Review: BioShock 2

Is this sequel necessary?

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8.0

The Good

Character now dual wields firearms and plasmids * Research camera now records * More fluid hacking mini-game * New weapons and plasmids * New significant enemy types * Unique multiplayer suite

The Bad

Single-player is not even half as long as the first game * Tweaks are minor next to an entirely unchanged gameplay formula * Sound fails

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2007’s BioShock gave birth to Rapture, a cultural metropolis donned in the depths of the ocean. Its founder, megalomaniacal industrialist Andrew Ryan, had hoped for it to be a place where its citizens could explore and pursue their personal sets of ideas – unfettered by any governmental regulation. Its citizens’ obsession with genetic modification, however, overwhelmed their sanity and in a little over a decade, the dream that Rapture was had become a nightmare. The opulent buildings that once lined Rapture’s walkways were relegated to broken down pieces of relics.

What Irrational Games developed in 2007 was an environment filled with mystery and suspense. Part of what made BioShock a massive hit was this unique and unfamiliar underwater city that encouraged a sense of adventure and discovery in its players. As players progressed through the game, audio logs recovered around the city, as well as the various messages scrawled on the walls, reveal bits of information. The result was an immersive game which consistently engaged the player on a great level. This was also possible due to BioShock’s innovative take on the genre, introducing plasmids, its version of magic, in addition to various types of ammunitions for each weapon which allowed each firearm to be exercised in different ways. This translated into the flexibility of being able to try out greatly varied ways of taking down each enemy. All in all, BioShock was an immensely enjoyable game to play.

This certainly notched up the difficulty of producing BioShock 2. A sequel had to top this Game of the Year winner. Therein lies in the question: Is BioShock 2 better than its predecessor? Is its existence even necessary?

BioShock 2 sinks players down into the marvelously engineered world of Rapture a decade after the events of the first game where players had escaped with the protagonist Jack. It rivets you into the shoes of a Big Daddy, the monstrosity that protected the Little Sisters in the first game. Often referred to as Subject Delta, the Big Daddy that you are playing as in BioShock 2 is an early prototype of the mass production Big Daddy. While this means that you aren’t as powerful as the later, you possess the capability of freewill – something that other Big Daddies do not have. However, like other Big Daddies, Subject Delta is bound to a Little Sister. His particular Little Sister is called Eleanor Lamb. There is only one problem: His Little Sister has been taken away from him by Sofia Lamb, the mother of Eleanor Lamb and also the new leader of Rapture. Subject Delta must now find a way to recover his Little Sister before his bond with the Little Sister breaks and he drifts off into nothingness. Naturally, Eleanor Lamb isn’t fond of your intentions and sends splicers after you, paving the way for all the mayhem you will experience in BioShock 2.

Some games are planned to be part of a trilogy even before the first in the franchise commenced development. Some games are not. The first BioShock belongs to the later category. BioShock was meant to be a one-off hit, but because it became such a success, in the process spurning an admirable fanbase, a sequel had to be produced – thus BioShock 2. What I am trying to say here is that because BioShock wasn’t planned to be part of a trilogy, the developers did not establish a plot which can be expanded easily – BioShock was capped off nicely. Hence, what we have here is a sequel that attempts to drills its way into the folklore of the first game with a mixed bag of results.

There are times when BioShock 2 seems so disparate from its predecessor. Who is Sofia Lamb? Why isn’t she mentioned at all in the first game? BioShock 2 tries to rescue itself from this by splattering a generous number of audio logs throughout Rapture which refers back directly to the first game, at times dictating the struggle between Andrew Ryan and Sofia Lamb. But it all feels really untidy. The fact that BioShock 2 lasts a shocking 8.5 hours, as opposed to around 22 hours for the first game, and about half the number of playable areas as the first game, doesn’t help. In retrospect, BioShock 2 feels more like an expansion that uncovers a little bit more about Rapture rather than a full-fledged sequel that advances the franchise in a big way (more on that later). Those who absolutely must know the location of every cobweb in Rapture would take delight in the tiny story, but for the rest of us, the plot proves unsatisfying, almost haphazard – perhaps an excuse for players to give Rapture another look-see.

Make no mistake. While the BioShock 2’s plot feels more like a shoo-in, Rapture still retains its beautiful buildings, halls and rooms. The city has aged gracefully in a decade, with places showing subtle signs of cracking and increased growth of vegetation. It is still a sight to behold. What it lost, however, is its novelty. The eager, child-like sense of exploration that the first game ingrained in players has been dispersed. Rapture is no longer equipped with as much mystery as it was in BioShock. We already knew what happened to its citizens and how the entire situation came about – why some of the buildings are abandoned, and why some are stained with splotches of blood. The scrawled messages lose its significance – it’s something that you will just stroll past rather than stop and contemplate at.

Where BioShock 2 stops its rot is at its gameplay – the crux of the game – the core action. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. That’s exactly what BioShock 2 did. The game retains much of the wildly successfully formula from its predecessor, making minor tweaks here and there. Do the tweaks bring the franchise forward in a pronounced way? No. But they do make the combat a little more fast-paced and intense. Let’s start with the weapons.

BioShock 2 addresses the inconvenience of having to switch between firearms and plasmids, causing you to be only able to use one at a time. As the protagonist now dual-wields, both firearms and plasmids are engaged at the same time. This creates more seamless combat, where you zap a splicer with lightning and eliminate it with a shotgun shell within a split second. Improvements have also been made to the research camera. In the first game, you had to dance around to take photos of your enemy to increase your damage bonus on it. While you still have to gyrate around now, at least the research camera has a video recording function, saving you the hassle of having to stop and snap in the midst of a battle. Additionally, the pipe-hacking mini-game has been done away with, replaced by a real-time stop-the-needle-in-the-green-zone mini-game that does not disrupt the action. All these are minor tweaks that make the gameplay a smoother experience.

As you are playing as a Big Daddy now, you have been armed with some new weapons as well. The most tangible upgrade is your melee weapon. Instead of a pitiful wrench, you are now equipped with the standard Big Daddy drill – a weapon that enables a sweet balance of light to heavy attack maneuvers. The rivet gun joins the party, replacing the pistol, while a mobile Gatling gun takes over from the Thompson sub-machine gun. A new hack tool weapon now allows you to hack from a distance rather than approaching a hostile turret or security camera. The said weapon also doubles up as a portable mini-turret dispenser, giving you more attack options. There’s nothing too significant to write home about, but BioShock 2 changes the weapons here and there to keep things fresh. Something to note: Some of the weapons are basically the same save for their look and different names.

Like the weapons, most of the plasmids make a return, while some new powerful ones grace your inventory, including one that calls in a new enemy type to fight for you. It’s still fun combining the wide variety of firearms and plasmids, exploring several offensive and defensive strategies. This is especially more important in BioShock 2 as you’re now a Big Daddy, allowing you to adopt a Little Sister and protect her. While your Little Sister draws ADAM out from corpses, trap-setting is a technique that must be used to protect both your Little Sister and you from splicers if you want to survive. Tonics, vending machines and Vita Chambers remained entirely unaltered from the first game.

If you have been taking note of the previous few paragraphs, almost everything is similar to the first game. BioShock 2 does introduce a few tweaks that make the gameplay a better one, but ultimately, it’s adding next to nothing to the first game. It’s like adding dye to a cup of water. For the variety of enemies, BioShock 2 adds sugar to the cup of water. Now, doesn’t that taste distinctly different? The dye doesn’t make the water any tastier, but sugar does. This is the real stuff.

Taking a page out of Left 4 Dead’s book, BioShock 2 injects Brute Splicer into the mix of enemies. It functions very much like the Tank in Left 4 Dead – it charges at you, it pounds you hard and it picks up slabs of concrete to hurl at you. There are also new varieties of Big Daddies, including even earlier prototypes of Big Daddies, called Alpha series. These are dangerous attack-on-sight metal-clad beasts which possess the ability to use both firearms and plasmids, but none as fatal as the Big Sisters, the closest thing BioShock 2 has to a boss. Big Sisters appear every now and then and when they are approaching, they produce a screech – something which means they are not to be trifled with. These new enemy types mark the developer’s efforts to address the lack of enemy variety in the first game. It is a welcomed layer of challenge that forces you to think about how you can reinvent the way you use your weapons and plasmids to take down these foes effectively and quickly.

The most surprising addition to BioShock 2 yet, however, is its online multiplayer. Part of the challenge of creating a multiplayer suite for the game was the question of how firearms and plasmids can be implemented flawlessly into multiplayer such that they do not unbalance the matches. Fortunately, Digital Extremes’ well-designed multiplayer component delivers an experience that would serve to provide hours of entertainment which extend well beyond the single-player.

Learning from Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare franchise, BioShock 2 multiplayer adopts a persistent rank system. As you level up, you would be able to unlock new weapons, plasmids and tonics for use, creating a better all-round sense of progression and achievement. Like Modern Warfare 2, you would be able to customize your character loadout before each match. No, you wouldn’t be able to equip attachments or rack up kills for deathstreak bonuses. While it isn’t as deep as the system present in Modern Warfare 2, the game mechanics here still offer a good variety of enhancements.

Digital Extremes has also put in a great amount of effort in creating a set of weapons, plasmids and tonics that are unique to the multiplayer experience. Some weapons from the first game like the Thompson sub-machine gun and wrench are swopped back into multiplayer, while some plasmids are taken out and replaced by new ones, including a particular plasmid which allow you to charge at your opponent and stun him momentarily. While it may seem that the multiplayer has taken a step backwards at first, these moves are necessary to ensure that the multiplayer experience is balanced.

Just about everything else has been a given a BioShock twist. Turrets can be hacked to fight for you and vending machines can be hijacked to spit out bombs when an opponent comes near. Even the research camera comes into play here: Taking a photo of your opponent’s corpse gifts you a damage bonus which will last until you’re shot down. Big Daddy suits also appear at random times at random locations. The player who gets to the Big Daddy suit first gets to become one, giving him the power and abilities of a Big Daddy for a period of time. Match type-wise, BioShock 2 features the de rigueur – there’s deathmatch, team deathmatch, solo-based and team capture the flag, as well as territory holding. All these match types span over handful of maps, most of which are locations from the first game. Most maps are small, encouraging fast-paced and intensifying matches.

Graphically, BioShock 2 is similar to BioShock, meaning everything is still rendered with impressive effects, doing Rapture’s engineering feats justice. Where BioShock 2 fails, however, is in its sound. For reasons unknown, BioShock 2 clips off the sound of Big Daddies. In the first game, when a Big Daddy was approaching, you could hear the creak of the floorboards and echoes of its distinct breathing would ricochet off the multiple hallways. BioShock 2 silences the entire sequence, so you wouldn’t know another Big Daddy is nearby until you’re actually facing it. If you’re a careful listener, it’s easily noticed that the sound here has somehow been dumbed down. What this means is that BioShock 2 isn’t so much of an atmospheric experience as it was in BioShock – Rapture feels a little less alive here.

Closing comments
BioShock 2 is the sequel that was never needed. On the surface, it looks like a bigger package with both single-player and multiplayer experiences. But the first game was a 22 hours novel, and BioShock 2 is a mere 8.5 hours performance. Rapture is running out of places for you to explore. The game does little to compensate for this much shorter single-player experience. Like an expansion, it advances the franchise in microscopic ways. It makes minor tweaks to an entirely unchanged gameplay formula. A handful of significant enemy types are introduced, but they aren’t really enough to make up for the game. Where the game shines is in its multiplayer, an experience that has been given enough of a BioShock twist for it to be unique and fun. It takes a step backwards with sound that falls apart altogether. BioShock was excellent and the franchise should stay that way because no one wants to remember the franchise as BioShock 2.