#I really really like Fontaine so far the only grievance I have is that they should've put more accordion into the soundtrack but that's

[elkian]

I think I pinned down a major element in the difference between Bioshock 1 and 2′s writing

Character Motivation

NOTE: Contains spoilers for and criticism of Bioshock 1, possibly minor spoilers for Bioshock 2. If BS1 is your favorite game you may want to give this a miss.

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(this turned into a list of BS1 grievances, ctrl+F “the twist” or “BS2″ if you want to jump to the relevant point)

I’ve mentioned it before in my Bioshock run, but Bioshock 1 has some glaringly obvious writing issues. 

Most notable to me were the first Plasmid injection - because as far as I can tell, and I spent some time trying to trigger a radio call, there is absolutely reason given for you to use it. As a Person Playing A Video Game, I’m going, “oh, here’s a locked door and a shiny item. If I grab the item it will probably (help me) open the door”. The player character has no such motivation. That’s okay, video games can be like that.

Less so how the Plasmid-getting actually works. IDK about anyone else, but I could not see the syringe before picking it up. Additionally, despite the pieces of advertisment about, there aren’t actually any explanations about what a Plasmid is or actually does. The goofy period-appropriate ad design doesn’t tell me, a player just starting this game, that not only am I actually gonna get in-universe superpowers but also a torturous DNA-modification cutscene.

So it was extremely surprising to press E to pick up this round glowing thing and have the player character immediately jam a horse needle into his arm with no apparent impetus.

Point 2 is in Arcadia. Searching boxes and bodies here yields crafting supplies. Again, as A Person Playing A Video Game, I know what’s happening. But the player character has no reason to start picking up crafting goods at this time. It’s around 5-15 minutes of gameplay after you start picking them up that you actually find a place for them, and 10-ish minutes after that for your Voice Over Buddy to mention them.

Frankly, a large part of my problem with these bits is that the devs have a tool right there to avoid them; Atlas is telling you all sorts of things, it would be simple to have him say, “Hey, this is gonna hurt like a somebitch, but I need you to grab that shiny thing in the dispenser and inject it into your body to open this door.” He DOES tell you about crafting, just way too late - and later in the game they absolutely have items show up on already-searched containers after triggering a plot flag, so this one is also p inexcusable.

In fact, from my point of view, the devs improve at making video games as they made the game. Part 1 had a lot of other minor issues - rooms where the surprise mob surprised you by having the room fill with smoke or fog as soon as you hit a plot trigger; the entire medical wing section felt more like a boring, grind-y pseudo-tutorial than an actual good plot segment; supposedly-Plasmid-abusing not-monsters failing to use any of the superpowers your character obtained seemingly effortlessly.

Later in the game, there is no fog- or smoke-rooms (at least not on Easy difficulty), but they combine two points by having Houdini Splicers - who use Plasmid powers that include, aside from pure offense, smoke-creation and teleportation, in a way the player can still track. It’s much, much more elegant than the previous areas. 

In a number of small other ways, particularly the writing, the game just becomes smoother the further into it you get (not in a way that feels intentional). Unfortunately, the first half of the game feels very much like they made the game, then wrote it, then built the second half around what they wrote.

One thing is The Twist. While it does explain some things - it makes an amount of sense for your character to know things about how Rapture and Plasmids work - it makes the entire fabrication of Atlas.... almost pointless, from the PC’s point of view. While you do start shaking off some indoctrination by the end, Fontaine can lead you around pretty effortlessly. He doesn’t need to win over your love or sympathy. I mean, yeah, he’s playing dead (I guess Ryan could hear him and realize who it is?) and Atlas is an established front, but it just doesn’t really hold up to close inspection. The entire point of Atlas is to fool the Player, at the cost of plot integrity.

After The Twist, you’re still dancing to someone else’s tune, but someone with whom I think the Player is much more sympathetic to. The whole ‘a man chooses, a slave obeys’ doesn’t really read as much of a choice-based plot if the vast majority of the plotline, minus some ending details, is in the hands of people other than the Player/Player Character. 

My motivation in BS1 differs from the character’s, because even at the end I don’t know my character’s motivation. And while blank-slate PCs and inscrutable PCs can work, I’m not entirely sure 2k was ever consciously going for that. If they were, I shouldn’t have to wonder.

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The motivation in BS2 is much clearer, imo. I kind of wonder if the reason the Big Daddy segment in BS1 was so fun is because it came with a complete clarity of purpose - you want to protect the Little Sister.

The PC motivation in BS2, thus far, is extremely clear: Find your Little Sister. She contacts you throughout the game, clearly in need of help, and you want to help her, find her, reconnect with her. Unless they pull another twist at some point (and they better have the best motherfucking writer in the universe on board for it tbh), I know exactly what my character wants, and I agree with it.

This also makes the voice-over and helper characters fit into the plot better - Tennenbaum remains within established personality parameters. Sinclair is looking to turn a profit, and bringing down Lamb might help that goal - I don’t trust his character, but I understand that we need him to accomplish our clearly defined personal goal. We’ll tolerate him for as long as he helps us, and if he turns on us, I personally have no problem killing him - and I don’t think Delta would, either.

BS2 still has some writing issues, but both the map and the overarching plot read much, much clearer to me.