Bioshock 2 - The better game

[Azahul]

And surely that's just as valid a tactic in every other fight? By that reasoning, every single fight in the game for you was just hurling Enrage at Splicers. And if that's true, then it's not the fault of the game that you only picked that single tactic for playing it and got bored with the repetition.

 

[Sulgoth]

I can see where you are coming from, I had never played Bioshock until I watched my friend play through the first level. When he decided to 'harvest' the first girl i was like 'Oh god no!' poor little brat didn't have a chance and I felt sorry. That was the defining moment that told me to get the series and play it though, no game has ever done that for me.

 

[Netrigan]

But the part of 2 that really killed it for me was those annoying times you had to protect the Little Sisters while they harvest dead bodies.

I'm a bit puzzled as to what exactly it is about this mechanic that people find so annoying. It's not hard or frustrating, it's not like the splicers can kill the Little Sister, and it provides an alternative form of gameplay that deviates from the "walk down corridors and shoot enemies" that makes up most of the gameplay in both the first and second games. You get to make good use of all the defensive weapons and plasmids, and can even make some rather ridiculously over the top traps if you want (bouncing splicers through multiple Cyclone traps to stack effects like fire, lightning, bees, etc. for example). I actually found them fun as a result, and can't see why people seem to loathe it so much. Can anyone explain?

The only problem I have its that it happens SO many times in Bioshock 2. There are like 21 sisters, and 2 harvests each is just TOO MUCH. I get so bored with this part of the game. Its pretty much the same 5 minutes of the game 42 times.

A lot of games have elements that people get bored of. J

The Little Sister harvesting really comes down to cost/benefit. The fights really aren't that tough (the game throws tougher fights at you) but they're completely avoidable. If you need the ADAM to buy your favorite upgrades, then you do it... but past a certain point, it's just simple completism.

First game had the same issue. I was picking fights with Big Daddies late in the game, because I didn't see any point of doing so. As a result, quite a few Little Sisters weren't saved/harvested.

In both cases, I had fun with the mechanic... for a while. But in a game where ammo and health costs money, it's pretty natural to shy away from unnecessary fights, especially fights that are a bit on the grindy side.

 

[Zantos]

I don't think I even realised killing those three people was a moral choice until Id' already shot two of them

I agree with many of the points you make, and I was shocked at how much I enjoyed Bioshock 2 compared to how I expected it to be from how much I'd heard it slated. Still, I think the original Bioshock was something unique, I genuinely didn't see the WYK thing coming and it freaked me out a little. In the second you were in 2K's mind a little more so could start guessing at things. Still, the world from the little sister's point of view was a little bit awesome.

 

[JasonKaotic]

I loved BioShock 1, but I didn't really like BioShock 2 as much. It was good, it just didn't really have the same feel as the original.
Although unlike most, I do love BioShock 2's multiplayer.

 

[AlternatePFG]

BioShock 1 had a better story, but it's gameplay was tedious and boring. BioShock 2 improved that, but the story was rather meh.

 

[Lenin211]

I liked the first game better, It seemed to me like Bioshock 2 was just the creators trying to make more money off of the franchise rather than making an innovative game.

 

[Joccaren]

I found Bioshock 2 to be the better game as well. Bioshock 1's story was superior on many levels, but the better gameplay, including the dual wielding, useful upgrades for plasmids, underwater exploration and a morality system that did a little more than just change the ending (OK, that was all it did, but it had a larger effect on the ending than in Bioshock 1).
I also liked what they did with Mark Meltzer and Something in the Sea. Especially the end to Meltzer's story. It really made you think about killing big daddies.

 

[Azahul]

BioShock 1 had a better story, but it's gameplay was tedious and boring. BioShock 2 improved that, but the story was rather meh.

There have been a quite a number of comments along those lines in this thread so far. I don't think there's any disagreement that the gameplay in the sequel was better. They tightened the controls, the dual-wielding plasmids and weapons allowed for easier combinations, and various other facts. While I can see why some might regard the first game as superior story-wise (the two main arguments that I've seen are that the setting was new and exciting the first time around and that the big twist blew people away), I do kinda resent blanket statements without explanations. It's not hard to make the argument that the first game's story was better, even I'll concede that it had better pacing and a superior plot overall, and I preferred Bioshock 2's story by quite a big margin.

And yeah, the Something in the Sea was amazing. I liked the look at the world outside of Rapture, it truly helped to give the impression that, though isolated, Rapture was still a city in the world, and that its existence has left traces, however small, on people and their lives on the surface.

 

[Tadaka]

I've seen are that the setting was new and exciting the first time around and that the big twist blew people away),

I really, really wish I could have experienced that "twist". If I had not already seen almost the exact same thing, from the same company in a previous game, it may have done it for me. But the events leading up to it were so familiar that I found myself almost begging that twist not to happen. And when it did I felt cheated. So much so that I dreaded playing Bioshock 2, because if it happened AGAIN I may have just thrown up my hands.