BioShock 2

 I finished the game last night and before I go into Pros and Cons, I'll say that I enjoyed this one just as much as the last one. 

Pros - 

For those of us that have played Bioshock 1 and are familiar with the gameplay, there aren't many elements that have been changed, but as a friend of mine said, "It wasn't broke, so no need to fix it".

The hacking system has been changed into a less time consuming and tedious task, but it no longer pauses the game, so hacking a turret, camera or health station while you're being attacked by a horde of splicers is usually a bad idea. Instead of playing Pipe Dream, this time around you get a moving needle and a countdown. However the game gives you a new tool just for hacking, granted you have ammo for it. The hack tool makes it so you can hack machines from a distance making it easy to stay out of sight of cameras and turrets and reach door consoles. 

They did a pretty decent job of making Bioshock 2 significantly more difficult than Bioshock 1. Frankly, I like my games to challenge me, and that was one complaint I had about 1 in that it was far too easy even on hard difficulty. I played through 2 on the normal difficulty and still found myself spending a lot more time than I would've liked scavenging for first aid kits, eve hypos (you can't carry as many as you could in 1) and ammo, then desperately trying to save them for the Big Daddies which they made a lot tougher to take out. Then once I beat the Big Daddy, which usually used up all my good ammo, and first aid kits, I'd adopt the Little Sister and have to search around for more first aid kits, ammo and money before daring to set her down to harvest ADAM for me. Even so, the game makes it extremely necessary to be wealthy, well equipped and strategic. The splicers will get passed you if you don't lay traps before setting down your Little Sister if you choose to adopt them. 

Speaking of adoption v.s. harvesting your Little Sisters, comes the RPG portion of the game, your moral choices. In Bioshock 1, you were either a huge bag of douche, or you skip in the flowers with Snow White. The moral choice was limited to your choices on how you interact with the Little Sisters. Bioshock 2 didn't build on this as much as I would've liked, but it does give you some other moral decisions to make. Your choices being mercy or vengeance, and yes they affect your ending. And no, they're aren't always obvious.

Late in the game they also give you a very interesting insight into the Little Sister, giving you a chance to see how they perceive the world around them. It makes it easy to understand how a little girl no older than maybe eight can wander around a place like Rapture, and still manage to be so innocent. Although it's not a huge part of the game, it was unique and intuitive. 

As far as new bad guys, we all know about the Big Sisters. A royal pain in the ass that show up after you've dealt with several Little Sisters. But once you understand their patterns, they aren't all that difficult. They also bring back all of our old splicer variations along with one new type that's also a challenge unless you're carrying the right ammo.

Rapture hasn't changed at all in the eight years between the games. You don't get to revisit areas from the first game and your mode of transportation from area to area is completely different. Not revisiting old levels gives you a really good sense of exactly how big Rapture really is and as always the environments are impressive and well designed. 

Last of my pros for Bioshock 2 would be that for those of us that are playing the games out of order, Bioshock 2 manages not to spoil Bioshock 1. I wouldn't recommend playing them out of order as the first game will give the player a much better understanding of Rapture, and some signature characters who are mentioned like Andrew Ryan, Frank Fontaine, Bridgette Tenenbaum and Dr. Suchong. But if you do happen to play Bioshock 2 first, rest easy, the first game won't be spoiled.

Cons - 

The biggest issue I had with this game is that it does nothing to make the gameplay experience any different from that of Bioshock 1. Many critics have already said that it's pretty much Bioshock 1 with the exception of protecting the Little Sisters. That is true, but what I'm specifically talking about is the change in character. In Bioshock 1, you play as a man. Bioshock 2, you're a Big Daddy. However at no point in the game do you ever get the feel that you are a Big Daddy. It feels exactly the same as walking around as a man. Splicers approach other Big Daddies throughout the game and hesitate to attack them, most of the time, not attacking them at all unless they're in a group, however not a single splicer will ever hesitate to attack you, as in the first game and are honestly no easier to kill despite your much stronger weapons. Aside from occasionally seeing your shadow, you never truly get the sense that you're a Big Daddy.

Further building on the lack of experience, the signature weapon of the Big Daddy, the Drill, is practically useless. It's really only necessary to use once early in the game, then I hardly ever used it again unless EVERY other weapon was out of ammo, which is easy to avoid. 

Bioshock 2 also hyped the idea of getting to walk around on the ocean floor surrounding Rapture, which is pretty nice minus the fact that you do this all of maybe four times throughout the game. The environment outside of Rapture is a pre-set path that you simply follow for at most 2 minutes until you reenter Rapture as opposed to being huge like the ocean actually is and gives you nothing to explore. 

Aside from the Drill and the Rivet Gun there aren't any awesome new weapons. The Machine Gun is hardly a new weapon since it fires and behaves exactly like the Tommy Gun of Bioshock 1. The Rivet Gun is a pretty awesome weapon with bullshit ammo capacity. Apparently the game designers didn't realize how quickly you go through seventy-two rivets and never find that many ever again. 

The Big Sister as I said before is a huge pain in the ass, but she doesn't show up as often as you'd think and as long as you have the Winter Blast plasmid, she's easy as sin. In fact, once you upgrade your Winter Blast you pretty much have the every bad guy in your back pocket, completely at your mercy, eliminating any challenge the game may have had and making just about every other plasmid useless unless your enemy is standing in a puddle of water or oil. Big Sister's weapons, techniques and plasmids never change throughout the game so you can always count on the first Big Sister fight being the same as the next. The variation Big Daddies are no exception. Even with the new Big Daddy models, The Rumbler and Alpha Series that we don't see in Bioshock 1, Winter Blast gets of the better of them all and is easily the ultimate weapon. 

Yahtzee's review of Bioshock 1 mentioned the lack of challenge and the fact that since Vita-Chambers are everywhere and cost nothing to use, dying is a mere inconvenience, giving you no reason to be careful. This is also true for Bioshock 2. Vita-Chambers are more scarce, but not by much and even dying while harvesting with a Little Sister doesn't lose you the opportunity to gather more ADAM with her as she'll be waiting for you outside the Vita-Chamber.

I mentioned that they didn't build on the moral choice aspect of the game as much as I would've liked, but new elements were introduced. You do have the choice between forgiveness and vengeance on other characters and this naturally would be a great installment to a previous RPG experience making you one of two extremes. Why is this a con? You get to choose between forgiveness and revenge three times throughout the game. And only three times. You do get more endings, but they are as follows. You're a huge douche, you're a still a douche but not as douchey, you're a nice guy with a hint of douche, and completely douche-free. 

Summary - 

I said right off the bat that I did enjoy the game as much as the first one, but by no means is it perfect. I would give this game and easy 4 out of 5.

Interesting and surprising story, challenging gameplay, well designed environments despite a lack of new gameplay elements, weapons or concepts, Bioshock 2 is a great game and I would recommend it to anybody.