come down to the sea bioshock 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're curious, a number of previews including a hands-on with parts of the game have already posted, as well as impressions of the all-new multiplayer component. To get more detail and perspective on what's going on, I talked with 2K Marin's Jordan Thomas, who's serving as the creative director on the return to Rapture.
After playing part of the single-player game, I was glad to see that even though Lamb was introduced and the time period was shifted forward, Andrew Ryan wasn't totally erased from the world of Rapture. "Ken and the guys at 2K Boston and 2K Australia built an amazing setting in Rapture," said Thomas. "When I was out there I was struck by how much detail they wanted in the characters and the setting and they painted the walls with story. In BioShock 2, we are in that setting. Andrew Ryan will always be part of Rapture. He is critical to knowing why the place exists. While he is no longer the villain -- he is the guy whose philosophy our new villain is in contrast to. He would have hated seeing what she's done with the place. He believed very much in rational self-interest, and she's all about self-sacrifice. Dr. Sophia Lamb was a political enemy of Ryan's. Basically you hear Ryan's feelings about her as you go through the game. On top of all that, there's the level Ryan Amusements, which is very much about Ryan and a crash course in why he built that city and why he's willing to terrify children out of going to the surface and spoiling the secret."

Thomas went into more detail on how Lamb's character was created, and how that fits in with the game's themes and setting. "We like to think of Rapture as a place where good ideas go bad. Because we have seen where self-interest -- utopian self-interest where you just labor in your own aims and somehow you're supposed to drive progress and everybody leaves everybody alone, no laws, right? -- we've seen what happened when in this new moral context, what unfettered self-interest led to. With a new villain we want a fresh topic, a new school of thought, and to take that indictment of extremism and give it a new shape. Beyond that, I found the background of the philosopher John Stuart Mill totally chilling. I've been interested in him since I was very young. His father isolated him from other children, specifically to turn him into a vehicle for his philosophy. He wanted to groom him into a genius level intellect. Dr. Sophia Lamb, our villain, comes out of that kind of background, and you see a lot of effects of her rather cold attitude toward morality over the course of the game."
"Her ethos is summarized by 'make the world your family.' She says 'you owe your loyalty to the world at large regardless of who shares blood with you.' And as a result she kind of has to choose between hundreds of her children at a time and it makes her more and more liable to see people like numbers and you see the results of that as you play the game."
To better establish her ideas in Rapture, Lamb uses religion, something that wasn't allowed under Ryan's rule. "Sophia Lamb saw an opportunity to promote her philosophy through the guise of faith and so, very much like Jim Jones, the founder of Jonestown, she really built this to promote her collectivist philosophy and to recruit the splicers who were crying out for some sort of external force to help them as Rapture fell."

This type of narrative development trickles down into the types of encounters you can expect to experience while playing through. "The splicers are divided in two different ways. On the mechanical side, you've got the old generation splicers who are way tougher than anything you faced in BioShock 1…Rapture is much more dangerous because of those first-generation guys who have been splicing ever since. Then there are the newbies who've just gotten their first taste of Adam who survived or came from somewhere else, and those guys are just beginning to fall. Now they're also separated ideologically. There's the Rapture family who follows Sophia Lamb and who basically get their Adam distributed on the drip evenly between the people. And then there are the rogue splicers who have fallen off the wagon and who don't work with Lamb and will hunt down Little Sisters on their own and for whom the Big Sisters were created to hunt."
On the subject of Big Sisters, there will be multiple versions of them, created to hunt down those who would take Adam for themselves. "The story character we were originally talking about for the Big Sister still exists in a different form. She's kind of refracted out into a bunch of different incarnations, and I don't want to spoil too much, but the soul of that character still exists in the fiction."

Beyond new villains and adversaries, a number of other factors are being built into the setting. "The environments are pretty radically different. As you go deeper and deeper into the game, they go from something like Ryan Amusements to a very different take on paradise. And all of the Adam that's in the ocean has started to seep in and affect the sea life, and so you'll see the result of that as well as you find areas that have been reclaimed by the sea. In terms of the tone of fear, as a Big Daddy there are lots of things in Rapture 10 years later that can destroy you. The Rapture in BioShock 2 is much meaner. For me, anyway, BioShock is as much tragedy as it is any kind of ghost story or tale of fear. What I'm targeting is more of a kind of moral horror, that as a Big Daddy with free will you're very different from Jack in BioShock 1 and we want to celebrate that free will and hopefully get you to look at your responsibility and have a moment of chilled introspection."
That type of experience ties in with one of the franchise's most unique relationships, that between the Big Daddy, a Little Sister, and the player, which of course in this case is also a Big Daddy. Instead of saving or harvesting the Little Sisters, you now have the option to adopt them. "Over the course of the game, the player really does decide whether his relationship with the Little Sisters is going to take one tone or another starting from the father trust that they afford him…In some ways, in a very broad way, the themes are participatory and you're going to take something away from it different from somebody else because you're the player and subjectively you live in the white space, as far as I'm concerned. Family is a big meta layer, a touchstone that we've been using to define much of the player's potential for moral horror and potential for redemption."
Among the many things new in the story mode is the hacking mechanic, which is now a simple twitch mini-game that can be initiated from afar where you try and stop a moving cursor as it moves back and forth across a gauge. This mini-game operates in real-time, so you won't experience the pausing effect of the first game's pipe-matching mini-game, which has been taken out. "We are targeting maximum immersion, I suppose, as the mechanics and narrative, working together, create a sense of cogency, of a believable world. The hacking mini-game [pipe-matching from BioShock 1] tended to take people way out of the action and it also prevented them from taking the kinds of risks that we wanted them to if they were going to hack a turret or a security robot in the middle of a fight. That started by making it possible to [hack] from a distance…Having it not pause the simulation and changing the nature of the mini-game followed naturally from the kinds of interactions we wanted you to have with that system. You can now heal your bots, you can get bonuses if you end up in the blue zone [based on where you stop the cursor], we wanted you to be able to do that fluidly. Same thing with dual wielding. We're trying to let you shape your own play style, but we always wanted to come back to that live play, essentially right back to the immersive action."

Thomas responded to comments that the playable sections at press events of BioShock 2 so far feel more focused on action than exploration. Was it just because of the way the demo area was constructed, or is that more representative of the game as a whole? "You control the number of Big Sister fights and Big Daddy fights that you engage in, so that really comes down to you, how much combat you want, how often you want to be tested. There are still many, many splicers in the world and you will have to fight through them to make progress, but the tone of the thing changes often. There are long, slow, empty, scary sequences, and there are much more intense battles that basically test all your powers as a Big Daddy. BioShock, I think, is the place where the player decides to roll his own shooter experience. You can really alter how it feels to play."
Thomas explained how content included in BioShock 2 allows for that. "It's very
important to us that you're aware of the choices and that there is a very demonstrable consequence of those choices. It lives right there on the screen, so that you can decide to tune it or take a different option next time if you want. The other thing that we have to be careful with is BioShock tone. Obviously there are other [intellectual properties] that overlap somewhat with BioShock, but there is a very unique kind of 40s vibe as opposed to other time periods. That idealism coupled with a post-war fear is very important to us. There are encounters and characters that wouldn't fit in Rapture and would be great in another game, and so we have to very carefully cull the ones that don't belong."
It won't be long until we see what 2K Marin's been working on ourselves, since BioShock 2 will be out in just about two months; February 9th, 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC platforms

It's admittedly still a little odd to think of BioShock as a multiplayer experience
considering such a component wasn't part of the original, but it's being presented as a significant piece of the upcoming sequel. Instead of just tossing together a few deathmatch modes, the suite appears to be packed with features, including a progressive level up system, character customization, and game mechanics tailored to the BioShock universe.
As you probably know if you've been following along, in BioShock 2 you play as a Big Daddy. Well, that's not something that carries over into its online sections. Instead, the setting for the multiplayer part of the game is a time period even before the events of the first game, when people were running rampant in Rapture and genetically modifying themselves with little to no regard for personal safety. You can pick a character model (a welder, a housewife, a football player, and more) and then pick and choose which weapons and plasmids to bring into battle with you. Other options include swapping out different masks (goat, pink feather, rabbit, eagle, the list goes on) and picking between a variety of melee weapons including trophies, wrenches, and candlesticks.
The more you participate in multiplayer matches, the more you unlock in terms of weapons, plasmids, and tonics that provide passive bonuses. Regarding the weapons, they're similar to what you saw in the first BioShock. You'll can't bring every weapon into a fight, so you'll need to pick between a machine gun, shotgun, pistol, crossbow, grenade launcher, and a new nail gun. It's also possible to slot in weapon modifications, bestowing bonuses like increased magazine size or an increased rate of fire.

Loadouts and modifications can be set up on a menu before diving into a match so you'll be able to take the time to consider how to match up abilities with your play style. For plasmids, you'll have the standard assortment of abilities like electrobolt and incinerate, as well as something called aero dash which lets you surge forward at high speed and, if you make contact with a frozen target, break them to pieces. It's also possible to set to active a geyser trap plasmid which can send foes flying into the ceiling when it's triggered, or can serve as a jump pad. Tonics like security evasion, eve saver, and expert researcher can also be slotted in to make you more effective in combat.
Once you're done fiddling around with all those customization settings and are ready to jump into a match, you'll find a number of modes, including the standard deathmatches and team deathmatches along with something called Capture the Sister, which is like capture the flag. One team is on offense, the other on defense, and it's the attackers' job to grab the Little Sister the defenders are protecting and carry her to an extraction point. The hook is that one of the defenders is turned into a Big Daddy, who can absorb a lot of damage and quickly wipe out attackers with a rivet gun. As a result, the defenders need to be clever about taking advantage of all the multiple passages through a map to get shots at the Big Daddy to take him out and grab the Little Sister before he respawns. Then if you're the one who manages to scoop up the Little Sister, who scowls and screams in your arms as you proceed to the exit vent, you'll be limited to only plasmid use to defend yourself, so obviously working as a team will help out.

As for the feel of the game, like BioShock it's not really about precision shooting as much as it is about using your arsenal intelligently. If you've got incinerate active, for instance, maybe the best idea is to sit back and light your enemies on fire from a distance to soften them up for teammates who may be charging in to make a capture. If you're the one running directly at the enemy, electrobolt may be a better idea since it can stun your foes and give you a few extra seconds to grab the Sister and get out of there. To help out you'll also be able to photograph dead bodies of players, which can give you subsequent damage bonuses, as well as hack into any turrets or dispenser machines in the map. In the deathmatch modes you'll also be able to pick up a periodically spawning Big Daddy suit that temporarily transforms you into one of the armored giants, letting you easily wipe out a number of foes to drive up your score. Once a match is over you'll then be awarded points that'll level up your profile and unlock more gear.
While it's difficult to say at this point whether or not BioShock 2's multiplayer component will catch on with the community, from what I've seen it seems to be well put together. As Battlefield 2 or Call of Duty 4 players will know, the unlock system isn't particularly unique, but the setting and weapon combinations could help it stand out. The game's release date is currently set at February 9, 2010 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platforms.

Like most major releases nowadays, BioShock 2 will also be getting its very own special edition package.
2K has revealed its impressive contents, and promises a limited, single-production run. So, if you want one, I'd probably pre-order it or something.
For $99 ($89 for PC), here's what you'll be getting:
A 13"x13" premium packaging with special art on both the slipcase and the box cover.
Three posters featuring vintage ads from Rapture (rolled)
CD containing the BioShock 2 orchestral score
A 164 page 8"x11" hardbound artbook chock full of developer commentary
A copy of the game
That's some nice stuff if you're a huge BioShock fan. At least they have the courtesy to roll the posters. This edition will be available in "most countries" for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC.

2K has unveiled the official boxart BioShock 2. The sequel to one of 2007's biggest titles will be multiplatform on its day one release on February 9, 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC. Hopefully this cover is as equally shiny as the first one was.
The title was supposed to ship this November, but was delayed to early 2010 to allow for more development time.
2K has unveiled the official boxart BioShock 2. The sequel to one of 2007's biggest titles will be multiplatform on its day one release on February 9, 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC. Hopefully this cover is as equally shiny as the first one was.

BioShock was an artistically daring game that explored a lot of mature themes, but among the most important was the idea that utopian societies don't tend to stay utopian for long. And as anyone who played BioShock knows, Rapture certainly fit that bill. This once beautiful underwater city was founded by Andrew Ryan as a place for people to pursue their own self-interests without the slightest trace of government or religious authority, but greed and unchecked scientific research soon created a population of citizens whose addiction to genetic alterations drove them to the fringes of sanity. In the upcoming sequel, you will have the opportunity to see the downfall of Rapture from both ends of the BioShock timeline. The single-player campaign is set 10 years after the original and explores what would happen to the city if left festering for another decade, while the multiplayer side will look at Rapture a year prior to the first game to see what people were like during that initial slip into madness. [Spoiler Warning: You'll want to have completed BioShock before reading any further.]
Those who have been following BioShock 2's development will by now know that the protagonist is no longer an outsider making his way into Rapture. Now, you're playing as the original Big Daddy after he has regained his free will. After having lived the life of a mindless drone for all these years, he is suddenly able to think for himself. This newfound clarity leads him to wonder what exactly has happened to Rapture, and in his confused state, the only thing he can think to do is find the Little Sister he was originally paired with. The journey isn't an easy one, though, because while Andrew Ryan may be gone, there's a new villain in control of the city.
See, a lot has changed in the 10 years since the original game. With Andrew Ryan out of the picture--insofar as someone whose face is plastered all over the city can be considered out of the picture--one of his old political rivals has assumed control of the city. Her name is Sofia Lamb, and she's someone whose ideas reside on the opposite end of the spectrum from Ryan's. She's an altruist with the motto "make the world your family" and believes that it's everyone's duty and obligation to help out the world around them with no regard for their own desires. That's all well and good, but like Ryan, she takes that stance a bit too far and ends up on the extreme end of the spectrum. According to creative director Jordan Thomas, she has taken control of the city by "spinning a collectivist philosophy into a religion for recruitment purposes."

As we get closer to BioShock 2's February release, 2K Marin is finally opening up a bit about its upcoming sequel to BioShock. The original game was a careful balance of stunning design, rich story, and solid gameplay that surprised and delighted players. This time out there's a slightly different mix to the qualities that made the original game special. While there's still gorgeous design, the city of Rapture feels like a familiar place. While there are still some very cool things to surprise and delight players, a fair amount of BioShock 2's punch is going to come from its story, which we can say, now that we've played a bunch of the game, is rich and disturbing. The downside to this is that previews will be spoiler minefields from here on out. We'll go ahead and drop a spoiler warning here and say that while we'll try to be sensitive, expect spoilage ahead
Our look at the Xbox 360 version of the game started up right after the game's opening cinematic (which 2K is still keeping under wraps), in a sequence titled "10 Years Later". While the basic opening is similar to what we saw back in April for our first look, the sequence was now properly dropping into the game as opposed to a demo of edited gameplay designed to showcase various aspects of BioShock 2. You'll still be roused to consciousness by Dr. Tennenbaum, last seen in the original game, who still hasn't quite gotten her people skills down. You'll get a quick, inelegant rundown of your situation: You're a big daddy that has had his free will restored, and Tennenbaum needs you to haul tail to reach her. Your journey will send you through parts of Rapture that have never been seen, to find her in the old mass-transit terminal.

Your trek starts in the Adonis Luxury Resort, which has clearly seen better days. The once-fabulous spa is now run-down and awash with hazards in the form of splicers. While they are a problem, the splicers aren't the life-threatening issue you faced at the start of the original game, but they do have numbers on their side, so some caution is required. This early part of the game is the tutorial to get you reacquainted with the core gameplay and introduce you to the special hotness of the big daddy, such as the assorted weapons you can use and your drill. The early section also introduces the new hacking mechanic in the form of the hacking dart, which lets you use a funky rabbit-eared contraption to hack mechanisms. The device lets you go into the new hacking minigame by targeting a lock or machine or by getting up close to it, which will let you call up the minigame interface. This time out the minigame has been changed up some and requires timed button presses. You'll need to stop a needle that's moving side to side on green or blue patches on a meter. If you can stop the needle on the blue patches, you'll get a bonus of some kind depending on what you're hacking, such as an extra item from a vending machine or increased damage for security bots.
The early run through the resort also lays out quite a bit of story groundwork via the many voice recorders you'll discover. As before, you'll hear from a diverse array of voices from assorted Rapture residents who, as before, have felt compelled to record their personal thoughts on recorders. The picture that's painted from these recordings is, unsurprisingly, a troubled one. You'll hear pedestrian concerns about someone's day-to-day job or one side of a bickering couple. While all this is an expected storytelling mechanic, there's a new thing that happens as you explore, which piqued our interest. You'll be addressed by the apparition of a young girl named Eleanor, who, you'll discover, is the little sister you've been bonded to. She communicates in visions that yield useful info or items but that make clear she is calling for you as well as guiding you to escape Rapture.

BioShock 2's audio is sticking well in line with the high standard set by the original game. The voice acting is top-notch. The music and ambient audio are sounding great and, as before, are used effectively in combination with good old-fashioned silence to set the mood. The score has a nice mournful tinge to it that fits comfortably with what we played. There have been some tweaks to the audio effects that change things up a little. For example, we noticed that once you hack a security bot to follow you around, the incessant buzzing has been toned down considerably. We were also digging the sound warping that happens when you're walking on the ocean floor or submerged. So far we have to say we're pleased with where the game's audio is going.
Based on what we played, BioShock 2 is looking like the sort of follow-up fans of the original game will want. There's plenty of quality time to be spent going through Rapture and plenty of new locations to creep you out as you explore. More importantly, the story seems to be balancing a faithful nod to what has gone before but is taking it into some richly messed-up territory. Like its predecessor, BioShock 2 seems tailor-made to put those thinking of starting up their own utopian society right off the notion. We've definitely been left wanting more, and we expect fans will too. Look for more on BioShock 2 in the weeks leading to its February release on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The game takes place ten years after the first game, and Rapture is even worse off than it was before. After the events of the first game, there are too few Little Sisters left to satisfy the Splicers ADAM addiction, causing them to become even more insane and hostile than before. Andrew Ryan, the creator of Rapture, having been deceased for years, left no one to maintain the city, and no one for the Splicers to listen to. In the state that it is in, Rapture is destined to fall.
Things change, however, following the arrival of Sophia Lamb, a political rival of Ryan, and his opposite in every way. Lamb has now taken over Rapture and has made dramatic changes. While Ryan believed in the genius of the individual mind, Lamb believes in the collective effort and the power of the community. She is an Altruist and her beliefs have corrupted her into forming a cult known as the Rapture Family. The belief spreads through Rapture, causing Splicers to follow her and Father Wales, the deranged priest of her religion. While the Rapture Family spreads a sense of unity and duty to the world, it also serves to further her own secretive personal agenda.
Another mystery explored by the game is that of the Big Sister, who came back to Rapture after being taken to the surface as a Little Sister. Mechanizing herself in a similar fashion to the Big Daddies, she returns to the surface and kidnaps several little girls. She brings them down to Rapture and turns them into Little Sisters, who can now produce ADAM for the increasingly desperate Splicers. As time passes, more Big Sisters appear in Rapture, eventually creating an army, who are now under the employment of Dr. Lamb. Eventually the "original" Big Sister disappears. The remaining Big Sisters are now the main protection of Rapture, and they viciously hunt down anyone who disrupts the balance of power

In BioShock 2, the player will take on the role of Subject Delta, the first Big Daddy ever created. He has all the abilities, weapons and strengths of a regular Big Daddy while maintaining his sanity and free will. He is awakened from his 10-year-long hibernation by an unknown force, and wonders what has happened to this once beautiful metropolis. He then sets off to search for the one thing that is important to him and that he believes hasn't changed: the Little Sister he bonded with before his hibernation. That is when he comes into conflict with Lamb and the Rapture Family, who are also searching for this little one. Lamb cannot let Delta interfere with her plans and will do anything to stop him from finding this Little Sister. Unlike regular Big Daddies, Delta can also use plasmids. He will be able to combine Plasmids, and dual-wield them with weapons at the same time, allowing for powerful combos. He also has the ability to use Gene Tonics.
Delta treads through Rapture, searching for answers and looking for his Little Sister. In an effort to stop Lamb, he teams up with Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum, as she desires to save the Little Sisters, and he also forms an uneasy partnership with Augustus Sinclair, inventor of the Vita-Chamber and former CEO of Sinclair Solutions, a plasmid development company. Although Sinclair seems to mean well, his intentions toward Rapture, and Delta, remain unknown.
The storyline of this game will work with either the "good" or the "bad" ending of the first game. If Jack killed all of the Little Sisters, it is said that Tenenbaum escaped with all the others, with the same effect as if Jack rescued all of the sisters
There will also be flashback sequences on how Delta came to be a Big Daddy, and why he wasn't present in the events of Bioshock.