Nerd Mentality

XBOX 360 REVIEW – Bioshock 2

Posted February 19th 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.

It's not very often that a video game gives pause to people who consider themselves "intellectuals". Over the years I've heard more arguments against than for video games as an art form. The medium is cursed by its own popularity, because the games that get the most hype and attention tend to be the most violent and unsavory, which leads people to look no deeper than what's on the box cover. But every once and awhile, a developer will take a chance on a title that pushes the medium's boundaries, in an attempt to bleed into what people consider art. In 2007, 2K took one of those fated chances on a game called Bioshock and created a new standard for what a game could be. Bioshock was lauded for its story telling, pacing, and design. The dystopian, Ayn Rand-inspired underwater world of Bioshock was art in motion. Like all great art, such pinnacles are often imitated but never replicated. Loving the first Bioshock as much as I did, I was horrified to hear that a sequel was on its way.

The original Bioshock was a breakout hit. It won a plethora of awards and gained a huge following. When a game blows up the way Bioshock did, one of two things usually happens. It can either recede into the annals of history gaining and retaining a cult status, which leaves fans clamoring for a sequel, or it can have one fast tracked to cash in on the popularity. Luckily for me, and all of the rest of the Bioshock fans, a third track opened towards a fantastic sequel to a fantastic game.

Chronologically, Bioshock 2's gameplay takes places eight years after the events of the first game. However, the story begins two years before Bioshock. You take the role of an original Big Daddy from the Alpha Series, named Delta. Delta was the first Big Daddy successfully bonded to a Little Sister, a type of character that returns from the first game. In the opening scene, Delta is approached by a woman named Sophia Lamb who comes to claim his Little Sister as her child and makes Delta to take his own life. He awakens a decade later to the psychic calls of Eleanor, his kidnapped Little Sister and set out to find and rescue her.

The end of the first game left the city in which it took place, Rapture, in worse shape than it already was. With the death of the Andrew Ryan, the visionary behind the underwater city of Rapture, Sophia Lamb stepped in to bring her own brand of utopia to Rapture's insane populace. Visually, Rapture shows its age. In the first game, Rapture looked the part of a Utopian society, clinging to its beauty against the horror of its people. Bioshock 2's scenery more justly reflects the people that inhabit it. Not only are any vestments of cleanliness and order gone, but the sea as stepped into claim Rapture as its own. Coral and barnacles litter the ceilings and floors and rust and water have invaded the corridors. All these changes suit the game and its story well. The orderly Rapture from the first game fit the ideals of Andrew Ryan.Sophia Lamb abandoned this view for a more altruistic collective that attempted to destroy all ideas of self. The levels that you traverse are stunning and with the addition of parts of maps having you venture out into the actual sea, Bioshock 2 focuses on the fact that you're a Big Daddy.

A Big Daddy is the byproduct of a person who has had their body grafted to an armored diving suit and their brainwashed into thinking only of the safety of the Little Sister. While as Delta you are more agile than your Big Daddy brothers, you still walk with a certain weight. But being as big as you are has its advantages and they show up in gameplay. For starters, the most visible difference in Bioshock 2 is the addition of a drill weapon. This is your base melee weapon, much like the wrench from the first game. All the weapons you gain in this game are weapons you saw Big Daddies from Bioshock use, and they pack the same punch they previously landed on you. But an advantage that the Alpha Series Big Daddies have is the ability to use Plasmids powers, which make their triumphant return here.

Plasmids were a huge part of what made Bioshock ridiculously cool for me. A sci-fi answer to magical powers, Plasmids allowed you to scramble your own genetic code to manipulate elements like fire and ice or hack into electronics around you as well as creating distractions and traps. One of my few complaints about Bioshock was the need to toggle back and forth between the Plasmids and your weapons, so you can imagine my utter joy when I found out that as Delta you had the ability to dual wield both attack styles. These combos, along with branching Plasmids trees and personal buffs through the use of Tonics, opens up a huge variety of combat strategies that will have you seeking out enemies just to try them all out.

These new weapons and the techniques that come with them lead to some fast paced action. However, with the enemies from the first game descending further into their Plasmid induced insanity, you'll need to use more than just you guns to stay alive. What surprised me the most was how strategic this game allows you and at times forces you to be. Nowhere is this more evident than the encounters with the new terror of Lamb's Rapture, the Big Sisters. These ridiculously agile and powerful "Boss" characters force you to tip the field of battle in your favor by setting traps, hacking security, and praying that you have enough health packs. The Big Sisters are what the Little Sisters turn into, and while the might seem painfully obvious, the transformation is a little more complex.

The role of the Little Sisters has always been to collect a genetic material named Adam which is needed to use Plasmids and those skills are what make them so valuable. That value leads to them to need to be paired with Big Daddies for protection. A unfortunate side effect of said abilities was increased hostility and insatiable hunger for Adam as they aged. When the Little sisters matured, Sophia Lamb took that hunger and turned it to her advantage by creating an army of Big Sisters and after you awaken as Delta, she immediately turns them on you.

The story in Bioshock 2 is just as grand and sweeping as the first, but in a brand new way. It doesn't seek to be different, in hopes of making its own impression as a brand new game, but instead, fully embraces and illuminates its differences from the previous one. Bioshock 2 pays homage to predecessor throughout and the best example of this is through audio diaries that chronicle the fall of Andrew Ryan and the rise of Sophia Lamb. All this is the background to you attempting to reconnect with Eleanor. The trials you go through and the choices you make effect everything that goes on around you. Choosing to spare or take lives has real time consequences throughout the game. The morality choices you make are more than just about what cut scenes you get to see, or audio you get to hear. They affect the world around you.

Personally, one of my favorite things about Bioshock 2 is the audio. Not only the musical score that can change from the laments of a 1950's crooner to blood curdling horror music in seconds, but the voice acting and ambient sounds as well. You could honestly play this game without the sound on and still have a enjoyable game, due in fact to the superb level and character design, but the audio component just takes it to a whole other level. Rapture is a fully realized, living, breathing city. From the creaks of the floor and dripping water in the tunnels, to the half angelic half demonic voices of the little sisters and Frankenstein moans of the Big Daddies, Bioshock 2 is an orchestra of golden gaming audio.

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