Bioshock 2 or My Return To Rapture

By now everyone has had their fill of what has been commonly called "The game that doesn't need a sequel but has one." Personally, I don't mind a sequel. The first I felt was subpar in gameplay, and sounded like it would do more with the story than it did (would you kindly aside). And yes, this will probably have spoilers. You have been warned. Turn back, go away, yada yada.

Anyway, so here's the gist of Bioshock 2: You play as "Subject Delta" (his real name is revealed later but insignificantly so, so I forgot) the 4th Big Daddy created but the only one with both free will, and the only successfully paired to a Little Sister. Now this brings me to one of the good points of Bioshock 2: it has a boom of a beginning.

As you prepare for a normal day of work (ten years prior to gameplay by the way) your sister grabs you and drags you to the source of adam. You protect her from an onslaught of splicers, until someone uses a Hypnotize plasmid on you. Turns out you get set up, and your sister's real mother, Sophia Lamb, lectures you on how this is not your daughter and asks you to kill yourself. And since you are hypnotized you begrudgingly oblige.

This left a gasp on my face when it happened, and I felt the game had already pushed beyond the first in terms of story. However like the first, Bioshock 2 gets tiresome later on. Soon it gets slow and boring, like a Bouncer doing rounds with a little sister. Sure their are some nice fights, but for a little bit you end up just going here, doing that, and the story is stagnant and won't really move. However, once you finally meet up with your Little Sister Eleanor that's when things pick up. See Eleanor has a psychic link to you. She sees what you see. She sees all the Little Sisters you kill or save.

And all the random people you kill or are merciful to. Depending on these ratios of kill to saves, depends on the ending. Not surprising right? Here's the killer: You set an example for Eleanor. Like a teenage boy who found out his real father is a rock star, Eleanor is fascinated with you as a father. When you meet up with her, depending on your actions, she'll either be a cold murderous killer, or a strong rebellious freedom-fighter. The way you see this I'll leave for you to find out but it's worth it.

Gameplay wise, this game is better then the first. The weapons are more balanced, as well as original (in look not in use though) and the plasmids and tonics are less limiting, and upgrading plasmids is definitely useful. However, it pretty much plays the same as the first. Most splicers attack you the same as well, leaving a feeling of "I've done this already" that may bore some people looking for something different. However hacking and research are greatly improved, allowing you to do so faster, and continue to hack with skill (or lack thereof if you don't care).

Graphically I was a bit unimpressed. Yes I liked Bioshock's style, but I felt improvements could have been made. This may just be me on Uncharted 2 fever, but that's how I felt. They weren't BAD persay, just unimproved.

All in all Bioshock 2 is a great fun game for the most part, and probably has a less annoying difficulty curve if you research more (something I did not, and the metroid fan in me is screaming at me for doing so). The battles are fast and furious, the big daddies are slower though but the Big Sisters (which attack you IMMEDIATELY after dealing with the laster little sister in each level) are even faster then the first game's bouncers.

Which is scary piss-your-pants fast. In my opinion if you liked the first you won't be too disappointed with this one. There isn't as big a twist at the end of this one, however it's still fun to play. And multiplayer is actually pretty good, although I'll probably stick Uncharted 2 for the time being. However, I gave it a spin, and so should you. Bioshock 2 is well worth your time in my opinion.