BioShock 2 Impressions

We return to the underwater city of Rapture for look at BioShock 2's multiplayer and single-player modes.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated games coming out this year, BioShock 2 is on display at E3 2009, and though it's not here in any playable form, we did get to see a trailer of the single-player mode in action and, surprisingly, a good chunk of the multiplayer. First, the single-player mode in BioShock 2 takes place 10 years after the events that transpired in the original game, which means that Rapture has fallen into a state of decay as the ocean continues to reclaim it and its inhabitants. The focus of the single-player mode, in terms of its lead character, was to change it from the perspective of an outsider to that of a resident of Rapture, and in particular someone who plays an important role in the overall framework of the city.




That new lead character is the original Big Daddy--the very first to don the massive diving suit in the city of Rapture. But he's different from the single-purpose drones that roam around in the original game. He has regained his free will, which also happens to make him faster and more agile than other Big Daddies. Additionally, he can use a variety of weapons, ranging from the massive Big Daddy drill and a rivet gun to all-new plasmids, which have been tweaked to make them even more effective in combat. But more importantly, the original Big Daddy can make one decision that the others cannot: He can choose to protect the Little Sisters and continue to let them harvest Adam from fallen splicers or he can harvest them and take their Adam.

After we viewed a brief trailer of BioShock's lead character in action (which you can view above), representatives from Digital Extremes took to the front of the room to give a deeper look at the multiplayer component in BioShock 2. Unlike the single-player campaign, BioShock 2's multiplayer component takes place a year before the original game, during the civil war that initiated the downfall of Rapture and Andrew Ryan's underwater utopia. What's interesting is that there are actually two very different methods for jumping into a multiplayer game. There's a standard menu option and then there's Jacob Morris' (the lead character in multiplayer and a welder who may have even helped build Rapture) apartment, which is a visual representation of all of the multiplayer options and information presented in spectacular Art Deco Rapture style. You even have your own bathysphere to launch you into a multiplayer match.

big daddy was cool but big sister is awesome