Bioshock 2 Failure

Bioshock 2: Destined for Failure?

Article written by Vaale on 6/1/09
Last edited on 6/1/09

Bioshock is a classic game, a perfect example of what to do right in a game. Gripping story, good gameplay, undercurrents of philosophy and psychology, it was an all around good game, enjoyed by the majority of people who had any interest in shooters and adventure games. Bioshock 2 being made by 2K Marin will be at best, a good game, at worst, a destruction and perversion of the franchise that really showed how video games can be great pieces of art. Most likely we'll be treated to a quaint mixture of both, but I hope people will realize how they could have gotten something so much better and were provided with a subpar game.

Let's start with what I think is the most interesting piece of information: Ken Levine is not only not in charge, but he has distanced himself from the project. This is a fairly standard practice however. A game does well, the lead is promoted, and the next guy moves up. However the nature of Bioshock is unique. Levine had such a great influence on what made Bioshock great, the atmosphere, the music, the philosophy; to have Levine remove himself from the sequel is very interesting, possibly revealing what he thinks about the game.

Worse, the team has also changed out a lot, with fewer people from the original 2K Boston going over to the newly formed 2K Marin. Watching the first game up to release, you got a reassuring feeling that the developers knew the game inside and out, and especially backwards. I don't get that feeling with Marin. It may just be because of the steps they are taking addressing the sequel, but I have the nasty feeling that many on the team don't intimately understand Bioshock and are more interested in pushing out a game than building a true sequel to the franchise.

Let's examine the first game and dissect what made it fun. Was it the gameplay? It was a standard shooter, generally linear. Was it the plasmid customization? Even the most basic games have a small level of customization offered to the player, it's essentially a weapon configuration. Was it Rapture itself? Yes, but there is a reason it shouldn't be in the second game. Was it playing as a Big Daddy? All these things made Bioshock enjoyable, but they should not necessarily carry over to a sequel.

The Bioshock franchise, at the core, is not about Rapture or Andrew Ryan or plasmids or Big Daddies. It is about humanity, the objectivism, about the meaning of life if you have no control over it. These are the things that should be in the sequel, but are almost ignored entirely. The sequel being made is annoyingly predictable. Big Daddies are cool! Let's have the player be a Big Daddy. Wait, aren't Big Daddies, slow, clumsy, have few weapons at their disposal, and serve few purposes? Except you're a special Big Daddy, you can change weapons and use plasmids. You can also run faster. This is an obvious ploy to make the game better than the first, except the premise makes absolutely no sense.

A magical part about Rapture was that for a long time you were essentially a stranger, you had stumbled upon a utopia that had gone horribly wrong. With each new section of Rapture you were awed by mankind's boldness. This becomes a problem in the sequel, which traces back to the new team fiasco, is that too much information is known about the world and the game.In the first game, you knew what Rapture was, what Adam is, what Big Daddies and Sisters are, you got a sliver of the story with Andrew Ryan and Fontaine, but that was about it.

On top of knowing all this and what happens in the first game, we already know who the Big Sister is, her general agenda (some crap about restoring Rapture and maintaining the status quo), who you are, just about where you come from, etc. The grandeur of the environment is quickly cut down to size, and for what? Publicity? Bullshit. A twenty second teaser trailer without any gameplay could have achieved the same thing and still managed to salvage some of the mystery around the story. However since we are still in Rapture, using almost the exact same elements of the first game, the mystique of the place has gone to shit. Sure, you'll see new places of Rapture, but it can never be as inspiring as seeing everything for the first time.

Continuing on the path to annoy me, the exact same morality curve is present from the first game, which is borderline sacrilege, it gives the appearance that 2K barely put any actual thought or imagination into it. Do you harvest a Sister, or do you protect it? Either way nets you Adam, so what's the point? A different endgame sequence? I didn't really enjoy the morality system from Bioshock anyway, it was a tacked on system that changed little.

Speaking of Sisters, what the fuck is up with the Big Sister? It's about the second lamest, most predictable villain with the lamest and predictable title. For reference, a super Splicer would have arguably been the lamest villain. Honestly, the justification barely makes sense. A Sister gets back into Rapture (never mind how) and becomes super powerful and omniscient (again, we have an explanation!) and strives to do something villainous with Rapture. No doubt the player is somehow connected to her. She also apparently drops in from time to time in mini boss battles with the player to remind you she's there. You know how Andrew Ryan reminded you? He'd cut you off, set a trap or ambush, kill Atlas' family. Now there's a true villain, with proper motivations.

Finally, Bioshock was a self contained game. It did not have an ambigous ending, nor did it reference the prototype Big Daddy whatsoever. This is a blatant and horribly transparent attempt to milk the franchise, and its frankly insulting to gamers.

So what should a true Bioshock sequel have? If I knew, I sure as hell would not be writing this and I would go sell the idea to someone and get rich. What I know is what I don't want, and what I don't want is what is being made. Honestly, if the core elements of Bioshock were kept, they could still call it Bioshock 2, make a 2D platformer or an RTS, but if the elements were there and if the game was polished and had, at best, small references to the previous, I wouldn't mind in the slightest.

The sequel shouldn't take place in Rapture at all. Rapture was built to tell the story told in Bioshock, and with all its denizens it told it beautifully. So a true Bioshock 2 should take place somewhere completely different, it may not have to be in a remote location such as under the sea, hell, it could be set perfectly in the modern world. With a new location, a new story, new villains, everything is reset, and if you're lucky, you might stumble into a proper sequel to Bioshock.