BioShock 2 E3 Preview

WorthPlaying covers both the single player and multiplayer components of 2K Marin’s BioShock sequel in their latest E3 preview.

As a Big Daddy, you have most of the abilities witnessed by both the Big Daddies and the Rosies in the first BioShock. Your melee attack is replaced by a drill, which can now be used with a single button instead of changing weapons constantly. You can also do the devastating shoulder charge attack that the original Big Daddies showed off. Your weapons are replaced by those more suited to the Big Daddy, such as the Rivet Gun used by the Rosies. However, these weapons are a bit more devastating in your hands, and it appeared that you could even get different kinds of ammunition for them, like the regular guns in BioShock. As a Big Daddy, you are capable of surviving in places where even Splicers can’t go. This means that you’ll be able to wander around on the ocean floor for a time, opening up new routes that were inaccessible in the previous game. However, as Big Daddy Prime, you also have some unique new abilities. The most notable of these is the ability to use plasmids. Like the hero from the first game, the Big Daddy Prime can inject himself with various plasmids and tonics in improve his abilities, give him the ability to shoot flames from his hands, or create deadly wind traps to launch his opponents into the air.

Since you’re a Big Daddy, your priorities in Rapture are different. Like the traditional Big Daddies, your goal is to find Little Sisters and guard and protect them even if that means taking them out of the hands of other, less able Big Daddies. When you find a Little Sister, you have two options: adopt or harvest. Harvest appears to be very similar to what it was in BioShock. You find the Little Sister and remove the Adam slug from her, killing her in the process. Adopt, however, is a bit different. Your Big Daddy places the Little Sister into a basket on his back, and she’ll stay with him as he walks around. Her goal is to find “angels,” or corpses, from which she can drain extra Adam. When you find one of these corpses, she’ll hop down and begin to extract the Adam from it. This process, however, attracts Splicers like flies to honey, and the moment she begins the extraction, you’ll be overrun with enemies. This is where you have to do your job as a Big Daddy and protect her against the Splicers by brutally killing any who come near her. You’re not quite as durable as a regular Big Daddy, but you make up for that by having plasmids. You can use the time before you drop off the Little Sister to set traps or maneuver things in the battlefield so they are to your advantage before the Splicers show up. Once a Little Sister is done harvesting, she returns to your shoulder basket, and you continue on. What you’ll eventually do with these Little Sisters is a bit of a mystery, but there appears to be an eventual way of rescuing them, much as Jack did to the Little Sisters in BioShock.