Cult of Rapture

As a Big Daddy, you have a number of new and very powerful weapons at your disposal. While most of us have experienced the Drill and Rivet Gun firsthand in the past (albeit on the defending end of those tools) you will be able to experiment with much more when you step into Rapture. 2K Marin Senior Designer Kent Hudson highlights one new piece of your Big Daddy arsenal: the Speargun.

How did you decide on each new weapon for the player character? Did you have to find items that fit in Rapture and also worked with the size of a Big Daddy?

In the case of the Speargun, it just felt like a natural fit for the Big Daddy. Spearguns obviously have an underwater feel to them, so it makes sense that they’d be in plentiful supply in Rapture. At the same time, however, they’re easier to handle underwater than inside the city, so it takes someone as strong as a Big Daddy to wield them effectively. The original design was a huge Speargun ripped right off a ship, which had a cool “found weapon” feel but ultimately didn’t come together as well as we’d hoped. We went with a more traditional design for the final version and are really happy with how it turned out (it’s super fun to use).

Let’s talk ammo: What can you use?

There are normal spears, which are your basic sniper ammo. These are in abundant supply and are great for sneaking up on Splicers, zooming in and squeezing off a headshot. The fun thing about spears is that if you land a killing blow it sends the enemy flying through the air and pins them to the wall, which never stops being fun. Ever. If you walk to the body you can collect the used spear, which of course means the body slides off the wall and falls to the ground. And if a spear doesn’t kill an enemy it’ll stay embedded in him while he fights, which looks cool and still allows you to collect the spears once the bad guy is dead. And again, I should mention that pinning Splicers to the wall with spears never stops being fun. Ever.

Then we’ve got alternate ammos. Trap Spears you’ll recognize from the first game’s Crossbow, and they still let you set up all sorts of clever booby traps for unsuspecting Splicers. This is a bigger deal in BioShock 2 now that we have the Adoption system, since you control when these ambushes start; players who take the time to lay traps at the common entry points to an area will have an easier time protecting their Little Sisters.

Finally, we’ve got an entirely new alternate ammo for BioShock 2: Rocket Spears. These are exactly what they sound like, except more awesome. They’re rocket-propelled spears, and when they attach to Splicers a short fuse ticks down before they explode for massive damage. Splicers of course freak out when they’ve got a Rocket Spear embedded in their bodies; they run around like their hair’s on fire, which it sort of is. The nice thing about this reaction is that they’ll run toward other Splicers for help, so the explosion will often set other Splicers on fire as well. This is, of course, awesome.

You can imagine what happens when a Rocket Spear kills a Splicer before exploding. And if you can’t imagine what happens, I’ll explain it: the rocket continues to propel the spear and the attached body wildly around the room in an especially enjoyable display of havoc and destruction. So yeah. Rocket Spears. Find ‘em. Use ‘em.

How do you like to use the Speargun – are there any Plasmid combos or tactics with alternate ammo that you often play around with?

In addition to first-strike sniping, I really like trying to pin Splicers to different objects in hilarious ways, which is made much easier with the Electro Bolt Plasmid. BioShock 1’s vaunted one-two punch is back, and shocking a Splicer is a great way to line up the perfect kill shot. You can also pick up live Splicers with the final upgrade to Telekinesis, which means you can hold a guy, decide where you want to aim him and then release him just as you fire the Speargun. Normal spears are perfect for decorating a room, while Rocket Spears are good for watching craziness happen. It’s also of course fun to set up Trap Spears near water so that Splicers get extra fried. Winter Blast also combines nicely with the Speargun, since you can freeze Splicers in place and then shatter them with a well-placed spear. The list goes on, but if I described every combination of Plasmids and alternate ammos here there wouldn’t be any fun combos to discover when the game’s released!