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BioShock 2
Text Review
Video games are rarely credited as being anything more than shallow puddles of misguided media misconduct. When their critics grant them significance, they do so only to demonstrate how significantly violent, significantly vulgar and significantly vile their influence has become. Games are a bane to society; we’re told, as malicious as they are utterly mindless.
And then there’s BioShock.
The 2007 masterwork of developer Irrational Games, BioShock is as much an exercise in philosophical and political theory as joystick precision and first-person shooting, a stunning piece of dystopian storytelling which tests your morality as much as your trigger finger.
In many ways, BioShock could be considered gaming’s answer to Citizen Kane, but there’s just one problem—Citizen Kane didn’t have a sequel. It didn’t need one, and as a benchmark for games in the new millennium, many felt BioShock didn’t need one, either. Yet here we are, three years later, stepping into familiar shoes and returning to an eerie world we know all too well. Fortunately, BioShock 2 stands on its own as an excellent sequel, but those who allow the perfect to detract from the good, expecting the same seminal experience the original offered, will inevitably be disappointed by its follow-up.
For better and worse, BioShock 2 just isn’t the same game.
The sequel returns players to the once-bustling metropolis of Rapture; a city built 20,000 leagues below the surface of the Atlantic. Founded by the eccentric Andrew Ryan, Rapture was meant to be a laissez-faire state hidden from the oppressive grasps of government and religion, a place where man would be, as Ryan put it, “entitled to the sweat of his brow.” Ten years have passed since Jack, the enslaved protagonist of the original BioShock, tromped through the streets of this fallen utopia, a decrepit sphere of urban decay where city—an almost living, breathing entity itself—and citizen have shared the same disfigurement.
In our return visit, however, Jack is only a memory. We instead assume the role of a Big Daddy, imposing steel-suited leviathans patrolling Rapture to protect the experimental Little Sisters, who is searching the dark, damp city for the little girl taken away from him years ago by Sophia Lamb, her biological mother and new leader of Rapture. While the original told a dystopian tale of morality, BioShock 2 is essentially the story of a custody battle.
Of course, there’s never been a custody battle like this.
Lamb ensures your stay in Rapture is as unpleasant as possible, dispatching enemies in greater quantity and variety than the original. As a result, BioShock 2 feels significantly more combat-focused than its predecessor, and fortunately, the combat itself has been improved to keep up with the increased enemy hordes. The basic gameplay hook of BioShock has always been pairing FPS weapons—machine gun, shotgun, pistol—with plasmids, genetic modifiers which transform the user’s free arm into an inhuman weapon itself. The mechanic returns in BioShock 2, but the sequel allows players to wield a plasmid and weapon at the same time, eliminating the need to switch between them and making you a deadlier adversary.
Most importantly, this allows for more effective use in tandem—blasting an enemy with a fire plasmid and gunning him down while he burns, for example, is a particularly useful strategy.
BioShock 2 isn’t only improvements, however. Its level design is lacking compared to the memorable locales of the original, a problem compounded by the sequel’s weaker graphics. Even so, there aren’t many games better or smarter than BioShock 2.
Except, of course, the masterpiece preceding it.
- Derek Buck
And then there’s BioShock.
The 2007 masterwork of developer Irrational Games, BioShock is as much an exercise in philosophical and political theory as joystick precision and first-person shooting, a stunning piece of dystopian storytelling which tests your morality as much as your trigger finger.
In many ways, BioShock could be considered gaming’s answer to Citizen Kane, but there’s just one problem—Citizen Kane didn’t have a sequel. It didn’t need one, and as a benchmark for games in the new millennium, many felt BioShock didn’t need one, either. Yet here we are, three years later, stepping into familiar shoes and returning to an eerie world we know all too well. Fortunately, BioShock 2 stands on its own as an excellent sequel, but those who allow the perfect to detract from the good, expecting the same seminal experience the original offered, will inevitably be disappointed by its follow-up.
For better and worse, BioShock 2 just isn’t the same game.
The sequel returns players to the once-bustling metropolis of Rapture; a city built 20,000 leagues below the surface of the Atlantic. Founded by the eccentric Andrew Ryan, Rapture was meant to be a laissez-faire state hidden from the oppressive grasps of government and religion, a place where man would be, as Ryan put it, “entitled to the sweat of his brow.” Ten years have passed since Jack, the enslaved protagonist of the original BioShock, tromped through the streets of this fallen utopia, a decrepit sphere of urban decay where city—an almost living, breathing entity itself—and citizen have shared the same disfigurement.
In our return visit, however, Jack is only a memory. We instead assume the role of a Big Daddy, imposing steel-suited leviathans patrolling Rapture to protect the experimental Little Sisters, who is searching the dark, damp city for the little girl taken away from him years ago by Sophia Lamb, her biological mother and new leader of Rapture. While the original told a dystopian tale of morality, BioShock 2 is essentially the story of a custody battle.
Of course, there’s never been a custody battle like this.
Lamb ensures your stay in Rapture is as unpleasant as possible, dispatching enemies in greater quantity and variety than the original. As a result, BioShock 2 feels significantly more combat-focused than its predecessor, and fortunately, the combat itself has been improved to keep up with the increased enemy hordes. The basic gameplay hook of BioShock has always been pairing FPS weapons—machine gun, shotgun, pistol—with plasmids, genetic modifiers which transform the user’s free arm into an inhuman weapon itself. The mechanic returns in BioShock 2, but the sequel allows players to wield a plasmid and weapon at the same time, eliminating the need to switch between them and making you a deadlier adversary.
Most importantly, this allows for more effective use in tandem—blasting an enemy with a fire plasmid and gunning him down while he burns, for example, is a particularly useful strategy.
BioShock 2 isn’t only improvements, however. Its level design is lacking compared to the memorable locales of the original, a problem compounded by the sequel’s weaker graphics. Even so, there aren’t many games better or smarter than BioShock 2.
Except, of course, the masterpiece preceding it.
- Derek Buck
So RAD it hurts!
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