Sure, a Big Daddy looks cute in rag-doll form

More E3-ness (although I’ve been meaning to talk about this one for a while), more and more details have been trickling out of 2K recently about BioShock 2, a game I’m very much waiting for.  I picked up the original quite late, which proved nice price-wise, but I kicked myself when I played the game for not having bought it sooner.  The thing I loved most about it was the art direction.  The underwater city of Rapture drips with 1920′s style architecture and class.  The character design is brilliant too, with most of the residents of Rapture having long ago succumbed to being “splicers”, genetically altered and mutated freaks on a constant search for Adam (the catalyst for all genetic modification).

What worries me however, with the upcoming release of the sequel, is that the original BioShock had a very linear (albeit brilliant) storyline and might prove a little difficult to follow.  But the dev team seems to be taking pains to remain true to the original game in matters of design and gameplay, so hopefully it will prove itself good in it’s own right.

BioShock 2 puts you in the hulking boots of a prototype Big Daddy, the enormous, scuba suited bodyguard to Rapture’s Adam harvesting Little Sisters.  By the looks of things this prototype is a fair bit more agile than the Daddies you encounter in BioShock 1, and also will have it’s own splicing abilities too.  2K released a gameplay trailer a little while ago showing off the weapons and abilities of your Big Daddy, and introducing the Big Sister, who is presumably the game’s protaganist.  Amongst the new features are the ability to combine splices (the video shows flaming cyclone traps) and the ability to take the Big Daddy out onto the sea floor.

The game is also going to be introducing multiplayer, something that was lacking from the original.  Players will take the role of genetic modification test subjects from early Rapture, which sounds cool as it’s also supposed to give a glimpse of the underwater city before it fell into disarray.  From the sound of things, it’s going to have it’s own little RPG kind of feel to it too, with players slowly building up their splicing abilities and attributes in their own little apartment of Rapture between matches.   Neat to see a game taking on both a sequel AND prequel element in one package. Hopefully it proves worthwhile, because while the pressure to add multiplayer is almost overwhelming these days, not every game actually needs it (something which the original BioShock proved).

Still, eagerly anticipating this one!  Would you kindly go and pre-order?

Maybe it’s my 90′s upbringing, but the mind boggles at technology sometimes.  What technology you ask? Is it the various advances in medical science?  The steady advance in robotics that will one day gain self-awareness and kill us all?

No, frankly I’m slightly amazed, outraged and impressed all at once by the fact that you can now play Quake 3 Arena in your browser.

Good Beta Best!

Quake Live brings for free what used to be the cutting edge of FPS, and with seemingly no real drain on your computers resources.  This was the game that used to be first choice of LAN events across the country in the new millenium.  Times were that your computer may actually struggle to run a game as resource heavy as Quake 3 (may you burn in hell, Pentium 2!), and to get a decent game going you better have been ready to use all 56k of your dial-up modem.

Well crack open a Jolt Cola, because now you can play it as a browser plug-in with hundreds of other players online. And even poor little old shaped me can get a decent connection.  It also supports friend lists and clans, so everyone can their dusty tags back out for an airing.

Which gets me to wondering if we’re at this level of technology now, what other great multiplayer games (that I probably still have mouldering away on CD-Rom) could now be played in browser? Unreal Tournament? BattleZone 2? Team Fortress Classic? Starsiege: Tribes? It would appear the options really are only limited by their respective copyright owners.

I’m also interested to find out if the eventual product will include a few of the classic Q3 mods.  It’s been quite a while since I engaged in a bit of Rocket Arena.

Anyway, those interested in a little nostalgia for no extra cost, come notch up a few humiliation kills with (or on, more likely) me.  Registration and installation times are minimal and there always seems to be an active game going on somewhere online.

GG everyone …

Stabbed a guy so hard, he bent both his daggers

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has played the original Escape from Butcher Bay on the Xbox that this game is good. It will prove even less surprising given the fact that half of this game IS the original Escape from Butcher Bay, albeit a little smartened up for the new console.

But it’s a nice touch. Anyone who missed the original game will discover a game that’s very well produced, even a little ahead of it’s time, and those who’ve already played it can jump back in to re-enjoy (although the game let’s you jump straight in to the new chapter if you’d like).

Released back in 2004, Escape from Butcher Bay was a solid release for the Xbox that didn’t really gain the attention it should have. It’s primarily a stealth game, not unlike Thief or Splinter Cell, but it also manages to satisfactorily integrate elements of FPS and RPG. The game takes place in the triple-max prison of Butcher Bay, where Riddick claims to have gained his shined eyes in the film Pitch Black. Around a third of the game takes place in the various prisoner areas of Butcher Bay, interacting with the inmates, doing favours and side missions. Then there’s a third of the game which is spent using Riddick in stealth mode and the remaining third is traditional FPS run and gun. It’s a very well balanced game and is good fun to play.

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