Bioshock 2 was definitely a risky move for the developers to make after the brilliant success of its predecessor, since it’s often all too easy to ruin something great by creating a sequel. Obviously, we felt this wasn’t the case with Bioshock 2, because we bloody loved it.
Matt:
The follow-up to 2008’s masterpiece had me worried before it was released. I thought it showed many signs of being a cash-in sequel – it was developed by a team who had nothing to do with the first, it had a pretty short development cycle and it had the modern tradition of a tacked-on multiplayer component which I really didn’t think it needed. I still haven’t actually tried the multiplayer so cannot comment on that, but the single player game more than surpassed my expectations.
It was a brilliant sequel, improving on every aspect of the gameplay, with refined combat abilities, and new plasmid powers which all felt like natural additions. It was a joy to explore the underwater city of Rapture again, and even though it never produced that same level of awe which came with its predecessor, it was still one of the best-written games of the past few years. Bioshock 2 has a superb script, solid voice actors and a story filled with the kind of philosophical questions rarely seen in video games. Rounded off by a poignant and satisfying conclusion which trumps the originals’, Bioshock 2 proved to be one of the best sequels of 2010.
ZAP!
Paul:
The first Bioshock made an excellent impression on me, and what amazed me most about it was the huge twist at the end that I never saw coming. This doesn’t happen too often with most storyline plots, since not a lot ever seem to engineer their twists in such an impressive way that you don’t even hazard a guess. On top of the outstanding and original story and setting, the gameplay was fantastic and the element of fear was brilliant. I often found myself struggling to press forward in certain areas of the game, when I could hear people screaming and monstrous enemies prowling the avenues of Rapture for fresh prey. Bioshock went down as one of my favourite and most memorable FPS games ever.
Bioshock 2, to me, was an almost equally brilliant game, with the very cool added concept of playing as one of the original Big Daddies of Rapture, rather than a plain human male. The graphics were a huge improvement, and the addition of numerous new plasmid powers and a whole bunch of new, heavier weapons to get your hands on, it played and looked like a beautiful continuation of the original. True, the main storyline wasn’t quite as surprising or intriguing, which is a slight shame really, but the world of Rapture and the characters and background stories within it have always been so well crafted that I found myself wanting to see and experience everything about it.
With great controls, a fluid feel to the game, and a captivating story progression, Bioshock 2 definitely earned its position in our top ten games of 2010.
I recently played through Cult of the Lamb, a satirical take on the concept of running a demonic cult. It turns horrific things like sacrificial rituals, cannibalism and straight up gaslighting abuse into hilarious amusements by filtering everything through its cartoonish lens. You are a sheep, after all, and all your followers are sycophantic anthropomorphic […]
Hello, world! This post marks the moment in time and space when BangClickReload got a little redesign and was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Every post before this point is rather old and might not look right, and unless I decide to go through them all to fix them, they’re going to […]
I’ve been pretty absent from PC gaming for some time, since moving to Canada in early 2017, because I haven’t had a proper computer to play games on. That has recently changed, since I got myself set up with a new gaming rig that can handle pretty much anything that’s out at the moment. I […]
Undoubtedly the most original shooter of 2011 that we played, Bulletstorm introduced us to the hilarious skillshot system. Its easy to shoot a guy in the face with a shotgun. But its harder to whip a guy towards you, boot him in the balls so his body flies towards a huge wall of spikes, and then shotgun him in the face seconds before he’s impaled. This is the only game I know of that rewards such imaginative thinking, and we had endless fun figuring out the hundreds of skillshots in the game. Bulletstorm deserves its place on this list.
You may or may not be aware of this old tactical PC title by the name of Syndicate (1993), created by the legendary Bullfrog Productions. It was one of my favourite games back in my hay day of PC gaming. Playing as a squad of genetically and cybernetically altered, upgradeable cyborgs enslaved by a multi-national corporation, your sole goal is to take over the entire planet, wiping out all competition in your path. What a superb concept; no heroes, just raw carnage with a totally selfish goal in a dystopian, Blade Runner Esc future setting.
With the possibility of a new Syndicate game on the horizon, I wanted to try and enlighten any retro game fans about all of the supreme gaming qualities this game combined to make something I found incredibly fun, even only a few months ago when I downloaded and played it again for the first time in over ten years.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded an entire album’s worth of video game music. It features music from the likes of Battlefield, Final Fantasy, even the Mario Brothers theme – all in fully orchestrated glory. If you have a Spotify account you can give it a listen here.
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