BioShock 2

Today, I beat the sequel to the much beloved BioShock. I spent plenty of time and space detailing the world and history of "Rapture" in my recap of that game. This time around, I'll cut right to the chase: this game is better than - but also not as good as - the original. Gameplay remains largely the same, but has been improved in nearly every way. People familiar with the first game will remember that you have two main ways to attack enemies: plasmas and weapons. In the first game, you could only wield one at once. This time around, they were smart enough to realize that you can have a plasma equipped on your left hand and a weapon in your right at the same time. Not only did this open up battles to whole new levels, but it allowed me to actually use my plasmids. (I was very "weapons-only" when playing the first game because I hated walking around Rapture without a gun in hand. BioShock 2 also really, really expands upon the dynamic between Big Daddies and Little Sisters. Since you yourself are a Big Daddy this time around, you have the option of escorting Little Sisters around to gather ADAM. The game also introduces a new enemy, the Big Sister, which comes after you once you deal with every Little Sister in a level. And the Big Sisters, I assure you, are even worse than the Big Daddies. But killing them does yield more ADAM. In general, the ADAM sources are abundant this time around. There are also now eight plasmid slots instead of six. And the research camera has turned into a research motion picture camera, allowing you to battle while you research. I was neutral on this change. Perhaps my favorite change, aside from the dual-wielding of plasmas and weapons, was hacking. You no longer have to play that dumb pipe minigame every time you want to hack a machine. Now, simply time the press of a button accurately. Awesome. They've even introduced little "hacking darts" that allow you to hack machines (such as turrets and cameras) remotely. Great change. They got rid of the U-Invent stations (which I never thought were that useful or clever anyway), but other than that, the gameplay is only improved or expanded upon. Good. But now let's look at the bad (or at least, the "not so good"). The story here just totally lacks the impact of the first game's. That isn't to say it's a bad story; it's interesting in its own right and vaguely deals with utilitarianism and the ramifications of "Utopia." But the cast of characters just isn't as interesting as BioShock's. And the huge twist that made the first one so epic is absent this time around. There were a few characters who didn't really seem to add anything, notably Sinclair, your guide through Rapture, this game's version of Atlas and Tenenbaum. There's no way around it - the story just isn't as cool this time around. And neither is the environment; as cool as Rapture was when you first saw it in the beginning of BioShock, the atmosphere has lost its charm. I've covered the good (gameplay) and the bad (story). Now, how about the neutral? That would be the game's length and difficulty. It's much shorter than the original, at just eight levels instead of fourteen and twelve Little Sisters instead of twenty-one. Now, the game wasn't only half as long or so, but it was still noticeably shorter (and that may very well be one cause of the story being less good). I took the shorter game as neither a positive nor a negative. I can definitely see how some would be disheartened by less length, but I personally need all the brevity I can get with a backlog sixty deep. But what the game lacked in length it made up for in difficulty. Seriously - this was a much harder game than BioShock. I credit it to stronger enemies, but I played through both games on the "normal" setting and while I was mowing down splicers in the first game with no problem, I was struggling at times to fend of splicer hordes only three large in number. It was certainly frustrating at times. Of course, just as in the first game, you can die without really dying at all in BioShock 2, as Vita-Chambers that bring you back to life are everywhere. Still, there's something that just doesn't sit with me right when it comes to dying over and over and over again. And that's really what I did for a few of the middle levels in BioShock 2. Again, I could take this change or leave it. I'm sure the added difficulty appeased many hardcore gamers, but I had no problems with running through enemies using nothing but melee attacks in the first game. In the end, this game is not a must-play, even if you enjoyed the original BioShock. But if you've got the money, time, and interest, you could do a lot worse.