Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Worth the wait"

Not long ago I did a review for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.  In it, I observed the degree to which the R&C series feels, consistently, like more of the same, with scattered improvements here and there for good measure, just enough so that not everyone will realize the stagnancy.  And sometimes that's not really a bad thing.  That's how I feel about BioShock 2.

Let's get this straight first: BioShock 2, like it's predecessor, is an excellent game almost no matter how you cut it.  It's not for everyone, but it's hard to reasonably deny the obvious craftsmanship and artistry that has gone into the game, mechanically and creatively.  That said, BioShock veterans will likely not find any new marvels of either, though they will definitely find a fresh, EVE-like injection of the series' atmospheric gameplay, with refinements.

This sequel returns to the underwater city of Rapture ten years after the events of the first game unseated the city's founder, Andrew Ryan, and his chief competitor Frank Fontaine.  The city has come under the purview of the "Rapture Family," led by Dr. Sophia Lamb, a new ideologue whose grand view of utopia can hardly be more contrary to Ryan's.  Players take the role of a reawakened member of the Alpha Series of prototypes for the Big Daddies, the frighteningly powerful guardians of the creepy, ADAM-collecting Little Sisters.  ADAM, for those not in the know, is a substance key to the gene-splicing practices of Rapture's inhabitants (now called Splicers), and thusly to the player character's ability progression as well.  The game relies somewhat on the framework established by the first, and does contain some spoilers of that game's plot.  If you choose to skip BioShock (and in my opinion you shouldn't), be warned.

The game plays out very much like the first, albeit without quite so unique a tale.  Subject Delta - as you are called - was amongst the first wave of Big Daddies who, unlike the production models seen in the first game, were bound to a specific Little Sister.  If they strayed too far from their charge, or if some tragedy befell her, Alpha Series Big Daddies would lapse into a coma and eventually die.  Finding your Little Sister is the crux of your quest, though as you might expect your progress through the city is constantly blocked by various colorful denizens of Rapture.  Along the way you must make a handful of moral choices which will shape the ending, though these still revolve around a fairly black-and-white moral compass.

Most of the mechanics from BioShock return for this game, though few without at least some modification.  The most immediately noticeable change is that you now wield a Plasmid - the ADAM-given special abilities - in your left hand while using a normal weapon in your right, eliminating some of the irritating weapon toggling from the first game while also broadening your ability to combine weapons and powers in vicious combinations.  Most of the Plasmids are repeats from the first game, though they've all gained certain new abilities at the higher levels, and some of the more useless ones have been subsumed into others.  Your arsenal of weapons proves a tad fresher, with only the shotgun and grenade launcher reappearing, though the other weapons largely fit in the same niches as those of the previous game.  The most significant difference on this end is that even on the highest difficulty all of your weapons feel powerful - you are a Big Daddy, after all - which fundamentally changes the feel of playing.  Even from the beginning Splicers only pose much of a danger in numbers, unlike the early stages of BioShock, where getting the drop on your enemies and finishing them before they had much chance to retaliate was critical to your survival.

Most of the enemies return from BioShock: several flavors of Splicer as well as the Bouncers and Rosies, who guard a new generation of Little Sisters.  There's a new Splicer type on the block, the Brute Splicer, whose decade of splicing has turned him into a hulking, well, brute.  The Rumbler, a heavy-ordinance Big Daddy, defends many Little Sisters from the ever-more-ADAM-starved splicers, and the Big Sisters - lightning fast, dangerous counterparts to the Big Daddies - arrive to retaliate when the Big Daddies fail.

The various secondary mechanics are also mostly preserved.  Ammo, first aid kits, weapon upgrades, and so on are once again gained through the same array of vending machines, all of which, like security cameras, drones, and turrets, can be hacked.  The hacking mechanic is no longer an obnoxious mini-game but a rapid timing-based challenge, and overall works much better.  As you collect ADAM you can buy new plasmids, upgrades of previous ones, and various gene tonics, which are now lumped into one large category for greater flexibility.  ADAM is gained by defeating Big Daddies and dealing with the Little Sisters, either by rescuing or harvesting them.

Players will find one new option in that regard: before dealing with a liberated Little Sister, you may escort her to gather ADAM from corpses in the area to increase the ADAM payoff when you eventually decide what to do with her.  Until you set her down she rides on your shoulder, protected from harm (and occasionally commenting on whatever you are doing in her morbid fashion).  When you find a usable body, you can set her down to start gathering ADAM, but must guard her from the inevitable onslaught of splicers who arrive to try to take some for themselves.  The game puts a good deal of emphasis on planning for this onslaught before you let the Sister start gathering ADAM, and these sequences result in far and away some of the hardest fights in the game if you don't plan appropriately.  Regrettably, the game undermines some of your tactical considerations by allowing splicers to spawn down dead-end hallways and so forth, so sometimes a route into the area that doesn't look important to secure is anyway.  It's a minor frustration at best, but the first few times that you're flanked from the direction of a storage closet you just checked for splicers are bothersome.

During your journey you'll see new parts of Rapture, but the interior design remains very consistent.  The atmosphere as a whole has been well-maintained, and that's one part of the original that is definitely good to preserve.  Even if this game is somewhat easier than the first, the vibe is still very much that of a grisly survival horror, just with you playing as (one of) the overt monsters.  The tale of Rapture's last decade is once again recounted by audio diaries you find scattered all over the city, and though the picture they paint is not quite so chilling as that of the city's fall in the first game, they are still a pleasure to find in order to expand the world and its history.  The production values of these and all of your face-to-face interactions with other characters are top-notch, and everyone has personality.

This highly-anticipated sequel may not bring the same singular, unforgettable experience as its predecessor, but only, perhaps, because that game beat it to the punch.  And while there's a part of me that hoped for a little more truly new material, the refined, frantic, inventive action and the solemn tale of love, duty, and sacrifice make BioShock 2 well worth a return trip to Rapture.