I played BioShock about a year ago for the first time after purchasing it for $5. It was part of a big week long sale that steam was having Christmas week. I started playing immediately and to my surprise, I discovered that everything the critics had said was correct! It truly was an amazing game. A perfect blend of story and gameplay. All of the “scary” moments were truly scary and you felt for the characters and world they lived in. I’ve played a lot of games in my life and I can tell when something special hits the market. BioShock was special.

It was without hesitation that I preordered BioShock 2 on Amazon three months before it was to be released. I was well aware of all of the circumstances – no Ken Levine (creator of the first game), looks mostly like BioShock 1, etc… I took the chance anyway because I figured it was in capable enough hands to receive a fair enough treatment.  All of the screenshots, videos, and articles I’d seen and read, looked good enough for me. That footage of the big sister ripping apart a giant glass window and the rush of water flooding the ballroom you were standing in, just blew me away! I had to experience that first hand. If all I got was an “expansion pack” I’d be happy so long as its quality was equal to that of the first game.

Early February hits and the game arrives. I quickly tear into it and get it installed (I ordered the PC version). It takes me about 2 weeks to get thought the single player campaign on normal difficulty (hey, I work 40 hours a week and have a child too). I end up getting every single player achievement (ok, mostly every achievement) and I scour the levels for every item and secret. I finish the game with a “good” ending (take note that there are around 6 different endings depending upon what choices you make throughout the game).

So I beat the game. In all it was a good experience. The point of this review is not to cover what other competent reviewers have already covered in better detail – what’s it about, is it good? I’ll leave those questions to IGN, GameSpot, and all of the other endless game sites to answer.  Most importantly, It’s really up to you, the player, to decide whether or not you like a game. What I want to discuss is the “after game experience”, as I call it, the questions and thoughts that linger in your head long after you’ve put down the controller or shut off the PC. It’s been a week since I’ve beaten BioShock 2 and I’ve still got questions.

Now, for those of you who are spoiler sensitive and haven’t beaten either game, you may want to steer clear of this review. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, I have  not spend much time searching forums for any of these answers either. If you, the reader, care to put me in my place, then certainly do so in our comments section.

First, let’s figure out the time line of BioShock. Rapture was built around the 30’s and 40’s somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. For a city that’s built underwater, it sure was put together rather quickly. How long did it take New York City to become a grand metropolis? Rapture sure looks about the same size as New York City. Let’s say that construction started in 1935. We know everything goes crazy on New Year ’s Eve, 1959. That’s 25 years later. Ok, I’ll buy that, but when you throw in the fact that the whole city was built underwater, 25 years looks less than a little generous.

The first game takes place sometime after 1959. 1960, ’61, ’62? I don’t think the first game gives you an exact time. We can assume it’s no later than a year or two after 1959. The splicers are in full force. The big daddies and little sisters are still going about their business gathering ADAM as if nothing ever happened. Rapture is in “fresh” ruins – that is to say, fires still burn, power is still on, and machinery still works. Also, the whole place isn’t flooded which is what you would have expected from a bunch of homicidal maniacs running amok.

It’s no secret that BioShock 2 starts 10 years later. Later from what - 1959, 1958, ‘57, ’56? Let’s assume that it’s 1959. That would make the year 1969. The summer of love. While hippies prance around on the surface, splicers scrounge around for food underwater. While troops are sent to Vietnam topside, you are sent on a mission to find you little sister. While the United States make first contact on the moon, you are stuck at the bottom of the ocean.

One distinct element of the BioShock games it that while changes happen on the surface, time stands still in Rapture. You’re still hearing jazz from the 30’s and 40’s. Women still dress like flappers. Phrases like, “peace, brother” and “chill out, man” are nowhere to be found. As a matter of fact, those phrases should be removed from every game today. Praise should be given to the developers for sticking to this as it adds to the uncertainty of the date.

Next, let’s look at the splicers. They are called splicers because they have “spliced” their genes with so much with ADAM that they’ve become disfigured, homicidal monsters prowling the grounds of Rapture. They have no care for their physical or mental well being. They don’t care for others. They search for ADAM and the little sisters who gather and refine it from the corpses that litter the endless corridors and hallways of the decrepit city. It’s interesting to see them interact with each other. They have conversations. They barter with each other in some primitive form. They also work together to put an end to you in a firefight. Perhaps the third BioShock game should put you in the shoes of a splicer.

Now, it’s easily to look at the splicers from the first game and imagine how they came to the place where they are now. Too much ADAM has mutated their bodies into horrors straight out of a John Carpenter movie. They have lost their mind and cannot reason very well. They see you, an outsider, and attack on sight. Add to the fact that your character always carries around some ADAM, and you instantly become target numero uno.

But let’s look at the splicers outside of your presence. How do they live? Well, they are much like the homeless people you find out in the street – just a little more… violent. They walk around the city aimlessly; they search the rubble for “food” and ADAM? I put the word food in quotations because I question their need for food. Do they need food? Is the ADAM in their system enough to sustain them indefinitely? Why do I ask this? Well, splicers don’t seem to have a very strong work ethic. You never see them looking to improve their lives. They don’t seem to have any interest with the surface or bringing down supplies. Even if they had enough food and water to last them 100 lifetimes, they don’t seem to be organized enough to distribute them among the other splicers. My question is, why haven’t they starved to death already?

Ok, let’s go with the theory that the ADAM is keeping them alive. In the first game it’s 2 years later (once again being generous) and they’ve become the monsters that they are. BioShock 2 takes place 10 years later. After such a long duration, that ADAM’s gotta’ start wearing thin. In 10 years time,  they either have to start dying out, or evolving further into unimaginable monstrosities. The splicers in BioShock 2 look exactly the same as the ones from BioShock 1. Their minds function and reason the same as in the previous game. Even their clothes are just as torn and ripped as in the first game. Just imagine a homeless lady today, wearing nothing but a lace mini skirt for the last 10 years. I guarantee you; the skirt isn’t going to last more than 1 year. Then again, who wants to see mutated, naked splicers attacking you from all angles so I’ll give the developers a PASS this time, but still it makes you wonder.

My first hope, before I started playing the game, was that the splicers would have mutated further – think Dead Space. Instead they threw in a brute. Whoop-de-doo. That diversity was great, but it didn’t create the “fear” that was so forbearing from the first game. Add the fact that you were already a big daddy to begin with (although a very weak one) and there was no reason for you to be afraid of the splicers in any form. Again, another disappointment. The game was still fun to play despite these shortcomings.

Finally, I want to discuss the reason for Rapture’s existence in the first place. In the first game, Andrew Ryan is portrayed as a fighter for the people. Rapture is his vision built upon the backs of men and women looking for a better life. Only in Rapture are you free from political, economic, and religious persecution. Everything that you create in Rapture is yours to enjoy and share with others. Morality and ethnics are thrown out the window in favor of human progress and research. On paper, this looks good, but as we learn throughout the course of the game, it only leads to disaster.

We know that Frank Fontane and Andrew Ryan had a falling out sometime before 1959. Frank was a smuggler from the surface who originally brought supplies down to rapture. Eventually he started bringing in propaganda and weapons. Frank Fontane became so powerful in Rapture that his status soon threatened Ryan’s. Ryan wanted his town to be clean and equal. Fontane wanted to give people what they wanted whether it was drugs, women, booze, or even Bibles (yes, Bibles, were banned in Rapture). The two butted heads, the citizens were forced to choose sides and war broke out.

Now, the lesson learned here is that evil will always penetrate the heart of man. Even in a Utopian society, corruption will rear its ugly head. Andrew’s Ryan’s goal was to build a perfect world where no one would long for status. Everything that you created in Rapture was yours to own. The world was yours, but for some, world was not enough.

Today in America we seek more government intervention in our heath care, retirement, and general happiness. Why should the wealthy and popular be treated better than the poor man? Are we not all created equal? What’s interesting to note is that Rapture is not the perfect utopia, America is. Do we not ask the government to help us pay off our home loans to houses which we never should have bought in the first place? Do we not raise our voice because of the pollution in the world while we toss plastic food containers into the street and drive around in our overpriced, gas wasting SUVs? We have created our own utopia here on surface we just can’t see it because we’re too busy talking on our cell phones while we cut off other drivers on the highway of life.

If only we would take the time to notice the existence of one another; help people out; think about the consequences of our actions, there would be no need to create a“Rapture”. We would be living on the most perfect Utopian society ever imagined. It would be a world without suffering, without wanting and all of our needs would be fulfilled. Our only desire would be to serve others unconditionally and we would find that we would be taken care of as well. Government wouldn’t be our enemy, religion wouldn’t be our crutch, and finances wouldn’t be our worries. We would be free to live our lives by helping others live theirs. Now, this kind of society can’t be enforced. It must come from within each and every individual. We must all be willing to sacrifice a little bit of ourselves in order to make room for the prosperity of others. BioShock is just a game, but every great piece of art has a message. This is the message that I got out of it.

Since the SC2 beta NDA has been lifted, there will probably be a lot of talk about what’s going on in the beta.  Here are my opinions:

After downloading and launching the game, I was prompted to create a character.  It was interesting because it made it feel like a RPG.  The first.last naming scheme was weird though and I didn’t really understand the concept.  It said the second part of the name is used to identify the user in the event that the first part of the name is the same as another user.  That’s a good idea, but the first couple of times when I was trying to come up with the first part of my name, it said it was already taken.  So I don’t understand what the second part is for.  Maybe it’s a bug.

After creating my character and logging in, I was surprised by how different the Battle.net interface looked.  I’ve seen some screenshots of it at BlizzCon 2009, but didn’t remember much of it after they finally started SC2 beta.  The interface looked a lot better than the old Battle.net.  The space theme is awesome, and it almost felt like I was already playing a game even though it was only Battle.net.  When I first saw the Starcraft 2 website, I loved how it was almost all Flash.  So it was cool to see how Battle.net looked similar to that.

Another cool thing about the new Battle.net is the background.  It isn’t just a static background like the old Battle.net.  There is a rotating planet, with stars in the background, and sometimes a battlecruiser would pass by.  The concept is like the splash screen for Wrath of the Lich King, but in space.  The graphics of that space background looks as good as a cinematic.

One of the complaints so far is that there aren’t any chat channels like in the old Battle.net.  After logging in, you kind of feel alone and are playing a single-player game.  You basically only have your friends list to see who’s online.  I’m sure this will change as the beta progresses toward its final stages because they redesigned Battle.net entirely to be a social network.

So I finally get around to creating a game.  I usually don’t like playing against other players, so I only played against the AI so far.  I selected a map, clicked create, and it started downloading the map.  This was neat because I was expecting all the maps to be included with the client.  The cool thing about this is that we can download maps in the game directly without having someone with the map to host a game just so someone can download the map.  Although all the maps available so far are official Blizzard maps, I imagine that they will also have something similar for user created maps.  I remember how annoying it was to play custom maps with the old Battle.net.  Some people would say that you’d have to have the map already downloaded to join.  Other times, someone would join and download the map, the game would start with the countdown running, and then the person would leave, resulting in an unbalanced match.  Sometimes it took several recreates of the map just to be able to play it.  So I’m hoping Blizzard did something about that.

After downloading the map, it would take me to the lobby where I could either make it public or add some AI players.  I added an AI to go against and clicked the button to start the game.  The countdown is little buggy but really minor since everything else seemed to be working really well for a beta.

After going into the game itself, I was surprised to see how similar to Starcraft 1 it was.  I felt like I already knew how to play.  They made a lot of changes, but the actual gameplay felt familiar.  I don’t remember exactly how the graphics looked in SC 1, but the graphics here are great.  For the sound, I personally like the sound effects from SC 1 better.  I haven’t played SC 1 in years, but I’m surprised I still remember what it sounds like.  The music, however, is better in SC 2, though I feel there needs to be more tracks.

After playing against the AI some, I got bored because the only difficulty level available so far is Very Easy.  I could literally take a few units to the enemy base and win.  Though this is probably done in the early part of beta to encourage more human vs. human, I wish they would have at least put it up to Normal difficulty.

It seems they also took out a lot of tech and upgrades.  I’m hoping that for the release of the game there will be more.  If not, that just means more room for the expansions.

The thing I enjoy most about Starcraft is the single-player campaigns.  So since the SC 2 beta is aimed mostly at the multi-player aspects of the game, I understand why I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.  The game itself has a lot of potential, and Blizzard has yet to fail at creating a game I enjoyed.  From the first looks at the single-player at BlizzCon, it looks like something I’m really going to enjoy.  By the time SC 2 is officially released, I’m sure they would have made a lot of changes, especially to the balance of the races.  It will be interesting to see Battle.net and SC 2 at its full potential.  I also look forward to seeing what custom maps will be made because I spent a lot of time playing those in SC 1.  Surprisingly, the beta is really smooth with minimal bugs.  It almost feels like a release rather than a beta.

Before I started playing Mass Effect 2, I hadn’t really read much about it.  I thought it was going to be similar to Mass Effect 1, but it turned out to be a lot different.

I got my copy of the game the morning of release date and was excited to get started.  I soon found out that my Cerberus code didn’t work and gave me the collector’s edition DLC instead, which I already entered too.  So I went on the forums and found out I wasn’t the only person with this problem.  Everyone with retail copies of the collector’s edition had this problem.  I didn’t want to start the game without the DLC stuff so I waited all day for Bioware to fix it.  They eventually did that evening.

When I started playing, the first thing I noticed, besides the awesome graphics, was that the mouse sensitivity was very high.  Lowering the setting did nothing.  So I just went with it and eventually got use to it.  Another thing I noticed was that weapons and armor weren’t as customizable as the first Mass Effect.  I wasn’t able to add enhancements or modifications to my weapons and armor like Mass Effect 1.  They also started using thermal clips instead of unlimited ammo with a heat meter.  All this made it feel more like a regular shooter rather than an RPG, especially with the mission summary screen after every mission.

They also took out the landing on planets with a vehicle to explore (though the DLC for the Hammerhead should be interesting) and instead added this planet scanning minigame.  It was fun at first, but was really repetitive and got boring after a while.  The planets that you could land on to do missions on foot were really short.  I wanted more action.

After beating the game, I realized that even though they took out a lot of the things I liked from the first Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 is still a really good game.  They made things a lot more simple and more of a pick up and play type game rather than having to spend a lot of time customizing to get ready for a mission.  One of the good things about the lack of customizing weapons and separate gear for your team is that you don’t have to worry about inventory space.  I was constantly running out of space carrying all that armor and enhancements in the first Mass Effect.  I went through Mass Effect 2 as a soldier on normal difficulty the first time.  I’m going to replay it on insanity later when more DLC comes out.  I usually play shooters on the hardest difficulty after I beat it the first time and it’s usually a lot more fun on hard.

I didn’t know Mass Effect was a planned trilogy from the beginning, so I didn’t get my Mass Effect 1 character to max level.  I imported what I finished with anyway because I wanted the story to continue from where I left off.  On my playthrough, I only ran into a few minor bugs, including my character sometimes floating in the air when I got too close to some objects.  None of them rendered the game unplayable though.  There was also one part where someone saluted me with their left hand instead of their right.  Not sure if that was intentional or not.

Mass Effect 2 turned out to be a lot of fun, though there is always room for improvement.  The graphics were great.  The music, sound, story, character variety were all great too.  I only played Mass Effect 1 once, but after playing Mass Effect 2, I actually feel like replaying it.  When I do, I know I’ll have a lot more fun than the first time.  I look forward to seeing what Bioware has in store for us in the future with DLC’s.