That is it. I cannot take it any longer. It is as if I've seen some great evil in an alleyway, perhaps a Lovecraftian ritual gone wrong though I'm not entirely sure that would fit in an alleyway.
Bioshock 2 was bad, and I'm relieved the discussion is out on this again. For someone who played the first game to death (I am a fan and I guess that is enough reason to chop my tongue out but take hold on your Shakespearean fetishes) it feels like the sequel missed the point entirely like a man, aiming a target, shot the Moon if the target was not on the Moon for metaphor's sake.
It is difficult to malign Bioshock 2 for stagnating, because the gameplay was an improvement on every level; at times of action the momentary arena was frantic using lighting and water to direct a sense of claustrophobia, the culmination of this at the end of the game. That's really much it, but set pieces are so crucial for gameplay; Uncharted 2 exemplifies this, using its environments to convey despair (the battle succeeding the train crash), aggression (the train level), and monotony (the goddamn museum level).
The true problem Bioshock 2 has, the ants in the seams of its patchwork, a terrible story. Genuinely. A good story is something that makes you feel good at the end, not something that utilizes a bunch of themes and morals in an attempt to be a good story. A good story is like Endgame, because the audience, at the end of the play, doesn't completely understand the events going on, but appreciates Beckett's mastery of dialogue. A good story is like Macbeth, because of the smooth, articulate language Shakespeare employs. A good story is like Bioshock, because of Levine's artful ways in producing utter destruction, if not in the scenery then in the human body, the human mind, and the human soul. Going through Bioshock is to enter a macrocosmic world beyond your own enclosures; you are nothing but a grain of sand in a desert, there are forces much greater than you are, which leads me to my next point.
It is nearly primal to assume a higher power in an attempt to absorb the minutiae of the universe, though science has dimished that instinct. The introduction of Bioshock destroyed all scientific reasoning, logically, as it ushered onto you a palace underwater. Whether faithful or not all gods or rationality were obliterated. You had entered a blighted area where nature did not reside over. The instinct pops up, and you accepted a new authority; the messenger god, Atlas, the fertility god, Tenenbaum, the trickster god, Fontaine, or the head honcho, the storm god, Andrew Ryan. Rapture isn't simply a place of sin, it's a place of myth and wonder; it's a modern-day Narnia (I can't think of a fantastical place without confusing it with its real-life counterpart, WHATEVER). It probably does what other games tied to the fantasy genre do worse, which is make the player feel like a real hero (except for the ending, Je-sus moral choice systems are terrible).
So here was your flaw 2K Marin: you said Gomorrah, I say Olympus, and I would say other things if I cared to, really. Point is if you don't want your fingers to be chopped off at least use them to write a thesis paper on the game first, and it is quite valid to tell me that that it is synonymous to write a dissertation on Thomas the Train, but I rather you wouldn't.
