Bioshock 2

Bioshock 2
Platform – PS3, X360, PC
Distributor – 2K Interactive
Genre – FPS
Rated – MA 15+

Who’s your Daddy? The wait has been painful, and it has been too long between drinks but finally it is on the shelf ready to spend your hard earned money on and you wont be disappointed. In case you haven’t heard, this and the original critic adored Bioshock are arguably two of the best games on the market today.

They have everything, beautiful graphics, excellent characters, cool weapons, extra cool special powers, challenging enemies and bosses with a great story that is slowly revealed to keep your interest at all times and atmosphere plus. You now play as the Alpha series Big Daddy (best described as a man wearing an antique diving suit from the 1950’s) with giant drill for a hand/weapon who are the guardians of the creepy yellow-eyed little girls known as the little sisters. The basic game play mechanics haven’t changed from the original but with quite a few obvious improvements like added multiplayer, more weapons, plasmids, tonics and an improved research camera concept. But it’s like the developers were playing safe and said, “What’s not broken, don’t fix too much”, honestly though it had such big daddy boots to fill.

It has the same retro, gritty, rusty under sea city environment; the Splicers (residents of rapture whose excessive use of plasmids has sent them crazy) are still the enemy, unless you hypnotize them into being your friend along with the always difficult to kill Big Daddy’s. But now there is the even more difficult, gravity defying, wont stop jumping around, more svelte (like Big Daddy has gone on the Biggest Loser) Big Sisters. The hacking concept that is used to bring bots and turrets over to your side isn’t as tedious as the first game and it makes this game a little more fluent because of this change. The new system is still challenging but it just doesn’t stall the game for too long while you fiddle around getting an electricity stream to flow from one point to the next. There is now even a Hack Tool that makes it even easier and lets you shoot a dart to hack from a distance. I found the story didn’t have the wow factor of the first Bioshock, but I will kindly not reveal anything here in case you haven’t played either game. If you have played it “would you kindly” not give it away to someone who hasn’t?

Because you are the Big Daddy you can now go outside the constraints of the city walls and walk along the seabed. This is cool, even if it is just a bit of a novelty and just going from airlock to airlock, it made me feel like I was one of those diver ornaments you buy for your fish tank, be sure to look for Adam filled sea worms while you are out there. There are multiple weapons to use apart from your blood splattering Drill, with a machine gun, shotgun, rivet gun and even a spear gun to pin the enemies to the wall, but don’t forget to recollect your spear though as it is good to recycle. And of course it wouldn’t be Bioshock without Plasmids. Using your other hand you execute these special powers (that can now be leveled up to level 3) like Telekinesis -grab objects and throw them etc, Incinerate - melt the coldest hearts and set them alight, oh and to clear ice blocking your path, Winter blast - turns your enemies into an iceblock, Hypnotise - to make your enemies cluck like a chicken and confuse them into attacking each other and maybe even give up smoking. These Plasmids are purchased from the Gatherers Garden machines scattered amongst the city using the Adam collected from the Little sisters that you steal away from the other Big Daddy’s and like the original you either Rescue or Harvest them (depending on the moral decision you choose).

Extra Adam can now be collected while you are carrying them around on your shoulder with her directing you towards corpses (Angels) she can then drain Adam. These Plasmids are powered by Eve that can be picked up (searching corpses and other canisters) or purchased from Vending Machines with the same going for ammo and health. Tonics can be equipped to work in the background and improve your vitality, offensive, defensive, hacking and Little Sisters abilities. The excellent map hasn’t changed and the ever handy, all knowing arrow still points the way to your next objective and like the first it is sometimes best to drift away from its direction to find extra goodies. In Multiplayer you play a part of the solutions team to test home defense products in a story that plays out as a prequel. It has a good leveling up system that rewards you for time spent playing and of course how well you do in the game. You start off with next to nothing as far as weaponry, Plasmids and Tonics go but more become available as you rank up. There are heaps of different types of game categories to select from with both team based and every man for himself battles and even a capture the flag with a Bioshock twist concept.
If I had not played the original and had nothing to directly compare this to, it would have been easier for me to be more objective. Sure there are heaps of improvements and the multiplayer is a welcomed introduction but after playing the first it comes across more as an expansion to the original rather than an original game in its own right. If you were to gel both one and two together they make for one hell of a game experience. Think of this as the first extension to the story with a few DLC’s (downloadable content) already confirmed for both the single and multiplayer, stay tuned for the reviews of them here once they are released. 2K are determined to make it hard to remove the Bioshock 2 disc from your drive and continue the story. Overall it is still extremely engaging and an excellent game, so if you have not played either I would actually recommend to buy both and believe me you will not be disappointed. If you have played the first don’t expect too many surprises but it is definitely worth the investment due to the longevity that is now guaranteed with the multiplayer and the further add-ons.

– Maceman