Originally Published: February 25, 2010, on Examiner.com and 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)
I had stated in several articles that my anticipation for Bioshock 2 would bring me to tears and hysterics in the halls of 1050 when it finally hit store shelves. Unfortunately, when a game is surrounded by so much hype, there is always the possibility that the high you think you will have ends up falling short. That disappointment is part of the reason why I’m only getting to this article now. It’s not to say that Bioshock 2 is a bad game. It just wasn’t what I was expecting on my return to Rapture.
Bioshock 2 sees a brand new protagonist familiar to the confines of the intended utopia beneath the sea. Simply known as “Subject: Delta”, you play as an early prototype of the famed Big Daddies from the first Bioshock who is “killed” in the final days leading up to Rapture’s fall. Your carcass is left to rot in the middle of the streets of Rapture where you remain undisturbed for 10 years. Somehow, someway, you are brought back to life and are now forced to wander around Rapture searching not only for your lost memories, but also for the original Little Sister you were sworn to protect.
The first thing you will notice is that the graphics are still just as sharp as they were in the first Bioshock. There are moments where you will jump at your own shadow, literally, as the lighting effects cast eerie outlines of your own form against walls and floors. It sometimes takes you a second to remember, that Big Daddy shadow, a figure ingrained into your memory as an enemy, is actually your own, which only adds to the creepy atmosphere of the dilapidated Rapture.
In terms of sound, something the first Bioshock was lauded for, Bioshock 2 is just as strong. Heart pounding atmospheric instrumentals mixed in with classic 40s and 50s tunes provides a dichotomy that shocks your system more than any plasmid you may find in the game. Rounding out the great peripherals is the tremendous voice acting throughout. Whether a meaningless thug splicer’s grunts of rage and desperation to the pleas of your original Little Sister all grown up, the voice acting is some of the best in gaming.
The plot is brilliant, but there is one question that plagued me through the entire game. If in the original Bioshock, Rapture was falling apart as was and this game takes place about eight years after those original events, how has most of the structure remained standing and that there are still humans around, whose fate you decide, who haven’t succumbed completely to the temptations of Adam (the substance that grants you the ability to splice your DNA and give you powers)? I felt this little hole wasn’t explained as fully as it could have been and will just have to be chalked up to some of the mysteries and wonder of Rapture will just have to remain unsolved.
As you move away from the creative aspects of the game, you start to see the cracks in the proverbial Big Daddy’s armor. The gameplay is very good, but even on the hardest difficulty, which wasn’t that hard because of no real penalties if you die, I blew through the entire game in what felt like no time at all. Then consider that the game removed the ability to backtrack into previous areas you’ve explored as you move through Rapture. This sense of exploration and being able to go back to collect audio files or collect Little Sisters you may have missed was a critical part of the original Bioshock‘s gameplay. Rapture felt a lot smaller and more restrictive this time around, even with being able to go into the ocean for short intervals, than in the first game, and I refuse to believe it was a creative decision to draw a parallel to you being trapped in the Big Daddy suit. You also have to remember to quick save a lot more often because the game froze at several key moments and needed to be rebooted. That is a huge glitch.
There were some new positives to the gameplay though. Using Little Sisters to harvest Adam from all the corpses around Rapture was this game’s masterstroke and using new weapons like the Trap Rivet and the Mini-Turret to help protect them forced you to come up with new and inventive strategies continuously if you wanted to get the game’s best ending (there are six in total depending on the decisions you make over the course of your adventure).
And you needed to think up new strategies constantly because the enemy A.I. is impressive. You light an enemy on fire and they will seek out water. You hack a camera or turret and they will avoid it as best they can once they find it. And add in new varieties of enemies like the hybrid Big Sisters and the plasmid overloaded Brute Splicers and at least you can say there was an effort to amp up the difficulty.
One of the reasons why the gameplay was lacking could have been that the inclusion of the new multiplayer mode simply took up too much space on the disc. The only real knock on the original Bioshock was a lack of multiplayer, so 2K made it a point to include one with Bioshock 2. Unfortunately, I would just rather have had more of the single-player mode if this was the best multiplayer 2K could have come up with. Being able to have up to 10 player death matches, team death matches, capture-the-flag with Little Sisters, and territorial control matches, you have a very basic multiplayer system. The problem is that players cannot take a lot of damage before they die so many matches, although competitive, really don’t require a lot of strategy as it is simply more a race to see who can light who on fire first and hack the handful of turrets scattered about each level.
Bioshock 2, although it didn’t move me to tears like I had anticipated, is a very solid game. It does a wonderful job for the most part of adding to the history of Rapture and its collapse as it develops new characters while adding shades of depth to characters long gone from Rapture. The multiplayer seemed thrown together and more of a move to pacify critics of the first game than anything else, and I would rather have seen the space used for the multiplayer used to be able to backtrack in a larger single player mode. Even with a couple of knocks on the gameplay and multiplayer, Bioshock 2 would be a solid choice for a purchase, especially if you are as big of a fan of the first game as I was.
Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.
Graphics: 10.0: The graphics push the Xbox 360 to its limits with shadow and lighting effects that you just do not see in enough games. The details of the deformed remaining inhabitants of Rapture are shockingly clear and the overall theme of this sunken paradise is as sharp as can be and is enough to earn a perfect score for looks.
Audio: 10.0: Voice acting is such an underrated part of games sometimes, but great voice acting helps to keep you within the immersive experience that many games strive for and Bioshock 2 succeeds on every level. Add in great SFX like the pitter-patter of a leak on your iron helmet and critical atmosphere-setting instrumentals mixed with classic songs from the post-war period and I predict Bioshock 2 as my front-runner for best sounding game of the year, no matter what else will come out in the next 10 months.
Plot/Plot Development: 9.0: Bioshock 2‘s plot is a worthy addition to the mythos that was established in the first game. Aside from a couple of plot holes that I’m still not quite sure about, Bioshock 2 helps to develop some of your favorite characters from the first game as well as introduce some great new characters.
Gameplay: 6.5: The enemy A.I. is spectacular in its complexity and how it reacts to your moves. Unfortunately, not being able to backtrack into previous explored areas, not being penalized for dying, not being nearly as long as the first game, and the freezing that takes place about once per level, really knocks this score down to a barely passing level.
Replay Value: 5.0: One playthrough of the story mode is really all you need, especially if you get the best ending the first time through (like yours truly). The inclusion of a multiplayer bumps it up a couple of points, but not many because the multiplayer seemed thrown together and clearly takes up too much space on the disk. I was very disappointed with this attempt at fixing the first Bioshock’s most obvious flaw.
Overall (not an average): 8.5: Even with the gameplay flaws and real lack of replay value, this is still a very solid game. The story is compelling and this is one of the most visually stunning games to come out in some time. I hope that the folks at 2K take a look at this game very closely and fix these new problems they’ve created in time for Bioshock 3.
Bioshock 2 is out now for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
-Ray Carsillo
RayCarsilloWrites.com 