Bioshock 2

Editor's Notes

Introduction

The sequel, be it book, movie, game or even album, fans always want the chance to recapture the magic of discovery a second time. In the gaming world often a sequel means some cosmetic changes and a few innovations and that’s good for most. 2007’s “Bioshock” on the other hand didn’t amass legions of fans with providing them an online arena for first person mayhem or the chance to live our their sports fantasy. No, “Bioshock” put them into the underwater dystopia of Andrew Ryan’s Rapture, a (nearly) dead city happened upon the player’s character, Jack, in the year 1960. “Bioshock” was an immersive, often cinematic experience with a story that kept players moving at a steady pace forward, serving up twists and a the answer to the mystery, “what happened to Rapture?” Along the way, Jack encountered Rapture’s drug addled Splicer inhabitants, some survivors like himself, and most notably, the now iconic Big Daddy, protector to the Little Sister, small children responsible for harvesting ADAM, a substance that unlocks the fullest of human potential.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

A little over two years later and a sequel was offered up, adopting the name “Bioshock 2,” somewhat of a step down from the work-in-progress title of “Bioshock: Sea of Dreams.” This time the developers at 2K Games offer up two storylines: one fully fleshed out single player experience, eight years after Jack’s arrival and one just a year before the original game in 1959, serving as the basis for the newly introduced multiplayer portion of the game. Upping the ante, the single player portion of the game lets you play as a Big Daddy from the get go (as opposed to the last half of the last game’ final act). As Subject Delta, you should be a walking force of death, but a clever plot twist robs you of your arsenal and Plasmid powers. Tasked with finding what happened to yourself and the Little Sister you were bonded with, Eleanor, Subject Delta will fight his way across new areas of Rapture, encountering a few stragglers unaffected by the fall of Andrew Ryan in the wake of Jack’s arrival.

Under close scrutiny, “Bioshock 2” can’t help but feel like a retread in many ways of “Bioshock” and to make matters a little worse, the game is decisively linear, with the game locking you out of past sections once business in the current section is finished. There are large areas to explore, but the further you progress into Rapture’s bowels, the more “Bioshock 2” becomes a corridor chase. The characters you meet along the way will give you a task to perform: find an item, confront an enemy, restore the power, etc. and you gladly comply. The Splicers are back to slow your travel down and every once in a while Subject Delta is forced to hunker down for an extended battle as wave after wave of enemy comes to take your life or the life the Little Sister you choose to save.

However, where “Bioshock 2” transcends such simple game play is by first and foremost, ensuring the experience runs smoothly: objectives are well defined, the difficulty levels are balanced, there’s no one right way to tackle a situation, making the various weapons and Plasmids you acquire all worth their weight in one way or another. The control largely remains unchanged, with the game adopting a basic FPS scheme. Plasmids and weapons are selected with a button press and selection wheel, on the fly, without so much as a hiccup. It doesn’t take long before you’ll have mastered the game’s controls and being using your elemental and psychic attacks on their own and in tandem with conventional death-dealing hardware. 2K games deserves great praise for taking something that worked well, polishing a few leftover rough areas (hacking is no longer a “Pipe Dreams” knock off and is now a timing based mini-game that can still be bypassed by spending in-game money) and leaving everything else unchanged. If you excelled at “Bioshock” you should find playing “Bioshock 2” will be an easy fit.

The second area where the game stands out from its predecessor is the amazing emotional connection it builds between Subject Delta and the world around him, specifically the Little Sisters. As before, should you happen upon a Little Sister you can defeat her Big Daddy protector and harvest her immediately (killing the child in the process) for ADAM, which allows you quick access to Plasmid and Gene Tonic upgrades. If you’re not so sadistic, you as a Big Daddy yourself, can adopt the Little Sister and protect her from Splicer attacks as she harvests ADAM for you. After three harvests set her free, and after three Little Sisters are saved, be prepared for a fight with Rapture’s newest figure of terror, the Big Sister.

The game’s slowly unfolding narrative isn’t as complex or full of plot twists as the original game, but what it lacks in scale it makes up for in emotional weight and urgency. While Andrew Ryan may be dead and gone, his influence remains in certain areas and the philosophical questions of “Bioshock” will come up again as do many new questions of morality. Refusing to pander to anyone, the game writer’s refuse to provide black-and-white answers, making the world of Rapture a dreary grey spot below the beautiful blue ocean waves. The game introduces allies and adversaries along the way including but not limited to the famous Augustus Sinclair (a rival to Ryan mentioned in the original game) and Sofia Lamb who will stop at nothing to prevent you from coming into contact with the Little Sisters. Your actions will have an effect on the game’s ending, four possibilities in all, however; only the two extremes are really different in overall tone. Either way, “Bioshock 2’s” single player experience is rewarding fun that will force you to invest your own emotions (I found the “good” ending profoundly moving) and feelings into a dystopian game world plagued by some problems facing modern society in different ways.

Not content to leave gamers waiting for “Bioshock 3” (or as it’s now known “Bioshock Infinite”), “Bioshock 2” features a novel multiplayer experience, thematically set in 1959 a year before Jack’s arrival and at the height of Rapture’s civil war. At the core, multiplayer is your standard FPS modes (deathmatch, capture the flag and territory control) with a few added twists to game play. The research feature of single player is employed in multiplayer allowing players to stop over the corpse of a fallen foe, hold ‘X’ for a few seconds and in turn receive a damage boost against that player until they die. As players gain ADAM in multiplayer (read XP) they unlock customization options ranging from enhanced weapons, various Plasmid abilities, and eventually permanent Gene Tonic boosts. Each load out allows for two of each, letting the dedicated fighter create a wide variety of kits for any given situation.

Multiplayer can often feel imbalanced with higher level foes dropping lower level opponents with souped up Plasmids, but in an effort to keep things level, 2K has added random Big Daddy suit spawns, letting any player become the pinnacle of evolution and combat. Imbalance issues aside, multiplayer is a smooth experience, not as visually sharp as single player for obvious reasons, but a nice addition to a near perfect single player ride. Multiplayer won’t be for everyone and the Rapture colored paint applied to the basic FPS experience won’t be enough to stave off comparisons to the genre stalwarts like “Halo” or “Battlefield: Bad Company,” but those wanting to burn some time in Rapture with other fans, will get some extra bang for their buck.

“Bioshock 2” comes on one standard disc with the single player experience housed separately from the multiplayer. There is no requirement to play through the main story to unlock additional features for multiplayer. As of this writing there are a number of DLC add-ons for the game enhancing both the multiplayer experience and the single player narrative, adding several solid hours of additional game play to those willing to spend the extra money.