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?
Related Stories:
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.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE FUCKING WHALES.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
I am no longer able to discuss BioShock, I’m just curious how mereology was introduced into this discussion.
Big Sis’ would have been a more appropriate nick, it goes hand in hand with Big Daddy…
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.
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!
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.
not sure if this has been noted but http://www.somethinginthesea.com/ has been updated
My hat to dinger for brilliantly putting in words what formlessly sloshed in my cranium when I read the OP and comments.
Except that, for my part, I execrated the game-sections of the game.
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.
I will wait until we have more data to make a statement, meanwhile, i’m happy like a little girl.
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.
@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.
@ 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.
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.
Wedge gets +1,000,000pts for saying “fathom” in connection with something BioShocky.
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.
“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.
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?
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.
I would kill the development team, burn the field and take the money.
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.