Bioshock 2 Review

By Steven Hansen

(Photo 2K Games)

Imagine an expansive, skyscraper laden underwater dystopia, underscored by a hauntingly art deco flair, called “Rapture,” created by megalomaniac Andrew Ryan who championed the individual. It’s not a stretch to imagine for those who played Irrational Games’ highly lauded “Game of the Year” Bioshock. What is hard to imagine, however, is how 2K Marin, with some of the first game’s staff, was going to try and get over a bar already set so high. Fortunately for fans, Bioshock 2 at least matched the effort put forth by its predecessor and even surpass it in some ways.

As opposed to playing as the previous ill-fated protagonist Jack, the player dons the helmets and boots of a Big Daddy searching for a particular Little Sister, ten years after the events of the first game. A new antagonist has managed to take hold of Rapture in the form of Sofia Lamb, a collectivist who acts as a foil to Ryan’s belief in the determination of the individual.

(Photo 2K Games)

Rapture does lose some of its mystique the second time around, but the world still has plenty left over from the last time, while adding new locales augmented by a meticulous attention to detail to make sure the world feels just as alive, just as hauntingly distraught.

Like the prequel, the game revolves around the character being set to accomplish certain tasks in the different locations of Rapture, all which open up the advancement of the main storyline. The Splicers – genetically defunct and violently insane civilians – return as the primary enemies, with additions such as the Brute Splicers, which can take more damage. Most notable, however, is the Big Sister – essentially a skinny, agile, and even more tenacious version of a Big Daddy – who adds another layer of intensity and variety to combat.

(Photo 2K Games)

As a Big Daddy, the player is able to interact with the Little Sisters – small girls who wander around Rapture, protected by Big Daddies, sticking needles into bodies to drain and ingest genetic material called ADAM – in a new way. The player can “adopt” Little Sisters and search for bodies to drain ADAM from. This initiates a defense sequence where the player must protect the Little Sister from ravenous, ADAM-craving Splicers while she drains the bodies. The player is also presented with an option similar of the first game, allowing either the harvesting (essentially killing) or rescuing of the Little Sisters, the latter resulting in less ADAM for the player.

(Photo 2K Games)

Bioshock 2 also features a surprisingly entertaining multiplayer component, with several game modes. Taking place 10 years prior to the events of the game, during the Civil War period of Rapture, the multiplayer also features tidbits of narrative, along with its very Call of Duty-like progression system. It’s ultimately fun and surprisingly original, though it remains to be seen if it will have any staying power. The game also lacks dedicated servers, meaning that lag can be a legitimate issue at times, depending on the other players’ connections.

Bioshock 2 is a particularly refined title, improving in various ways over the original. The characters don’t have the fascinating qualities as those from the first game, but they remain fairly complex. Bioshock 2 still wrestles in the gray areas of the first, from the moral choices of the players to the philosophies and motives of the supporting cast to simply interesting character studies of some of gaming’s more complex characters. Couple all of this with the still-present terrifying, eerie, and much alive atmosphere along with solid gameplay mechanics, and Bioshock 2 is a stellar title, uniquely interesting in narrative, that manages to fire on all cylinders and live up to the level of quality expected after our first foray into Rapture.