Bioshock 2 (To catch a Big Daddy)

A great many people descended into the world of Rapture a few years ago and found it to be a thoroughly immersive and unique experience. I was not one of those people. I was happliy playing my PS3 in 2007 when the original Bioshock was released on the Xbox 360 and when it finally came to the PS3 nearly a year later, it didn't matter because I had moved onto something else. I've heard great things about Bioshock, so I was eager to delve into the world of Bioshock 2 to se if it would compare to the original or at least what I've heard about the original...

The events of Bioshock 2 mainly take place 10 years after the conclusion of Bioshock. This time you take the role of one of the prototype Bid Daddies, the tough as nails enemies from the first game. You're bonded to a particular little sister, Eleanor, who you are compelled to find and reunite with. Standing in your way (figuratively, not literally) is Eleanor's biological mother, Dr. Sofia Lamb. (And here's a question that's never addressed in this sequel that may be addressed in the original... why is anyone living in an underwater city that's pretty much falling apart at the seams?)

The story and gameplay is from the first person perspective, with you behind the mask. You can wield two weapons simultaneously, conventional firearms (i.e. rivet gun, machine gun etc) in your right hand and the more supernatural plasmids (i.e. tossing fireballs, freezing enemies) in your left. There are about a dozen different plasmids and about half a dozen firearms which you can use in various combinations, but I often found myself relying on freezing my enemies and then shooting them with whatever weapon had the most ammo in it. You also get to use the iconic drill which handles more like a melee weapon than a gun.

Each of the weapons does have three different types of ammunition giving you a little more variety. But not every weapon you get is used directly to damage your enemies. The hack tool is used to hack the security cameras and automated defenses while the research camera is used to study your enemy while you take them down (the further your studies go, the more bonuses you receive in fighting future enemies of the same type). Both weapons add an interesting layer of strategy but can be generally disregarded if you choose to.

There's also passive upgrades called tonics. They boost everything from your walking speed to the amount of damage you can take. They can also imbue you with passive defensive abilities like damaging enemies with a random elemental attack when they attack you. With this level of customization, your customized Big Daddy could conceivably behave differently than your friend's customized Big Daddy. Which would have been an interesting (though possibly lopsided) experiment in multiplayer had Bioshock 2 gone down that route... but more on that later.

Throughout the game, you'll come across Little Sisters escorted by other Big Daddies. For the most part, you can choose to ignore them and continue on with whatever your main objective is (though at one point in the game, your main objective IS to gather these Little Sisters) but killing their Big Daddy escort and adopting them opens other objectives and benefits. When you obtain a Little Sister, you can send them to harvest ADAM (one of the game's currencies) from corpses lying around Rapture. If you choose to harvest ADAM from the corpses, you'll have to protect your Little Sister from an incoming horde of enemies. You can do this twice per Little Sister, then you need to choose to either save them or kill them for more ADAM. It's a "moral choice" that all of the games are doing now which just scream "good ending" and "bad ending". Dealing with the Little Sisters also allows you to fight one of the new enemy types in the sequel, the Big Sisters. They're faster, more agile and just as deadly as their Big Daddy counterparts. But they're also as easily dispatched once you find the right combination of plasmids and firearms.

Bioshock 2 adds a multiplayer feature which pits you against other players in seven different modes. The modes are all variants of things you've seen before, deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, etc., except they're given Bioshock specific names like "Survival of the fittest", "Civil war" and "Capture the Sister". Instead of being able to use your Big Daddy from the single player campaign, you can choose one of six pre-defined characters, who I can't really tell the difference between. In some of the modes, you will get the chance to be a Big Daddy so that adds some variety. There is somewhat of a story behind the multiplayer campaign, but it is ultimately shallow and just a weak effort to give context to the multiplayer matches you'll play.

One of the things I always heard about the first Bioshock (other than how good it was) was how immersive the world was. Maybe it's just that I haven't played the first game, but I didn't find Bioshock 2 to be as immersive as people described the first game. Maybe not playing the first game first hurt my impression of the sequel? But it's too late now, I can't unplay Bioshock 2 to play the original first (unless someone out there has a time machine?). If you thought the first Bioshock was a groundbreaking game and expect the same from Bioshock 2, my gut reaction is you'll be disappointed. But I think if you disregard the groundbreaking aspect of the game and focus on the gameplay, I think you might be satisfied...

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