What began as boredom finally gained some momentum once I made it to ‘dystopian disneyland’ or ‘the animatronic guide to rapture’. Still, it’s difficult to justify two years for a sequel of the same length, using the same tech, maybe even some of the same assets? Apparently that’s the difference between the tin man and a well oiled machine. With Left 4 Dead 2 and GTA Vice city, Valve and Rockstar kept their teams on and were able to pull off 9 month dev cycles while improving quality.
Despite the relative lack of improvement over the first game, I am loving the strategic feel of setting traps which I don’t remember having nearly as much fun with in the first game. I get a Rube Goldberg-ian sense of satisfaction watching all of my little traps purring in unison, it’s like The Incredible Machine with ragdolls. Sigh. I also played the other game on my Bioshock disc- it’s called multiplayer and it ain’t pretty. Besides being buggy enough to make Mercs 2 look good, the team responsible for it fell into the same damn trap as the Uncharted 2 guys. Like Uncharted, it had the potential to give us a new and interesting multiplayer experience, instead they shipped with a poor imitation of Call of Duty.
One more thing that is bugging me about Bioshock 2 and Borderlands- stop making me look down- it’s ugly, disorienting and it hurts my neck. Either require me to look at the ground less or put less crap on the ground or how about some ground tits? You know, a little physical simulation on them and we’re good. Look, if you want me to stare at the shitty parts of your game I’m going to need more incentive.