Bioshock 2 Review

After so much anticipation, we’ve finally returned to the world of Rapture. You play as Subject Delta, a first generation Big Daddy searching for his lost daughter, who has fallen into the hands of her crazed mother: Sophia Lamb.

You won’t get to feel like a real Big Daddy until the end of the game,  most likely in order to compensate for the difficulty scaling that works in favor of new players.  Likewise, Bioshock vets will feel letdown by this design decision. . You will find an array of weapons and plasmids to work with, and they can both be used simultaneously. However, while playing I found that the lightning plasmid was all I really ever needed to use. When used on bodies of water, it will create an AoE effect that stuns or kills enemies standing in it. It also works as powerful damage dealer against machines. Pair it up with both the machine gun and the shotgun  and then you’ll be in business. The shotgun does a ton of damage to splicers, and you can utilize special ammo with the machine gun that bigger bosses have a weakness to.

If you liked the first Bioshock, you will probably like the second  one as well. The graphics are still gorgeous (although possibly a little less so since it had to be toned down in order to keep the multiplayer running smoothly), and the story is just as engaging. Plus they managed to change enough of the environments within Rapture so you don’t feel like you’re playing the first game all over again. A few things were lost in the transition however. Big Daddies are relatively easy compared to before, which causes the sequel to lose a lot of the fear factor and tension from the first game, and the new cutscenes is missing a lot of the suspense that the first one had.  I would have to say that the most difficult battles will come when you are trying to protect your little sister as she gathers adam. At one point I needed to defend against 7 splicers, a few special mobs, and a Big Daddy I  had accidentally shot because he kept walking in front of my camera view as they attacked both me and my little sister. By the end of the battle I had to turn my current little sister in, so I could pick up the one that was crying on the floor over the Big Daddy I just killed… and I couldn’t help but groan knowing I’d have to do the whole process all over again with the new little sister. Don’t get me wrong though, some of the battles near the end of the game are still very challenging.

That being said, the story was still engaging enough to keep me playing because of the way it was presented, which might I add was fantastic. The choices you make will have an impact on your ending, but they all ultimately lead to the same outcome as far as your character is concerned. It also leaves the story open for Bioshock 3, but we might be saying good-bye to the big daddy character.

Bioshock 2 artwork by 永遠の菜鳥 at pixiv