Almost as good as its predecessor
Bioshock 2 is a somewhat controversial game. Few people seem to think that it’s as good as the original. Some despise it. Most seem to have either forgotten it or think it’s merely “pretty good” as opposed to Bioshock 1’s greatness. I, for one, had a lot of fun with it. After playing the two games back to back, I can confirm that Bioshock 2 is a worthy sequel to Bioshock 1. It improves upon the original in some ways, but loses out on enough others to ensure that it really isn’t quite as good as Bioshock 1. As you can see by the five stars up above, it’s still very good and worth your time.
Bioshock 2 greatly improves upon Bioshock 1’s gameplay. The first game has some issues – the AI isn’t great, hacking is annoying, the camera is a needlessly obtuse mechanic. Bioshock 2 improves on all of these. Enemy AI, for one, is more varied and more interesting. Thuggish splicers do still run at you, yes. However, Spider splicers take better advantage of their disorienting mobility, Leadhead splicers try to keep their distance as well as they can and you’ll often see them use cover. Nitro splicers seem to be gone and in their place are Brute splicers, really big guys who charge you and throw things at you. Brutes are by far the most challenging of the pack (and the most foul-mouthed – this game drops more f-bombs and occasional c-bombs than the original and Infinite combined).
The hacking minigame in Bioshock 2 is perhaps the only hacking minigame I’ve ever liked, except for maybe Deus Ex Human Revolution’s. You start the hack and a needle slides across a board of red, white, green, and blue blocks – push A on the green blocks to hack, the blue blocks for a bonus, the white ones to get shocked, and the red ones to start an alarm. That’s it. If you ever fail it, it’s because you suck. No random unwinnable hacks. No moving blocks. No searching for that one piece that you really need. Just something extremely simple and quick that doesn’t even need an alternate screen. It’s pretty good.
The last of Bioshock 1’s most notable gameplay issues – the camera – has also seen improvement, though unlike the others I only find this one “acceptable” instead of “good”. Instead of trying to clumsily take a picture while a splicer is attacking you, you have to start recording like a video camera and then attack the splicer. It’s still not very well justified in the story and it’s still a little clunky, but being able to actually fight while participating in this dumb part of the game’s design makes it a good bit more bearable than before.
Bioshock 2 also offers improvements on the good parts of the first one’s gameplay. For starters, you can wield plasmids and weapons at the same time. This doesn’t seem like much of an improvement after the first game, where getting to Plasmids only required pushing L or clicking the right mouse button, but it actually makes the game move much faster. Plasmids and weapons also reload more quickly and you will also be able to fire one or the other. The right combination of plasmids and tonics can make this game easier, yes, but you won’t be depending on the shock-melee combo for the entire game (speaking of, melee now has a dedicated face button, making the combat even more dynamic). As a result of better balancing, the challenge has become a little more difficult. That combined with the better, punchier weapon sounds makes Bioshock 2’s gameplay more satisfying than its predecessor’s.
Little Sisters work differently in this game. Instead of just rescuing them after beating the Big Daddy, you have to let them gather Adam from two different corpses and defend yourself against attacking splicers on each. Setting aside the headscratching that comes from a Little Sister accepting you right after you killed her former protector, this actually winds up being a good source of challenge and reward. I found myself overflowing with Adam after doing this and rescuing all the Little Sisters. You can still Harvest them without doing all of this, but rescuing Little Sisters is not the pain that it at first sounds like. Whether you rescue or harvest them, a Big Sister might show up. A Big Sister is a grown up (as in, older teenager – these kids can’t be twenty somethings yet) Little Sister in a costume. They’re the fastest, strongest, and most agile characters in the game. You don’t have to start a fight with one unless you attempt to deal with a Little Sister, but be prepared if you do – fighting them is pretty difficult and intense.
Where Bioshock 1’s gameplay faltered, it was still fun and its story was such a treat that I still thought it worthy of five stars. Here, it’s the exact opposite. I had a lot of fun with Bioshock 2’s gameplay, but its story – while enjoyable – has some issues. Most of them stem from the game’s antagonist, Sofia Lamb. She is a weak antagonist. Most of what she says sounds like philosophical nonsense. One audio log has her debating with Andrew Ryan and she actually wins it – not something that the writers of this game pulled off believably. Ryan is an excellent speaker. He is radical, but he’s a radical with the power of good speech – a terrifying power, indeed. Sofia Lamb is unconvincing. I could buy her as a leader of Rapture if she only rose after Ryan and Fontaine fell, but instead she’s set up as his equal. I don’t buy that. Her speeches and philosophies lack oomph. She is set up as a foil to Ryan, and that would have worked much better if the writers hadn’t wanted to somehow fit Sofia Lamb into Bioshock 1’s story. It’s an unfortunate clash that mars a good idea.
In fact, the entire game is essentially a foil to the first one. Where Jack was the only human without free will, Subject Delta is the only Big Daddy with free will (setting aside Minerva’s Den, where that plot hole is never explained. Also, I highly recommend Minerva’s Den). Where Ryan is all about objectivism and being your own self-made man, Lamb is all about community and collectivism. It’s an admirable contrast to go for and I really respect the developers for trying. They did a pretty good job with a task as complex as foiling Bioshock 1, but there are several parts of Bioshock 2’s plot that clash with the first game just a little too much. The writing falls just shy of where it needs to be. Is it still good? Yes. But like the first one’s gameplay, there’s room for improvement.
All in all, Bioshock 2 compliments the first game pretty well in many ways. If you’re a fan of the first game and haven’t played this one, by all means, jump in.
(As an aside, if you happen to own a copy of Bioshock 2, or I have convinced you to buy it, pick up Minerva’s Den. It does have a plot hole, as mentioned above, but.. forget that. The story that we see in Minerva’s Den makes up for all of the main game’s shortcomings by being very well-made. It’s basically a really good science fiction short story. Get it!)
