Bioshock Burial At Sea: Episode 2

Worthwhile DLC has always been something of a rarity but Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode 1 was genuinely enjoyable... mostly because the original Bioshock (unlike Bioshock Infinite) never showed you Rapture before the collapse.

Burial  at Sea allowed you to wander around Rapture and get a feel for that city under the sea before it was exclusively the preserve of murderous freaks... which was a pleasant change of pace because, regardless of what people say about Bioshock - it's gameplay is not (and never was) "genre busting".

In fact, Bioshock Infinite marked a fairly substantial regression to the rather wearisome status quo of console gaming by way of Halo's seemingly inescapable two weapon limit and regenerating health - although, there's no regenerating health in Episode 2... but still a two gun limit, although it's rather more stealth orientated and even has a mode focused EXCLUSIVELY on non-lethal takedowns but as with the first episode, it's the NON-COMBAT sections which are that much more interesting.

The fights aren't particularly interesting and in fact for the vast majority of the time, you can effectively avoid them either by being stealthy or simply by running away or using your invisibility plasmid. In fact, you fight generic Rapture (and SPOILERS! Columbia) goons almost exclusively and are even denied the opportunity of a Big Daddy beatdown - the game puts you in an area with a Big Daddy and then goes "Yeah, you can't kill him."

There's one section where there is the arbitrary "kill x many goons to proceed" but that's pretty much the only time fighting is mandatory. The rest of the time stealth or speed are pretty much expected - on the higher difficulties just one hit can be enough to wipe out your health bar - and are helped with the new "peeping tom" vigor/plasmid and the ability to use vents.

The real problem - aside from the lacklustre gameplay - is the story... the ending of the first episode was good but it didn't lend itself to a continuation... and episode two seems to demonstrate that in spades, unfortunately mistaking a lot of technobabble and pseudo-philosophical navel gazing on the nature of choice as an alternative to characters and story.

Between that and some forced attempt to tie Bioshock Infinite to the original and trying to be entirely too clever (and failing) again... it's a rather unsatisfying finish to the franchise and while it's nice to return to Rapture (and Columbia) again... there's nothing of value added... Episode 1 succeeded because it offered an insight into what had been alluded to but never shown in Bioshock... Episode 2 just feels like it's riding coattails.

Ended these Clone War have

The Clone Wars (the animated show) was really the one redeeming feature of the entire sorry mess that was the Star Wars prequels, managing to offer fantastic action as well as an idea of what the new trilogy could have been, if not for George Lucas.

The Clone Wars (the CGI show) has - by contrast - been a pretty bumpy ride. The tone has - even within some of the story arcs - changed with sufficient speed to give you whiplash. Going from comedic japes with misfit bands of droids, to serious heroic self-sacrifice. Big space battles and lightsaber fights to tedious discussion of galactic finance and lawmaking.

It was - in essence - the same panoply of ill fitting ideas that were cobbled together to form the prequel films... the problem is that some of these stories really didn't need to be told... did the world NEED Jarjar centric episodes? It would seem someone out there - perhaps Jorge himself - thought so... and one might argue "but hey, Star Wars is for kids!" Uhuh... that'll be why we have lengthy discussion of the taxation of trade routes, complex (and oft nonsensical) political machinations and let's not forget genocide, implied rape and torture, dismemberment and child murder! Oh, sorry - YOUNGLING murder (that makes all the difference, dontcha know?)

The issue is really that there were glimpses of greatness in the Clone Wars but attention seemed to shift all too quickly or there was a radical shift in tone but you would think that with the last season, they'd at least go for some kind of grand finale... such as they could within the confines of the time frame... but no, there's just a lot of navel gazing about the imminent destruction of the Jedi.

Now, if this was coming out BEFORE Revenge of the Sith (and we didn't know about the upcoming Jedi massacre) then this might have some dramatic weight but... the only reason to watch this is because you're a fan and that means you know what's coming... and really, season six is pretty weak.

We KNOW that the Jedi aren't going to find out about the plan against them - although, the information they discover makes the whole "A PLOT TO DESTROY THE JEDI?!" bit in Episode III seem that much more idiotic but not by much because... well, it was already really stupid. It's just that after however many years of fighting, we have - near the end of the Clone Wars... the Jedi council going "You know, it IS kind of weird that a dead Jedi secretly commissioned the creation of a clone army that we JUST so happen to need to fight this war." Especially as the reason for finding said army was because of some elaborate machinations anyway...

It's all completely unnecessary set up for a film that came out nearly ten years ago... and it's not as if this is some complex backstory... Hell, compare the season 5 finale and this is just FLAT. In fact, bar an appearance in a vision absolutely no Ahsoka at all...

To sum up season six of The Clone Wars is easy - it feels like a bunch of ideas that had been deemed too lacklustre but ended up getting made for an unexpected final run.