Bioshock was a great game back in the day. How good? Well it came out the same year as Mass Effect and the two games battled back and forth with Game of the Year awards. And like Mass Effect it was a purely single player experience. Bioshock 2 promises to have a single player experience as good as the first game, but they also added in a multiplayer component. It’s a full on competitive multiplayer kind of experience too, taking a few tips from Modern Warfare.
The timeline that is contained in Bioshock 2 is all over the place. The single player game takes place after the first game, but multiplayer takes place before the first game. The citizens of Rapture are already psychotic, but Sinclair Solutions (an organization within Rapture) is handing out weapons an plasmids to everyone so they can do some test. If you don’t know already, plasmids are things that genetically alter you and these are what gives you the electric, fire, telekinesis, and other powers. Good move Sinclair.
When you first start up multiplayer you’ll get some bits of story, an intro video, and your own apartment in the luxurious dystopia of Rapture! This apartment serves as a sort of menu screen, and I find that pretty cool. I’m not exactly sure what’s in there, but you’ll be diving into the action from here. Get it, diving into the action… because you’re at the bottom of the sea. To learn a bit more, watch this Bioshock 2 Multiplayer Orientational Video.
Pretty nice video, tells you a decent amount of the multiplayer. Some stuff it doesn’t mention is that you can customize a few different loadouts. Each loadout you’ll be equipping yourself with weapons, plasmids, and tonics. Weapons include things like pistols, shotguns, elephant rifles, and many other different things. Plasmids are what I explained before, it’s kind of like your magic. And tonics are like Modern Warfare perks. You can equip different ones that allow you to heal turrets, heal yourself, camouflage yourself a little, eve regeneration (like mana for your plasmids), dash forward, etc. The more you play and the better you do gets you points. More points unlocks more stuff for you to customize which includes weapons, plasmids, and tonics, along with some appearance customization like different masks. Everyone also gets a melee weapon and you can customize it to all kinds of different objects. But these customizations are strictly for looks, no extra damage or speed. Another cool thing they took from the single player was researching players. In single player you can take pictures of different enemies and the better the picture the more points you get, and you learn more about them. In multiplayer if you kill someone you can research them, which really just consists of sitting through a progress bar. Nothing complicated. Only thing is do you have enough time to sit through the bar before someone else comes up onto you and kills you? When you successfully research someone it gives them a notification and gives you a damage boost against that player the rest of the match.
Around the maps are all kinds of things to interact with. Vending machines to get you things like more eve. Oil spills you can torch with the incinerate plasmid. And pools of water you can electrocute. But the big power up you want to look for is the Big Daddy suit. Everyone is notified once one appears, and a mad dash ensues to it. Stepping inside one gives you great powers. You become way stronger, get a rivet gun, proximity mines, and a melee attack that tosses peeps around. But you are in a giant dive suit so you are much slower. There are multiple game modes here too. You got the traditional death match and team deathmatches, but also some game modes that feature the creepy Little Sisters. One game mode is kinda like a capture the flag which is literally just called Capture the Sister where one team is trying to get the Little Sister and bring her back to her little hole in the wall while the other is simply just defending that. Another mode called ADAM Grab has everyone after the Little Sister, who collects ADAM which is this super power stuff the everyone wants. The longer you control the Little Sister the more ADAM she collects, which means more points for your team. While you’re carrying around the Little Sister she’ll scowl and interact with you, but she also takes up the slot for your weapon. So no gun while carrying her, like most games with CTF game modes, but you will be able use your plasmid still.
That’s about all I know about it now, but it sounds really cool. It definitely seems like it has that solid shooter gameplay, but with all kinds of twists that are unique only to Bioshock. Obviously I haven’t played it yet, but it sounds interesting and very well done. I’ll have a preview video up by the 10th for a better idea on what this game is all about.
Chris Parker - Head Admin 
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