Bioshock 2 Satisfies

The first Bioshock was renowned for its originality in design, its depth in story, and its harshness of moral choices.  Almost all features were carried over to the sequel, Bioshock 2; this is the best move imaginable… if only 2K Marin had left the broken pieces behind.

Since the delivery of Bioshock 2 could be gone into at great length, a quicker-than-usual brief is due.  The sound of Rapture (the underwater utopia turned dystopia where the game takes place) is old and wet; drips upon the character’s helm ‘tink-tink’ convincingly, the radios play clear and beautiful music, the guns boom with energetic fervor, and the voice-acting is spot-on.  Hearing the game makes Rapture a believable city in disrepair.  The graphics are swell if you don’t look too closely (I found some missing floors and some nasty texture loading issues), but fire and water spark and sparkle without fail.

Moving on to more gameplay aspects, plasmids (the ‘magic’ of Bioshock) are increased in number and uniqueness from the first game, lending to a colorful palette of destructive abilities.  The AI is OK, but don’t expect the cleverest of tactics to be used during the adventure.  The multiple enemy types will give a guy a run for their money early on, but that leads into how Bioshock 2 is troubled.  Scrounging for ammo and supplies keeps the areas alive, but after the first hour of gameplay, scarcity does not exist.  Throughout my adventure, I found myself swimming in money and bullets, never worrying where the next round of firepower would come from.  This would be great when battling the squads of depraved denizens of Rapture, but their squishy flesh rends, burns, and splinters like wet paper.  The plethora of expendables makes later portions of the game laughably easy, while making environment exploration more of a chore for the audio diaries (objects that give sections of game lore).  Even bosses and mini-bosses are like butter to hot bullets tearing through them.  This downplays difficulty significantly somewhere around the half-way point.

A final downside – though it can’t be called negative – would have to be the resemblance Bioshock 2 shares with the game it sequels.  In the first Bioshock, Rapture was a new dimension in gameplay and storytelling never seen before.  The originality from, well, the original brought a fresh adventure to gamers at large.  Bioshock 2 does many things right, but the purely novel scenario of the first game is not inherent in the second.  Is that such a bad thing?  Not really.  The enjoyment is there, but it’s a skin that’s been worn before.

All in all, Bioshock 2 is a game worth playing.  The depth of story elements and the vibrant play-space alone are reasons enough to give this title a run-through.  Though I did not engage in multiplayer, the solo campaign gave me enough of a time to fill 2 full days of explorative gaming.  So despite the disregard for serious difficulty, Bioshock 2 is seriously satisfying.  Take care, all.

• + Great sound; the noises of the city are tantalizing to the senses.
• + Pretty graphics that play off of the elements.
• + New and varied plasmid powers.
• + Adept narrative that conveys an evolving story within the world itself.
• + Weapons feel like they pack as brutal of a punch as they look.
• - Fairly cliché enemy types that deliver average AI.
• A fix: Evolve the algorithms used in AI development throughout the game to sharpen the response times of the NPCs.
• - Overloading the ammunition and currency system so much that it puts down the difficulty factor massively.
• A fix: Place fewer consumables in the environment.
• - The absence of the ‘new’ felt from the first game.
• A fix: Implement traits exclusive to the title without taking away from the gameplay of the predecessor.  Either that, or be a game coming from less famously ground-breaking stock.