BioShock 2 Review

[VA1N]

BioShock 2 Review
By: VA1N

BioShock was one of those games that left a lasting impression on most of the people that played it. Why? It wasn't a state of the art shooter that introduced new things we've never seen before. The weapons were all pretty standard fare ignoring a few. Why then was it such a huge hit? The atmosphere. BioShock introduced us to a new world, one that exists completely under the sea where all of the top minds in the world escaped society to a hidden retreat to do their work unimpeded upon by governments, religion, and regulation. This land of the free goes by the name of Rapture and is run by a man named Andrew Ryan. What could go wrong in a city that sounds so right? Well, if you played the first game, everything. The city erupted into civil war, but not until scientists created something called "plasmids." Plasmids are a sort of tonic you inject into your body that changes your DNA to give you super powers. They come from sea slugs and eventually make you go nuts if you take too many, which everyone does. Without ruining the first game if you haven't played it, it seemed like it was pretty final. Leave it to 2K Marin to prove us wrong.

The sequel BioShock, named BioShock 2, takes place in the same city as the first game, Rapture. The game opens with you as a big daddy. You end up having your little sister stolen from you by a big sister. Sophia Lamb, a psychologist in Rapture, starts giving you orders and within a few short moments, you are dead. Push forward 10 years and you're magically back alive. The reason for you being alive is explained in the game so I won't give anything away, but you're now back in Rapture. Sophia Lamb is aware that you are alive and doesn't know why, but wants you dead. She has become some sort of religious leader for Rapture. As a Big Daddy, it's your job to find your little sister, who just so happens to be Lamb's daughter Eleanor. Your journey will take you from where you woke up, to an amusement park warning of the dangers of the surface, to an infirmary, night club, theater, and many new places in Rapture. As a Big Daddy, you will be doing what the Big Daddies did in the first game...guarding little sisters. As you encounter other Bid Daddies throughout the city, you can kill them and adopt their little sister. She will join you willingly and you can either return her to a vent and rescue her, harvest her and kill her (nets more ADAM- the currency for buying special powers), or put her to work collecting ADAM from "Angels" (corpses). This is a trade off though as you could piss of a Big Sister by doing so. More on that in a little...

That's as much of the story I can tell you without ruining some pretty good surprises. The thing that made BioShock 1 so great was the ambiance/atmosphere of the game. While this game has the same sort of feeling, it's almost like a been there done that feeling. It's not bad by any means, but it's not as new and exciting as it was the first time we all played it. You're still going to be picking up audio tapes, reading scribblings on the wall, and hearing maniacal musings of the city's residents resounding through your speakers. It's all well done and carefully tunes to present a linear, but solid story on what happened to Rapture after Ryan lost control.

The enemies from the first game are back with some new ones thrown in for some good measure. You have all sorts of splicers ranging from the common foot soldiers, to spider splicers, lead head, houdini, and big daddies. The new forces, a brute who likes to charge, alpha big daddies, a Big Daddy with a rocket launcher, and the Big Sisters, are all welcome changes. Speaking about the Big Sisters for a minute, they are awesome. BioShock devs said that they wanted to create an enemy you would fear. I can't tell you enough how successful they were. The Big Sisters are not regular forces you encounter throughout the game, instead they are triggered. Whenever you find a little sister, you are given the choices I mentioned above. When you rescue or harvest the little sister, there is a chance a Big Sister will come after you. When she does, you hear a loud scream followed by a warning on the screen that says "The Big Sister is coming for you, get ready." That's when the panic sets in as you put down traps and try to get in a good area to remain covered. When she shows up though, it's on. It's very common to find yourself completely out of ammo and health packs by the time the battle is over...and this is on normal difficulty. Can't imagine it on hard. They are a great addition I would love to see more on in part 3 (although it might be difficult with the story).

Something else that's new in this installment is a morality system. It's nothing as major as Mass Effect, but it does dictate how your game is going to end. Everything from killing certain characters in the game after learning about their dark secrets to sparing little sisters will have lasting consequences. It won't make itself known until the end of the game though, besides some extra commentary during. It's a neat addition that at the very least warrants an extra playthrough to see how it would end otherwise.

The gameplay is similiar in BioShock 2 but also profoundly different/better. In the previous game, you were a mere human without a dive suit. Guns took two hands and as a result, you couldn't duel wield weapons and plasmids. Yeah, those days are long gone. Welcome to the world of zapping someone with electricity while putting 2 slugs up their ass. It's a great feeling to use plasmids and weapons together and feels very natural. It doesn't take much time to get used to either. The plasmids this time around are varied as well, but not as varied as I would have liked. It seemed that most of the major plasmids are back with not many new additions. This can be overlooked though since you can upgrade those existing plasmids to do cooler things. For instance, one of my favorite plasmids is the swarm of bee's. Level 1 shoots them out onto people. Level 2 does more damage. But level 3 adds a whole layer of complexity to it. When the bee's finish killing someone, they will hide in their corpse as a sort of trap. When someone walks by, they hop out and attack. This is key to many Big Sister battles and it remains one of my favorite plasmids by far!

The graphics in BioShock 2 are similar to that of the first game with some minor tweaks here and there. It's a beautiful game, but so was the first one. The environments are going to have you taking closer looks to see how life really was in Rapture. All in all, it's a beautiful game.

The game lasted me about 8-10 hours. That's pretty standard for an FPS. You could probably milk an extra couple hours out of that if you aim to find all of the recordings and power to the people stations (for achievements). After you finish the game, you have another option besides playing through it again. BioShock 2 introduces multiplayer into the mix. The multiplayer component of the game isn't anything extraordinary, so if you were looking for a MW2 killer, look elsewhere. What it does do, is offer a unique multiplayer experience that will give you some fun times with your friends.

You begin the multiplayer by picking a character. You can pick one of 5-6 different characters, each with a story. After you pick your character, you are taken to your room. In your room you can walk around, interact with things, listen to sound bytes that unlock with levels, change your appearance (masks mainly), and change your loadout. Your loadout can be 2 weapons, 2 plasmids, and 3 gene tonic slots (think perks in MW2). When you're finished, you can enter a game. Most of the crowd are playing the little sister games where you have to find and capture a little sister or hold on to the little sister for the longest to win, but deathmatch type games exist. The multiplayer is fun because it's something different. Using plasmids to set people on fire and then shoot them is pretty cool in a big setting. You won't be playing it 6 mos. from now, but it could be good for a little while. There are some online achievements for multiplayer so if achievements are your thing, you'll need to rank up pretty high to 1K this game.

So, is BioShock a good game? Yes, it is. Is it a great game? Yeah, I'd put it up there on the greats list along with the first one. Will it win game of the year or sell unlike any other game? I doubt it. It's a great game, but it's not the legendary game a lot of people were hoping for. The main reason for this is because we've been here before. It's not really the developers fault since there wasn't much they could do. Once the decision was made to revisit Rapture, their fate was sealed. Rapture is still a great city to shoot up, but at this point, the shiny new car feeling is gone. Being a Big Daddy and protecting little sisters is cool and everything, but we've seen this being done before. This is a small complaint though as the game as a whole is amazing, this is just one thing standing in it's path of even more greatness, if that makes sense.

So, should you go out and buy this game? I say yes. If you own a 360, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Even if you haven't played the first, there is a lot of enjoyment to be found in the second. You may not get some of the references to the first game, but it does a pretty good job explaining things. Some references, like when Lamb refers to the "WYK Experiments" would be lost on people who didn't play the first game (WYK = Would You Kindly) but these are few and far between. The multiplayer is a neat distraction that may provide hours upon hours of enjoyment for some, but only a minor distraction for others. It's good, but nothing revolutionary. After completing the game, I'm excited about the possibility of a third BioShock. While the original developers who made BioShock 1 were not the team behind BioShock 2, 2K Marin did a good job in their place. No matter who handles the third, I'm sure we'll have a great game regardless.