BioShock 2 (2010)

The original BioShock was a critical success and a sequel was quickly put in the works, only done a different studio than the previous installment. In many ways, BioShock 2 tries to stay true to its predecessor, all while feeling fundamentally different.

Returning the player to Rapture immediately feels a bit hollow. It's not to say the environments aren't wonderfully rendered and realized; it's just not as interesting and engaging since it was familiar. A large draw to the original experience in Rapture was that you had no idea what it was. You hadn't been there before. BioShock 2 takes a bit of a different approach to the dystopian civilization, however. Where BioShock set off to create narrow tunnels, small rooms, and a claustrophobic environment, BioShock 2 sprawls it all out a bit more. Rooms are larger and more open. Often, there are multiple pathways to a location. Sometimes, there are multiple levels of buildings within the same room.

This opens itself up to the more chaotic and action-oriented combat style of the game. For all the criticism BioShock: Infinite took for feeling a bit like a more generic shooter, that trend actually can be found in BioShock 2 first. With the open spaces, more enemies are thrown at you. There's more room to maneuver. There are additional splicer types that require quick movements and reactions. In essence, the suspense was removed, replaced with faster-paced, combat-focused gameplay. Additionally, you have access to both plasmids and weapons at all times.

Playing as a Big Daddy, you walk around Rapture with a gun in one hand and your other hand waiting to shoot a plasmid power. Gone are the days of having to switch between weapon and plasmid, which helped create a more tense and suspenseful style of combat in the first game. Here, there is literally no delay between hitting someone with Incinerate and shooting them with .50 caliber rounds. This only adds to the quickened combat.

Quick and easy access to both weapons and plasmids makes combat smoother, but that's because the combat is bigger and faster paced. Can't say I was a huge fan of that change, but it's not bad. It's just different.

The inclusion of Big Sisters further solidifies the need for faster combat. As the name implies, Big Sisters are not too unlike Big Daddies in appearance. However, they are fast and agile, easily dodging shots and becoming a moving target. This is a divergence from the Big Daddy formula, which was more of an intense, power-driven format. Both still require planning, of course. Trap ammo and proximity mines do a world of wonders here just as they did in the previous game. Still, it's hard not to see just how different the combat style is in BioShock 2. It's more about the thrills than the chills.

There is an interesting element involving acquisition of ADAM. Instead of rescuing or harvesting Little Sisters, you must first find them, then fight off their Big Daddy. After defeating their original protectors, you can then choose to harvest the girls or adopt them. When you adopt, the Little Sisters will guide you to corpses filled with ADAM. While she's draining the deceased splicers, you must face off against an onslaught of other splicers eager to take you and your Little Sister out in order to get that ADAM for themselves. Each Little Sister is good for two drains. After you are finished and return them to their vents - in which the Rescue or Harvest prompt appears again - a Big Sister will come and attack. This element of adoption and gathering ADAM is one of the most interesting and fun additions to the game.

BioShock 2's story is probably the weak point of the game. It's not that it's a bad story at all; it just lacks the same kind of political and philosophical power from the last game, which tied in many different thematic elements to the plot. Here, we have a relatively simple story that, while revealing the philosophical differences between Lamb and Ryan, doesn't even feature them in the same game. This conflict is revealed through Audio Logs, but at this point, Ryan is already dead from the last game. In many ways, the story is a lot more traditional to video games as well, with a clear-cut villain from the get-go.

Overall, the game is fun and solid and more or less stays true to the basic elements of the first BioShock. Featuring plasmids, the chaos of Rapture, and a plot driven by Audio Logs and radio transmissions, it attempts to keep the same tone and general format of the narrative. However, the openness of the level designs, the increased number of increasingly agile enemies, and the streamlined power/weapon system all serve to showcase how essentially, they appeared to be making a BioShock game catered to people less familiar with the Shock series. It's hard to say if it worked. It generally received positive reviews, with some saying it did a lot of things better than the original. Generally though, I wouldn't agree with that sentiment. In all, I personally felt as if they took the suspense out of Rapture with its quickened, more typical shooter style game play and its larger, brighter environments.