I don’t like “the story” in Bioshock 2. So, I’m making up my own story, for the purposes of enjoying the game’s gameplay offerings unhindered. The story of Bioshock 2 is now that of a Big Daddy, one of the lumbering speechless antagonists of the first game, freed from a lifeless existence of doting on a little sisters, now on a joyful quest for booze, cigarettes, and cash.

Why don’t I like the story? Well, as is only typical of my writing of articles when, and only when, I have something about which to bitch, I’ll tell you. Ever hear the phrase “A story is only as good as its villain?” Well, the antagonist in Bioshock 2 is hollow – an uber-communist, and diametric opposite of Andrew Ryan’s uber-libertarian – and not a character in her own right, as Andrew Ryan was; everything she is is propped up by what he was – she’s just a bad parody.

2K Marin would have better served us had they resurrected Ryan as some horrific ultra-libertarian-cyborg juiced up on adam rather than offer up this pathetic anti-Ryan that we must endure in Bioshock 2. Yeah, I know, cyber-resurrection isn’t all that realistic, considering the ’50s time-frame in which the game takes place, but we’re dealing with a setting in which the protagonist is able to shoot bees, which emerge from little holes in his forearm, at his foes – let’s not tie our hands with realism. Hell, Ryan could’ve just made his return via vita-chamber; no cybernetics or DNA-altering required – you know, like the first game’s protagonist did HUNDREDS OF TIMES (if you managed to die hundreds of times.)

To be fair, this new development team that worked on Bioshock 2 (there was a team-switch, in case you didn’t know) couldn’t have topped Ryan. However, they could’ve went in a different direction rather then back to the ideological-extremist well. I like the first game but I played it already; if I wanted to play it again, I would do so and not play a sequel that could very easily have been released as an expansion or downloadable content.

I won’t spoil the rest story for you. I don’t like it. It sucks. The end. I will say, though, that there isn’t a whole lot to spoil. The gameplay is very solid however. I won’t go very much into it because, if you played the first game as I’m sure most of you reading this did, you probably have the cognitive capacity with which to imagine what it’s like to play as a very large man wearing an old-school diving suit who punches people with a massive drill and shoots rivets at folks who piss him off. Hell, you were probably the victim of much drill-punching and rivet-shooting whilst playing the first game – that is until you figured out, as I did, that you can kill a Big Daddy fairly easily by tripping his bulky ass down a flight of stairs using the oh-so-fun crossbow and electric-trip-wire bolts, after, of course, lighting him on fire and electrocuting him – man these guys had it rough, come to think of it.

Some other minor complaints of mine are that they took out a few of the things that gave the game some personality: no more pipe-hacking, no clowns celebrating your usage of the item vending machine, no Mexican-bandit-themed sound effects at the ammo vending machines. However, some of the cool new things like plasmid combos, the ability to lay down turrets, and the ability to drill the hell out of splicers, do some to make up for what’s missing; there’s also multiplayer, which I have not tried yet.

Buy? Rent? Destroy?

Rent this mutha’. Unless you have a hankerin’ for some plasmid-shootin’, punk-drillin’ multiplayer; in which case, buy it if you feel that aspect of the game may have some longevity.

Magic, and gun toting hot chicks in skimpy outfits? No thanks, I’ve gone out on that limb and gave that genre a shot before, and swore to myself: never again. But the early reviews claiming the fast paced, revolutionary combat and style had convinced me to give it a shot.

I didn’t even make it through the opening credits without asking myself what I had gotten into. The Japanese pop music and the emo-Laura-Croft, break dancing with guns on her feet, was enough to make me crank down the surround sound and nervously glance around the room for anyone who may be nearby.

Once I had gotten through the ridiculously cheesy dialogue and opening credits, I found that the game picks up the pace and throws you into some heavy combat. From there out, my experience with the game did a 180.

Combat is fast… I mean, REAL fast. It requires one to sync and execute quickly paced melee combos and gunfire, while throwing magics into the mix when possible. The game features an awesome counter-attack system where perfectly timing your dodges from enemy blows activates WitchTime, an ability that slows down the speed of the combat to a crawl for the player to unleash devastating combos and finishers that would not normally be possible in real time.

After the first few chapters and the ‘getting started’ tutorials, the game starts to show its true colors in its difficulty. To get right down to it, the game is very tricky if not downright skull-fucking-ly hard. It’s a game that seems to throw as many boss battles at the player as it does regular combat set-pieces. There were several times where I was pitted against an incredibly tough boss, who after some time I would eventually vanquish, then turn the corner and BAM! Guess what? You get to fight that same boss again, but to make it interesting the game will force you to fight two of them simultaneously. After which, I would then sit back to enjoy what I would assume would be a few puzzle sections or minion combats to build up suspense again. Nope… the beginning of the next chapter would start me off with another boss fight against a two-headed dragon with a cherub’s face for a belly.

The control scheme is well done. Although for some reason when you start the game off, the camera sensitivity is set to the slowest setting possible. You’ll need this cranked up close to high as possible within comfort, as you will frequently need to spin camera angles to assess all the archangels closing in on you. You also have a vast multitude of combos available right off the bat, many requiring the perfection of timing to execute correctly.

One quirk that often got on my nerves, at times, was the less than intuitive moments that left me saying: “Well how in the hell was I suppose to know that?”. I’m talking about the boss fights that were chuck full of one-hit kills, or the climatic scenes after big battles where the game expectantly demands that I press square or spin the left analog stick in the 1.2 second time frame it gives me, or I’m crushed by a falling building or washed over by a wave of lava. By no means do I want my games to hold my hand through that kind of shit-storm , but the game auto-saves after every time you die, thus reflecting poorly on your overall score.

Tim’s Final Say

I had a real hard time getting over the ridiculous music and voice acting.  Then it clicked with me, how someone with similar tastes to myself enjoys a game like this. It needs to be looked at as a comedy. It is so outrageously cheesy that you can’t help but laugh at it.

Would I recommend, to a friend, to go out and buy this game? Ehh… no, not really. Not at $65. Would I recommend that they borrow it from me and play it? Absolutely. I would tell them to skip the cut scenes, and enjoy the game for what it is: a challenging and fast paced hack n’ slash with some nice visuals and occasional animated eye candy. Ignore the voice acting, plot, and Japanese pop music, and you’ll find that Bayonetta is a very fluid and well put together action game.

Alright, collaborate and listen to me talk about Champions Online. My brother and I got into the beta but that wasn’t the end of it. Remember how you were all happy when Mount Doom exploded at the end of Return of the King and then you were all like ‘wait…what happened to Mister Frodo and Sam?’. That’s kinda how the beta was. I pre-ordered the game, got the key and everything, downloaded the client, and everything was free and clear! Then I had to patch the game and let me tell you, I’d rather be shot in the leg than go through that again. I won’t delve into the innumerable amounts of problems the patcher had but it mostly consisted of a folder mix-up leading to a 3.6 GB download just for the patch and a constantly failing patch server leading to disconnect after disconnect. So let me lay it down for you, really long day of intermittent success that ended at 3 in the morning with an up and ready game to play. But, by that time I didn’t feel like playing.

Then tomorrow came. I woke up at the crack of noon and rolled out of bed to play Champions. It was all fun, the best part of course being character creation. There are tons of costume pieces, maybe even more than City of Heroes (Cryptic’s last venture into super hero MMOs) and you don’t have to wait 20 levels to get a cape! But I didn’t make a cape guy despite my elation, I made a bad ass robot who shoots equally bad ass bolts of energy and has a shoulder-mounted mini-gun. He’s that big billy bad ass at the top of the post. So I did a run through of the opening scenario and the desert zone that follows. I picked up the jet boots flight power, which is cool if you don’t mind the bad maneuverability. Then I made some triflin’ witch doctor bastard with a skull head.

I gave him a mix of the magic and supernatural power sets which turned out really good and thematic. I picked up earth flight with him, its pretty self explanatory. You fly around on a hunk of whatever you were standing on at the time, you do it in the city you’ll get a rebar-filled concrete chunk, and if you’re in Canada you’ll fly on a snowy chunk of stone. And then, as I told my friends I would, I made Broly.

You might not know him, so if you don’t I’ll just throw this explanation at you: 350 lbs. of shit your pants flying at Mach 4 shooting energy balls that destroy planets. Surprisingly, it worked out well. They had all the pieces necessary to make him and if they didn’t I found something real close to it. The ability to customize the color of your powers (and where they shoot from, for some) make making original guys a possibility.

The only problem I found through all my character creating adventures (minus the expected beta bugs) was taste-based. I’m not a Silver Age comics guy, I’m more of an Ultimates guy, where Hulk gets to eat people. So, obviously, I was a bit disappointed when I walked through fields of campy dialogue, enemies, and villains. It’s made bearable by the bad ass game play but if you like Silver Age stuff. you’ll love this game. In my honest opinion, I like the cast of villains and heroes for City of Heroes/Villains better.

The game comes out September 1st, pre-order customers get a head start (myself) and you should buy it if you like comics or superheroes in general. This game gets my GOOD stamp.

At Sony’s GamesCon 2009 press conference, CEO Kaz Hirai unveiled their not-so-well-kept secret PS3 Slim, set to hit the consumer market here in September. The console is roughly 2/3 the size and weight of the current PS3, and features 1/3 less power consumption. The slim will hit the market in two models, an 80GB HD and a 120GB HD.

Defiantly the best new of all though is that it will be featured as the cheapest PS3 to date, at a measly $299 USD (both the 80GB and the 120GB). Of course I’m at a lose as to who this surprises. Of course Sony needed to have a comeback to Microsoft’s 360 price drop. (Actually i believe retailers made the drop in price already once this news hit the insiders)

I for one think that it is about time. We have been WAY over due for some significant console price drops for a long time now. If I may be so bold as to stand up on my soapbox for a few words here, the source of profit in the game industry is simple: Video game titles are your profit! It’s that simple. Stop trying to profit on console sales! If John Doe can’t afford your console, how many games do you think he is going to buy? And it’s rough enough out there with big hit titles being released at $60 a pop. Think about it, anyone who is willing and able to spend $300-$400 on a console would have done so by now. Drop the price of the hardware so that lower income gamers can afford it, and BAM! You just hit a whole other economic demographic of gamers to sell software titles to. You take a small hit on console revenue, but the increase in sales should make up for that, plus you are now selling more games. Win-Win for everyone.