Is this the DLC that will salvage Bioshock 2 and all its failings? Don’t get me wrong, I loved the story of Project Delta, his little sister and the evil Sophia Lamb, but it was quite lacklustre in comparison to the terrors that Andrew Ryan & Frank Fontaine inflicted upon us. Sure, there were some new toys for us to play with but it just didn’t feel quite the same and it certainly lacked the twists and turns of its predecessor.

There’s a new bad guy in town this time though who goes by the name of Reed Wahl, a spliced up maniac who has made it his own personal goal in his limited life to protect The Thinker. This intelligent computer that runs the entire city of Rapture was created by Charles Milton Porter and later maintained with the help of his friend and colleague Reed Wahl. Things turn sour between the two and Wahl has Milton tried for treason for misuse of The Thinker when attempting to use it to recreate the personality of his dead wife. With Milton transported to Persephone for an indefinite amount of time, Wahl shuts off Minerva’s Den from the rest of Rapture so he can ensure the safety of The Thinker from all outsiders.

You think?

Time passes though and Porter makes his unexpected return from the infamous prison to awaken you, another Alpha Series Big Daddy under the name of Project Sigma. Milton has teamed up with Brigid Tenenbaum, the Little Sister’s creator and saviour, who has also asked for your services in attempting to reach the surface and believes that accessing The Thinker and regaining control of Minerva’s Den is the only way that this will be possible.

Thankfully Minerva’s Den holds a completely new set of locations for you to explore in Rapture Central Computing so as to keep things a little bit fresh but familiar as well. As you would expect with any Bioshock game or add on by now, the story is told through a variety of audio logs that are dotted around the Central Computing chambers along with the radio transmissions from Milton, Wahl & Tenenbaum. There is even the return of a few sea bed exploration tasks with some bonus Adam slugs ripe for the taking.

Naturally because Tenenbaum has made an appearance there are more Little Sisters for you to save from the grasp of those greedy splicers, which means more Adam draining chores to complete. This part of the game I did find to be a little bit monotonous, mostly because I had already saved all the creepy little children in the main story, and also in The Protector Trials. Saving or harvesting really doesn’t appear to make much of a difference as long as you can afford what is new.

In terms of what is new, Minerva’s Den doesn’t deliver too much but what it does provide you with is the rather impressive new plasmid Gravity Well and a powerful new weapon called the Ion Laser. Gravity Well is both very effective and rather humorous at the same time. Deploying this new plasmid into a plethora of enemies will suck them into a self contained whirlwind, leaving you free to fill them with bullets (or take them out with another plasmid) without fear of one sneaking up behind you. When the plasmid is done doing what it does best, all the enemies contained are spat out with a small explosion, littering splicers all over the place in a slightly undignified yet comical manner.

The Ion Laser is the newest weapon to the Bioshock 2 arsenal, but is unfortunately not just specifically for your use. The new Big Daddy model, The Lancer, also has access to this devastatingly powerful weapon, and you will even come across some new security bots that are fitted with the same weaponry to blast a hole through you. This doesn’t mean you don’t stand a chance though. Instead of having Power to the People stations, upgrades for all the weapons you will use are littered around the broken down tunnels of Minerva’s Den, providing higher damage and reload times for those tough Big Daddy & Big Sister battles.

I found that Minerva’s Den was over just as it started to get really exciting. With a plot twist that wasn’t quite on par with Bioshock, it was at the very least more exciting than the tale of Sophia Lamb, but then it just seemed to end prematurely. Despite this, there is a lovely little story hidden here and I would suggest this DLC to anyone who is a big fan of the series, although there won’t be much new here for the casual player.

Sure there is a dark side of my character that chuckles to myself when I see a gas tank, and I always take note of security cameras on my travels because years of playing video games has taught me a few little tricks that come in quite useful in everyday life. When I gave this a little more thought it occurred to me that actually there are many positive lessons learned by attending the University of Gaming.

Modern education involves constant multiple-choice style exams that teaches kids to memorise rather than think. Many blame this for shackling creativity and explain why many have so much trouble solving the simplest of problems in the ‘one size fits all’ education system. The good news is that people who play video games can learn more skills from games than they ever did in school.

Lesson One: Everyday is a school day
Whether you are at school, college, university or climbing the ladder of success in the workplace the biggest lesson to learn in life is that everyday is a school day no matter how old you are. You are guaranteed to learn new skills everyday no matter how good you may think that you are.

Video Games mostly begin with a tutorial that very often outstays its welcome, but even the more experienced and cocky gamer who skips such a lesson could end up regretting it when they realise they don’t know how to use dead eye in Red Dead Redemption because of their over enthusiastic skipping.

I must confess that tutorials are something of an annoyance to me, but I have since learned to be a little more patient and learn a thing or two. It took the death of Ben Carmine to make me learn the error of my ways, but I got there in the end. Sadly this won’t bring Ben back.

Ben Carmine dies for our sins!

Lesson Two: Learn from your mistakes.
Each and every one of us will make mistakes on this roller-coaster we call life; however the key lesson is to not repeat them but to learn from them. Sounds simple right? Sure it’s up there with eat less and exercise more but anyone that has seen the Jeremy Kyle Show will know that there is living proof that some people continue to make the same mistakes.

The world of video games does not tolerate fools gladly and if you wish to progress in games such as Trials HD you will learn this frustrating lesson the hard way.

Lesson Three: Trust No-one!
I believe that to win a rat race you need to be a rat. I don’t want to be a rat but unfortunately in life even people that appear to be a good friend in the workplace could be hatching a plan to cause your downfall so they can further their own ambition with you out of the way. Of course not everyone you meet will be your secret nemesis but you need to be aware that it could happen and what signs to look for.

A prime example of this was the nice, incredibly helpful man called Atlas in the game Bioshock. For the majority of the game it felt that you and this affable Irishman struck up a rapport as he helped you escape the claustrophobic and chaotic world of Rapture. However the ending is something that is enough to guarantee you that you will think twice before trusting someone so implicitly ever again.

Atlas was right...

Lesson 4: Follow your own path
If a bear attacks your camp you don’t need to be faster than the bear. You only need to be faster than the slowest camper and this is a lesson that many gamers are forced to learn very quickly when playing online.

Fortune favours the brave, but most game rooms are full of people being predictable taking the same route time after time but the person who is not distracted by others and disciplined enough to follow their own path and separate themselves from the masses will reap the rewards.

Lesson 5: There is no shortcut; experience is the key to success
Wander aimlessly into any online game map and you will be instantly picked off, leaving you feeling more than a little worthless. However if you put the hours in, study the geography of your environment, your moment of glory will come sooner than you think. Like any cheesy 80’s film, if you refuse to give up and work hard you will gain the experience you need to become a contender.

Lesson 6: There is no I in Team
No matter how good you may think you are as an individual you will never be a match for well organized team who work together towards a common goal. Any member of a successful online clan will tell any rookie to leave his ego and quest for personal glory at the door, because it will win you nothing.

"Work as a team, people. Work as a team."

Lesson 7: Problem Solving
Studies show video games make people more perceptive, training their brains to analyze things faster and more effective than those who do not. With games such as the Sims, kids can look at real life problems and it can teach them how to work out their own solutions.

Unfortunately in the real world, sleeping for twenty-four hours will not fix all of your health issues, you cannot re-spawn, you haven’t got three lives. You only get one shot at this life but the lessons you have learned from gaming are possibly more valuable than you will ever learn in any classroom.

That being said, I decided to take a second dive into the World of Rapture to make a fair assessment, one way or another.

Returning to Rapture
From the days of the game receiving the subtitle Sea of Dreams to just being plain Bioshock 2, this game has been a long time coming. Set in 1968, eight years after the events in Bioshock 1, Rapture is now controlled by a female psychologist named Sofia Lamb, an antagonist to the concepts originally devised by Andrew Ryan, and an advocate for rebirth and the symbolism of the butterfly. Also, just because she’s female, she still has a ruthless streak and can certainly match Ryan for wit and will.

The protagonist in this game is Subject Delta; the forth prototype of the entity known as the Big Daddy, but the first Big Daddy to be successfully pair-bonded to a Little Sister. Your objective, should you choose to accept it, is reach your Little Sister named Eleanor. However, as with all tragic tales, you have been separated from her by Lamb, who is, ironically enough, her mother. In order to save Eleanor and stop Lamb, as Delta you must travel across the ruins of Rapture to Fontaine Futuristics where Eleanor is held. However, your path is bound to her alone and should you deviate from it, then a killswitch programmed into your very essence will activate, killing you instantly.

Despite the fact that the game was considered unnecessary, Bioshock 2 has made itself an integral and important part of the lore of Rapture. Having played Bioshock 2, it’s now hard for me to imagine the series without having uncovered the revelations made about the creation of the Big Daddy or even how a Little Sister came to be and what created their insatiable lust for ADAM. This game has had a resounding impact on the over-arching story that cannot be ignored and could potentially change your perspective about what you thought you knew about Rapture.

Careful, she's got a raging case of PMT.

There is a truly powerful narrative in both the undertones and exterior of Bioshock 2. This is a story about the emotional and physical entanglement between a small girl and her protector. A girl who believes you will let no harm can come to her, a girl who trusts you despite the horrific, violent, disturbing things happening around her and the altogether wretched form you’ve undertaken. This is a powerful tale that will touch you, grip you, and move you. Bioshock 2 widens the narrative scope in comparison to the original and does give you options and choices to consider at every turn. This is interactive entertainment, but one that works well within the context of its original vision. While certain choices you make within some games can leave you feeling quite flat and unenthused, realising that the story wasn’t catered to this direction, Bioshock 2 always makes you feel like you made the right decision for you and that the story works according to how you chose to walk the path.

In addition, Bioshock 2 has not one, not two, but six different endings determined by your actions throughout the course of the game. Few games can make you pause for a few moments to contemplate the ramifications of your decisions, that test your own moral outlook on life, yet Bioshock 2 can consider itself in that category and how you treat the remaining denizens of Rapture will reflect the broken down and beaten world in more ways than you care to realise. The way Little Sisters look at you, the way you are spoken to through the speaker system, whether you are offered help and assistance in times of need. The perception you as a player had of the Big Daddy in the first game can be echoed in its sequel or reversed as you please, in a sense making the world of Rapture one resounding with your perceptions and outlook on life.

2K have indulged us with another intelligent and intrepid story that discusses life after the fall of Rapture, that illustrates the high plateau that Andrew Ryan set his nirvana upon and how it came tumbling down all around him, that discusses the political imbalances that plague the underwater realm and how a city that is a bunch of rubble and seaweed still has those who strive to claim it for their own. How a simple relationship between girl and beast weaves such an emotional tapestry, a relationship that we as players, were terrified by in the original title, now structures something we want to fight for so feverishly in the second.

It’s the same… but different…
As before, the game plays much the same. You walk around Rapture, collecting Audio Logs and still receiving audio transmissions, all of which give detail to the characters you pursue and backstory while explaining more about the experiments in Rapture. As before, you’ll also collect a camera which will allow you to film any type of villain in action, although this plays slightly different to the first game. When the film is rolling you will get extra bonuses for the amount of damage you inflict on the victim, but only by using as much variety as possible. This enables a more accurate assessment of what works best on each enemy. The more you film them and the more you become accustomed to their abilities, the quicker you’ll be able to fully research them and inflict maximum punishment.

There are also some really cool new features, such as the ability to melee attack with every weapon in the game, and the ability to dual wield both Plasmid and weapon at the same time, causing extra damage and variety in combat. There is also the hacking tool which enables you to hack vending machines, bots, cameras and turrets from a distance, saving you from getting up close and getting your skin ripped to shreds. Also, for the first time in the series, you will explore the ocean outside of Rapture, which is possible due to the Big Daddy armour being a modified diving suit. This creates some unique storyline and game play opportunities and further reiterates that the character you’re playing in Bioshock 2 is a completely different breed and personality to the protagonist in the original game.

Of course, there are the familiar foundations you have come to expect from the series still very prominent in Bioshock 2. The Big Daddy battles are still as difficult as you remember them, despite the fact that you yourself a big hulking metallic menace. I don’t mean to dispell any illusions here, but if you’re coming to the fight unprepared you are still going to get your ass kicked. In addition to the Bouncers and Rosies you met in the first game, there is also the Alpha series that will literally pound grenades against your skull if you give them enough distance. However, if they discover that strategy is ineffective, they will drop their launcher, sprint toward you at the pace of a 100m Olympic runner and charge right into you without any remorse.

Also, if you thought the Big Daddies ruled the roost in Rapture, think again, because when you save the last of the Little Sisters in any hub, your vision will become impaired and all you will hear is a piercing shriek, symbolising the imminent arrival of the Big Sister. If you thought tackling Mr Bubbles was difficult, then just wait until you see this hybrid of a Houdini Splicer and Big Daddy cart wheeling away from your bullets and melting your face with plasmids. To make matters worse, the Big Sister can heal herself when in combat, by absorbing ADAM from other Splicers. This bitch means business and she wants your ADAM!

The Splicers remain mostly the same; you still have the Lead-heads, the Spider and Houdini Splicers from the original, each with the same set of tricks. However, there is also a new entrant to the party, the lumbering Brute Splicer, who reminds me a bit of the Charger from Left 4 Dead 2. The Brute Splicer, on sight, will search for a piece of debris to throw at you if he has the range. However, if you close in on the Splicer or he runs out of chunks of rock, the Brute Splicer will charge, destabilising you and sending you into a crumpled heap on the floor. From there, the behemoth will pound dents into your suit and turn you into scrap metal. To down these abominations, you’ll need tactics and smarts as well as raw strength and dexterity; a key aspect of the Bioshock series once again well implemented in the sequel.

Cuddly Bubbles

However, there are some aspects that aren’t so well realised. In an unusual turn of events, 2K have changed the gameplay of hacking a machine, and decided to use an altogether different mini-game. Instead of the fast and furious pipe creation game, 2K have decided to simplify the experience and reduced it to a simple button press. Whereas in the original Bioshock, there was an element of tension when making sure the pipe was fully connected to the exit while the water was creeping along, now it’s a simple case of ensuring the ticker is on a green or blue section and pressing a button.

While the original mini-game taxed your brain, there is no such revelation to be found in this mini-game, and frankly it leaves you feeling a bit empty. Perhaps removing the pipe feature from Bioshock 2 was a way of ensuring the games were kept separate in someway as they are both otherwise very similar in play and feel, but it also seems more of a detraction from the original and makes hacking seem like something any monkey with a wrench can do.

However, 2K also prove that they know how to get your adrenaline working and understand their subject matter well enough to implement a new feature which will have your heart racing faster than ever before. After you defeat a Big Daddy and choose to adopt a little sister instead of harvesting them outright, you can search for bodies around the map which are filled with ADAM. The Little Sister will show you the way to go by the means of a white trail leading directly to the body. Once you reach the corpse, the Little Sister will climb off your back and start to gather the ADAM for you.

However, the moment the Little Sister begins harvesting, the Splicers sniff you out and come to try and get the ADAM for themselves. Your job is to protect your Little Sister as she gathers ADAM from a host of villainy that descends upon you. Depending what gene tonics you have equipped, this can be over quickly, or it can be a couple of gruelling minutes as you fight your way to victory, especially on the later difficulty settings. Luckily you can prepare yourself for the battle beforehand, whether you want to approach it tactically by planting grenades and turrets to help fight for you, or even just stock up on ammunition and eve kits and obliterate the opposition the old fashioned way. It’s entirely up to you. However, if you’re successful, the rewards are rich, and will ultimately help you upgrade your plasmids, and health and EVE bars faster than normal as you progress through the game.

Narrative is one of the things which thrust video games in the direction of being called an interactive experience. The idea is that if a game has a compelling enough plot and halfway decent controls, then it is more comparable to an experience than a game based on the fact that you aren’t really trying to win anything as much as you’re trying to complete a story. This would all be fine and good if there were actually any games with a good narrative. Now I’m sure anyone reading this could probably list off more than a handful of games that they thought had a great story, but that would just prove my point. We gamers can’t just search for games with a respectable narrative; we have to raise the bar for what’s expected of a respectable narrative as well.

In most cases, any plot-centric game could never survive in the format of a novel. Take Konami’s Metal Gear Solid, written by Hideo Kojima, for example. Though most fans of this critically acclaimed series stick with it because of its deep, convoluted story, imagine trying to read something that ridiculously complicated. Many renowned novels such as The Great Gatsby are markedly complicated and can take a bit of time to understand, but there isn’t one bit of nonsense to be found. The long and short of any good plot is that it must go beyond entertaining. Entertaining is the benchmark of any acceptable plot, sure, but should it be the standard by which we judge a good plot?

Ayn Rand, is that you?!

At this point we’re nowhere near ready to have games with amazing gameplay and an awe-inspiring story, but we are at a point where integration of literature should be ousting that of cinema. It’s a sad, sorry joke now to even mention how terrible the majority of movie tie-in games are, but we’ve yet to have a failure when it comes to book tie-ins. A recent and more successful game to try this method is the hugely popular sci-fi shooter, Bioshock.

Bioshock, if you didn’t know, is by and large a big dedication to Ayn Rand, a philosophical Objectivist and novelist. To Ayn Rand, paradise would be somewhere secluded from the rest of the world, where science could thrive, and religion would be squelched eternally. The fine arts and forms of expression would define this place, birthing a haven where the creative could exist in bliss for life. Sound familiar?

Rapture is an underground city which was designed by Andrew Ryan (similar to Ayn Rand). One of the protagonists of the game is named Atlas (ever heard of Atlas Shrugged?), and one of the main antagonists is named Fontaine (The Fountainhead). In Bioshock, Rapture represents Rand’s dream world if it had gone horribly, horribly wrong. There is probably no more harrowing an experience than that of your first fight with a Big Daddy to get your hands on one of those precious Little Sisters and the Adam therein.

This is by no means a piece meant simply to praise Bioshock for what it has done by claiming it is a flawless masterpiece. However it is to say that at some point in the near future we should be able to look back on this game as a shallow experience which barely meets the standard requirements of a game. One can dream, right?

In years to come, Bioshock's narrative should be able to be called 'shallow'.

Luckily, we’re already moving forward with titles like Dante’s Inferno, which looks to turn Dante’s depiction of Hell on its head, spin it a few thousand degrees and then drench it in blood. In terms of blending story with gameplay to provide for an intricate adventure, look for Heavy Rain, a PS3 exclusive title set to release in early 2010. If neither of those grab you, Splinter Cell: Conviction, also slated for a 2010 release, has all the makings of an experience which cannot be replicated.

Until the time comes when we can truly claim that games are on the same level as novels and top-tier films in terms of narrative and theme, we will never have the right to lobby for the idea of games as a comparable experience. By the time we’ve reached such a point in the evolution of gaming, the definition of a gamer will doubtlessly have changed as well. Hopefully we won’t lose what makes us love the games we play now in the process of growing older with the industry. One can dream.