The sequel to Bioshock was released some time ago, but in playing it again I felt the urge to review, so, here this is.
The section at the bottom is basically plot-wankery and thoughts, and HAS SPOILERS. You've been warned.
This review deals with the PS3 version.
Bioshock 2 has big boots to fill. It's predecessor broke on the gaming scene with the combined weight of a stellar plot, fantastic, inovative design and the classic FPSRPG style of System Shock to back it all up. Needless to say, It was very good. The first game was so well recieved and steeped in exellence, it's a hard task not to compare it to the first. So I will.
In Bioshock 2, you play a prototype Big Daddy, the hulking creatures that were so dangerous in the first game. The idea to do this was met with mixed reactions, but on the whole I believe it was a good idea. The changes in gameplay are immediately obvious, for this is no palette swap. As you wander rapture you do feel like one of the drill-weilding badasses, and little touches like the hints of the diving helmet in the corners of the screen and the sheer impact of your landing when you fall really make you feel the part. Gameplay-wise, you are far more powerful than in bioshock, as your weapons and plasmids are more powerful, flashy and have a greater weight and use. Combat is also far more streamlined, but not at the cost of depth. combat in Bioshock sometimes felt awkward and clunky, but Bioshock 2 really improves on this in often small ways, like an instant melee strike, or the ability to wield and fire plasmids and weapons at the same time.
Bioshock 2 is also a more linear game than it's predeccessor, as you are kept on a more or less straight path with clear objectives. there is room for some exploration, but the game tends to open up areas one at a time, rather than giving you several concecutive objectives in one large are like in the first game. This is not neccessarily a bad thing, as it means the plot can be kept quite clean and compact. the developers assumed we had played the first game, and that thus we were familiar with rapture, and focused not so much on exploring but on polishing the areas we would be in.
Bioshock 2's linearity also compliments it's change of style and pace. Whereupon the first game had an air of surviving and exploring a city gone mad, Bioshock 2's main character has a clear, driving objective, and it's in the game's advantage to keep the plot and the player moving steadily forwards.
Bioshock 2 also has the luxury of being more contemplative, and delves more into the emotions of characters and the setting. The mood bioshock 2 aims for is slightly sad and reflective, which it occasionally pulls off beautifully, such as the first underwater scene paired with the audio log you find in a crashed bathysphere, which give a real sense of melancholy and allow you to reflect on the situation you're in. In fact, all of the underwater scenes are used beautifully, offering moments of calm and beauty juxtaposing fantastically with the rest of the game's violence.
Rapture as a location has grown more horrific, but the game has lost much of it's horror. You no longer feel so vunerable as in the first, and splicers have to be in greater numbers to pose a threat, which is of course an invitation for the developers to swarm you with them. The addition to allowing little sisters to harvest from corpses as you guard them offers an exellent change of pace and each one is a very memorable experience. The develpoers give you many weapons and plasmids perfectly suited to these exellent defensive sections. Later in the game, these parts of the game require genuine strategic planning, with you trying to cover every exit with at least a few traps.
Bioshock 2 is a good game. It improves on most of the gameplay aspects of the first, and while it can't match the exellent twist of the first, the plot is well written and satisfying. Those expecting a complete revolution and a story to match the first will be disapointed. but if all you want is more rapture, with clear gameplay improvements a solid, well told plot and some trully exellent moments, Bioshock 2 is a worthy sequel.
NON REVIEW PLOT THOUGHTS.
HERE BE SPOILERS.
The game feels less of a desperate scramble for survival than the first, and fits better with the idea of a competent father-figure desperately scrambling to save his daughter, rather than escape.
While the "Papa Wolf" idea isn't played straight, seeing as a mechanically augmented psychologically conditioned possesive monster is not the standard father figure, nor genetically augmented corpse-harvesting little girls or psychopathic altruistic dictators standard daughter figures or mothers, I feel the game could have played with the moral ambiguity of having an essentially unnatural father figure fighting for designated daughter against her biological mother, which would have worked better if the game hadn't tried to make Sofia Lamb such an obvious villain so early in the game. It'd have fitted well in the dynamic of rapture to have even the main protagonist be morally dubious in his action, and even question whether the big daddy you play is IS special with real love and care for his little sister, or is just another automaton designed soley to track her down. To be fair, this still is left rather vague, and I at least found myself wondering If i'm playing as a real character or a smart,angry animal, smashing it's way through splicers to get to it's daughter without trully realizing any moral decisions or concequences it may have been making.
In many ways, the journey of Subject Delta mirrors that of Mark Meltzer, who's recordings we find throughout the game. Meltzer's journey is like an amalgam of Jack, Bishock's protagonist, and Subject Delta's journeys rolled into one. It also has a sobering feeling of what could have happened to either protagonists, and his story has the feel of what could have been a potential sequel to Bioshock. Meltzer's chances and survival are similar to those of Jack's, but Meltzer fails, and the idea of this highlights Sofia Lamb's more dangerous Rapture than that Jack explored.
there you go guys, I figured I'd lurked enough on the escapist.
Please give me any criticisms and feedback, and I'm sorry if there any spelling mistakes, I've tried to...not make any.
The section at the bottom is basically plot-wankery and thoughts, and HAS SPOILERS. You've been warned.
This review deals with the PS3 version.
Bioshock 2 has big boots to fill. It's predecessor broke on the gaming scene with the combined weight of a stellar plot, fantastic, inovative design and the classic FPSRPG style of System Shock to back it all up. Needless to say, It was very good. The first game was so well recieved and steeped in exellence, it's a hard task not to compare it to the first. So I will.
In Bioshock 2, you play a prototype Big Daddy, the hulking creatures that were so dangerous in the first game. The idea to do this was met with mixed reactions, but on the whole I believe it was a good idea. The changes in gameplay are immediately obvious, for this is no palette swap. As you wander rapture you do feel like one of the drill-weilding badasses, and little touches like the hints of the diving helmet in the corners of the screen and the sheer impact of your landing when you fall really make you feel the part. Gameplay-wise, you are far more powerful than in bioshock, as your weapons and plasmids are more powerful, flashy and have a greater weight and use. Combat is also far more streamlined, but not at the cost of depth. combat in Bioshock sometimes felt awkward and clunky, but Bioshock 2 really improves on this in often small ways, like an instant melee strike, or the ability to wield and fire plasmids and weapons at the same time.
Bioshock 2 is also a more linear game than it's predeccessor, as you are kept on a more or less straight path with clear objectives. there is room for some exploration, but the game tends to open up areas one at a time, rather than giving you several concecutive objectives in one large are like in the first game. This is not neccessarily a bad thing, as it means the plot can be kept quite clean and compact. the developers assumed we had played the first game, and that thus we were familiar with rapture, and focused not so much on exploring but on polishing the areas we would be in.
Bioshock 2's linearity also compliments it's change of style and pace. Whereupon the first game had an air of surviving and exploring a city gone mad, Bioshock 2's main character has a clear, driving objective, and it's in the game's advantage to keep the plot and the player moving steadily forwards.
Bioshock 2 also has the luxury of being more contemplative, and delves more into the emotions of characters and the setting. The mood bioshock 2 aims for is slightly sad and reflective, which it occasionally pulls off beautifully, such as the first underwater scene paired with the audio log you find in a crashed bathysphere, which give a real sense of melancholy and allow you to reflect on the situation you're in. In fact, all of the underwater scenes are used beautifully, offering moments of calm and beauty juxtaposing fantastically with the rest of the game's violence.
Rapture as a location has grown more horrific, but the game has lost much of it's horror. You no longer feel so vunerable as in the first, and splicers have to be in greater numbers to pose a threat, which is of course an invitation for the developers to swarm you with them. The addition to allowing little sisters to harvest from corpses as you guard them offers an exellent change of pace and each one is a very memorable experience. The develpoers give you many weapons and plasmids perfectly suited to these exellent defensive sections. Later in the game, these parts of the game require genuine strategic planning, with you trying to cover every exit with at least a few traps.
Bioshock 2 is a good game. It improves on most of the gameplay aspects of the first, and while it can't match the exellent twist of the first, the plot is well written and satisfying. Those expecting a complete revolution and a story to match the first will be disapointed. but if all you want is more rapture, with clear gameplay improvements a solid, well told plot and some trully exellent moments, Bioshock 2 is a worthy sequel.
NON REVIEW PLOT THOUGHTS.
HERE BE SPOILERS.
The game feels less of a desperate scramble for survival than the first, and fits better with the idea of a competent father-figure desperately scrambling to save his daughter, rather than escape.
While the "Papa Wolf" idea isn't played straight, seeing as a mechanically augmented psychologically conditioned possesive monster is not the standard father figure, nor genetically augmented corpse-harvesting little girls or psychopathic altruistic dictators standard daughter figures or mothers, I feel the game could have played with the moral ambiguity of having an essentially unnatural father figure fighting for designated daughter against her biological mother, which would have worked better if the game hadn't tried to make Sofia Lamb such an obvious villain so early in the game. It'd have fitted well in the dynamic of rapture to have even the main protagonist be morally dubious in his action, and even question whether the big daddy you play is IS special with real love and care for his little sister, or is just another automaton designed soley to track her down. To be fair, this still is left rather vague, and I at least found myself wondering If i'm playing as a real character or a smart,angry animal, smashing it's way through splicers to get to it's daughter without trully realizing any moral decisions or concequences it may have been making.
In many ways, the journey of Subject Delta mirrors that of Mark Meltzer, who's recordings we find throughout the game. Meltzer's journey is like an amalgam of Jack, Bishock's protagonist, and Subject Delta's journeys rolled into one. It also has a sobering feeling of what could have happened to either protagonists, and his story has the feel of what could have been a potential sequel to Bioshock. Meltzer's chances and survival are similar to those of Jack's, but Meltzer fails, and the idea of this highlights Sofia Lamb's more dangerous Rapture than that Jack explored.
there you go guys, I figured I'd lurked enough on the escapist.
Please give me any criticisms and feedback, and I'm sorry if there any spelling mistakes, I've tried to...not make any.
