,” he said. “We went beyond that bridge [in real life] and it was like, ‘Whoa the 3D is real.’ It really could mess with your mind.” He went to San Gimignano and tried to climb one of its towers (from the inside!). What would have taken another person 15 minutes took Desilets 45 because this man whose games feature men who scale and leap from tall buildings suffers from vertigo. “It was fun to go through some fears,” he said.
The game came out in November, and Desilets, like any developer who discusses release week, describes checking and re-checking Metacritic to watch that average review score. He had a more unusual tradition in which he also indulged. As he had for previous games he worked on, he went, with some fellow ACII developers, to a local game shop and bought his own game. “I paid myself, which is kind of weird, but I did it,” he said. I do it all the time. I receive copies, but I always buy at least one copy.” Why? “It’s like: Wasn’t I a gamer first?”
Past November and on the verge of the birth of his second child, Desilets continued to be on the Assassin’s Creed job. He worked on the DLC and he played the finished game at home, recognizes successes and faults. “I play the game on my box now,” he said during a part of his interview that covered the game’s many ways of making money, from pickpocketing to investing in Ezio’s villa. ” I see that there’s maybe some tools that could be re-used at the end. But we either didn’t have time or didn’t think about it. At the end we could have asked the player to do some pickpocketing. Maybe that’s a lesson learned that [character] progression is cool, but maybe we need to re-use some of the elements throughout the progression.”
Desilets now has planned, for December, what may be his last Assassin’s Creed II live demo, one that promises to have as tough an audience as a pack of reporters at E3.
He’ll be showing the game to his mom and grandmother. “One thing I do at the Christmas of a year a game ships is I will play the game with my family, with my mother and her mother, because they don’t play. But they know I do it, and they’re proud of their son. So I have to do a gaming session, an hour or two.” He predicts he will show them the Tuscany section and will avoid the game’s more colorful dialogue about sex. He knows the demo will be tough. “It’s going to be a party,” he said. “And I’ll be like, ‘No no, come on it’s time to show the game.’ And that will last 10 minutes before everyone starts talking again and then they forget that there’s a game.”
Assassin’s Creed II fans won’t forget that there’s a game. And they’d best not forget Deslets, because he is thinking of the future of Assassin’s Creed.
This interview happened earlier this month, and near its conclusion, Desilets described the work he and his team are doing: ” We’re still thinking all the time about Assassin’s Creed and where we want to go next,” he said. “We’re about to plan the rest. That’s about it.”
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Overwatch DLC Deployed
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising gets its second helping of downloadable content today with the Overwatch pack, bringing two new multiplayer modes and two new fire team engagements to the battle for Skira.
Xbox 360 players get first dibs on the new OP:DR DLC, dropping today on Xbox Live for 400 Microsoft points with PlayStation 3 and PC owners getting it “shortly.” The downloadable content includes two new multiplayer modes – the objective-based Blindside and occupation game Supremacy – along with Friendly Skies and Hostile Takeover, two new fire team engagement missions.
Take a look at the trailer for the new content below to see what Overwatch brings to the table.
Pretty Pictures From BioShock 2
Totilo’s shining BioShock 2 preview was big on words, but where were the images? Here are the images, and they are just as lovely and enthralling as the experience Mr. Totlio describes.
I’m getting chills already, and these are merely still images from 2K’s upcoming sequel. I can only imagine what stumbling across these scenes will be like once I get my hands on the actual game. I’m extremely envious of Totilo at the moment. I’m sure I’m not alone.
BioShock 2 Preview: Maybe It Was Needed After All
It’s hard not to start playing BioShock 2 without thinking about it as one of the most unnecessary sequels in gaming. It is easy, however, once playing has begun to recognize it as a very promising game.
Lop the boss battle off of the original BioShock and the 2007 game would seem to be just about perfect. It was a novel dive into a failed Objectivist utopia called Rapture. It was a philosophical exploration of free will played as a first-person shooter designed to accommodate a player’s tactical ingenuity. It introduced one of the great and weird new relationships in video games, the life-force/Adam-draining Little Sisters and their monstrously powerful protectors, the Big Daddys.
And aside from that final boss battle, BioShock ended well enough that nothing could improve it, not the addition of a 2 at the end of the title, not the tacking on of multiplayer and certainly not the opening title screen that credits twice as many studios for the sequel (four, none of which are the series’ founding studio, 2K Boston).
I have, however, returned to Rapture, with the help of 2K Marin, 2K Australia, 2K China and Digital Extremes. I have played BioShock 2’s single player campaign through its prologue and first full level, and I am both impressed and pleased. Dare I write this, but the new game has improved elements of the first.
BioShock 2, in its preview form, does not start with the elegance and magic of the first game. There is no scene-setting plane crash, swim through sinking, blazing wreckage nor an elevator ride down to an Art Deco paradise gone wrong on the sea floor. There is instead an abrupt awakening, a look into a reflecting pool that confirms, that, yes, I will be playing this game as a Big Daddy. And then, swiftly, there’s combat. It is less artful, and it continued my worry, though that worry would soon end.
Jarring though the beginning of BioShock 2 may be, it is more with the gradual awakened clearing of the eyes that Rapture is revealed as a better-looking place this time. Outside the windows, the sea is now blue instead of green, its waters more clear and the sea-life around it more abundant and vivid. Graphical improvements are, I remembered as I began playing, a reasonable expectation even in the successor to something that was so good.
I’ll stay light on story spoilers, and instead reveal the mood. Rapture is still a wreck, still one with wrecked lives in it. The city feels changed. Sofia Lamb, a psychiatrist brought in by BioShock’s Andrew Ryan, is now a worshipped leader and apparently our nemesis within radio contact. On the attack, she sends splicers and the well-publicized Big Sister, a stalking seemingly invincible foe that leaps and springs through levels, only to be beaten back temporarily as was so many times the dark Samus in the sequel to Metroid Prime. There are friends within radio contact, but most of the character that emerges in the new game appears to do so in the same successful manner as it did in the first: From, literally, the writing on the walls of Rapture, from discarded radio logs, from the posture of corpses that reveal failed dreams and failed struggles.
Rapture as a place of wonder and as a trigger of player curiosity is back, successfully.
In the early going, being a Big Daddy feels different only in armament. On our right arm is a drill, a better melee weapon than a wrench. Soon, we earn well-animated guns, like a rivet gun and a 50-cal. Machine gun. On the left hand we earn plasmids, some of the same early ones as in the first game: Electric shocks and fire. New is the ability to dual-wield, which leads to the discovery of the shock/stun-and-shoot left-right combo. Even more useful is a hacking tool which can even, with the help of a rare type of dart, hack from afar. I played many fights from a distance, shooting a hacking needle into a turret and then hacking it so it would kill the enemies for me. Hacking, by the way, is no longer a puzzle game of pipes but a reflex test of well-timed button presses, like a gaming golf swing.
What’s so winning in BioShock 2 is that, as it refrains early on from re-writing the rules of the first game, it instead amplifies that original’s best aspects. It doesn’t just look better or explore more of Rapture’s interesting world, but it recognizes what played best in the first and does more of it.
There were two things that had played so well in the first BioShock.
The first, was the original game’s linear sequences, passageways through Rapture’s sights and sounds that allowed the player to absorb the history of the place and its people. This is best executed early in the sequel in an area called Ryan’s Amusements, which is a theme park and museum that reintroduces and elaborates on Rapture’s history, Ryan’s philosophy and, as much of the place is defaced, on the views of those who rebelled against Ryan shortly before the first game began. Walking through this place makes evident the genius and madness of Rapture.
The second gameplay achievement in the first game was the dynamism of its combat, the offering to the player of numerous direct and indirect ways to fight. This was a key element, utilized when attempting to take down a Big Daddy. Players could fill a room with explosive traps, plan to electrify water when a Big Daddy might rush through it, and then begin shooting. The new game makes these tactics all the more available, thanks to the ability to hack from afar and with projectile-based trap ammo. The game requires this kind of play when a player prepares to take down a Big Daddy. It also requires it of them when the alert sounds that Big Sister is coming in for an attack. And, in a twist, it forces this kind of planned combat when a player has taken their own Little Sister to a corpse full of Adam energy. Placing her next to the body is prelude to setting the room up to defend against Splicer attack. Give her the signal to begin and they swarm. You have to keep her safe until she drains the energy. Then you can decide whether she is rescued or harvested. These types of planned offensive and defensive combat work so well, the designers of the new game clearly relishing the opportunity to let the player strategize and orchestrate organized chaos.
Earlier demos and hype for BioShock 2 showed off the ability to walk outside on the sea floor, and much has been made of the game’s placement 10 years later in the timeline from the first. I did indeed walk on the sea floor in the new game, and while it was a beautiful sight, the sequence lasted too briefly for me to recognize any significant gameplay change it introduces. The plot is mostly still a mystery to me now, as it is intentionally unclear just why and how the player’s Big Daddy, one of the original line, has been revived nor how some of the supporting characters who appear really relate to each other.
I started playing BioShock 2 worried that the inspired execution of the first BioShock would consign a sequel to being a pale imitation. It seems, though, that I had underestimated the room for technical improvement and gameplay refinement. I see little sign of re-invention and a lot of signs of love and polish. That love could smother, that fealty to the past could still render this game as superfluous. But in the early going, I am happily immersed in Rapture again, joyfully mystified as to what its inhabitants are up to, pleased with the way it plays and wanting to play more.
