Whoah - a whopping three and a half hour straight of gametime today!

During this time I basically explored the entirety of Dionysus Park including rescuing two Little Sisters - with the third one just in waiting - and fighting a Big Sister. I made sure this time to fight her in an area where security cameras would summon flying bots to help out and of course I did good research on her during the fight.
I also got quite a few telepathic messages from Eleanor in which she's concerned that Sofia Lamb (her mother) is on to her helping me by giving information and sending Little Sisters out with gifts. Things are starting to get serious!

So to summon up this long session; lotsa hacking, collecting ADAM, finding tonics, doing research on Houdini Splicers, Big Daddies and Big Sister and of course lotsa shooting
As stated I have the third and last Little Sister of this map just by a vent and I will release her into safety next session. This last gathering of ADAM was done in the cinema - a part of the game I remember very well. Sort of hard to defend since it has many entrances, but it went well and wasn't as hard as I expected.

Despite constantly buying things from the vending machines I keep finding myself full on money and ammo which is annoying when I find lots of it out in the wild. Although defending the Little Sister while she gathers ADAM and fighting Big Daddies/Sisters drain ammo fast and so I am now low on much of it. Will buy whatever I can before ending this map but wait - we also have Stanley Poole to consider! He is a slimebag and a corrupt degenerate but does he really deserve a bullet? Yeah, he did rob Sofia Lamb of a lot of money and caused some ruckus back in the day but then again Sofia isn't exactly known to be kind to Subject Delta. After all, she was the one making him commit suicide ten years ago by mind manipulation and while Stanley might be a lowlife he hasn't done anything bad to Delta personally. But he is the one responsible for turning Eleanor into a Little Sister in the first place. So what to do; spare him or kill him?

Find out in the next entry - Same Bioshock thread! Same Bioshock time!

It's Bioshock Sunday, everybody!


We left off with the last Little Sister by the vent in Dionysus Park and as promised we relieved her of that nasty ADAM producing slug and sent her on her way into safety. Then all that was left was picking up some money and items and head for the train going to Fontaine Futuristics.

This area is not a favorite of mine and I don't really know why. Nothing wrong with it honestly and we do get to know what happened to Gil Alexander whose audio logs we've found here and there up until now. He has turned clinically insane from all the ADAM and now calls himself Alexander the Great. He's not outright hostile to Delta upon sight but he does hinder progression and sends Splicers to "punish" Delta whenever he interferes with Alex's various devices such as cameras and turrets.

We also have a new enemy to do research on; the Alpha series of the Big Daddy program. I have developed a strategy that works quite well on both Big Daddies and Big Sisters so they're not so difficult to deal with. Oh; and I have finished research on the Houdini Splicer and was rewarded with the Camoflauge Tonic that makes you invisible when standing still. I also found the allusive Unstable Tonic that teleports every time you try to take it. It does this a few times around this first part of the map until it stops and you get another tonic that lowers the prices in all vending machines. Quite a disappointing reward, actually. I buy and buy and yet my wallet, which can only hold 800 bucks, is always full. Anyway, it's fun to chase it around for a bit. Especially the first time playing this game.

Other than that I explored as much as I could and rescued another Little Sister, obviously after collecting ADAM from two corpses. No long travels between them this time as I found three candidates very close to each other.
I have also destroyed four security devices that have blocked me from gaining access to a particular room with valuable information and I am currently standing outside of it, ready to flip a switch and enter.


But what about Stanley Poole? When I came back to the train station in Dionysus Park, more info on him was relayed over the radio by Sofia Lamb of all people. She informed us that Stanley is not only responsible for Eleanor's transformation into a Little Sister but also for our character turning into the Big Daddy experiment known as Subject Delta. Even Eleanor herself chimed in here to let us know that Sofia is actually telling us the truth for once, leaving it up to Delta to deal with Stanley inside the ticket booth that was now open.

Well, as previously said he's not what you would call a nice man but despite his shady businesses and his involvement in our current status it's not worth spilling more blood than necessary to reach our bonded Little Sister Eleanor. If anything he sort of avenged Delta's death ten years ago by stealing Sofia Lamb's money, spying on her and reporting her to Andrew Ryan who in turn locked her up. So as with Grace Holloway in Pauper's Drop, Delta decided to spare Stanley Poole and simply boarded the train and left him to fend for himself. Doesn't look to bright for him anyway at this point and Delta is not anyone's designated executioner.

This past week, I started playing the System Shock remake. Haven't tried a game for the first time in quite some time and this one has been sitting in my library for a while, so I finally got the urge to play it. I played about 5-10 minutes of the original (which was made in 1994, I think), but the control scheme is too archaic and the atmosphere is hard to take seriously because of its age (also the music didn't seem fitting).

I have, however, played through System Shock 2 and it is one of my favorite games. Absolutely phenomenal, and even for a 1999 game it has incredible atmosphere.

I'm only about 1.5 hours into the System Shock remake, but so far it is excellent. Immensely atmospheric and creepy.

EDIT: I should probably also add that I fired Starfield back up a couple weeks ago. Mostly just goofing around and exploring new planets to survey them, though I've also played around with some new mods. Really want to hear more about the upcoming DLC, but until then, I'm probably not going to play the game a whole lot for now.

Same goes for Deus Ex which many seemingly compare to. And talk about PHENOMENAL music!

Bioshock Sunday is upon us!


So today we got to the part of Fontaine Futuristics where I had to lower the graphics settings, otherwise it would just crash upon entering. It is a quite noticeable drop in quality but thankfully I only have to do this at the end of the map and then I can bump it up to full settings again.

In this part we finally meet Mark Meltzer and discover what became of him; a Big Daddy, mind-altered into this condition by Sofia Lamb. He's specifically a Rumbler who attacks by launching grenades. Apparently you have a choice to leave him alone but in every playthrough I think he's been accidentally hit by one of my weapons when shooting at Splicers so he's always been hostile leaving me no choice but to defeat him. He's walking around with his daughter Cindy who he came to Rapture to find and she's now a Little Sister. As with any of them I adopt her, extract ADAM from two corpses and then send her away into safety through one of the vents.
This was the third Little Sister in a row now and so it triggered a Big Sister to appear. I must have gotten quite good at these fights as this was a very easy one. I managed to pin her against the very vent Cindy went into and just kept zapping her into a daze and then Drill Dashing her. She never had a chance to come at me at this point.

I've also now finished all research I can possibly do, except for Security. I don't bother with that as I never want to damage neither cameras nor turrets as I much prefer to hack them and turn them into allies for the Big Delta cause

We also get to meet Alexander the Great in the research labs and yes; he's become something not human anymore and all he wants now is more and more ADAM. He's the third character we have a choice to either kill or leave alone which in turn has an affect in which ending we get. I had previously in this playthrough toyed with the idea to leave him alone as I did with Grace Holloway and Stanley Poole, but like the other times I decided to end him. Not out of malice or revenge for him sending enemies my way throughout the map, but because of the recordings he left behind. He begs whoever finds these recordings to assist him in ending his life as he's now no longer himself and he doesn't want to live on as what he has become. In his last tape he begs the player one final time to put him out of his misery and so I did. After that this map was completely done and it was time to move on to the next.

I now stand at the very beginning of Outer Persephone, the former dissident prison of Rapture and the second to last map of the game. Here we will finally reach Eleanor, Delta's bonded Little Sister and Sofia Lamb's daughter. Will we live up to each other's expectations? Stick around and find out!

A beautiful dream..... is still just a dream....


As we walk along the narrow corridor at the start of Outer Persephone and emerge into a big room we will finally meet up with our Eleanor! Or... will we?? Standing outside her chamber, just before entering, Sofia Lamb puts a pillow over Eleanor's face and smother her for just enough time for her heart to stop momentarily. This is enough to sever the mental bond between her and Delta resulting in Delta falling into a coma. Sofia then has Delta strapped onto a bed where she will keep him until he dies. Unable for us to do anything, Eleanor contacts Delta through telepathy and tells him she'll send a Little Sister his way with a special syringe which will allow Delta to take control of the Sister and use her to move around Outer Persephone and track down three pieces of a Big Sister suit and then take it to Eleanor so that she can help Delta break free.

This is an amazing part of the game. We get to see exactly how every Little Sister sees Rapture; completely impeccible with beautiful velvet curtains and soft pillows on the benches and the floor; all bathing in a warm, yellow haze.
We also get to see our own Delta as statues which all depict how we treated Grace Holloway, Stanley Poole and Gilbert - eh, I mean Alexander the Great. In my case since I spared Grace we get to see Delta carrying her in his arms and since I also spared Stanley we see Delta extending a helping hand to lift him up from his knees. And since I decided to end the life of Alexander we see Delta fighting a giant serpent with his drill burrowing into the big monster.

As we run around Persephone we come across bodies on the floor here and there. They appear as beautifully dressed normal looking people with wings drawn on the floor beside them, giving them the image of an angel. Here we can do our duty as a Little Sister and extract some ADAM but as we do this the world around us shifts back and for a moment we see a glimpse of the true world with all its decay and the hideous looking corpse in front of us. As we finish up it shifts back and we once again see nothing but beautiful serenity and hear calm music instead of terrified screams.

We then come back to Eleanor's chamber and as a Little Sister we are allowed entry and there's no Sofia in sight. We give Eleanor her suit and as she puts it on we now see the result of our previous actions towards the Little Sisters. What we do throughout the game affects Eleanor and here she can either kill the Little Sister who helped finding the suit and take her ADAM or, as in my case, she can free her from the influence of the slug and return her to a normal girl. After this, Eleanor fights her way to Delta's room and frees him from his constraints. We then get a new plasmid that allows us to summon Eleanor whenever we want and have her help us out in fights.

And yes; what about Augustus Sinclair who's been with us since Ryan Amusements? He unfortunately got caught by Sofia here in Persephone and was turned into a Big Daddy and now guards a key which we must take from him. As he clings onto his old self he tells us over the radio to kill him and not feel bad about it as he'd rather die than end up a mindless drone.

With everything done in this part we're now back at the hub of this prison complex. We've explored the holding cells and must now go to the infirmary and therapy wings in order to gather up the remaining Little Sisters and lead them back to the escape bathysphere where Eleanor will be waiting.

Don't what a bioshack is, but I'm glad you seem to be enjoying playing it.

Oh, I love this game

Thought I'd play Mad Max.
Part driving combat simulator, part survivor simulator. Think Fallout but with cars and stingy ammo and resources.

Why does that conjure images of Mel Gibson being chased by a trash truck with a deathclaw behind the wheel?

Inner Persephone


This is it. Final part of the game in which we find ourselves going into the Infirmary and Psyciatric wings to find and set free the remaining Little Sisters so they can help Eleanor boil away the ballast water that's hindering the escape bathysphere from rising. This last part is pure chaos where wave after wave of Splicers and Alpha series come after us while Eleanor and the girls do their thing.

And finally, after we've shot two pipes of water to flood the area to equalize water pressure, Subject Delta joins up with Eleanor and they run the short distance to the bathysphere only to find a trap set up by Sofia Lamb's Splicers; two bombs that mere seconds after the two get there detonate and pre-release the bathysphere that starts to rise.

Eleanor uses her teleportation to get inside the escape pod where Sofia Lamb is already waiting, leaving Subject Delta on the outside. Using his last strengths he manages to grab onto the bathysphere's railing and follows it up towards the surface. On the way he looks back one last time at the city of Rapture before looking inside the pod which by now has been filled with water and Sofia is starting to drown. At this point Eleanor swims to her and gives her a breathing mask, allowing her to live. This is a direct result of our action to spare at least one of the three key characters previously mentioned that we meet throughout the game.

Upon reaching the bathysphere's docking platform on the surface, Delta no longer has any strength left and he lays down on his back. Just before he dies, Eleanor looks at him with warmth in her eyes and gently uses her Big Sister ADAM collecting needle to carefully draw out Delta's DNA and transfer his consciousness into herself so that he can live on in her and act as her moral compass.

On the platform all the rescued Little Sisters gather, now fully human once again and with a chance to live normal lives instead of being forever trapped in Rapture collecting ADAM. They give one of their handcrafted dolls, a Big Daddy, to Eleanor who takes it, looks at it, and then lets it drop back into the ocean.

Above them the sky is blue with a warm light, bringing hope back to them now that they're free. Even though they may have experienced horrible things in Rapture, that is finally all behind them and they can look ahead towards the future. A future they now have a chance to have.


The End