BioShock 2 is just so… underwhelming, yeah, that's the word I keep repeating. It's really disappointing me and I walked in with carefully lowered expectations. So I totally feel ya there, Noah. And the blistering combat segments (most of all SCRIPTED what) really, really detract from the experience. Such a shame they fumbled it.

RE: the evil vs good choices and their rewards in BS1- I think someone counted it up and you do get a little more with the good path.

“Going back to Rapture didn't seem logical.” THANK YOU. THIS. I've been thinking this since they announced it.

Skaven are one of those teams you have to coddle quite a bit early in a league. They REALLY need to get a few star players going with some decent skills before you get to far into things though, or you are right. The muscle teams just beat them into a furry red paste.

My personal favorite has always been Undead. Mummies make a DEADLY line even limited to two. Wights are solid linebackers, and ghouls can perform the job of getting around the field well enough. The only issue tends to be that you are stuck playing a running game at the start. Well, that and your zombies and skeletons are about worthless. But they are also cheap as dirt, which in a league MATTERS.

If I had to pick a runner up, I would have to go with Orcs. They hit hard, they take a pounding, and while they are more comfortable playing a running game, They can throw the ball if they need to.

LOL, just remember if you are playing against elves with EITHER of these teams, the GOAL is to murder as many of those bastards as you can in the first half. You won't win if you can't bench their starters.

Damn elves. :P

ME2: Agreed, all you said is pretty much it, simpler but still just as enjoyable. My biggest gripe which I hope is a new feature of the third game, are different levels of Paragon/Renegade. For instance, you build up 100% Paragon, you use a Renegade option and it's the same dialog/act as if you were 100% Renegade. The bad thing about this is, you know Bioware sometimes really tricks you and what you read doesn't act exactly like what you expected… and that one Renegade act you're gonna do is gonna be PURE EVIL even though you're 100% Paragon. I believe they should make it so every 20% Shepard gets more and more Good or Evil in the dialogs.

Oh and the scanning, ain't that bad on the second playthrough (if you survived the mission) they give you like 50k+ of all materials (which is ridiculous since I never used more than 40k Element Zero, but I used more than 120k Platinum)

Not a fan of Bioshock, to me it was Doom 3 with powers and I didn't like Doom 3 (that fucking Flashlight system… I know it's a scare tactic, but it just works too well and I'm a pansie)

Get yourself a 486 pc for 2 dollars at a thrift store. That's how I got my games working. =)

Hope your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS skills are still good!

srry about posting twice the first time it didnt come up

are you going to review gto?

I just love the fact that youre wearing a GTO shirt. Onizuka doesnt get nearly as much props as it deserves and is probably one the most underrated american released animes out there. Yay you ;p

Totally agree on the Bioshocks.

If you're playing Bioshock 1 or 2 with System Shock 2 in mind the whole time, you're doing it wrong. *rolls eyes*

Bioshock 2 was ok and it was really what I expected it to be so I wasnt disappointed with it.

ME 2 was improved in a lot of ways and only had a few steps back in some small aspects. I went back to try to play ME again last week and couldnt just from how big of a change 2 really made and it kind of upset me that I cant play the first game without it bugging me just how bad some of the aspects are compared to 2.

Another sequal that im really into at the moment is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat. Ive been playing the hell out of that game over the last few days and for anyone that enjoys free roam shooters you should really check it out.

“I'm playing with the child-strangling mode on.”

That's going to be my new way of describing the evil path of any Bioware RPG from now on.

I've never played System Shock so I can't say Bioshock is better or not. My problem with Bioshock(aside from waiting 3 months for drivers that didn't make it crash and even after that buggy high quality shaders that caused graphic issues) was that although I liked the setting I felt the graphics were needlessly cartoony. I like that whole setting a lot, I watch a lot of ye olde scifi movies but it lacked realism. Campy as they were those movies were all dead serious in tone but that unique mixture of camp and realism was missing in Bioshock. It was cartoony and had too much intentional comedy.

I very much agree with your take on each game. ME2 was a great sequel to a very good game, whereas B2 was an underwhelming sequel to a very good game.

Blood Bowl? WAAAAAGH! My hero! And the PC version really is way better. Plus, they plan on adding more races (dark elves already have been) completely for free.

Agree on BioShock 2, which is even less SS than its predecessor which had the massive plus of a brand new setting and a really well thought out philosophical plot with multitudes of references to that period in science fiction. The sequel is made by the people who only did some adaption to other platforms, without any of the writers and personnel of the first. I really, really never thought it would be good, but the bland “new” game they made even then disappointed.
And I have nothing to add to ME2. Streamlined, mostly in the good way (battles make you feel your class – in the first you only used some powers here and there and mainly fought with your weapons), sometimes bad, and an awesome cinematic experience, especially with all the references to what your character did in the first game when you import a savegame.

Play Deus Ex, Spoony. Play Deus Ex.

Eugh; Spoony, I love your videos, and agree with you on many of your comments on Bioshock 2, but the rose-tinted glasses that many reviewers seem to have these days in regards to System Shock is getting, well, kinda tiresome.

At the time of their release System Shock 1 and 2 are as fantastic as you describe, but they truly aren't as frightening or atmospheric any more – my most recent attempt to play SysShock 2 left me really disappointed. It just isn't the same, and I found myself thinking, after running around half-smacking, half-evading Hybrid after Hybrid trying to find the security point I missed like a fool, that I was essentially still playing a FPS game, that just wasn't designed to be such.

You still spend a large portion of the game in combat, not a whole lot less than Bioshock, but with SysShock the combat is clunky at best. My thoughts on that attempt to get through SysShock 2 were; “If I'm going to be playing an FPS/RPG, I may as well play Bioshock.”.

The reason I find this so annoying is that if Bioshock was named, say, Rapture, it wouldn't be judged against another, much older and, to put it bluntly, now out-dated game. Very few games age well, and the few that come to mind are RPGs, like Baldur's Gate, in which it doesn't really matter that things may be clunky, because there's a handy pause feature.

That's really the fault of the devs, though, for claiming that Bioshock is a spiritual successor, and that's just begging for the comparison. Still, it bugs me; Bioshock 1 at least was a good game in its own right, and to base a review upon, in your words, “I really miss System Shock”, seems unfair.

…That said, I still actually agreed with most of your points on Bioshock 2, so I have no idea why I find myself frustrated.

Damn you, Spoony, and the logic you rode in on.

The first BioShock actually really involved me with it's story and it's narrative, but my least favorite part about it was the part where I played it. The shooting was just bad, it felt wrong, it never felt like your guns were powerful and you could go the whole game with just the wrench and the lightning plasmid if you wanted. It just didn't do a lot for me and was just a vehicle to get me to the next audiolog or cutscene.

From what I've heard, BioShock 2 is a lot better as a game. It shoots better, the guns feel better, the plasmids feel more powerful, the tonics have greater variety, and I guess the multiplayer mode is actually quite fun. The problem is the story feels so artificially constructed and forced that it feels like a sequel that was never intended to exist, and the structure or setting hasn't changed much at all.

I understand how you feel about the game feeling too much like a shooter and not enough like a horror game, but honestly I was pretty terrified during the first game even though I knew I had no real reason to be. I guess the atmosphere got to me or something, I tend to be kind of a pussy like that.

You’re absolutely right about Bioshock. The only reason I played that game at all was because I wanted to play System Shock 2 so badly, but couldn’t make it run on my pc (fucking dark engine!). But when I played it for a while, I usualy stopped and went back to trying to make SS2 work.

In Bioshock 1 the only really difference was if you saved the little sisters you'd actually net more Adam (40 + 40 + 40 + 160 vs 80 + 80 + 80 IIRCC) and on top of that you get two free plasmids/tonics so once you got your 3rd little sister and got the huge bonus the game became a cake walk.

I feel you, man. I played the first hour or 2 of system shock 2 years ago…and those first few hours REALLY stuck with me. I'm largely a console gamer, so when a PC title sticks with me, I know it's really good.

Considering your LPs of games like SWAT4 and your FMV hell, I'd love to see you LP SS or SS2. Those games are that real truth. Bioshock, while good in its own right, is just watered down from the awesome concentrate that is System Shock.

I know I am going to be kicked in the balls for this, but I loved Bioshock 2. Some may say it it just a rehash bioshock or system shock 2 (i never got to play this jewel of a game and still trying to find a torrent copy that will work) but I found it different in gameplay and story. The plasmids are different like being able to charge them and they include a few more to change up the variety. The story, I felt, was a bit more emotionally involving then the first game because as you progress you start to feel for the character. Finally, the atmosphere in rapture is still there, the music matches the mood of the game as you go through each area and just grabs you as you chase down a big daddy or a key spliced up lunatic of the rapture family.

If it is, props to you Spoony!

Since you’ve played the board game Spoony, I’m sure you’ll get some fun out of Blood Bowl. Word of warning – the AI is pretty bad. Multiplayer (and turn-based) is the way to go.

i dont think playing or not playing system shock will affect your enjoyment of the game. when i played Bioshock, i definately saw and felt the similarities. however, they were borrowing from a very good source, so it didnt take anything away. i'm not the type to sit back and say “well this is too much like x, so it's crap.” Spoony put it pretty much perfectly when he described Bioshock's atmosphere as “almost, but not quite.” the entire time i played i felt like there was something scary there, it just wasnt making itself known. the main problem i had with Bioshock was the story. you play as a nameless, faceless, almost entirely voiceless male who finds himself in the city of Rapture. the only problem is that when you play as a character with the personality of a stump, it rips you out of the story. the best way i can describe it is that the story happens to your character, not because of them.

I've never held that particular thing against a game. The “nameless/faceless main character” is a device. Strictly speaking, it's designed to make you care about the character, because it's YOU. The only people who really get irritated by these characters are the ones who just can't pretend for five minutes that they are the character they are playing. By no means do I consider such a thing a fault of a video game or even a story. It's a device used for telling a story and designed to provide deeper immersion. So, instead of caring about Joe Sixpack, whom you are controlling, with a preset (and often boring personality as all main characters in video games seem to have these days) you just insert your own personality. Because, ultimately, that makes more sense. It makes more sense to be controlling yourself instead of someone else, and dictating the actions of someone else who may or may not do the things they are doing in the game. Nothing wrecks immersion for me more than games like GTA in which killing random pedestrians is commonplace, even for your main character, even if it would run entirely counter to their personality or goals in the game.

Now, there are instances where faceless/voiceless characters don't work. And those are typically in games that don't let yo make choices. Games like Dead Space are a fine example of how NOT to do one of those characters. Bioshock works well up until the point they start giving you backstory on the character you're playing.

Besides, nameless/faceless is nowhere near as common as all the standard RPG characters. “tough guy”, “jerk”, “love interest”, “comic relief”, “goody two-shoes main character”, “evil guy who is evil for the sake of being evil”. Etcetera. At least you can't complain that your own personality is boring to you, while you can complain about all the recycled characters in every other game that exists.

the first half of bioshock 2 does indeed suck and boring. but it does pick up at the half way point and becomes real kick ass.

Lol thats what i thought when i saw GTO, i really doubt it is though.

I'd love to know what you think of shattered memories

It was interesting to hear your views of the games. I think its one of those things, if you didn't like the first Bioshock, you aren't really going to enjoy the second one. Esp since they are very much alike in gameplay. I do like that you at least try the game before deciding if its good or bad.

When it comes to Bioshock I agree with almost everything you have to say, but I always viewed this series very differently compared to SS2.

I love Bioshock for its design and atmosphere, it has a unique look to it that I'd say is very difficult to make a coherent story out of. You're also right that FPS action isn't the right direction for this world they've created, the game would have been more suited as an RPG done with better writers.

As of now I love the games, but as for story and context, it feels more like I'm reading through cliff notes.

in mass effect 1 you could fire you vehicle guns up or down, if you pressed a button on the controller you could manually shot your gun how ever you wanted. the auto-aim used by the vehicle was limited so that you would used the manual mode of the guns …. how can someone go though the whole game and not realize that there is a manual aiming system for your vehicle guns :)

Firstly, I love system shock, specifically 2 (too young for SS1), and consider it substantially more intense and paranoid than the bioshock series, but I have a few comments about it, for what they are worth.

I always thought that those plasmids and their videos were made after the initial outbreak of splicers going absolutely nuts. It would kind of make sense, since splicers were insatiable psychopaths. The splicing (explained in Bioshock 1) was used for many other things before that, like versions of botox and steroids. (a multiplayer character in BS2 has a log about splicing up for the football game, make himself stronger.)

Sadly I found Sofia to be lacking as a villain. she didn't quite have the stifling presence of Ryan or Fontaine. (Shodan notwithstanding).

…but at the very least all the detours made in BS2 made sense since you were stuck on a train line, and not arbitrarily locked out of some ports using the Bathysphere. Also the combat, despite it being a step backwards from SS, is alot smoother, since you don't have to switch hands when changing from plasmid to weapon, and you can melee with any weapon, not just the wrench.

Don't work too hard, boss.

Anyway, I enjoyed Blood Bowl when I played it for a while on my brother's steam account. It's got a certain charm to it and it's fun to play against your friends.

I think Bioshock 2 would have been a lot better if you either
1. played as a child (maybe an escaped little sister candidate) at any time between the revolution or later. You would have felt more helpless and made it more of a horror game. Hard to feel scared playing as a giant armored tank.
2. the citizens of rapture had mutated a lot more to be far less human.
Still the multilayer is fun if unbalanced, and it's really not a bad game.

Bioware certainly does a great job combining action and story. Their choices tend to be well thought out and has great effects on the story. It's why I'm looking forward to Star Wars: The Old Republic so much.

Spoony confirmed as a 420chan mark

WOO WOO WOO YOU KNOW IT

ME2 is a fucking AWESOME game that I have replayed 3 times already! I bought the first one, beat it and never played it again…ME2 on the other hand was so good I just have to keep playing it…

As for BIO2…hmm..it really just feels like an expansion pack to BIO1…the story is pretty good, game is much better now that you can 'dual wield' but over all … didn't seem like much had changed. The MP is simply a joke…

i could make a comment and truely just tear apart your opinion but it's your opinion and if i enjoy something why let your ideals ruin it. besides not having played system shock i guess i wouldn't have much in my life to compare bioshock to.

besides your right if you didn't like the first bioshock then you'll hate the second. but you aren't strangling childern you break them down into what they to the adam worm they were inplanted with. you could argue that it's still killing childern but then we get into matters opinion and congecture.

the moral system does make sense in that it talors the ending and how people will treat you in the end. or how some people will be in the end of the game. think of your daughter is all i'll say since you haven't finished the game. and really what i found when i saved most of the little sisters in the BS2 was they gave you some items that actualy gave you more adam without having to harvest the little girls for adam.

but again if you didn't like the first and don't get the game then nothing i've said matters you don't like it then you won't like this one. i liked bioshock 2 more then most because i am little less jaded and i didn't care much for if the sequal was going to be better. thought i agree with you in someways it would have been nice to be around and play during the uproar and downfall of rapture.

i am currently on my second playthough on BS2

>I just miss System Shock so much [...]
>[...] not being able to replicate the original System Shock and I guess they don't want to [...]

I miss the old SS too. I *loved* them and I still do. And yes, I think they are not interested in “replicating” it. Remember the two SS games have been critical successes but commercial flops. They ara just not interested. Plus, consider that the main target is console gaming right now, and it would be impossibile to play any SS type game (with the gameplay depth that they have) with a pad.

Sad isn't it. -_-

Still, I liked Bioshock fine. Haven't seen the 2nd one yet.

I am struggling to get through Bioshock2. I really really want to like it, and I like the underwater world, but there seems to be just too little freedom and incentive to explore. I completely agree it should not be a shooter. It it was something more like Fallout, where you can take up side missions, or meet people and have a few safe zones where you could just goof off talking to people or something, and take a break of just killing everything it would have been a whole lot better.

Scanning is most definitely more tolerable than the Mako sections, although the new inventory system I feel was simply streamlining it to the point where they couldn't realistically get anything wrong, and hopefully they'll bring back a proper inventory with a better, less console oriented interface and less boring item management in ME3.

I feel much the same way in regards to Bioshock 2. I rented it, played it for one hour, and said “This is it?” The basically reskinned your guns and your look. I didn't even “feel” like a real big daddy.

However, Mass Effect 2 I have beaten twice, and am fighting the urge to play it a Third time! So far beat it with a Solider, and an Engineer. If I ended up playing a 3rd time I would have to do an Adept. I can't help but be a paragon though. Course, I am tempted to be a Adept who is a renegade. Must…resist!

I completely agree with you on Bioshock 2. Just felt like to much of the same, and online wasnt to fun either…
As for Mass effect 2 have not yet played that yet. Heard very good things from my friends about the game, but i didnt enjoy the first one to much, not sure why just didnt do it for me so im not sure if i would like the second one.

Sounds good. I just cant wait for the new splinter cell. I hope that mark and execute doesn't ruin the game though.

Hey Noah, in regards to your review of Bioshock 2, I was wondering if you had ever heard of/ checked out the viral campaign for the game, “There's Something in the Sea”

Spoony,
I'm with you on the Looking Glass Studios titles. I was tickled pink though that there was an achievement in Bioshock 2 titled “Look at you, Hacker.” It gave me Shodan flashbacks.
Any thoughts about Eidos reviving the Thief franchise without the LGS team to work it?
http://www.thief4.com/

Huh. I've started a review blog on TGWTG just a few days ago, and the first game I wanted to review was Bioshock 2. I watched all of your videos, but intentionally didn't touch that one. And, for my surprise, and kind of a pride, our viewpoints are almost exactly alike.

Haven't started playing Bioshock 2 yet, but I'm not really looking forward to it.
I don't know, it feels more like an obligation rather than something to enjoy…
I agree with you that the first game (and this one, presumably) felt at odds being
an FPS. And it had the worst last boss in a mainstream game, that I can remember.
However, Rapture itself is a marvel of game design.
Art Deco is my favorite architectural style, and I'd gladly walk around the game even if it
was empty of splicers, just to admire the look of it all.
Alas, you have to deal with the horrible little brats and their bubble tin men!
I normally don't like strangling children (of course!), but I find these monsters sooo annoying, that
I “harvested” every single one. And I expect to do the same playing the sequel.

“Mr. Bubbles!” Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!

Just finished to Bioshock 2 and although it was slow getitng started the final few hours were REALLY compelling. It sucks that it took so long to take off but once it did I really dug it. Its a sort of the reverse of the first Bioshock which started off very strong but started to run out of gas by the end. Also the ending of this game is WAY better than the first Bioshock and your choices do have some real consequences to how it plays out. Its just a damn shame that it takes so long to get there.

omg is that really a Great Teacher Onizuka shirt I knew you were amazing but you just got that much more cool points from me if so.

I agree with System Shock 2. I miss it too!

I rather like Bioshock 2, but I do agree that it is too action oriented. Not to get all 'consoles suck!' but a good amount of the target audience have rather short attention spans, and Modern Warfare 2 is a perfect example of how the action intensification of games has become more important than the immersion – as Spoony says, it became a Michael Bay film.

Actually spoony, there is one thing different about (strangle child, do not strangle child) in the first one. The endings are different, well at least mostly different. Also, you talked about the incinerate plasmid and things being the cause for anarchy, well actually, according to the game, the plasmids were sold like guns for home defense, and, a video for incinerate does suggest using it to light a candle.

I'm avoiding Bioshock 2 for two reasons: one, I never really landed the first one and am playing through it now; two, like you said, it really didn't show improvement over the first. I believe that the original developers weren't involved in this game (Irrational Games) and it clearly suffered for it. In my opinion, what really made Bioshock worthwhile was the art and design of it. Without the original team involved I think 2K was at a loss at what to do and simply patched the first one with a few additions.

Kind of a bummer.

@KagatoAsuka ME2 plays a bit more like a RPG version of Gears of War. That being said, I'm a Mass Effect junkie so maybe worth ignoring. Could be worth a rent.

Great comments, Spoony. I for one haven't picked up ME II yet, but look forward to getting it next paycheck or two.

I was very glad to hear your thoughts on Bioshock II as well. I liked the original, but agree the gameplay was just to “twitchy” for a so-called 'successor' to the System Shock series. Oh well…at least the atmosphere was cool. Not cool enough to spend $50-60 on a 'more of the same' sequel, but I still enjoy breaking out the original from time to time.

Don't think you need to post a review on the same day the game appears! Dude, I haven't finished ME1. People want to keep talking about, and hearing about, these games even months afterwards. Let your thoughts settle, and the hits will come.

Keep being awesome, my man.

It may be off-topic… But I seemed to remember one of your retrospect on the original System Shock, and you said that playing it nowadays is like driving a tank, since you can only move around using the keyboard.

Someone has made a mod which enables mouselook in the original System Shock. http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php?topic…
This made an already good game about 10 times better in my opinion.

how can you enjoy ff13? I mean I can understand God of War 3, I've accepted that no matter how much that game ruins gaming as a whole there will still be idots who think it to be a good game. But Final Fantasy 13! That game was so bad I had to sell it back for fear of the mass returns would rob me of any trade-in price. Bioshock 2 I won't comment on (since I have played neither 1 nore 2) but mass effect 2, while it is more fun to kill things in, they pulled the same bullshit as Kotor 2 by making a game that requires more disc, looks better, plays better, but has half the content of the first! and why does everyone bag on the mako? I love the mako! going down, exploring worlds really made the game come alive for me. And the upgrade-ability was amazing. Now you get like 2 of each weapon. 2 are you fucking kidding me! 2! am I the only one who misses the variety of the first! If they do one thing for 3, they better bring back the weapon diversity, cause 2 was just plain sad.

I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking when I originally wrote that about FF13. I don't blame you for getting rid of it while you could still get more then $10 in credit, luckily I got it through Gamefly. I realize now that I was sort of forcing myself to “eat shit with a smile”. After the game began to make me feel dirty like with scenes where Snow was making out with a girl who looked 12, and Sazh pulling pedophile BS I had to start skipping the cinematics. Finally my only motivation to keep playing was the hope that Rain would die a painful death, but once I realized how stupid that was I sent back that piece of shit. I'll just pretend that I finished the game, an the ending involved Lightning, and that bird in Sazh's hair systematically killing all the other characters for being either FUCKING LAME, or WHINY PUSSIES! Rain accomplished the impossible by making the Twilight series look butch in comparison.

I just couldn’t get into Bioshock 2, I’ve had the game installed for months but I haven’t even reached the first boss. It just didn’t bring anything new that I could grab onto. Bioshock 1 though, I could start a new game right now and play it for hours.

Spoony’s right though, Bioshock shouldn’t be an action FPS. There’s tons of potential for an exploration/horror/rpg with the unique setting that is Rapture. The devs should let us really explore the world they created.

My roommate loves Bioshock 1 and 2 but none of the “scary” parts were scary, and none of the bigger enemies seemed to be that big and bad. Maybe I have played too much WoW but if I can methodically take on all the enemies in the game and essentially line of sight and circle strafe them I’m not going to be impressed.

I’m a bit disappointed in Mass Effect 2. Your forced to work for this asshole that brought you back to life just to be his slave…sure it’s suppose to be for the greater good, but thats bull shit! You can’t even go into rooms on the ship until the AI says you can! It’s like playing a slave it’s very emasculating! It pidgin holes your chooses to much. I was waiting for the option to tell them all to go to hell and just not play the game that way, but it never came.
T_T

GTO!!!!!!!

I’m a Bioware kind of guy myself. Mass Effect 1 & 2 are my favorite games of all time. I played the first one at a friend’s house and fell in love. I love Mass Effect 2. I cannot wait for Mass Effect 3. I always went Paragon myself but to each his own.

i honestly didn’t like bioshock 2, it just didn’t do it for me.

Bioshock 2 = that boring escort section from the first game repeated umpteen times.