By Alec Meer on March 12th, 2009 at 10:19 am.
In an internet-shattering world-exclusive, RPS is the very last site on the entire web to report the hot gossip about Bioshock 2. Very soon, a pair of magazines will be spilling the details on the sequel to 2K’s Great FPS With The Terrible Ending – PC Gamer UK’s special 200th issue, and America’s Game Informer. The cover to the latter has been revealed, and it confirms one of the recent rumours about the game: Big Sisters. Or a Big Sister, anyway.
(Clicky for the full cover image).
First impressions? As in, lazy, judging-book-by-its-cover impressions? Well, presumably it means a repositioning of Bioshock’s key foe as speedy and athletic, rather than lumbering and brutal. That’ll certainly change the challenge they present, but I can’t help but feel the concept’s really tawdry. No doubt there’ll be some interesting plot points along the lines of this is what happens to Little Sisters when they grow up and how it’s a reversal of Rapture’s primarily patriarchal society, but I can’t help but roll my eyes at the obviousness of it. Batman must have a Batgirl, Spider-Man must have a Spider-Woman… Ugh, can’t we have a new concept instead of yet another take on Successful Geek Icon, Now With Boobs? (I do fully admit, it’s not exactly Power-Girl: it’s more the concept of Character X, But A Girl! as an overused sequel/spin-off trick).
Of course, Bioshock 2 could well subvert that cliche, in the same way the first game supposedly pastiched the linear nature of the FPS genre. Still, this pic seems so over-stylised, in stark contrast to the uncanny familiarity of the Daddies’ vintage diving suit getup. Perhaps, though, that hints at a society more exposed to modern culture than Rapture’s, and thus less time-lost.
But hell, I’m being far too judgemental. It is after all just a cover image, designed to be instantly engaging first and foremost – I’m sure there’ll be far more thought and subtlety in the game itself. More details on which we’ll have soon, presumably and hopefully. And hey, maybe the character shown isn’t, in fact ‘Big Sister’, in which case I’m going to look like a right goon.
Note that, interestingly, the cover claims the game involves a “return to Rapture”, which seems at odds with theories Bioshock 2 would involve a second underwater city. So how’s that going to work, d’you reckon?
Oh, another rumour, which sounds a little too ridiculous, is that Big Sister here will be accompanied by… Little Daddies. Really?
On “return to Rapture”: they could just be wrong.
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To be fair, this particular reinvention of a successful geek icon does not appear to have boobs, though it is difficult to tell through the diving suit.
I’m personally looking forward to battling the Big Mama queen splicer, in an endboss battle set in a self-destructing throne room.
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Yeah I still can’t fathom any justification for this game existing. Oh right, other than the making fucktons of money with it part.
Actually wait, if they made the musical motif for the game focused around Billy Idol, THAT would make it worth it.
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As always, I am in awe of y’alls collective reporting prowess. Please continue to focus us on the smaller, easier to slip by us releases and allow the rest of the gaming media to inundate us with the big named releases. At least we get enjoyable, mirth inducing insight from you lot when you get to it. I’m sure we’ll get enough of this game slapping us in the face somewhere, if we haven’t already. Other locations’ coverage of The Path or The Void or Zeno Clash is practically non-existent and usually derivative of your reportage. Keep up the excellent work, Sirs.
I did enjoy the original, even if it wasn’t as deep as SS2. I had fun (up to a point) and enjoyed the mechanics to a degree. At least I have a big daddy to threaten my bobble head. He don’t seem too worried though. He just keeps smiling.
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It is hugely unlikely that the charm and freshness of Bioshock will carry over into a sequel. It was a one-off classic if ever I played one and I think it’s a shame they are forcing it into being a series.
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It’s Ms. Pac-Man all over again ;)
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I wonder whether this game will make a “would you kindly” point on the nature of buying sequels to games that were ostensibly finished. Or maybe I’m just a cynic.
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I dunno, could be kind of cute to have wee nippers dressed in a diving suit two sizes too big and with a bucket on their head leaping at you with a cordless Black & Decker drill.
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Little Daddies, where did you get such a silly idea? *chuckles mischievously*
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Maybe they got married?
It is a nice day for a white wedding.
I hope they do change the setting of this game; the last games narrative was heavily informed by what and where the city was.
I’d hate a retread of the first game that filled in more of the ‘story’ considering so much of the story was self exploratory and suggested; something that made it work in the first instance.
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I approve greatly of the title of this story.
Also: I’ll just sit here and be genuinely excited about as sequel to a game for once. Yeah, how the fuck dare I.
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Wait, so the whole point about Big Daddies was the arc of dehumanisation and the crippling aspects of relying on technology.
And then they go and make them sexy?
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And why Big Sisters ?
So Mutated women can’t have childs ? Why not Big Mommies.
It’s too “dynamic”, too stylish to be in the rapture universe. It’s like a “manga-like” remake.
Need the heavy slow pace and so “cool” big daddies back
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Let it go, Andrew. We’ve lost Bioshock to Popular Culture, where decisions are made to entice the lowest common demnominator, not we starving intellectuals.
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Traditionally, computer game sequels have often been pretty good. So I give them the benefit of the doubt.
Catwoman, Spiderwoman… hehe, you got a point, though. :D
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Bioshock was always pop culture.
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I can’t imagine anyone being fast or agile with that thing on their head. Not to mention the oxygen tank on the back or that peculiar little creature on the left shoulder.
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This looks ok to me. Original, refrehsing, intriguing. I like it.
Some ideas of Bioshok are interesting.. original for a corridor shotter. And you can always add more corridors to a corridor shotter, and maybe 3 new monsters to kill. Call it a “map expansion pack” if you wish… but any game has the potential to reinvent itself, If the dev’s even try. No reason to be negative here. ..now.
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Three Australian magazines will also soon be spilling the beans on BioShock 2.
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Right on, Tei.
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GladOs face is too obvious.
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That look reminds me of something.
Ah, right, a female version of this guy:
http://kiyong.files.wordpress.com/2006/07/voldo.jpg
All that form fitting fetish gear that she’s got is a lot like him.
So if they actually work from a theme of using in horror as disturbing rather then titilating (more like Alien then like Friday the 13th, or in the game realm more like Haunting Ground and less like Resident Evil) then this could be interesting.
No doubt that would have been the expectation across the board if this image was from Irrational or someone else with a strong reputation rather then whomever is doing this sequel.
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The human brain is excellent to recognize patterns. Maybe too much good for his own good. Can even see “faces” on the fron of car and trains. And this why all spaceships look like either StarTrek or StarWars for most people. Or a green monster as to be either Hulk or a WoW Orc.
All of this mean that the link could be just a ghost and theres is not link. this may look like your favorite Street Figther monster, or GlaDOS, but It don’t mean theres any link to that.
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11/10 – Eurogamer
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So is that Miss Bubbles or Mrs. Bubbles?
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Pretty sure Levine isn’t on board for this one is he?
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Levine is working on whatever 2K Boston is doing now. I believe the Bioshock 2 lead is Jordan “The Cradle” Thomas.
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And also, Jordan “Fort Frolic” Thomas. I am really excited about this whole thing, despite not having any idea how the series might progress.
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I can’t really remember if there was a reason all the Big Daddies were male. I know only the little sisters were able to process the ADAM, but I can’t recall anything specific about the Big Daddies. Maybe pheremones were involved.
One theory I have heard is that it isn’t “Big Sisters” plural, but one specific woman, possibly a mad scientist turned orphanage owner.
Personally I’m looking forward to learning about the gameplay – will it still be a linear shooter or will we get the freedom to explore? Will some of the features which got cut from the first game (Like on-the-fly weapon customisation) be in there?
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I did wonder if it might be Tenembaum. Given her story and role basically dwindled into nothing in Bioshock 1′s latter half.
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On the one hand, I’d love to go back to Rapture.
On the other hand, the place was falling apart when we visited it the first time. I can’t imagine the (however many) years in between have been good to it, especially when you’ve left it in the hands of a few degenerate splicers.
Also, much like M. Night “What a Twist” Shaylaman, they’ve already blown the metaphorical load first time around. Wouldn’t everyone be looking out for a twist this time?
Despite this I’ll probably still buy it. I’m such a whore for the whole grimy art-deco theme they did so well.
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Bahamut: Maybe, but suggesting the game was inspired by Big Momma’s House probably isn’t the best idea for 2K.
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I feel sad for BioShock for people not spelling it with a capital S. :(
So popular, yet so neglected.
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That title is a reference from Icehouse’s ‘Hey little sister’?
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I do like the idea of one crazy person dressing up as The ‘Big Sister.’
And I agree with Tei: A single image isn’t a reason to be negative.
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Tenembaum as a Big Sister would be an interesting proposition, my only problem with the Daddies was their annominity, you never got the sense of who they were pre-Daddification (which I suppose was the point.)
A righteously furious Tenembaum, gunning for the first game’s player character, now dictator, could be considerably more interesting.
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It does look like the kind of thing I’d expect from a cheap cash-in sequel. Maybe I’m being unfair, based on one picture. I hope I’m being unfair, but this isn’t promising.
Bioshock introduced a new and interesting setting, and the Big Daddies were iconic of it. The second time round, the setting will have lost some its impact and the developers will need to do something more if they want to make it a memorable game. Uninventive Big Daddy variants are not going to help.
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“That title is a reference from Icehouse’s ‘Hey little sister’?”
Ack its bloody Billy Idol…forgive my 80s forgetfulness.
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That cover looks ridiculous.
Why would a woman transformed into a Big Daddy look anything different?
And why call her a Big Sister, not a Big Mommy?
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Spoilers:
If it was Tenenbaum it would be at odds with her closing statements in the ‘good’ ending. She seemed to want the player to help get the Little Sisters to the surface, so kidnapping them again would be nonsensical. On the other hand, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time that she’s contradicted her goals.
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I didn’t really feel a strong connection to the original. At all. Ahh, ok, so you’re telling me all that me grubbin’ around I did in Rapture was just because you kindly asked me? Hmm, well, no. I did what you kindly asked me because well, y’know, there was nothing else. What do you want me to do, Mr. Atlas? Not play your damnable game? Sure thing.
I very much doubt I’ll be purchasing this. Least not until a $5 sale on steam…
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http://www.currentfilm.com/images3/bigmommadvdcover.jpg
To be honest… Nothing in that cover tells me that the big daddy mk2 is infact female any more than the old bigdaddies were(i always assumed they were an even mix). But a lighter faster and loaded with steroi- (i mean) plasmids.
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“Bioshock 2: Big Momma’s House”
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Hang on, the “Big Sister” is the one in the diving suit? Huh, I just thought of the young woman in the cage as being the big sister, whereas the diving suit person was just a Big Daddy 2.0. Either way the diving suit looks genderless to me, even Samus in her Chozo suit has more curves than that one.
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btw there’s another image of the big sister floating around with a cot on her back and a little sister inside, so it’s unlikely there’ll be little daddys I reckon
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lol whoops it’s the one you linked ignore me
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SPOILERZZZZZZZZ (do not read if you wanna be unspoilt for a sequel to a crappy overrated game)
you will play a big daddy. your foes are big sisters
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Uhm. Hmmm. *more noises of informed-sounding ignorance*
I don’t know…
If we have Big Sisters carrying Little Sisters on their shoulders… Here’s a question: why is everyone assuming that they are enemies?
Unless there’s been a writeup that I missed, it could even be the case that the Big Sisters are down there to help rescue more Little Sisters from Rapture.
Also, why would there be a marking on a previously unnotable part of the ocean on the teaser site, if we’re just going back to Rapture? I suspect that a large part of the game will be in a different underwater city, and that fixing whatever is wrong there will require a trip to the broken ruins of Rapture later in the game.
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but I’m sure Mr.gillen will love it and find elaborte words to put his fandom into writing and dismiss all the stupid haters
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What would be useful would be if someone located where the original city was on google maps using the co-ordinates form the first game.
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The Big Daddy design became style over substance at some point anyway. They made wonderful design sense as strange bits of repurposed hardware hybridised with splicing, implying a nice wartime hothouse of innovation and recycling (which I think is what they were at some stage, like the turrets and so forth).
But in the end they’re purpose built bodyguards? Why do they have such crappy equipment for the job when there’s people with guns and things?
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Looks like they’re taking character design from the Japanese. What’s with all those belts?
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I don’t know. Bubbles still looks male to me.
And Big Sister is obviously a reference to Big Sister is Watching you, the title of a very influential negative review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (the review that made the “to the gas chamber go!” meme). Of course, the reference was sufficiently implied with the little sisters, so not much of a validation.
And all you zombies seem to think the good ending will be canon, while Tennenbaum would have a much more tangible motive for antagonism given the canon status of the bad ending.
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@Walruss
the teaser wouldn’t make sense if the bad ending was canon
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BioShock was rubbish. This already sounds potentially rubbisher.
But you never know…
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Is there any reason at all why the Big Sister can’t be the player character for BioShock 2?
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God, you’re all a mopey bunch. It’s a bloody cover.
KG
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We’re just getting the backlash out of the way early.
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“Successful Geek Icon, Now With Boobs?”
That comment seems disgustingly sexist to me, or at least more a reflection of your personal interpretation of any female character than a fault of the game. You’re basically implying that any time a female character is used rather than a male, it is for sex appeal. Instead of, you know, the obvious necessity of it as a continuation of the Little Sisters’ story line.
Maybe you’re just very cynical.
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So how come the Big Daddies didn’t have figure-hugging outfits?
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Maybe they DID, Alec…
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The cynical side of me worries about where BS2 will go storywise. Then I remember Jordan Thomas is in charge. SOLD!
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@Kieron
yes it’s cover, but its a cover to a sequel to a game that didn’t need a sequel because it couldn’t even sustain a full game. It seems 2k only wants this for the money not the intelligent story that was in the first half of Bioshock.
Further proof is the statement they gave before by having 6 sequels which is totally cash sucking talk. So no not looking forward to this one.
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The man in charge made The Cradle and Fort Frolic? Awww crap, now I’m all excited.
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Yes, gripe though I will, I’ll definately be lining up to see A Jordan Thomas Game for the first time.
Isn’t the mail on 2K Marin that they were the ones (or many of) who got tired of the restructuring and mass market appeal (and Ken) during making the original?
It’s doubtless a little more complicated than that, but that’s the impression I got at one stage.
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Xercies: Of course the Publishers want it for the money. It’s a commercial artform. The trick for anyone working in a commercial artform is working out how you can earn enough money for the publishers while allowing you to do something worthwhile.
And people who don’t get that don’t get to make mainstream games. Ever.
KG
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That design needs more belts.
Every video game character design should just be belts. Many, MANY belts.
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Considering how much I enjoyed Fallout3 and Bioshock despite the horde of nit picking sour men online, I think I am just going to enjoy this teaser image and look forward to the game.
I think the whole point of a feminized version of the Big Daddy is to evoke the same sense of “What is that thing?” that we felt when we saw the first Big Daddy. It would be hard to do that for the second game after you know, you were a Big Daddy.
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In any case, like people said, it looks like they gave the franchise to someone else and let Ken move on. Not necessarily a bad thing, although it has been less successful in some cases.
There’s also the argument that sequels allow developers to refine the original into something more closely matching their vision. Not sure if this applies to Bioshock, but it’d be interesting to see what BS2 brings to the table.
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bhlaab: I gather many divers have significant problems with their trousers falling down underwater. This is exactly what the original game needed. Often was the time when I’d be chased by a Big Daddy, only for him to faceplant as his trousers fell off.
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I think it’s wrong that everytime women appear in games, they are assumed to be faster and more agile than their male counterparts. Personally, I know a few women who would have trouble fitting into the original Big Daddy costume. Under-represented!
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You know what really sucks? Those people who whine about game magazine covers. They can’t even sustain their whining for a full release schedule, just a quick burst of whine at the start and then it kinda fades out. They’re not consistant either, their secondary whining is just to appeal to the masses.
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In some of the design documents of the original game, the humans who were turned into Big Daddies where in fact both male and female. The name “Rosie the Riveter” for one of the BG subtypes is a hint to this.
Anyway. More enemy varieties is a good thing for gameplay, it was something I found lacking in the first game, but I doubt it will have such strong design and story (which, while good in the first game, and head and shoulders above most of its competitors, borrowed a little too much from System Shock 2 for it to be as revolutionary as the gaming-history ignorant console players/reviewers made it out to be).
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If we have Big Sisters carrying Little Sisters on their shoulders… Here’s a question: why is everyone assuming that they are enemies?
Because they’re coming out of the ocean and stealing little girls viral-marketing-in-your-face style?
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Ooh, I forgot about the Rosies. That puts this in a slightly different light.
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Maybe they finally turned it into a 2D side scroller, like the first one as meant to be.
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no doubt there’ll be some interesting plot points along the lines of this is what happens to Little Sisters when they grow up and how it’s a reversal of Rapture’s primarily patriarchal society
Little sisters don’t grow up. That’s why the slugs had to be removed from them to make them normal so that they would no longer be able to process adam.
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Maybe the cage on the back is there because they’re the ones who supply the children rather than the ones who protect them? I mean, the cage isn’t exactly providing any protection, and there isn’t much of a reason to put someone in a cage if they’re supposed to be out and about gathering stuff.
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you summarized my feelings exactly. Couldn’t they come up with anything better? This seems a little cheap.
I think it would have been more interesting to use almost exactly the same enemies in a new story and setting. Maybe instead of starting out by entering the city after it has collapsed, you could start out as a member of the city, and be working on preventing its collapse … whatever … that seems more interesting than “big sisters” anyway.
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Actually, it would be interesting to consider the collapse of a society based on other fringe social/political theories. An Epicurean garden society, destroyed because of a lack of political ambition amongst the society’s luminaries? An anarchic commune in a state of collapse?
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I hope the next one includes fucking whales. It was amazing seeing the whale drift past in the intro sequence, but when you actually play the bloody game there were no fucking whales outside anywhere. There’s a squid inside, but it was fucking dead. Which is like seeing the best hooker in the world and then taking her home and finding out she’s actually your mum in drag.
I love whales, they’re fucking beautiful.
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I fucking hate squid too, they’re fucking ugly compared to whales.
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Wait, wouldn’t seeing your mon in drag means that you’r mom is a dude? *krzzzrt* logic fail.
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whaleloever: So you want to see the best hooker in the world and then take her home to find she’s actually a blue whale?
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“It seems 2k only wants this for the money not the intelligent story that was in the first half of Bioshock.”
oh, c’mon. it was a decent wander down a primrose path but it’s not like they’re stomping on the legacy of great art here or anything.
also i want arch-individualist evil walt disney to make a comeback and give us more tales of telling the gubmint to go fuck itself and burning down forests and whatnot. that’d be the truly tragic loss from a bioshock sequel. :)
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“Bioshock introduced a new and interesting setting, and the Big Daddies were iconic of it. The second time round, the setting will have lost some its impact and the developers will need to do something more if they want to make it a memorable game. Uninventive Big Daddy variants are not going to help”
Even if you’re right, I’ll still lap it up. I’m a huge fan of Art Deco and I spend a lot of time in the game just gawping at the architecture.
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I’m not fussed about the svelte(ish) Big Person, it’s the “awaits your return to rapture” that bugs me.
I guess the “your” return doesn’t necessarily mean the same character.
But I felt my character left Rapture devoid of interesting life, those who weren’t braindead splicers were dealt with (aside from Tenembaum, who was a waste of a potential character). Also the final scene of the game was me on my deathbed.
I had thought the only way to do a sequel would be to have a Little Sister return many years later and find it has been rebuilt (Rapture 2.0) by a whole new group (potentially with a new non 40s aesthetic), or start afresh with a new underwater city elsewhere created by a different group who has similar troubles (Non-Rapture).
Also, how depressing is a Little Sister returning to Rapture: Adult girl cannot escape the trauma of childhood abuse. Woo!
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A prequel might also work, showing the decline.
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the helmet looks like total shit. awful idea, and this is coming from somebody who loved the first game.
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Guess that means the only weapons available will be:
1. Shotgun (wielded by Billy Idol of course)
2. Rock
3. Paper
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Have you guys been to that nifty little website that was mentioned here a few days ago? A bit of a teaser for sure, and it gives a story of all of these little girls getting captured, I’m assuming by this Big _______. Some were even stolen out of an orphanage, interesting. I’m not remembering (or maybe it wasn’t mentioned) what year the original took place? The site mentions ’67 (would this be a prequel or sequel?) as the year that these girls were taken, and that a slender, inhumanly quick person wearing a mining cap with a red light was snatching these girls (probably Speedy McQuick from the cover above). They also mentioned a large red light in the ocean that was moving, so what’s up with that? I think there is a lot more to the story than what you cynic gluttons might think :)
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By the way this game is touted as a prequel/sequel so I’m guessing its going to be more prequel and you may get some pre splicer rapture.
@dhex
To me who loved the game and thought it was great art it is, some of the themes in the first half are great and what Andrew Ryan says at the end still is relevant.
But I guess that’s just me.
@Kieron
And that’s why mainstream gaming is slowly losing my patience. I see great ideas like Bioshock be then taken out and milked for all there worth losing the initial game in the process.
I now much prefer the indie people making games, they seem to be making stuff that they want without losing there ideals to boring market men in it for the quick buck.
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Is wearing people on your head where the term “population cap” came from?
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First, if the teaser sites are using dates like 1967 and 1968, it’s not going to be a prequel.
Second, artistic vision or not, any sequel should be recycling art assets. That stuff is expensive.
Third, Bioshock’s story is pretty much disposable. It’s a corridor shooter where the main character gets superhuman powers and progresses linearly through the levels in which the only creatures you are not supposed to kill are those behind windows or unopenable doors. Well, except the little sisters, which you can either kill or make disappear down a hidey-hole (big difference there). Oh there’s an escort mission in there too.
Enemies are limited to 3 or maybe 4 at a time, so to add challenge, their damage and hp increase as the game goes on. Likewise, the player can upgrade weapons and super-powers as the game goes on.
The story is whatever can be contrived to fit those requirements, plus a little extra so it can serve as positive reinforcement for the grinding. And the story is contrived; on the one hand, there’s supposed to be some sort of war between Ryan and Atlas; on the other, every single inhabitant (except for Tenebaum, Ryan, and the biologist, who’ve all mysteriously survived for over a year of chaos) has gone completely mad and is living in a manner where, even without the player’s interaction, they’d be dead in a couple days. If you’d only stop mindlessly slaughtering splicers, Big Daddies and bots for a minute, you’d be jarred by the continuity problems and hollow resonance of the narrative.
Yes, it’s conscious about being a contrivance, and that makes it endearing, the Deus Ex of its era, taking on the bankrupt dross of pop philosophy and extrapolating it in a sort of cut-rate A Mind Forever Voyaging. It is technically well done, but basically Bioshock is about the prettiest you can dress up a heap of FPS/corridor-shooter conventions. I’m sure Bioshock II will be a success.
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This whole discussion reeks of people trying desperately to find something to dislike about Bioshock 2 before they know anything about it. I find that bizarre, but the RPS comment discussions are usually decidedly negative and cynical.
This is a single image, isn’t remotely sexy (unless you are a bizarre fetishist), and simply makes this new Big Daddy, whether male or female (we can’t remotely tell) more sleek and mobile looking.
It isn’t “expected” or “predictable”, because obviously none of you expected this direction. That is a cop-out you are using to attempt to justify your baseless cynicism.
You see a cover image that isn’t what you expected, and it makes you upset.
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@Dinger
I love tired deconstructionist arguments like yours that are so popular in video game discussion.
“I will describe this game in its most fundamental parts and then note how those parts don’t sound impressive.”
Your argument is something akin to criticizing Mona Lisa by saying it is just paint on a canvas. You are free to dislike Mona Lisa, maybe there are valid reasons it isn’t an impressive work of art. However, using caricatures and deconstructionism isn’t a valid criticism.
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Neither is telling people they’re not entitled to say they dislike a visual concept they’ve been presented with, Yutt. It’s only when people write off the entire game based on this cover that they’ve gone too far.
You do have valid criticisms of folks’ opinions here, including mine, but don’t be too aggressive about it, there’s a good chap.
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And I love glib dismissals that amount to saying that everyone who doesn’t think game X is a masterpiece is wrong.
How can I describe a holistic experience if all I got out of the game was merely mereological? For that matter, even the game is conscious of this, and it makes it part of the twist in the narrative.
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Sorry, I’m American, aggressive sarcasm is much more natural to me than passive cynicism. ;P
I’ll try to keep a handle on that.
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Doh, edit is gone.
For the record, I don’t think Bioshock was a masterpiece, I think it was merely an excellent game (which is obviously somewhat subjective). Further, my criticisms of the cynicism regarding this cover have nothing to do with Bioshock’s quality.
It’s just silly to base so much on unvalidated extrapolation from a single concept art cover image.
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Sequels are a pain. Make it too much like the original, and it’s boring; make it too different, and those who wanted to see more of the same get annoyed. Bioshock’s “problem” that people are grappling with is the “strong narrative.” Bioshock is in many ways the example of how to run a narrative-driven corridor shooter.
The objection I see being made under different guises is that, to make Rapture continue to exist (or to posit its “spiritual successor” ten years later) would require considerable narrative contrivance. My objection was that contrived narrative is the price you pay for having any story in a game where you methodically kill your way through an underwater/orbiting/underground habitat. Of course, you’re a clone with no past/laboratory-engineered child/space marine hiding in the back.
The game drives the story, not the other way; and those who look for “strong storytelling” are missing the point.
What if they went a different direction than “nine weapons, a bunch of plasmids, and targets to kill”? What if they presented a working, functioning underwater city that was inherently twisted?
Then we’d have Twisted Sister as well. But we’d also have a team that spent way too much economically unfeasible time on planning out AI-human interactions. We’d need an entirely different game engine and approach to design.
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NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE FUCKING WHALES.
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The tagline was likely written by somebody at Game Informer which is hardly the bastion of decent games journalism so it could be utterly wrong.
Looking at the background though it seems to imply a Rapture (Or whereever it is) that is in ruins. Which would make sense if it was ten years later. I’d rather have a return to Rapture than some kind of: “Oh look, there was another underwater city all along.”
I can think of some interesting ways they could handle a return to Rapture if that is what actually happens.
@The Sombrero Kid
How do we know the child in the Teaser trailer is a Little Sister? What if she’s merely having visions of Rapture and Big Daddies, I mean it’s subtitle is Sea Of Dreams afterall.
@qrter
Maybe the naming of Big Sister is because their\her relationship to the Little Sisters will be different from that of the Big Daddies?
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I’m probably being stupid, but is there any reason we can’t wait to see what 2K do with making the narrative fit the story before assuming it’s going to be contrived?
Also, judging from how many buildings I saw out the windows as I explored Rapture, it’s more than conceivable that there’s at least another Bioshock’s worth of stuff out there. Heck, we know at least one Big Daddy was wandering around outside in the ocean…there’s an interesting concept for a level, no?
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It’s not so much contrivances, but the complete unnecessity of there even being a Bioshock 2.
“It’s time to go back to Rapture!” Is it? Do we really need to? Is there some fertile ground there left untouched by the first game? Something more to be said about Objectivist philosophy?
Say what you want about its lesser-than-System-Shock gameplay, Bioshock at least had its cohesion and integrity. Not only is the idea of throwing an arbitrary sequel around cheap, it cheapens what came before.
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I’m really hoping for a Jurassic Park 3-esque showdown between a big daddy and the (a?) big sister right in the beginning of the game, just so everyone understands that bioshock is back – bigger and more violent than ever.
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Now I’m just waiting for Little Daddy and the set is complete!
Erh, ok, I guess “Big Brother”, “Little Brother”, “Big Mamma”, “Little Mamma” and “Big Sister” is left, too.
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I don’t think many people claimed that the story of Bioshock was all that great, per se. What was (rightly, in my opinion) praised was a) the way the exposition was handled through the audio clips, scripted events and level design (think Fort Frolic, for example), and b) the cunning meta-ness of the”would you kindly” conceit.
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“It’s time to go back to Rapture!” Is it? Do we really need to? Is there some fertile ground there left untouched by the first game? Something more to be said about Objectivist philosophy?
Say what you want about its lesser-than-System-Shock gameplay, Bioshock at least had its cohesion and integrity. Not only is the idea of throwing an arbitrary sequel around cheap, it cheapens what came before.
Agreed. This was my fear ever since they first released news of planning to make Bioshock 2.
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I am no longer able to discuss BioShock, I’m just curious how mereology was introduced into this discussion.
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Big Sis’ would have been a more appropriate nick, it goes hand in hand with Big Daddy…
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I’m hoping you start as Andrew Ryan at the bottom of Rapture and slowly make your way back up to the surface. Call it “The Return of Andrew” or something like that. It’d be totally wizard.
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Partly my fault, Jeremy.
Oh, and Andrew Ryan had the vita chambers tuned to his DNA. I’m not saying he faked his own death, just that he could respawn. Deus ex machina to the rescue!
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It’s often been pointed out that the range on the vitachambers is pretty big so Ryan would probably respawn somewhere else after his golfing accident, pretty much right away.
So maybe they get all Cronenburg’s The Fly on it and have a squid or something lying in it. A discarded little sister slug!
Then the story can be the rebirth of Ryanslug.
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not sure if this has been noted but http://www.somethinginthesea.com/ has been updated
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My hat to dinger for brilliantly putting in words what formlessly sloshed in my cranium when I read the OP and comments.
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Except that, for my part, I execrated the game-sections of the game.
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I think they’re going to blindside everyone by turning it into a Dungeon Keeper/Evil Genius style RTS sim — you’re Andrew Ryan reborn, and you have to restore Rapture by enticing or capturing artists, inventors, and intellectuals to work there. However, too much interaction with the outside world causes governments to be interested and send spies or invaders; meanwhile, socialist provocateurs seek to undermine your rule by exacerbating the discontent that arises due to natural inequalities of wealth and power in your society. You can use socialist policies to calm people down, or fascistic violence to cow them into submission, but both approaches sap your magic Objectivist powers.
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I will wait until we have more data to make a statement, meanwhile, i’m happy like a little girl.
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The “little daddies” thing was a hoax that someone did with editing by reversing a shot from the first game, making the big daddy hand smaller and the little sister hand bigger, to see how many stupid and gullible gamers are out there.
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@perilisk
Forget about being reborn. Have the player be the original Andrew Ryan, and doom him to eventual failure at the game. Then you would have the greatest game.
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@ Dinger:
‘Bioshock’s story is pretty much disposable.’
If we’re jus going to handwave away the text, dialogue, recordings & cutscenes and all that, in videogames that still just plot. Not story.
The main part where storytelling ahppens in videogames is in the context. What character you control, what world he inhabits and all the millions upon millions of story elements there.
And what the player can and can’t do of course. The player actions the game allows are a huge element of story. And I don’t mean plot choices like a Bioware game. But wether you can talk at all or just shoot. Or where you don’t kill at all but where the gameplay challenge is in navigating the enviroment, that sort of stuff.
Just compare Doom 1 and Half Life 1.
Same plot: science experiment goes wrong, dimensional drift opens, monsters, shooting.
Totally diffirent context and one is lauded for it’s story while the other’s story is viewed as camp.
Drop a massivly convoluted plot on top of a bold spacemarine for a player character and it’ll still be a struggle to get a good story.
Take a cliche plot but change the context away from bald spacemarines and your halfway there to make something a little more fascinating.
Other media have figured this out forever ago. How old is the saying in literature that there’s only 7 diffirent stories? It’s the millions of diffirent ways to tell them that matters.
It’s Storytellers, not Storymakers after all.
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Simon, I think we’re getting at the same thing, but my poor brain gets a little confused, so I’ll just pervert your meaning.It is storymakers that we’re interested in. The “Story” as such isn’t just told; it’s received. And, while in all art forms, the recipient has ultimate control over how to receive the story, in videogames that control is absolute, creating a severe tension between designer and player. The conceit of Bioshock plays on this theme with extreme violence: The objectivist vision of a free society results in armies of slaves doing the bidding of insane dictators, enslaved themselves; your own character’s freedom is an illusion — you’re just playing the role your puppet master Levine/Fontaine set out for you. And Levine’s just doing his job.
The problem is that, as in every other videogame, the player’s freedom is obviously restricted, and so we were never under any illusion who was pulling the strings. For Bioshock to work, it needs to promise freedom and deliver slavery.
Anyway, your point, as I gather it, emphasizes that the story is created by the person playing the game, and that the elements (which you call “plot”) the designer throws in there are the raw materials for constructing the story’s existence. I’d wholeheartedly agree. Narratives aren’t imposed; they’re developed by the player with the collaboration of the game creators. Mr. Levine expressed his dismay at how many players just ignored the story (even the recordings) and ran around like rats in a maze. I followed the story and still ran around like a rat in a maze.
As an aside, that’s why the notion of “sandbox” appeals to us for the freedom it implies, even when “themed amusement park” is a more accurate description.
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Wedge gets +1,000,000pts for saying “fathom” in connection with something BioShocky.
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It’d be nice if, rather than replicating the story aspects of the first game, they went back and developed the ‘ecosystem’ idea mentioned in the very first (WW2 bunker set) Bioshock previews. A properly sunken, overgrown Rapture replete with Adam-mutated critters, extensive free roaming bits etc might be more fun. Plus, much of the best stuff in the first game was about setting up the history (rise and fall) of Rapture through the little diaries and vigenettes, and repeating that would seem a bit pointless.
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“Simon, I think we’re getting at the same thing, but my poor brain gets a little confused, so I’ll just pervert your meaning.It is storymakers that we’re interested in. The “Story” as such isn’t just told; it’s received. And, while in all art forms, the recipient has ultimate control over how to receive the story, in videogames that control is absolute, creating a severe tension between designer and player”
You guys talk like art has rules. Yea, art has rules. And Is good to know the rules… just before you break the rules. Is ok to break the rules and do the imposible with whatever you have.
IMHO, valve did a great work creating “playable” cutscenes. You don’t feel forced, is smooth and work.
That thing “theres only 7 storys”, I say Meh. *THAT* is another rule you can break.
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Aye Tei, but if you break the rules, the result may not work either. The Avant-Garde is called that because it’s the bit you send ahead of the main force to find the way. It can get wiped out in an ambush, or lost in a dead end.
Stick to the rules, and you’ll wind up with convention, contrivance and the commonplace.
You are standing in a field.
>i
You have:
100 million dollars.
A development team.
Three years.
What are you going to do?
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Spoilers ahoy:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=9ae60dfd56af03df89441f3d80b78b76&t=30111
Looks like they’ve jumped off the deep end. I’m particularly amused by the inclusion of underwater puzzles. As much as they are overused in other games, I thought it took tremendous restraint by the developers not to have any in Bioshock 1.
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I would kill the development team, burn the field and take the money.
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Cyrenic, those are the same spoilers that have been officially debunked.
So, don’t worry about those ones. Plenty of other stuff to worry about.
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