OMGJeremy

Spend The Weekend With Billy: Would You Kindly Grind for 24 Hours? A Bioshock 2 MP Review

I am Billy Holiday and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to play a game that doesn’t have a fucking multiplayer mode tacked on?

No, says the pre-teen on XBox live, it makes the game “kickass”.
No, says the unattractive woman who runs my local Gamestop, it “revolutionizes” the way multiplayer is played.
No, says the developers, it extends gameplay without having to be creative and extend the single-player experience.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…

Nah, I just fell right the fuck in line and played the piece of shit for a total of 24 fucking hours.

The Best of Intentions…

My achievement hunting days have been over for quite awhile now. It’s been a long time since I plopped down and made it a point to get every single achievement I could, in an effort to elongate my gamerdick and impress whatever 12 year old might be checking out my profile. But really, I’d be impressed also if I saw someone ran 1,000 / 1,000 on Alone in the Dark. I just don’t really have the motivation to get all the points a game has to offer unless I am REALLY into it. Bioshock was one of those games, where snatching up all of those points wasn’t a chore, but a real pleasure. So when I got home with Bioshock 2, there was no question that I would run through the single-player and pick up every single achievement it had to offer.

But of course, it couldn’t be as simple as playing through the game a few times. When it was announced that BS2 would have multiplayer, I let out a groan. I absolutely hate when a great singleplayer game tacks on a MP mode, because I know what is coming. It never fails, that half of the achievements for the game take place in MP mode… which presents a unique problem. Achievements aren’t always easy to get, but at least they are always there for you to pick up. There is no rush, you can sit the game down and come back a year down the line and clear it out. However, when a game has achievements that are tied to MP, you have some fucking trouble. Namely, after about a week nobody is playing the fucking MP and you end up like that one sad guy I kept bumping into in the “Turning Point” MP lobby. This poor son of a bitch was sitting there day and night, I imagine connecting and disconnecting from rooms in the hopes of seeing another human. It is the video-game equivalent to the first half hour or so of 28 Days Later.

So I decided I would do what I had to do. I would play through SP mode, which was a real pleasure and a very worthy sequel to the original… and then I would get down and dirty and knock out that fucking MP. I knew it was going to be shitty, and I knew it was going to take a little while to get through, but there were certainly a few surprises along the way.

The Basics

The MP “story” takes place right before the events of the first game. It sorta tells the story of the Atlas / Ryan civil war that took place in Rapture that leaves the place in the shitty state you find it in during the first game. You choose from one of several of the citizens of Rapture, all with their own brief background and reasons for taking part in the fight. When not in a match, you can explore your apartment where you can do such things as customize your loadout (I guess that is the new term for “the shit you wanna use”), dress your character in whatever particular masks you have unlocked, or listen to some audio-logs for each character that give you a little further background about them. It’s interesting enough to listen to when you have time, but the character you choose in no way alters the way you play or the story as it moves along. The basic point of it is that you are fighting in this big war, sponsored by a company that is testing home defense products… various weapons, plasmids, and other assorted things that you can gain and use as your level up. A little strange that home defense products include machine-guns and crossbows, but I guess when discussing things taking place in a huge underwater city one should let realism slide.

The two bonus characters you got if you pre-ordered through Gamestop. Yeah, bet you couldn't live without that.

So yes, you level up. You level right the fuck up. ADAM are the points in this game, and you get them by killing enemies, hacking turrents / vending machines, or finding spare vials laying around the maps. Before I get down to the leveling up process, I will say that I really did enjoy the maps in this game. They take place in most of the locations from the first game, and are a nice little treat for folks who loved the first installment. They aren’t as large as the areas you explored, but are full of enough recognizable locations that you’ll find yourself getting a fireball up your ass several times over as you try to admire the scenery.

There is also the possibility as playing as a Big Daddy in MP. On occasion a suit will become available on the map, and luckily every character has the ability to dress themselves in the complete Big Daddy suit within about 2 seconds. This is cool for awhile, as you can stomp the ground and stun nearby enemies, throw mines, and shoot rivets directly up the ass of the competition. Of course the awesome starts to fade when you start fighting against some much-leveled up competition who can drop a Big Daddy in about 5 seconds. My first BD controlling experience consisted of me picking up the suit, letting out a small victory cry, and then letting out a not-so-small “Shit” as I was dropped by three enemy splicers with shotguns.

Also, there are several different modes to at least keep things fresh. You have your traditional team deathmatch, every man for himself deathmatch, and essentially a capture the flag mode. You also have a Little Sister-centric mode where your team has to rush in and snatch up the little girls and shove them into a hole. I had to make sure I typed that last sentence correctly, or else the OMGJeremy child-porn rumors would come back up once again. This is pretty frantic shit, and is probably my favorite mode of them all. Of course, you get tired of hearing that little piece of shit tell you to put her down. By the time you make it to the hole you have to put her in, you are more than happy to shove that little bitch in there and hope that the open mouth of an alligator or something smaller and able to fit into such a sized hole are waiting.

A Little Sister imitating the face I was making at around Level 20 or so.

Back to the whole goddamn leveling up business. This is how you unlock the new weapons, trials (things you do in-match to gain bonus points), and most importantly how you get several of the fucking achievements. There is an achievement for hitting certain levels, the last one being 40. So yes, I knew that in order to get 100% of the achievements for this damn game, I was going to have to hit Level 40. Shouldn’t be so hard, and hopefully not THAT time consuming.

Rough Waters Ahead

The first few levels came without much trouble. I’m not good at the MP at all, but I was doing well enough to get a level here and there. It was around Level 20 or so that it really started to hit me, that I had put so much time into this son of a bitch and I was only halfway there. Worst of all, you seem to get all the cool shit really early on, so the rest of the levels consist of just taking whatever shit-scraps you are given and using them once or twice before you decide that the shit you had within your first few levels are still the best thing to use. I mean it’s cool that you get rewarded for each level, but one of my main complaints is the fact that all the good shit is given to you so very early on. Sure you get a few attachments that you can tack on to those early guns to make them a little better, but otherwise you can just tote that pistol you start with and go to town all the way till the end. A few weapons, such as that fucking elephant gun, are worthless for folks like me that can’t stand to camp and do a little sniping work.

The trials you are given in the early going are fairly simple to accomplish, usually consisting of killing / hitting an enemy with a certain weapon or plasmid a number of times. Completing these trials is pretty essential in fast leveling, unless you are one of those miracle fuckers I keep going up against who were Level 40 within 2 days and went 20-0 every match. However, as time goes on the trials get a little bit on the crazy side. I mean, most stay within the realm of reason, but then you have some that push the boundaries of your very sanity.

An example being a trial in which you have to complete around of Survival of the Fittest (every man for himself deathmatch) without being killed more than four times. Now this doesn’t sound THAT hard, I can do this on Call of Duty on a pretty regular basis… so why not? Well, one reason why not is because Call of Duty doesn’t have fucking lightning flying and bastards laying down geysers that shoot your ass up into the ceiling so high that you more than likely will glitch up to the next floor. A word of advice if you are innocently glitched through the floor, shoot the first fucker you see and kill him so he can then curse at you for 10 minutes for cheating even though you had nothing to do with it. I think that probably caused some kid somewhere in the world to start wetting the bed at night and having uncontrollable fits of rage at any given moment. But really, aside from that, there aren’t so many glitches to be had. Speaking of not many glitches in a MP game, maybe Infinity Ward could have a talk with the folks who made this. But yes, stories of causing prepubescents pain and shitty programming aside, I tried for a solid hour to go without being killed four times. The last attempt consisted of me almost making it until I was killed by an enemy dropping a grenade upon death. I hate to mention Duty again, but yeah… you’re dealing with the Bioshock’s version of the ever-infamous martyrdom here. I sat there in disbelief. I yelled “shit.”  I stood up. I yelled “shit.”  Over the next 5 minutes I went through every variation of sitting and standing while yelling “shit” that a man can accomplish. I wish there was a trial for scaring a cat off by staring at him with video-game induced crazy-eyes, I would have netted some serious ADAM. I was several hours into playing and assumed that, hardships aside, the end was going to get there eventually. It couldn’t be too much longer.

24 Hours Later

I’ll just go ahead and let it out, by the time it was all said and done and I hit 40… I had put roughly 24 hours total into the game. That is one complete day. The sun rises, sets, and rises again. Mind you I didn’t put all that time into it in one sitting, but it sure as hell felt like it sometimes. My feet fell asleep, my legs fell asleep, my ass fell asleep. Sometimes, I fell asleep. If there was a camouflaged stealthy dude around, he surely could have punched me out and took my cigarette. As the levels progressed, it didn’t get any easier. The only positive was that some of the more insane 500-point trials were accomplished. Some due to just simply playing so fucking long, and the others due to dumb luck.

When the time had come for my last match, I was on top of the world. I was happy to see it over and felt a true sense of accomplishment. It was hard, but this was going to be a very rewarding experience. Well, the fucker wouldn’t even let me have a graceful exit. The match ended and I was FIVE SHITTIN’ POINTS from 40.

So I played one more fucking match.

A pretty good example of my last match, as I essentially started burning everyone...regardless of team affiliation.

This match did not have that same sense of accomplishment. This match was not rewarding and I at no point in time cracked a smile or expressed any satisfaction in my hours and hours of work coming to an end. This match was driven, perhaps appropriately, with a blind fury and sense of just wanting the shit to end. The normally 6-7 minute match was not the case, as this fucker was going almost the full length when I finally decided enough was enough. I picked up a nearby Big Daddy suit, gaining a worthless fucking trial bonus, and proceeded to slaughter everything that moved. While I normally only have killstreaks that number around 4 or 5, I walked away with a stack of bodies 12 high. If nobody else was going to end that game, I sure as hell was. I had been in a nightmare for way too long, and I was ready to wake up. Level 40 happened.

There was no celebration.

I got the usual upgrade that comes with a new level. It really doesn’t make sense to me because you can’t progress beyond 40… yet. I also got the little ending they have for the MP portion of the game, where

SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO BITCH ABOUT NOT BEING WARNED

you are in your apartment and an announcement comes on that states that a plane has just started to crash in the area. Your character looks out his / her window to see a portion of a plane sinking into the sea and coming close to breaking through their window. Thus the events of Bioshock 1 begin. I could have done without it, but at least they tried to give you a little something for finishing this shit off.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t HATE the MP. In fact, I think it was well done and they actually put some time into it it seems. I merely think there are a few small faults that took away from the enjoyment of sticking in there till Level 40. By giving the player the best shit from almost the very beginning, the level rewards that are supposed to enhance the experience further and give you a small advantage just aren’t what they should be. Also, I can appreciate the attempt at giving it a little bit of a story… but it just sort of falls flat. But I really shouldn’t complain, since most games with tacked on MP don’t try nearly as hard or give you nearly as much of a positive experience.

Will I go back and play more after hitting 40? No, I will not. I am completely burned out on it and can not see myself venturing back.

Of course, I did just read that the first batch of DLC will be for the MP portion and will add new weapons, up the level cap, and possibly have some new achievements.

So… I guess look for Part 2 of this article in a few months.

Shit.