Game Reviews Volume 2

BioShock 2 (PS3, PC, Xbox 360)

Soin my recent quest of replaying all of the BioShock games I of coursehad to indulge my time in BioShock 2, the game that I distinctlyremember being somewhat the odd one out in the series. Generalopinion of BioShock 2 was that people weren't all that find of it.That it wasn't exactly a bad game but after everything the first gamedid so right, BioShock 2 was just kind of more of the same with lessof a significant impact.
Ofcourse having sat through it again 6 years after its initial releaseI can 100% confirm that to be true, but let's take a closer look atwhy this was with a wonderful thing called hindsight.

BioShock2 takes place both before and after the original BioShock, though isnot a sequel in terms of its storyline. It has next to nothing to dowith the story of BioShock but it does have a handful of returningcharacters which act as pretty much the only ties to the first game.

Youare Subject Delta, an Alpha series Big Daddy who in an attempt toprotect your little sister in 1958, is killed. In 1960 your littlesister, now grown up has resurrected you and begs for you to save herfrom her mother, the new top dog in Rapture, Sophia Lamb. Lambintends to use ADAM to place all of Rapture's great scientific mindsinto her daughter, Elanor, thereby allowing her to become Rapture'ssaviour and allow it to be the utopia it was always supposed to be. Imean to think that Rapture could viably last as a utopia is a bigsuspension of disbelief to begin with but to include the fact thatmultiple personalities who all disagreed on pretty much everythingjammed into one girls head would do the trick is just downrightstupid.

It'skind of a flimsy plot from the get go. It takes far too long to getgoing and when it does finally start to make some ground it seems alittle bit muddled to say the least. How Elanor is going to makerapture perfect is somewhat beyond me because many of the finer plotdetails are relegated to audio logs. Speaking of audio logs however,these golden nuggets of information on characters we have alreadyheard from before in the previous game are one of the game'sstrongest points. It builds on the world the first game built andstrengthens all the secondary characters making them all much deeper,well rounded people. Even Andrew Ryan, the madman that thought thatRapture could work in the first place and one of the first gamesvillains, is given a pretty good shot at being somewhat sane in thisgame.

Sowhy doesn't it work? Well besides the fact that the plot doesn't makea huge amount of sense anyway (seems to be a reoccurring theme withthe entire BioShock franchise), it's the fact that BioShock reallydidn't need a sequel to begin with. The key draws to play the sequelis that you return to Rapture, which is really nothing specialbecause we saw pretty much everything worthwhile in the first gameand seeing less interesting places of the same city on our returntrip doesn't exactly scream excitement to me. The other big lure isthat you play as a Big Daddy, which in itself shouldn't really bethat big a deal because we all know from the first BioShock that thepeople inside Big Daddies are pretty much just empty husks whose solepurpose of existing is to protect Little Sisters and do bugger allelse. But you get to have a drill as a weapon so I guess it allbalances out right?

Asfor the gameplay, BioShock 2 does actually manage to better theoriginal game in terms of it's gameplay...at times. You can now wieldguns and plasmids simultaneously which means gameplay issignificantly faster paced, plus the plasmids are just straight upbetter in this game which is always a big bonus. The hackingmini-game is gone and in it's place is a quick time event, whichnormally is never anything to celebrate I know but at least you canget things done a lot quicker.

Unfortunatelythe weapon roster isn't as good as the first games. You carrysignificantly less ammo and even after upgrading them they do a lotless damage than anything Jack wielded in the first game (which ifyou ask me is absolutely ridiculous because your a god damn BigDaddy).

ADAMgathering is also downright painful in BioShock 2 compared to theoriginal game. To put it into perspective, the worst part of thefirst game was when Jack dresses up as a Big Daddy and had to protecta Little Sister for a bit whilst she gathered ADAM. Now imaginehaving to do that around 10 times over the course of the game and youhave exactly what happens if you choose to save the Little Sisters inthis game. Honestly, screw getting the good ending if it means I haveto go through all of that at least twice per level because it takesforever and leaves you with absolutely no ammo. Even worse, the toughBig Sister encounters that happen after interacting with LittleSisters happen regardless of whether you save the girls or kill them.Meaning that if you did choose to go through all the trouble ofsaving them then you're going to have absolutely no way of defendingyourself in the ensuing battle.

Sowhy is BioShock 2 not as fun to play as it's predecessor? Welldespite certainly upping the pace of everything (besides the story)which was welcome after BioShock's overall slow approach to itsgameplay, and giving you better plasmids to use, and making thehacking system a hell of a lot better. You're pretty much justplaying the same game with crappier weapons and a horrible ADAMgathering system.

Thefirst BioShock was a game that perfectly balanced all of it'sgameplay mechanics solely on a risk/reward basis. Your resources werealways greatly limited, but you needed to use them to acquire anyother resource the game had to offer. Very little was ever free toyou. The more you put on the line to progress, the more money, ammoor ADAM you got for it. In BioShock 2 however, you carry more moneyand I had two Gene Tonics equipped that allowed me to gather moreADAM from every Little Sister, meaning that I always was able toafford to buy things if I needed to. You could always find good sizedammo drops just laying around on the floor and enemies also generallycarried more ammunition on them. You were just filled to the brimwith everything you needed to survive and the game was just so mucheasier and unbalanced because of it.

Visuallythe two games don't look that different. Though due to the leveldesign from the first game I would argue that it is superior. It hadgreater variation in it's environments, not to mention they were justmuch more interesting to look at. All of BioShock 2's environmentsblur together in a mess of industrial areas and destroyed residentialareas. It just didn't have the wow factor that the original game didand it suffered because of that.

ThoughI would argue that BioShock 2 certainly has the better voice cast.With most characters returning inn some form from the original gamewe not only get to experience all their greatness again. But bothElanor and Sophia Lamb, as well as other new characters, are all wellperformed and are great additions to the Rapture family.

Soby now I have made a pretty well illustrated point that BioShock 2 isnot as good as BioShock 1. But that does not mean you shouldn't playit. If anything it means you need to play it more because of all thegood it does for the original BioShock. All the good it does forexpanding Rapture and it's major inhabitants is remarkable andsomething that should be experienced.

Thoughit certainly feels like more of a tacky tie on to something that'smore than capable of standing on its own two feet, BioShock 2 shouldbe considered more of an expansion than a fully fledged sequel andwhen you look at it like that, it actually becomes a much better gamethan it was given credit for when it originally released.

BioShock2 – 7/10

+BrilliantExpansion of Rapture & Its Characters

+ArrayOf Gameplay Refinements

-PlotIs A Bit...Meh

-SomeGameplay Changes Were Very Unwise

-ItSimply Wasn't Needed