Posted 2/16/2010 at 10:33 AM By Judgeman
The Good: Same great gameplay as the original, great environments, and beautiful sound track and score.
The Bad: Storyline is somewhat convoluted, feels more like an expansion than an actual sequel.
Summary: 2K Games sends us back to Rapture ten years after the events of the original game with BioShock 2. Does Bioshock 2 hold water and live up to it’s predecessor’s reputation, or does it sink to the bottom of the ocean to rust in Davey Jones’s Locker? Find out with our complete review, After the Break!
Full Review:
Ten years has passed since the events of BioShock and we find ourselves returning to Rapture, this time in the body of a 'big daddy'. You have one mission: Find a particular 'little sister' that was taken from you before its too late.
STORY
The game starts off with a prologue shown through your vision porthole, as Big Daddy Delta, with your little sister on New Years’ Eve in 1958. You both are going about the business of collecting ADAM. The trouble starts when some splicers, who are trying to take her ADAM, accost your little sister. After you defeat these splicers, Dr. Sofia Lamb enters the room and orders you to remove your helmet and kill yourself. Without hesitation, you place the gun to your temple and pull the trigger, all in front of your little sister, Eleanor Lamb.
Ten years later, and you awake to find yourself new a Vita-Chamber. The first person you have contact with is Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, the creator of the little sisters project. She explains that your little sister, Eleanor, needs your help and that you must rescue her from Dr. Lamb. You set off across Rapture to save your little sister before your heart ceases to beat. Along the way, Dr. Lamb is constantly trying to stop you by using her “family” of splicers which she now controls.
I feel that the story works well enough though, as you play, you find out that Dr. Lamb was a major antagonist in Rapture, almost the equal of Frank Fontaine from the first game. Andrew Ryan brings Dr. Lamb to Rapture as a therapist to help with the mental problems that seem to be showing up in the population. However, Dr. Lamb proves to be Ryan’s polar opposite when it comes to social control and the belief of the individual. Ryan believes in the self, and the ability to raise that self above all others through perseverance, while Lamb believes in the lack of self, that individuals need the collective. This is the core struggle that sends Dr. Lamb to jail and leads to the abduction of her daughter, Eleanor - not to mention Eleanor's change into a little sister. My only issue with the story is that, with a struggle that is this prominent in the city, you would have thought that we would have heard some mention of it in the original BioShock. So, if you can suspend your disbelief over this little bit of retroactive continuity, then the story will work just fine for you.
GAMEPLAY
There’s an old saying in this world, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. This saying can really sum up the game play from BioShock 2. With some minor tweaks here and there, the game play is the same plasmid/weapon system from the first game.
The right trigger will operate the current weapon that you have selected while the left trigger operates the plasmids that you have selected. The weapons that you use as Big Daddy Delta behave similarly to the weapons that you used as Jack Ryan. For example, your wrench is now a drill, your pistol is now a rivet gun, and your grenade launcher is, well it’s a grenade launcher. You still have different kinds of ammo to play with, and that’s where the difference starts to show up more. The ammo that I loved the most ended up being the rocket spears from your spear gun. Working similarly to the crossbow, these spears hit a target with a jet propelled spear that, after a few seconds of pushing the target around the room, explode. BioShock 2 really gives you a lot of ammo for setting up traps and rewards players for thinking ahead, which is necessary in harvesting ADAM.
The plasmids are roughly the same also: You have Incinerate, Winter’s Blast, and Electro Bolt, among others. The game play upgrade over the first game here is that, as you increase the level of the plasmid, you gain many more abilities with it then before. For example, at level three of Winter’s Blast you can now project a stream of icicles that will pelt your target, while the level three Electro Bolt will now act as chain lighting and hit multiple targets. In order to buy and upgrade your plasmids and tonic you must collect ADAM and, like in the first game, this comes from the little sisters that still roam Rapture. This time you get to adopt your very own sister to take with you through each section. Once you have defeated the Big Daddy that protects the little sister you have the option to adopt her and take her to corpses that still contain ADAM. There, she will start to harvest this ADAM and will need you to protect her from the hordes of splicers that will attack. These harvest sessions are wave events, and you really can cut down on the stress of these events by planning ahead - using security bots and traps from your weapons. After your little sister has finished harvesting two corpses, you then take her to a vent and you have to decide to save your little sister, or harvest her for more ADAM. I never ran out of ADAM through out the game and felt that, even with saving every little sister, I had enough ADAM to buy all the tonics and plasmids that I wanted.
The hacking system has been completely changed and revamped all together. No longer do you enter into the pipeline mini game when you hack a system, you now have a graphic that pops up with a needle that oscillates back and forth on a lined screen, similar to an old radio dial. You have to stop the needle on the green sections in order to continue with the hack, stopping the needle on the red sections will alert the security bots, and stopping the needle on the white sections will give you a nasty jolt. The blue sections of the hacking mini game will give you a bonus of some kind, depending on the type of system you are hacking. The one thing that I thought that was great and, at the same time frustrating, about this new hacking system is that it’s done in real-time. No longer does hacking stop time around you, you must do it while you are running away from the splicers in the area. This really will keep you on your toes! Another change in BioShock 2 is the removal of the invention gameplay aspect entirely. You will no longer find parts nor be able to create ammo or items. All your ammo and items must be either found or purchased from vending machines.
Many of the enemies that you run across in BioShock 2 behave exactly as they did in BioShock. You will run into the same type of splicers that you are already familiar with: Houdini, Lead head, Thuggish, and Spider. The new one, Brute, is an interesting new splicer with super strength. The Big Daddies start off the same as they did in BioShock, but turn into different Big Daddies as you advance through the game. Finally, you have the newest, baddest, and toughest kid on the block in Rapture, the Big Sister. The Big Sister character is just as tough as the Big Daddies from before, but much faster and agile. The Big Sister also uses plasmids, like you, and will show up any time you help a little sister into a vent.
BioShock 2 plays so similarly to the first BioShock that you will be able to jump right into the action without any need to adjust to a new game. One of the major issues that I had with the gameplay is that even though you are playing as one of the first Big Daddies, you can still get beat down fairly easily by the lowly splicers. I understand that this is to keep the game balanced, but I never really got the feeling that I was one of those tough tanks which I hated to fight against in the first game. Every other aspect of the game play is implemented perfectly and works very well. As a fan of BioShock, I have to say that I appreciated the slight changes that were made and felt that these changes made the game experience even better then before.
Multiplayer in BioShock 2 is story-driven, which means you will select an avatar that has customizable clothing and even outfit your avatar with plasmids, weapons, and weapon upgrades. You are given your own apartment where you can check your messages after you level up, listen to new voice recordings that will explain more of the background of each character in multiplayer, or change out your loadouts of weapons, plasmids and modifications. The multiplayer is set on New Years’ Eve of 1958, so many of the environments you will be fighting in have yet to show the wear and tear of the struggles yet to come. I really enjoyed this new addition and feel that it will add many more hours to BioShock 2; however, I have a problem with the leveling system that the developers used. Similar to Modern Warfare 2, you start the game with a certain type of weapon and plasmid combo, that you can change out once you unlock other combos. This is great - once you level up. In the meantime, prepare to take your pistol into a grenade launcher fight and get toasted every which way.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics of BioShock 2 are just plain pretty and well put together. The environments that you visit this time, while feeling similar to those in BioShock, expand the story that is Rapture and show you more of the city and its fall into entropy. The newest additions to the setting this time around are the underwater sections which connect certain areas together. You get to enter the deep blue of the ocean and walk between the buildings of Rapture. Though no combat will occur outside you still can find items and ammo amongst the sea life, including the sea slug that started this entire ADAM 'craze'.
The soundtrack is just as great as it was in the first game, with more of the same type of music. The score does a great job in increasing tension during the Big Sister fights, whereas the soundtrack gives Rapture that timely feel of the late 50’s. My only disappointment here is that I felt that the developers didn’t use the sound as much as they did in the first game. I miss the sound of the Ammo Bandito and it thanking me for my purchase, or the noises of the Gatherer’s Garden, as I got closer. Even the music doesn’t seem to make an appearance in the game as much as it did in the first game; mostly the period music is used in the loading screens.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When it’s all said and done, BioShock 2 lives up to the glory that was the original game. Sure, the story isn’t as great as it was the first time around, but a sequel that has a better story than the original is the exception to the rule. The gameplay tweaks which were added are a definite improvement over the first game, though 2K Games needs to put in an option to change the colors of the hacking system for those that suffer from color blindness. The multiplayer is a fun way to continue your time in Rapture even after you have completed the single player game. If you enjoyed BioShock as much as I did, then you will truly enjoy your second trip to Rapture. Would you kindly go out and play it?
*DISCLOSURE: 2K Games sent GamingShogun.com a copy of BioShock 2 for this review.
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