Review Score:

One of the easiest things to do while playing through BioShock 2 was to compare it to 2007’s BioShock. The thing that made the original such a stand-out title in 2007 was the way it’s focus on exploration and discovery brought the underwater utopia too life. Rapture was the star-of-the-show, even more so than any of the inhabitants who lived there. Jack was dropped into the fray as it was pre-written into his destiny. As you progressed through the splicer-embodied city you would unravel the mystery as to why you are there, and how you are going to escape. As the game concludes, all answers are revealed – the city is no longer a mystery – which consequentially extinguishes the atmospheric experience the unknown Rapture creates. With that, BioShock 2 immediately has a pretty big handicap.

How does BioShock 2 combat such a set-back? With enhanced narrative and more refined action sequences, of course. BioShock 2’s story is set ten years after the events of the first game, and you play as a character that is formally referred to as Subject Delta. Throughout the story if you pay close enough attention you are given hints and back-story to Subject Delta – which is a relief, as it adds much needed depth to why you are there. Delta is an advanced Big Daddy prototype, one of the first test models, to be exact. So you will spend the majority of your time stomping as one of those Big Daddy’s that caused you so much hassle in the original. The main perk to being a Big Daddy is attached to your arm, a bone crushing drill that serves as your melee weapon. Much better than that wrench, eh? Don’t be confused, as Delta is one of the early Big Daddy models he has free will, with your only constraint being that you are bound to a specific Little Sister, and if they remain apart for too long or if the Little Sister is killed, Delta will permanently shut-down into a comatose state. Naturally, Sofia Lamb, who is now the leader of Rapture, has separated you from your Little Sister and taken her under her wing to restarted the Little Sister project to collect enough ADAM to fulfil her manic philosophical agenda.

These little sisters are your ticket out of here - so be sure to protect them with your life.

Now, with such a predicament as this, it is a good thing 2K tweaked the mechanics just enough to give you both a more refined action sequence as well as the satisfaction you get from drilling through any splicers that dare get in your way. No longer is your primary source of defence a wrench – instead, you will find yourself equipped with a range of balanced weapons ranging from spear-guns, shotguns and even a hacking tool – no longer do you have to sacrifice your health by standing point-blank in-front of a turret while you hack it. Another big enhancement to BioShock 2 is the sheer upgrade in the size of your splicer encounters, to put it into perspective, no longer will you find yourself fending off one splicer after another in a small sanctioned corridor. Instead, it is not uncommon to find yourself surrounded by around 6-8 splicers while you try and protect your Little Sister as she collects precious ADAM. In response to this onslaught of exceptionally swift enemies, you now dual-wield both a weapon and a plasmid – so no longer do you find yourself nervously switching back and forth mid-battle. It is a good feature to implement too, as these splicers are fast, in the later stages of the game you will be using the Winter-Blast plasmid as if your life depends on it – which it does – as slowing down certain enemies it is a godsend.

The firearms in BioShock 2 feel a lot more effective and balanced than in the original, which given the circumstances, gives me a great sigh of relief. In the original BioShock I would often find myself running around whacking enemies relentlessly with the wrench – as it felt as though I was doing substantially more damage compared to the firearms. This now isn’t the case, as all the weapons feel as though they are better suited, and when individually upgraded benefit a lot more than a rusty wrench to the face. Not to mention the potential of all the hackable turrets and security-bots at your disposal. You begin with a Rivet gun, then as you progress you quickly are open to a larger arsenal of fire-power. The only weapon I felt wasn’t well utilised was the Rivet Gun – I found myself using it, only to quickly dispose of it as soon as a better weapon come along – if it wasn’t for the trap-ammo for the Rivet Gun, I don’t think I would have went back to it, either.

These enemies are FAST, you will be using the Winter-Blast plasmid as if your life depends on it - Which it does.

All of this combat takes place in areas of Rapture that didn’t appear in the first game, but the same look and feel is maintained – would have thought the vandalism and decay would have gotten worse in the last 10 years, or at least a liquor bottle or two would have been stolen. But the biggest change is that these older sections of the city were served by a train line. As the story is much more linear this time around, you will find yourself moving forward, without a single chance to backtrack, so take a good look around while you can – once you board the train again, there is no going back. Most of your tasks involve getting around whatever object stands in the way of your train progressing to the next area. So expect, blockages, system-shut-downs, or whatever Lamb can conjure to stop you reaching your Little Sister.

Speaking of alterations and enhancements, two significant systems have been revamped this time around. Hacking, which lets you use turrets and security bots to your advantage and can lower prices at vending machines, has been overhauled in a way that takes less time to complete as well as not disrupting the game flow. Now instead of being given a circuit puzzle to complete, you are faced with a reflex test where you have to do is hit a button as the needle passes over the green section of the meter. Also, instead of Research being done by kindly asking an enemy to stop attacking you long enough to pose for a quick photograph; you now Research via a video camera concept where you get more research points for filming enemies being attacked in a variety of ways. Both systems are better than their counterparts in the previous game.

In this new Hacking tool - The Green is good - Hitting the Red will give you a nasty shock of electricity.

Upon initial sight, Big Daddies aren’t as hostile towards you. In fact, if you don’t attack them you can walk right on past as if they didn’t even acknowledge you – you are one of them after all. That wouldn’t be much fun though, would it. You will find as with the original, Little Sisters play a big role in the outcome of the story. In order to strengthen yourself, purchase tonics and in some instances it is unavoidable – you have defeat their guardian and make a moral choice to either Harvest one of the Little Sisters or Adopt them and use them to find you some ADAM. Everybody wants it, and you need it – but getting it is a little tricky, if you choose not to be the bad-guy and Adopt the Little Sister she will lead you to a specific corpse, in which you lay her down and she begins harvesting them of their precious ADAM. Simple, right? Wrong. As soon as a single drop of ADAM is extracted, it attracts hordes of Splicers – and it is your duty to protect her while she works, which proves to be one of the hardest elements of the game. Though this is where those trap weapons come in handy, use those hand-in-hand with some tonics which make her harvest faster and you should have the ADAM without too much trouble. After performing two gathering sessions, you can take the Sister to one of the many vent holes around Rapture, release her from her curse by turning her back into a regular little girl, and send her on her way. Or, if you are playing as the bad-guy you could just simply hit the harvest button and kill her for some bonus ADAM. Keeping them alive and healing them does give you some bonus tonics to show their gratitude. If you do choose to play as the Good-Guy you won’t necessarily be strapped for ADAM- as I was left with more ADAM than I knew what to do with by the end of the game.

Depending on your moral decisions throughout the story, you will be granted with a different ending. In total there are 4 different possible endings you could get, the good ending, the bad ending, then two in the middle. Despite the endings only having minimal differences, if your morality doesn’t hold you back when it comes to killing little girls, it is very much worth seeing the alternative ending, if not just for the closure.

Before you go deciding beforehand which path you will be taking, another substantial obstacle which stands in your way comes in the form of a Big Sister. When Little Sisters become too old for their duties of collecting ADAM, they get promoted to a Big Sister, while they kind of resemble an effeminate version of a Big Daddy, do not let this fool you. With her fast attacks and plasmid abilities, she the single toughest foe in Rapture. She also makes you contemplate whether dealing with all the Little Sisters in an area is even worth it.

With her fast attacks and plasmid abilities, she the single toughest foe in Rapture.

With all the new enhancements, and the new layer of polish it is easy to say BioShock 2 is more fun to play than its predecessor. In saying that, I do not mean to say it is a better game, there is also a feeling of disappointment in BioShock 2. To credit the game, it didn’t do anything wrong. The main draw of the original was the mystery that was Rapture, where was it, why was it there? A lot of the thrills that came from the sights and sounds of Rapture. As all the mysteries were surfaced in the original, the atmosphere and eerie edge-of-your-seat suspense it created, died along with it. That is the problem is developing a sequel to a game like BioShock – despite how good the sequel is, you simply can not match that impact the game made back in 2007.

Sofia Lamb’s reasons for running Rapture are fine in correlation to Delta’s adventure, but you can’t help get the impression she was just forced in there last minute. Many of the game’s audio logs try to find different ways to insert Lamb into the history of Rapture. But if she was such a influential character, why did she not have a single mention in the original? It is as though they did not foresee the success they were going to have, consequentially not even setting the foundation for a possible sequel. Don’t get me wrong, she is an adequate villain, but I keep finding myself thinking she is trying to fill the big shoes of Andrew Ryan.

Considering that both games in the BioShock series are infamous for their stories, when being told BioShock 2 would incorporate multiplayer a lot of people were sceptical – and rightfully so – a lot of past titles have fallen into the trap of adding multiplayer into the mix for the sake of it – only to end up with a single-player that takes a sharp decline as a result. You probably will want to read this next sentence twice, to make sure your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Ready? Surprising the game’s multiplayer take on Rapture ends up being a lot of fun. Just don’t expect it to reach any most-player online game lists, but it is a competent multiplayer shooter.

The multiplayer takes place during 1959 – formally the fall of Rapture, when Atlas and Ryan were effectively at war. As a result, the city isn’t quite so torn up on the multiplayer maps compared to what you’ve previously experienced, most of which are recognisable as locations from the first game, such as Fort Frolic and Hephaestus. The online level progression takes the leveling system popularized by Modern Warfare – which allows you to level up, and by doing so unlocking new weapons, plasmids, tonics and even fancy face masks. BioShock 2 reforms standard “deathmatch” and “capture-the-flag” gametypes and gives them a BioShock-themed twist. Instead of capturing the flag, you now have to save the Little Sister – not to mention during every mate a Big Daddy suit is randomly placed hidden in the map, all you have to do is find and master it.

It is nice to see a unique multiplayer that does not feature a trench or plasma-gun. BioShock takes it's own traits, such as plasmids and hacking skills and incorporates them seamlessly online.

As you explore the sights and sounds of BioShock 2 it will become apparent that visuals have been have a spit-shine and the sound produced from audio logs and actual face-to-face encounters are overflowing with cinematic emotion which submerges you both in the world, as well as making you feel somewhat sympathetic at times. Some people may not see the graphics as much of an improvement from the original, though I would say that is more of a compliment to the original rather than slander towards BioShock 2. At the time of release BioShock was arguably the most graphically impressive game in history, it seems the rest of the industry has only just caught up.

I’ve tried not to compare this sequel to what the original BioShock brought to the table. As it simply would simply never have lived up its predecessor. The main draw was the mystery behind a once thriving underwater utopia. But that chapter has now been concluded, the mystery has been solved. The story of Rapture is one that is blockbuster quality – the original was not about gameplay as much seeing Rapture for the first time and experiencing a real sense of discovery as you went deeper and deeper into its fiction. You simply cannot compare BioShock 2 to the mystery embedded into the original – if you do, you will be missing the point of this great new chapter in the Rapture fiction.