"Delight." Exclusive preview and impressions of BioShock 2

It's somewhat awkward to talk about what **BioShock** is. It hasn't been long since the spiritual successor to **System Shock 2** boldly announced the arrival of the next-gen era on personal computers. For details, follow my review, and @wondervill's mini-preview will elaborate on why we should look forward to the second part. My post will answer a slightly different question – what exactly will the sequel and multiplayer give us?

Let me explain about the multiplayer: yes, after what I've seen, I consider it a full-fledged game in the BioShock universe, not just an add-on to the second part. If the events of the single-player campaign begin ten years after the finale of the first part, then the multiplayer will take us back several months to New Year's Eve of 1959, when the civil war began, and anarchy fully consumed Rapture. And while the Adam was already starting to devour the citizens, they have not yet become Splicers, which means every character has their own backstory and personality. However, in combat, everyone is equal; this is not **Team Fortress 2**. Following the latest trend, the multiplayer has an upgrade system with over twenty levels, granting access to new Plasmids. The game modes are standard but tailored to the game's world – Capture the Sister, Last Splicer Standing, etc. There are a total of seven, and there's a separate post on that, so I won't repeat it. But have you forgotten that every character is a personality? This is the main interest of the multiplayer – between battles, you can return to your apartment, listen to your favorite music, and the earned levels will unlock access to audio diaries with new details of the war and the life of the city from the perspective of its ordinary inhabitants. Most maps are already familiar places in Rapture, including the Kashmir restaurant, where both the war and Jack's adventures began in the first part.

BioShock was the first game to showcase the graphical power of Unreal Engine 3 on PC, and the second part, for obvious reasons, does not evoke such graphical awe – the technology has improved only slightly, making it easy to confuse screenshots of both games, and over two years have passed! But for fans of BioShock like me, a pleasant nostalgia is guaranteed – the interface remains the same, and the stunningly beautiful and stylish design still leaves one in awe periodically! But it’s better not to do that. Who knows, maybe in the next moment the glass ceiling will collapse and we will find ourselves under a kilometer-thick layer of beautiful water. Only one being can withstand such a situation in the BioShock universe – the Big Daddy. And we will have to take control of one of them.

In general, Big Daddies are utilitarian creatures. They protect the Little Sisters, repair crumbling buildings, and rarely think about what they do. But our hero is different. Years ago, he had his Little Sister, but after losing her, he mysteriously disappeared for ten years. And who awakened us now? Who needs a Daddy from the very first series in the almost destroyed Rapture? Who is Sophia Lamb, whose voice from the screens declares that our hero