How's your PlayStation 3 this morning? Mine is afflicted with the same problem that a lot of others seem to have. I hope it's fixed soon, because I want to play Heavy Rain.
At the same time, is it so terrible that I feel glad to have a reprieve from AAA gaming, a tidy excuse not to move on immediately from the exhausting emotional wringer that is BioShock 2's Rapture? Speaking of which, here is my review of BioShock 2, which I think encompasses the things I think are stronger than the original versus weaker.
I think probably the biggest open issue I have with BioShock 2 is that harvesting Little Sisters feels so irrational that the option to do so seems excessively heavy-handed -- as if it existed to support the game's messages about choice, rather than to contribute to the gameplay. The sheer variety of options BioShock 2 gives you to take out your enemies makes it wholly unnecessary to feel so desperate for ADAM that you harvest Little Sisters.
So does the fact that, as a player, you feel more familiar with Rapture now. It doesn't lose any of its compelling qualities, and its advanced state of decay actually makes it more breathtaking in places (my favorite moments of the game were due entirely to certain arrangements of its scenery). But you don't have that sense of being lost, of being desperate, that you had as Jack in the first game. Not only do you know your way around now, so to speak, but you're wearing a Big Daddy suit.
The effect of being a Big Daddy is twofold: You feel more powerful (and the other Big Daddies feel wonderfully lonesome and tragic, not so scary). But beyond that, you feel more of an attachment to the girls. Big Daddies and Little Sisters were introduced to us via inseparable imagery, and now we're expected to conceive of killing one -- especially within the context of a narrative that asks us to risk everything to get one "back"?
This obviously is not a deal-breaker for me, not by a long shot. Even if the option to do the irrational simply exists as a way for the player to experiment with the game's philosophical framework, rather than to feel immersive and genuine, I'm glad it's there. I'm not sure I'd mind if "Harvest or Rescue" were part of the BioShock framework for future sequels.
Which brings me to something else I've just written! I promised I'd explore the idea of sequelizing games that don't "need" sequels in the context of BioShock 2, and I've done so over at Gamasutra. Check it out!
Finally, I really believe that whether a "flaw" is a deal-breaker for you or not depends on what your motivation is for playing video games. My latest Kotaku feature investigates how different kind of games scratch different itches, and how a certain weakness in one type of game might not be as big a problem in another.
Meanwhile, while I wait for Sony to fix whatever this PS3 problem is, I've been playing Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands on DS for hours and hours and hours. It's like crack to me. Bonus Material: My original Aberrant Gamer column on gender identity and Harvest Moon marriage.
I feel like I'm not even done talking about BioShock 2 yet. It never fails to amaze me how we as audiences demand increasingly complex and sustaining experiences, and yet every game we get, we bang through as fast as possible so we can get to discussing the next one. Sucks.
17 comments:
When I was playing Bio2, every time I saw another Big Daddy, I always felt a pang of loneliness - there was the image of Big Daddy and Little Sister, the closest thing to a happy family in Rapture, and it reminded me that my character was somehow flawed and alone, having lost his Little Sister. Whenever I saw them passing by on the other sides of glass walls, I'd pause and watch them, feeling a little sorry for my own condition.
Of course, that also made it feel deeply wrong to kill another Big Daddy to "take" his Little Sister - like some grieving parent who deals with the loss of their child by stealing the baby from someone else's stroller.
I could see how a player could construct a working narrative of their "Bad-Choices Delta" as such a deranged parent, stealing children in hopes of finding one that reminds them of the one they lost so long ago, and always being terribly, tragically disappointed when they don't fill the hole in his life.
Hrm. I think I have the story I'll be telling myself when I go through it again for the Bad Ending!
Hey Leigh, have you played Silent Hill Shattered Memories?? I'm very curious to know what you thought of it.
Eddie: http://www.avclub.com/articles/silent-hill-shattered-memories,36506/
It never fails to amaze me how we as audiences demand increasingly complex and sustaining experiences, and yet every game we get, we bang through as fast as possible so we can get to discussing the next one.
Most games take me weeks to play through at the fastest, some months, some years on and off. Plus, where I'm way behind, my new games are usually from two years ago and super-cheap - probably not a concern for a journo, but then like you said, you don't get em for free just so you can savour them, you have to come up with 1000-1500 words on whether it's the new hotness, and then do the same the week after...
Don't really know where to go for good discussion of just ... games as people play them, new or not.
You know, I've always wondered why we, as a collective, go through games so fast, and I always tended to chalk it up to the fact that we enjoy the hobby, and thus tend to spend more time and energy on each title, to the point where we're finished pretty quickly and left with nothing to do but talk about the game until the next big name comes out.
Then I remembered the key word, "hobby," and that every hobby has it's obsessive types who love keeping up to date on what's new and fresh and trying new things and sharing experiences while they burn through their backlog of games/movies/books/comics/music that they haven't gotten to yet but want to get to because it's part of the medium they love.
So, yeah, kinda sucks, but then, every medium has it's nerds who plow through all the available content at a very high rate, sampling every genre and style and trying to never pick just one flavour to stick with.
In short, it's cause we're all massive nerds who love to play games, and the more we play the happier we are.
This is off-topic but, Leigh, did you ever finish The World Ends with You for the DS?
Bioshock 2 is a phenomenal game as far as concepts and story, (sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone) but I really appreciated the ability to see the world of rapture as a little sister. I never realized that there perspective of the world was that skewed. Maybe it's just me but it feels like we were short changed with the story game play for multiplayer. Even with taking my time and exploring the game searching for the audio diaries and just enjoying the environment, the game only took about 20 hours (give or take an hour or 2.
the other Big Daddies feel wonderfully lonesome and tragic
I did not like killing other Big Daddies. It felt like something you had to do to get the little sisters.
I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but I cleared out the Gil Alexander level of little sisters (by rescuing them!) and there was a Big Daddy still left on the level. Surprised by this, I followed him around. He made his way to a vent and started pounding on it. He wouldn't stop. I know that it was just an animation cycling over and over, but it had a weird effect.
Interesting articles as always, Leigh, but what was most interesting to me were some of the comments following your Gamasutra article on sequels. It seems like a lot of the game's (and article's) detractors have trouble actually articulating their views, such as the gentleman who posited that nihilism existed in abstentia from philosophies, or the one who used the words "inspired" as a descriptive quality for characters in a work of fiction. I'd like to chip in with my own two cents and say that this trend of establishing strong narrative frameworks and then allowing sequels to emerge from them, as opposed to, say, the generation and alteration of a setting to accomodate a sequel that we see in a game like Mass Effect 2, is a quality present in most more established forms of narrative fiction already.
At the risk of sounding too low brow, Die Hard is a perfect example of a self-contained narrative fleshed out (sometimes well, sometimes poorly) based on the strength of its characters and setting. It's no guarantee that we'll see better sequels, but if developers do start building with the mindset of constructing a narrative framework in order to sustain their intellectual property I think we'll definitely see better original IP coming out. Just imagine if Mirror's Edge had had a coherent world tieing its systems together.
And, Mattbee, you might be interested in either www.gamerswithjobs.com or the www.quartertothree.com forums, both of which cater to a wider and older audience with a bit of a longer attention span than your average forum. If you read and enjoy Leigh you'd probably enjoy either of those places.
Doug S: No. I ended up hating that game.
Inching Forward: I had the same experience... once I'd taken all the little sisters I'd see a Big Daddy wandering around looking for one, and it'd break my heart.
Looking at your poll on the right, do you think the developers of Bioshock 2 did something wrong, considering how 7/8 of the people don't pursue the other option?
Seems like there isn't really a choice for most people.
" It never fails to amaze me how we as audiences demand increasingly complex and sustaining experiences, and yet every game we get, we bang through as fast as possible so we can get to discussing the next one. Sucks."
It doesn't have to be that way.
Well, maybe for you, being a games writer, commentator, critic, et al. It makes sense that you have to soldier through game after game with little respite or time to go back.
Funny enough, with the deluge of games hitting all three systems, I've taken playing up games I haven't in years (some of which I never finished).
Sure I may be 'missing out' on Bad Company 2, Mass Effect 2, BioShock 2...but there's something sad about how a game gets outdated these days. If you don't buy it in the first month, may as well skip it altogether because the crowd is off discussing/applauding/lauding the Next Big Thing.
Meanwhile, Zelda 2 and Persona 4 have never been better.
Leigh, I assume when you say "we" you mean yourself and other game journalists. I would definately like to be a game journalist, but while I'm not, I'm grateful that I get to savor games I enjoy at my own pace, and dismiss and not play further games I don't like. I'd claw my eyeballs out if I had to play all the way through Uncharted 2, and as a journalist I definately would have to. On the flipside, I get to mess with Plants vs. Zombies as much as I want with my free time, growing my tree of wisdom, tending to my zen garden, beating minigames, whatever I want without worrying about pressures.
Hey Leigh,
Long time reader, first time commenter. Loving all this Bioshock 2 coverage. I had to put my copy down after the first 45 min because Heavy Rain arrived. Then God of War 3 arrived. I want to give it the time it deserves as Bioshock was hands down the best game I played all year in 07.
Speaking of Heavy Rain, have you started it yet (or finished it?)? I wrote up a review over at my blog. If you have any desire to check it out, feel free.
http://geekbeast.blogspot.com/2010/03/heavy-rain-review-rated-m-for-mature.html
Keep up the excellent work.
I enjoyed Bioshock 2, but to me it seemed more like an extension of the first game. I know it's a sequel, but I thought there weren't enough new and improved elements to the game
Nice blog you have here...I wonder if you like online games then you must like car games...you can play car games at this site Car Games. Also, you can play more game sites at Bike Games, Online Games, Kissing Games , Driving Games, Truck Games, Dress Up Games, Games for Girls, Addicting Games and Girl Games.
check out some cool online Free Games including; car games, racing games / parking games, parking games / car parking games, / parking games, driving games, bike games / bmx games / dirt bike games, motorbike games, and car parking games / car games / parking games.
Post a Comment