Book Review: Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Pyr
Year: 2010

The other day I was speaking with a friend about the nature of sports fans. I’ve never been one, and at first didn’t really get the mentality. But soon enough I realized that fandom is fandom, and while I may not follow athletics I certainly have more fandoms than the average bear, anyway, and probably the average person, too.

There’s a certain clout that comes with getting on the ground floor of something that will gain such a following, with being one of the people who got in before it was necessarily cool to be in. And so I was kind of excited about reading Empire in Black and Gold if only for that reason alone (and there were others, but I’ll get to them): never before have I read a debut novel so immediately after its publication. So this was new for me in general.

Empire in Black and Gold is author Adrian Tchaikovksy’s debut and the first book in his Shadows of the Apt series, of which two more have hit shelves by now. It’s fantasy through and through, but Tchaikovsky puts a nice spin on it, offering up something a bit different while still remaining pretty well within the usual tropes. The tale takes place in the Lowlands, where aging artificer Stenwold Maker is trying desperately to convince the independent city-states of the Beetle-kinden and Ant-kinden that an invasion by a new power, the Wasp Empire, is only a matter of time. Of course, no one believes him, and he must take matters into his own hands as time runs short. He isn’t alone, as he’s got a few students willing to help: Totho, half-breed artificer, competent but cynical; Tynisa, Stenwold’s adopted Spider-kinden daughter, beautiful and deadly; Salma, errant noble of the Dragonfly Commonweal, handsome and deadly; and Cheerwell, Stenwold’s nephew, inexperienced but determined to please.

Oh, but right: the insect thing. In Tchaikovsky’s world, though the inhabitants are human(ish), each individual belongs to a sort of subrace identified with a different insect or arachnid. Some breeds, like the Beetle-kinden to which Stenwold and Cheerwell belong, seem pretty human, by and large, while others, like the massive, clawed Scorpion-kinden, are quite different. Each race also has access to certain Arts unique to their people, like being able to grow wings and fly, see in the dark, shoot energy from their palms, and so on. The end result is a cool alternative solution to elves and dwarves for bringing diversity to a fantasy world.

The world itself is also worth mentioning, and this is critical: much fantasy goes for a medieval time period or, more lately, an industrial one. Tchaikovsky places his world firmly in transition between medievalism and superstition and a widespread industrial modernization. The world was, not so long ago, ruled by the Moth-kinden, whose magic and mysticism informed the world; now they have been thrown off by the Apt, the general term for all breeds that grok mechanical things, and have built up industry, walking clockwork vehicles, airships, and weapons, like crossbows. But there’s still a divide for now, and Tchaikovsky shows it well.

The writing is solid, and the plotting quick and active after the first chunk; laying the groundwork for the story took a little longer than I would’ve liked, but once the plot got moving it didn’t stop, and often kept several plates spinning at once. This is a tale of adventure, intrigue, and action, and though Tchaikovsky is certainly guilty of some of the old cliches, like the Obligatory Fantasy Badass, the uniqueness of his setting and depth of his characters generally excuse this point. If the idea has interested you thus far you’ll probably find something to enjoy.

If I’m totally honest I found enough minor flaws here to say that I’m not totally on Tchaikovsky’s team yet, but I’ve already picked up both published sequels, Dragonfly Falling and Blood of the Mantis, and will definitely continue to watch his work with great interest. This is a debut, and sometimes reads like one, but it also shows great promise.

I should also take a moment to commend Pyr, the publisher, for how awesome it is. Pyr’s only been around for a few years now, and I’ve only known about them for a few months myself, via The Dragon Page: Cover to Cover (itself a podcast of unspeakable value to the SFF fan). Every single cover I’ve seen of Pyr’s has been gorgeous, the kind of thing that makes you contemplate rearranging your bookshelf so that you can have your books facing forward, cover out. They also seem to just really grab some great and interesting work: if Empire in Black and Gold is any indication, I’m gonna need a bigger bookshelf.

A Discussion About Video Games with Film Critic Roger Ebert: or, Don’t Feed the Troll

So last week Roger Ebert once more opened the floodgates in the discussion of whether or not video games are, or can ever be, art. Mr. Ebert still rather adamantly asserts that they never can be. Obviously, plenty of gamers disagree with that assessment, and even disagree with the assumption that games aren’t already art.

I’m not going to go to the trouble of really addressing this argument. I have before in the more general sense, and likely will again. What strikes me about the discussion this time around is not the subject but the tone.

Mr. Ebert does not claim to be an expert on video games. Clearly he does not care for them either way, but this seems to be more apathy than it is active dislike. To that end he claims that his position is not one he’s going to go to the trouble to defend – he just doesn’t care.

But this being his stated position on the entire matter, why does he bother to write a blog about it, when he is fully aware of the response such activity has gained before? Why does he bother to track how ineffective he finds the responses to the blog, and hold up that fact via his Twitter feed? Something doesn’t add up.

His argument is also somewhat unconvincing, and certainly not reasoned with anything resembling the sort of care that a truly persuasive argument would need to be. Ebert is a highly intelligent fellow and I find this out of the ordinary in his writing. Again, he self-admittedly doesn’t really care about the topic, or to making the topic one that can really be discussed. Indeed, the definitions of both “art” and “game” which he offers as his basis appear very nearly designed to eliminate large swathes of what we call video games these days, leaving only a narrow selection of options, and few of the usual suspects when it comes to this debate. Ebert, it seems, would call The Longest Journey (as a for instance) something that is not played (ergo, not a game) but experienced. I don’t know what label you’d give it, then. But I digress.

And then there’s the rapidity with which he dismisses those examples people offer. He addresses Braid and Flower in this blog, but clearly never plays them. He doesn’t claim to. Yet he speaks with absolutism about their value, not just as art, but as something worth spending time doing. This would be very much like me dismissing a film’s quality – let’s just say, for kicks and giggles, Up in the Air – based on, at best, the trailer, if not a few production stills. Which, yeah, is all very well and good – I can choose not to see a movie based on whether or not I think I’d like it. But unlike Ebert, I’m not then using that suspicion as a basis for an argument.

Not that the counter-arguments are wholly compelling. To a point Ebert is correct in pointing out that many of them amount to “You don’t get it.” Which is hardly incorrect – Ebert clearly doesn’t care to get it and hasn’t tried – but it’s also hardly a counter-argument of any validity. And there’s of course been plenty of games held up as art that probably shouldn’t even enter the equation – God of War, for example. Using that title as a sign that games have become art is something like espousing the artistry of movies as epitomized by Pirates of the Caribbean. Competent? Yes. Technically proficient? Certainly. Entertaining? Extremely so. But art? Not so much.

But Ebert fed on responses like this, and waves them about like they are proof-of-concept – or at least that’s the tone he takes via Twitter. But this is provocation at best: hardly provocative in the least, not really, but rather driven by the argumentative nature of the gaming community (and, yes, we gamers are highly argumentative – this is why we have console wars). But nobody seems to notice, since Ebert’s got a reputation for something quite unlike this; and yet here we find ourselves, essentially wrapped in a large-scale example of trolling. More sophisticated, perhaps, but trolling nonetheless, designed more, it seems, to get a rise out of people and delight in the destruction than to make an actual point.

Some will no doubt think that’s extreme, or perhaps name-calling. Maybe. But think about it: am I wrong?

Playing Ball in Heaven

Dixie

1991(?) – April 6, 2010

Requiescat in pace, dear friend; play lots of Ball in Heaven

Review: Heavy Rain Chronicles 1 – The Taxidermist

[From here on I'll be trying to provide some relevant information at the top of my reviews so you can get it at a glance if you'd rather not read the whole review. Though it hurts my feelings, I understand.]

Platform: PS3
Genre: Adventure DLC
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Quantic Dream
ESRB: M

THE VERDICT: Short but thrilling, The Taxidermist is a must-play for Heavy Rain fans.

Barely a month after the release of the retail game, the first entry in what I hope will be a plentiful series of Heavy Rain DLC, The Taxidermist, reunites players with Madison Paige, the lone female protagonist of the main game. This brief but intense chapter occurs shortly before the main narrative, when Madison investigates a man she believes might be the Origami Killer.

The Taxidermist builds slowly and creepily as Madison investigates the titular character, and though her discoveries are not entirely unpredictable the atmosphere of the house where the episode takes place lingers tangibly. Quiet investigation leads into an exciting action sequence which should not leave fans of Heavy Rain‘s thrills disappointed. As with Heavy Rain itself, The Taxidermist features multiple endings, and checks each off a list as you see it, challenging you to dive back into Madison’s short (20 minutes or less) adventure to get them all.

Where the short tale does not quite deliver is in character exploration and presentation. Though we get more time with Madison, The Taxidermist does not reveal anything that Heavy Rain doesn’t reveal, and so this DLC does little to really expand the story and characters of the primary game (though one could certainly argue that the events of The Taxidermist are what caused Madison’s insomnia in Heavy Rain, this is not directly addressed). Considering how quickly after the retail game this DLC released, it almost seems like it might’ve been better to include this as a scene in the game, rather than DLC; not only would it have fit in a bit better, it could also have broken up the slow first act. Hopefully future entries in the Heavy Rain Chronicles will fare better.

The presentation is also a bit rough, and suffers from many of the same texture issues that Heavy Rain did, as well as vocal performances which, while more solid than those found in many games, do not equal the standard set by the core title here. Madison, played again by Jaqui Ainsley, sounds a little off sometimes. More distracting, I thought, was that the eponymous taxidermist is voiced by Sam Douglas, who also provides the voice of Scott Shelby. This would not necessarily be a problem, but Douglas does not make any apparent attempt to differentiate the vocal style of this character from Heavy Rain‘s own private detective. Though this character has no apparent link to Shelby, it’s still a little disorienting to hear Shelby’s voice coming from him.

The Taxidermist is short and sweet and, for the most part, really delivers. Small irritations prevent this DLC from being perfect, but it bodes well for the future of Heavy Rain DLC and, if nothing else, will give players hungry for more something to occupy a solid half hour.

Blogosphere Confessional: I Have a Secret

Lately things have been changing. In the last week especially, but times in the not so far distant past, I’ve said things I never thought I’d say. Told people things I wanted to, but never thought I would, tell them. Things I called “secrets” in recent memory. But it was, mostly, easy.

So what of secrets? They are difficult creatures. For us, within, we hold thoughts and desires and experiences as our own, but why? Because we fear that sharing them will tarnish them – or sharing them will tarnish us? And maybe they do.

And secrets have power. Not in the keeping, but in the revealing. As if they’re radioactive. Sometimes it takes the barest contact to cause irrevocable consequences. Sometimes not.

I have plenty of secrets left. My reservoir is quite full yet. I feel that I’ve shared more of myself lately, and with more people, than most people do. I’m not sure whether that’s made anything better. Maybe it’s redistributed the weight of carrying those thoughts, feelings. But some are and will likely forever remain my burden to bear. I can’t be certain.

Blogosphere Confessional: This Fragile Being

Yeah guys, it finally happened: I missed a week.  Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long.

My reliability factor, once quite high, has gone down the tube this year so far.  I can’t entirely say why.  I think I stopped thinking it was worthwhile.  It used to be one of the things that I used to define myself.  Surprising how easy it is to lose those things we feel are who we are.

I’d say I have a good excuse, and depending on who you are maybe I do.  Things have been changing rapidly of late.  For the first time since I can readily remember I am actually looking forward to the future.  I find that I am a cleaner, more gregarious, and more restless (emphasis on that last!) when I’m not depressed.

There are reasons for this I won’t dwell on too much right now.  I’ve had good news that, if you read this blog, you’ve probably already heard from me (unless I have a much larger readership than I think I do).  Certain other things are in motion that may yield favorable results in the near future.  Things are looking up.

Part of the reason I didn’t post here last week was because I spent my writing energies elsewhere.  This new project dovetails somewhat on the new things on the horizon, and for now I’ll keep that to myself.  (This, I can see, is turning into a tremendously informative post.)  It shouldn’t have stopped me from working on other things, too, but it did (well, that and Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, but I digress).

But the thing that strikes me is that I am afraid now.  In the long night which looks to have finally broken, I didn’t experience much fear.  Some days you could definitely say without irony that I might have had a death wish.  Fear didn’t enter the equation much because I didn’t care much if things did get worse.  Now I’m afraid of all the little things that could go wrong, that could cause me to lose what I have struggled so hard to regain.  I suspect – without any true evidence – that one false step could destroy me again.  I’m not fond of being destroyed.

Interactive Drama: One Possible Future

There are those in the gaming community – myself included – who are waiting for the time when video games spawn a sub-genre that gains broad acceptance and wide appeal akin to movies or television.  I don’t think the whole of the medium should become that, because doing so would require a distinct shift away from some of the very traits which draw in current gamers.  But as we saw a few years ago with the release of Nintendo’s Wii, the broader public can and will be receptive to the right kind of video gaming – but it has to break through the long-standing (and often well-earned) stereotypes of the modern video game.

Of course, the Wii has since failed to maintain its popularity, leaving in its wake a plethora of gimmicky, under-designed experiences that the hardcore and the gaming neophytes alike can agree to disdain.  And while motion-sensing technology may still hold a key to broad gameplay appeal in the future, there’s another angle from which we can approach: narrative.

Recently I reviewed Quantic Dream’s new PS3 title, Heavy Rain.  The game, like its PS2 predecessor Indigo Prophecy (Fahreinheit outside of the US), chooses not to refer to itself as a video game.  The moniker, indeed, would be a little awkward, though arguably less so than Indigo Prophecy calling itself a “movie.”  Heavy Rain chooses the parlance of “interactive drama”.  Interactive drama is basically choose your own adventure cranked up to 11.  The focus is a flexible story that can play out in many different possible ways, with the player controlling the outcome (somewhat) both through decisions made and challenges overcome or failed.

Think: you gather around the water cooler (or similar office fixture) at work, but instead of comparing notes on the latest LOST revelations or who you voted for on American Idol, you and your coworkers are talking about the most recent piece of interactive drama that released on the PC or perhaps the iPhone.  It becomes not just about what happened, but what you did: we already share opinions on the entertainment we consume (“I hate Kate; I wish they would stop using her so much!”), and this, in many ways, is just the next logical step, not just a variation on how we perceived the entertainment but how it occurred.

And the thing is, the stories told in this medium can be just like those told in TV or movies.  It seems to me that many people think that video games – any video game – is only and can only ever be a complex exercise in fantasy violence of one flavor or another.  However well-earned this stereotype, games can (and do) do other things.  Interactive drama can deliver the same plethora of content that television does, possibly even in regular bite-sized chunks in a similar manner.

Perhaps best of all, this genre could bridge a generational gap of sorts: television viewers of my parents’ generation, who can happily devour episodes of Castle and the hot new reality show but balk at the sight of a controller, and gamers of my own generation, who are quite at home with input devices of all sorts and feel a need for interaction in a lot of entertainment.  The former adds some simple-in-execution, complex-in-import interactivity to their experience, perhaps using a keyboard or touch screen interface on a familiar device; the latter shifts the nature of the interactivity somewhat away from the average but not out of the realm of familiarity, and perhaps gets used to frequent small pieces rather than one large piece every two years.

And I think in some ways part of what’s holding back this transition is a misunderstanding about the video game as a medium and the possibilities it represents.  Although, to be fair, there’s a different misunderstanding from the gaming community as well: they don’t realize the drive towards interactive entertainment that has been embraced by a huge portion of the American television viewing community.  American Idol, after all, is exactly that: interactive entertainment.  Viewers make the experience their own by voting and thus affecting the outcome.  Is this more limited than a game?  Yes.  But they are related.  What such people do not realize is that video games can offer entertainment that isn’t all twitch-based, epileptic violence.  There’s a lot of potential in the medium, and a lot that’s been done already.  I don’t think we’re so far away from a time when that’s part of our regular entertainment experience, and certain developers will be striving to find the next “primetime” gaming hit.

Review: Heavy Rain

I’ve always been fond of a good serial killer.  They don’t make ‘em like they used to, you know.  So you can imagine that Heavy Rain (which once had the subtitle The Origami Killer, which no longer appears on the box but is no less relevant to the game) has been on my radar for a while, even without the pedigree of coming from Quantic Dream, the studio that produced the PS2′s unique Indigo Prophecy (Fahreinheit outside of the US).  Heavy Rain takes up the mantle of the “interactive drama” where Indigo Prophecy left it – it’s a design sequel, if not a narrative one.  The refinement of formula present in Heavy Rain makes it one of the first titles that I can emphatically recommend to both gamers and non-gamers alike.

The casual observer would label Heavy Rain as a video game, if only based on the fact that it is packaged and marketed as such and runs on a game console using a game controller as an interface.  But to call Heavy Rain a video game without the benefit of a disclaimer would be misleading; the game’s own term for itself – “interactive drama” – proves to be perhaps over-broad in some ways but fundamentally fits the concept better.  That’s because the game presents a story to play through and allows the player many ways to shape it.  These boil down to what games have been doing for years – dialogue options, puzzles with multiple solutions, branching narrative – but Heavy Rain does these things to their greatest result yet.  You cannot lose Heavy Rain, for instance; any and all choices lead forward, even if one of the main characters dies.  This is the main reason to play Heavy Rain: to experience a complexly-branching narrative which will inevitably be different from any other player’s in myriad subtle (and perhaps not so subtle) ways.

For the twitchy amongst us, there are numerous button-pressing challenges and so on that drive well-choreographed action sequences (which you can win or lose without having to retry).  Veterans of one too many God of War clones might groan at this fact, but since this is the gameplay in Heavy Rain and not merely some tacked-on addition to it, the mechanic seems far less trite in execution than it might be otherwise.  The system also makes strong use of the PS3′s Sixaxis functionality to expand the possible commands involved.

But the real star of the show is Heavy Rain‘s narrative.  The story centers around the hunt for a serial killer called (as you might by now expect) “the Origami Killer” for reasons that aren’t too hard to figure out.  Origami abducts young boys, who inevitably turn up several days later at a dump site.  Over the course of the game, play alternates between four different main characters: Ethan Mars, father of the most recent kidnap victim, who finds himself on a mad quest to rescue his son; Scott Shelby, a private investigator hunting Origami on behalf of the parents of the previous victims; Norman Jayden, an FBI agent dispatched to crack the case; and Madison Paige, an insomniac who finds herself wrapped up in helping Ethan with his search.  Each character has his or her own story to tell, and of course they intertwine, possibly in several different ways depending on the choices you make.  They also have distinct flavors to them: Jayden’s story feels like a classic procedural while Shelby’s is more hard-boiled noir and Ethan’s edges on Saw-like horror.  Each narrative ramps up the tension and brings you closer to the killer, step by step, and the conclusion is satisfying (and satisfyingly flexible, as the choices you make leading up to the endgame can dramatically alter the events that conclude the tale).  The story is not without its holes, including at least one pretty glaring one – or so I found.  Your experience will inevitably be different from mine (maybe very different), so perhaps I just didn’t get all the facts necessary to tie up certain loose ends.

It’s hard to recommend Heavy Rain as a full-price purchase, however, as its relative brevity (eight to ten hours) and lack of solid replay value (those who wish to see every permutation of the story can dump some time into it, but others will find little else to do) undermine its longevity as a gaming investment.  But it’s easy to say that Heavy Rain is an experience not to be missed if at all possible.  I can even say, from experience, that it’s one of the better gateway drugs out there for non-gamers who can sink their teeth into a narrative.  There is something different here, something we don’t see enough.

The Right Words

There’s a certain sweet serendipity that I can only imagine is the sole domain of creators.  Not necessarily writers, to be sure.  Anyway, it’s rare enough to be special.  For me, it’s the writer’s variety, when something comes to us, unbidden, to unlock the secrets of a subject with which we had struggled for some time.

In this case, it’s the first line for a story (possibly a novel) which has been rolling around in various forms (including some written fragments) for around two years.  I’ve been assembling small bits of the idea over that time, making things work in my head if not on paper.  Starting this story was the big hurdle.

I won’t spill the beans right now – maybe later.  I just wanted to say that it’s great.

Now, I must apologize for the intensely abbreviated blog post this week, but my parents are playing Heavy Rain as we speak.  I’ll have to get a review of the game, as well as my reflections on this experiment, up here in the near future, so hopefully the lightweight content this week will be worth the result.

Review: Bioshock 2

Not long ago I did a review for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.  In it, I observed the degree to which the R&C series feels, consistently, like more of the same, with scattered improvements here and there for good measure, just enough so that not everyone will realize the stagnancy.  And sometimes that’s not really a bad thing.  That’s how I feel about BioShock 2.

Let’s get this straight first: BioShock 2, like it’s predecessor, is an excellent game almost no matter how you cut it.  It’s not for everyone, but it’s hard to reasonably deny the obvious craftsmanship and artistry that has gone into the game, mechanically and creatively.  That said, BioShock veterans will likely not find any new marvels of either, though they will definitely find a fresh, EVE-like injection of the series’ atmospheric gameplay, with refinements.

This sequel returns to the underwater city of Rapture ten years after the events of the first game unseated the city’s founder, Andrew Ryan, and his chief competitor Frank Fontaine.  The city has come under the purview of the “Rapture Family,” led by Dr. Sophia Lamb, a new ideologue whose grand view of utopia can hardly be more contrary to Ryan’s.  Players take the role of a reawakened member of the Alpha Series of prototypes for the Big Daddies, the frighteningly powerful guardians of the creepy, ADAM-collecting Little Sisters.  ADAM, for those not in the know, is a substance key to the gene-splicing practices of Rapture’s inhabitants (now called Splicers), and thusly to the player character’s ability progression as well.  The game relies somewhat on the framework established by the first, and does contain some spoilers of that game’s plot.  If you choose to skip BioShock (and in my opinion you shouldn’t), be warned.

The game plays out very much like the first, albeit without quite so unique a tale.  Subject Delta – as you are called – was amongst the first wave of Big Daddies who, unlike the production models seen in the first game, were bound to a specific Little Sister.  If they strayed too far from their charge, or if some tragedy befell her, Alpha Series Big Daddies would lapse into a coma and eventually die.  Finding your Little Sister is the crux of your quest, though as you might expect your progress through the city is constantly blocked by various colorful denizens of Rapture.  Along the way you must make a handful of moral choices which will shape the ending, though these still revolve around a fairly black-and-white moral compass.

Most of the mechanics from BioShock return for this game, though few without at least some modification.  The most immediately noticeable change is that you now wield a Plasmid – the ADAM-given special abilities – in your left hand while using a normal weapon in your right, eliminating some of the irritating weapon toggling from the first game while also broadening your ability to combine weapons and powers in vicious combinations.  Most of the Plasmids are repeats from the first game, though they’ve all gained certain new abilities at the higher levels, and some of the more useless ones have been subsumed into others.  Your arsenal of weapons proves a tad fresher, with only the shotgun and grenade launcher reappearing, though the other weapons largely fit in the same niches as those of the previous game.  The most significant difference on this end is that even on the highest difficulty all of your weapons feel powerful – you are a Big Daddy, after all – which fundamentally changes the feel of playing.  Even from the beginning Splicers only pose much of a danger in numbers, unlike the early stages of BioShock, where getting the drop on your enemies and finishing them before they had much chance to retaliate was critical to your survival.

Most of the enemies return from BioShock: several flavors of Splicer as well as the Bouncers and Rosies, who guard a new generation of Little Sisters.  There’s a new Splicer type on the block, the Brute Splicer, whose decade of splicing has turned him into a hulking, well, brute.  The Rumbler, a heavy-ordinance Big Daddy, defends many Little Sisters from the ever-more-ADAM-starved splicers, and the Big Sisters – lightning fast, dangerous counterparts to the Big Daddies – arrive to retaliate when the Big Daddies fail.

The various secondary mechanics are also mostly preserved.  Ammo, first aid kits, weapon upgrades, and so on are once again gained through the same array of vending machines, all of which, like security cameras, drones, and turrets, can be hacked.  The hacking mechanic is no longer an obnoxious mini-game but a rapid timing-based challenge, and overall works much better.  As you collect ADAM you can buy new plasmids, upgrades of previous ones, and various gene tonics, which are now lumped into one large category for greater flexibility.  ADAM is gained by defeating Big Daddies and dealing with the Little Sisters, either by rescuing or harvesting them.

Players will find one new option in that regard: before dealing with a liberated Little Sister, you may escort her to gather ADAM from corpses in the area to increase the ADAM payoff when you eventually decide what to do with her.  Until you set her down she rides on your shoulder, protected from harm (and occasionally commenting on whatever you are doing in her morbid fashion).  When you find a usable body, you can set her down to start gathering ADAM, but must guard her from the inevitable onslaught of splicers who arrive to try to take some for themselves.  The game puts a good deal of emphasis on planning for this onslaught before you let the Sister start gathering ADAM, and these sequences result in far and away some of the hardest fights in the game if you don’t plan appropriately.  Regrettably, the game undermines some of your tactical considerations by allowing splicers to spawn down dead-end hallways and so forth, so sometimes a route into the area that doesn’t look important to secure is anyway.  It’s a minor frustration at best, but the first few times that you’re flanked from the direction of a storage closet you just checked for splicers are bothersome.

During your journey you’ll see new parts of Rapture, but the interior design remains very consistent.  The atmosphere as a whole has been well-maintained, and that’s one part of the original that is definitely good to preserve.  Even if this game is somewhat easier than the first, the vibe is still very much that of a grisly survival horror, just with you playing as (one of) the overt monsters.  The tale of Rapture’s last decade is once again recounted by audio diaries you find scattered all over the city, and though the picture they paint is not quite so chilling as that of the city’s fall in the first game, they are still a pleasure to find in order to expand the world and its history.  The production values of these and all of your face-to-face interactions with other characters are top-notch, and everyone has personality.

This highly-anticipated sequel may not bring the same singular, unforgettable experience as its predecessor, but only, perhaps, because that game beat it to the punch.  And while there’s a part of me that hoped for a little more truly new material, the refined, frantic, inventive action and the solemn tale of love, duty, and sacrifice make BioShock 2 well worth a return trip to Rapture.