Vital Stats

Genre: FPS
Players: 1
Online: Multiplayer

Developer: 2K Marin
Publisher: 2K Games
ESRB Rating: M
Release Date: 2/9/10

Platforms

• XBox 360
• PS3
• PC

Bioshock 2 manages to feel overly familiar and awkwardly different at the same time. The storytelling and ambience ape its predecessor while the mechanics shift away from role-playing and toward FPS. However, it’s difficult to fault developers for sticking with the formula that gave them a game of the year, and the polished plasmid/shotgun gameplay is still there for everyone who liked it the first time around. It’s just ironic that Bioshock is always overshadowed by expectations.

The Bioshock series is about legacy, and that fact has colored both the game’s narrative and the game’s buzz. The first Bioshock game promised plausible agency, which you’ll recognize as a tall order if you’ve been playing games for very long. When a developer gives you a taser, it’s reasonable to expect that you can stun your enemies. However, if you were hoping to bring down a group by zapping the water they’re standing in, you’re usually out of luck. This happens because any game with a finite development schedule cannot accommodate an infinite number of rules.

Even so, when the previews showed Bioshock‘s protagonist using genetic plasmids to do the taser trick (among other things), everyone got excited and expected the moon. Of course, when the game debuted, there were limits. The freeze plasmid couldn’t create ice in shallow water, and the incinerate plasmid couldn’t set a dollar bill alight. There were some clever combinations, like burning your enemies and then electrocuting them when they dove into water, but critics were disappointed by the downgrade from infinite agency to expanded agency. It just goes to show that even if you land among the stars, everyone remembers that you shot for the moon and missed.

The drill hand makes it look violent,
but I actually just want a hug.

The initial disappointment, however delicious it may have been as gossip, completely ignored Bioshock‘s merits. So the review scores proved much more positive than the discourse. Some publications even accorded Bioshock game of the year, and so the game took root and eventually cast a long shadow. So that’s where Bioshock 2 grew: in the shadow of a game of the year that was eclipsed by hype.

Come the Rapture
Bioshock 2 revisits Rapture, the objectivist hell written by Ayn Rand built by Andrew Ryan. The finest minds in the world gathered in a city beneath the sea to live in a utopia without law or limit. However, scientists soon discovered a sea slug whose unique biology could splice your genome to make you move faster, shoot lightning, and control clockwork mechanics with your mind. There were only so many slugs, and so war instantly erupted and reduced everyone to violent lunatics.

For the sequel, players will assume the role of a Big Daddy: a roving boss enemy from the first game. Alternately ponderous and agile, you’ll find that you overmatch most of the enemies who troubled you during the first game. Of course, these fodder enemies are rapidly replaced by nastier threats, so the game’s difficulty curve is a wash. Actually, most things about being a Big Daddy feel very similar to Bioshock. Your weapons are functionally identical, plasmids still essentially let you cast spells, and equipping gene tonics offers passive bonuses to everything you can do.

The difference is more fundamental: Bioshock 2 is more action-oriented than its predecessor in a thousand tiny ways. You can use plasmids simultaneously with firearms now. Hacking has been pared down to a timing minigame, but time no longer stops while you work. Enemies are more aggressive and more numerous. You’ve even been granted a bouncer-style charge attack so you can bring your Big Daddy drill to a firefight.

The change isn’t strictly good or bad, but it is difficult to understand. If you try to play Bioshock 2 at the deliberative pace that worked in Bioshock, the game becomes more difficult. The shift will feel inconsistent to series veterans, and any twitch FPS gamers who skipped the first game have already dismissed the sequel. For whom were these changes made?

The series debut of multiplayer may explain Bioshock 2‘s sudden emphasis on FPS design principles. Multiplayer falls among the usual themes, like cooperative survival and competitive free for all, king of the hill, and oddball. Despite the inclusion of plasmids and some games where players can temporarily become a Big Daddy, the multiplayer feels remarkably balanced. As you play, you gradually unlock weapons and plasmids, so the gameplay stays fresh as you claw your way up the ladder. All told, it’s a remarkably strong first foray into multiplayer.

Would you Kindly?
Despite Bioshock 2‘s emphasis on action, character customization has been substantially expanded. There are a handful of new plasmids, and all the plasmid upgrades are more substantial. For example, the basic Decoy plasmid works much the same as it did in the first game. However, upgrading the plasmid allows it to damage foes and eventually even steal their health. The expanded plasmids also mean expanded plasmid combos, like lacing cyclone traps with insect swarms (tee hee! –ed).

The population of gene tonics has outright exploded. There are tonics to make you a better firebug, tonics that make first aid stations more effective, and multiple tonics that save you money. Interactive elements from plasmids to pools of water each have at least three tonics to optimize their performance to your particular play style. It’s fun to fine tune to a point, but the kludgey menu system and proliferation of tonics eventually make choice a burden.

Some of the development costs that went into the gene tonics would have been better spent on the game’s presentation. Bioshock 2 looks practically identical to the first game (right down to the widescreen cropping on the Xbox 360), but somehow drops frames as you move rapidly through the environment. The game handles the graphical sputtering with enough grace to keep your aim steady, but it’s bizarre to see a sequel that looks worse than its predecessor in any capacity.

Now THIS,
this is about to get violent.

The sequel’s narrative also falls a bit short. By returning to Rapture, Bioshock 2 manages to feel retconned into Bioshock‘s continuity. The writers pry open small cracks in Rapture’s history to force in Sophia Lamb, a messianic psychologist with utopian designs. She follows much the same arc as Andrew Ryan and flogs the same hubris-is-bad theme that defined Bioshock.

The storytelling really doesn’t pick up until the latter half of the game, which takes a gameplay-embedded approach to the outcomes of the morality system. There’s also a nice section that gives you a rat’s eye view of Rapture. It just goes to show that Bioshock 2‘s narrative strength is in ambient storytelling and not exposition. It’s only a pity that it took half the game for the developers to start focusing on it in earnest.

Under the Sea
For better or worse, Bioshock contextualizes Bioshock 2. On the one hand, this means that the sequel inherits clever plasmid-driven gameplay that’s a strong today as it was in the first game. However, the developer’s odd choices for what to keep and change make Bioshock 2 feel incongruous with its forebear. Regardless, Bioshock 2 is easy to recommend on its own merits to the hardcore and genre fans. It’s just easier to recommend if they haven’t played Bioshock.

What It Costs: $55

What It’s Worth:
•To The Hardcore: $60 (buy)
•To The Genre Fan: $60 (buy)
•To The Casual: $0 (skip)