In 2007 2K released “BioShock” which has gone on to become one of the highest rated games ever. It man­aged to weave together a stel­lar story into the drip­ping atmo­sphere of Rapture. Now the reigns of BioShock 2 have been handed over to 2K Marin. Have they been able to keep up with such a stel­lar install­ment, or has BioShock 2 sunk beneath the tides.

Story

BioShock 2 takes place around 10 years after the ori­ginal. Instead of return­ing as Jack you play as the first Big Daddy to be suc­cess­fully bon­ded to a Little Sister; Delta. In prob­ably what will become one of the most iconic open­ings ever; you are deac­tiv­ated. 10 years pass and you mys­ter­i­ously awaken to find your Sister, Eleanor has dis­ap­peared. With Andrew Ryan being gone, a woman known as Sofia Lamb rises to prom­in­ence and seems to have it in for Delta.

BioShock 2’s story is just as grip­ping as its for­bear and per­haps even more in some aspects. Whereas the ori­ginal mostly focused its story on Rapture and its down­fall; Bioshock 2 is more of a per­sonal nar­rat­ive sur­round­ing the 3 main char­ac­ters (Delta, Eleanor Lamb, and Sofia Lamb). Each suffered great betray­als, emo­tional pain, and decep­tion from those close to them.

Sophia Lamb’s philo­sophy could not be more dif­fer­ent from Ryan’s. She preaches for all to be one fam­ily with sym­bol­ism based off a but­ter­fly and the body of women. As strong of a char­ac­ter as she is, she does seem a bit forced into the story. Audio diar­ies are con­stantly found from her and Ryan explain­ing how they would always fight for the loy­alty of Rapture. If she really was there then why wouldn’t she ever be men­tioned in BioShock as another strong force to fight with?

BioShock 2 may have some prob­lems, but it doesn’t mat­ter. Like the ori­ginal, the game tells a very strong tale that any­body can eas­ily get wrapped up in. In ways it even man­ages to sur­pass the ori­ginal.

Score: 9.1/10

Design

BioShock 2 has been sim­pli­fied for the bet­ter. The game moves at a much more lin­ear route which helps the pacing of the storyline. The game moves you through each level by way of an under­wa­ter train. In each level the player is free to explore all over the place to collect/harvest Little Sisters, hack machines, and beat up on some splicers. Beware though, once an area is left you can­not return back to it.

The lin­ear­ity though also hurts the game. Rapture doesn’t feel as big any­more. The areas you visit are smal­ler and much older than the areas seen in the ori­ginal; you can nat­ur­ally tell because most of them have been drowned in some sort of way. In fact some areas of the game, espe­cially dur­ing the lat­ter half of the game feel abso­lutely lin­ear as every hall­way is straight with side doors only being detours back to the main hall­way.

BioShock 2 still how­ever fails to change up the enemy vari­ety. New enemies do pop up, includ­ing a new Big Daddy type which fires rock­ets and throws mini-turrets. A new hulk­ing splicer also joins the list of those who want to kill you. It how­ever just doesn’t feel like enough. You are repeatedly attacked by the same splicers all the time, in fact some mod­els and tex­tures are re-used so you lit­er­ally are fight­ing the same enemies all the time.

This also leads into prob­ably the coolest, and dis­ap­point­ing new enemy type, the Big Sister. During pre­view events 2K made it look like the Big Sister was a ran­dom encounter that would sur­prise you kind of like Nemesis in Resident Evil 3. However once the game is played, it is easy to see that the Big Sister is a scrip­ted event which will usu­ally appear after you have col­lec­ted all the pos­sible ADAM with one Little Sister who gives you the warn­ing and suf­fi­cient time to set traps.

Morality in BioShock 2 plays a much lar­ger role then in the ori­ginal. Where in the ori­ginal the choices you made only changed the end­ing cine­matic by a teensy smidge, mor­al­ity here changes the entire end­ing of the game. There are many dif­fer­ent end­ings which affect the 3 main char­ac­ters in dif­fer­ent ways.

Score: 8.8/10

Gameplay

This game is not like other shoot­ers. Sure you have a trig­ger but­ton, but that is pretty much the only sim­il­ar­ity. Control lay­out is odd at first but is easy to grasp onto if the player opens their mind. The left trig­ger, which is usu­ally used for aim­ing down the sights, holds the plas­mids. Aiming down the sights is now handled by push­ing down on the right ana­log stick. To switch between weapons tap the R1/Right bumper or hold it for a weapon wheel, same for the plas­mids.

While BioShock 2 may feel clunky to some, it’s extremely refresh­ing to any­body who has played a lot of shoot­ers recently. The slower pace helps build the ten­sion in the game. In here play­ers will also encounter a game that actu­ally makes you think. Every situ­ation in the game the player can set up to sway their way. This is espe­cially evid­ent when the Little Sisters get down har­vest­ing ADAM. You’re given the time to set up traps. Most weapons allow you to set dif­fer­ent kinds of traps, such as a trip wire that elec­tro­cutes the enemy, or a rivet shot that explodes upon con­tact. Plasmids may be used to set traps, but the game rarely even lets you know you can use them. The trap plas­mids must all be pur­chased at a “Gatherer’s Garden” and are usu­ally loc­ated at the bot­tom of a long list of pos­sible expendit­ures, includ­ing some heavy hit­ting upgrades to plas­mids already gained for free and upgrades to your char­ac­ter.

Speaking of Plasmids, they are still eas­ily the biggest high­light of the game. Having the abil­ity to dual-wield in both the single-player and mul­ti­player helps make the game a bit easier to man­age while still being a chal­lenge. For example there are a lot stronger enemies that will require a care­ful strategy and a care­ful bal­ance between fire-power and Plasmids.

Despite the ori­ginal game being Single-Player only, BioShock 2 fea­tures a sur­pris­ingly fun mul­ti­player mode. The mode is set right before the fall of Rapture and sees a civil war break­ing out by Atlas and Ryan as both sides are hired to test out Sinclair’s products. The mul­ti­player has a cre­ate a class fea­ture which allows you to choose from vari­ous weapons and buff them out in dif­fer­ent ways, also while allow­ing the choice of 2 plas­mids, a melee weapon, and ton­ics which add attrib­utes to the char­ac­ter. In the matches it’s easy to find play­ers, if you’re play­ing the 360 ver­sion. Finding play­ers on the PS3 ver­sion can be a chore at times. However once a match begins its awe­some. Unlike other shoot­ers, BioShock 2 relies heav­ily on strategy instead of just shoot­ing like a mad dog. A mix of plas­mids and ammo is neces­sary as each clip car­ries little ammo. It’s even pos­sible to hop inside a Big Daddy suit to unleash all hell, or just take a photo of a dead corpse to get a dam­age bonus.

BioShock 2 adds a lot more to the game­play por­tion than its pre­de­cessor. In fact so much is added that the game just feels a lot bet­ter in every aspect. Add in a well done mul­ti­player mode and this game just makes the other look obsol­ete.

Score: 9.6/10

Presentation

BioShock runs on a mod­i­fied ver­sion of the Unreal Engine 2.5. BioShock 2 looks great, but it looks almost exactly like its pre­de­cessors which came out 2 years ago. Rapture to look at is still bril­liantly detailed and any­one will be hard-pressed to find a whole city detailed as much as Rapture. Buildings tower over you, walls crack and crumble, and sea life clumps on walls. BioShock 2 shines deeply in its atmo­sphere.

Fire crackles and licks bod­ies as splicers scream. Lightning cracks and pops as a vat of water is elec­tro­cuted sizz­ling all enemies bathed in it. Every effect in this game looks amaz­ing. The audio fea­tures a rous­ing score that will send shivers down the back of any play­ers. Voice act­ing was such a high­light in the ori­ginal that fans will be even more excited that it has got­ten even bet­ter. The audio diar­ies are simply fant­astic with the voices crack­ling through static as they relate their stor­ies, or the sane cit­izens such as Sofia Lamb talk­ing into your radio try­ing to sway you.

The dim spot how­ever are the char­ac­ter mod­els and tex­tures. Splicers come in such little vari­ety still with only the Big Daddies hav­ing the only good tex­tures. Splicers suf­fer from the infam­ous plastic effect that most Unreal games seem to have. The nor­mal humans look even worse though. All of them suf­fer from stiff anim­a­tions, dead zom­bie eyes, and just in-human pro­por­tions. Makes one kind of sick to look at them sadly,

BioShock 2 isn’t an ugly game, but it’s not fant­astic. Due to not much chan­ging at all, the game looks dated, espe­cially com­pared to other releases. Hopefully BioShock 3 will be more of advance­ment in the tech­no­logy.

Score: 8.5/10

Final Thoughts

There’s no need to think about whether to buy BioShock 2 or not. The game is abso­lutely fab­ulous. 2K Marin and the many other developers have done a great job on bring­ing Rapture back to its many fans. The game improves upon many of the ori­gin­als faults while also bring a story that is more per­sonal and ques­tions your mor­al­ity every step of the way. Sure it may not be on the same tech­nical level as Uncharted 2 or Crysis, but the sheer depth of its com­bat sys­tem coupled with its fun mul­ti­player makes BioShock 2 one of the first must buy games of 2010!