The sequel to BioShock, which takes much of what made the original game great and improves on a lot of its systems.
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BioShock 2 is once again a shooter set in the underwater city of Rapture, to which you return as one of the iconic Big Daddies roaming its halls. At its core, this is rather similar to that of the original game, though there are a lot of smaller and bigger changes, making almost every aspect of the gameplay more streamlined and enjoyable You’re once again making your way through Rapture, figuring out what happened to the city after the original game’s ending, essentially expanding the established narrative, which is a bit janky but works well enough.
This time, your character is looking for his daughter, who he sets out to rescue and escape Rapture with. Aside from this, the narrative again focusses on the city’s inner workings, showcasing how things have developed and shining some more light on the events predating even the first game. You explore previously unseen parts of Rapture, once more learning about the fates of new and returning characters through audio diaries. While the story doesn’t reach the heights of intrigue found in the first game, it’s still decently interesting and explores some new themes, while also managing a more graceful ending.
Being a Big Daddy, your arsenal of weapons is changed a bit, with basic gun archetypes in a modified form. You also gain some completely new weapons, like the iconic drill, as well as some more interesting battle options enabled by new, much more distinct-feeling ammo types. Similarly, the Plasmids featured for the most part originate from the original game, but are reworked, with their upgrades in particular feeling much more meaningful and giving them a very unique feel.
Adding to these changes are some major quality of life improvements, most notably the ability to use weapons and Plasmids at the same time, which feels great. Things like reloading and changing ammo have been notably sped up, making combat more fluid. Gene Tonics were also reworked, giving them more interesting effects and simplifying the selection process by removing the different categories in favour of letting you create a big pool of whatever kinds of Tonics you want.
Another major rework was done for Researching, which now requires you to do various kinds of damage to an enemy in a set amount of time instead of interrupting gameplay to snap a bunch of photos, making it feel less intrusive. Similarly, the ever-present hacking minigame was simplified to a reaction-based one and no longer pauses the game, making it far less disruptive and creating much more interesting situations. Failing a hack has actual consequences now, as you’ll have to avoid the alerted security while retrying. Additionally, hacks now feature bonus zones, rewarding you with additional items and other extras for being precise. The different crafting materials are done away with, with an influx of simple cash replacing them quite nicely. And for a last mention, door codes you discover are displayed when using the relevant code lock, instead of you having to remember or write them down.
As for enemies, most of the ones found in the first game make a return, with a couple of new types being added, including an all-new Big Daddy variant, to change things up. This is further achieved by the addition of so-called Big Sisters, which are just as tanky as the Big Daddies but also much more agile. These are rarer and fight in a more varied way, creating very tense battles.
After defeating a Big Daddy, you’re now also given the option to complete up to two tower-defence-style sections in order to increase the amount of Adam gained from their Little Sister. These see you defending said Little Sister from enemy waves, giving you an opportunity to utilize your increased number of defensive tools and generally providing a nice change of pace from the established gameplay loop.
Just like in the original, the gameplay provides some good challenge but never really feels overpowering due to the generous respawn system. Even when playing on the highest difficulty and without respawns, I found only the early game to be properly hard to complete, with plenty of available resources making encounters a very manageable after the first few levels.
The game’s atmosphere is once again stellar, expanding on the intriguing world of Rapture while maintaining constant tension as you navigate its claustrophobic and broken-down areas. Graphics and sound are done just as well as in the original game and hold up well, with noticeable improvements having been made to the game’s menus and general interaction flow.
Unlike the original BioShock, all special characters you meet throughout the campaign got proper custom models, with the game in general using more specialized assets and feeling more detailed, not least thanks to more frequent ambient animations featuring Rapture’s inhabitants. While technically mostly solid and devoid of bugs, the game suffers from regular crashes even more so than its predecessor, which is likely to annoy you even with regular saves.
After completing the story, there’s a bit more content available with the Protector Trials, a series of 24 challenges in which you defend a gathering Little Sister, being graded by the amount of Adam the girl can extract uninterrupted. These feature 6 modified locations from the campaign, each with 3 different loadouts you have to use. This is great for exploring previously unused tools and makes for a neat diversion, though I’d have liked a bit more variety. Completing the trials not only unlocks various concept art and videos but also rewards you with a bonus for BioShock 2’s story DLC.
Said DLC titled “Minerva’s Den” introduces a whole new area of Rapture along with some new gameplay features. It essentially condenses the BioShock loop of exploring, fighting and finding new tools, providing you with most of the weapons, abilities and upgrades you’re acquainted with in the main game, but massively shortening the downtime in-between, which makes for a fantastic experience. It also introduces a new weapon, an all-new Plasmid and a new type of Big Daddy to try your new tools on. Throughout Minerva’s Den, you’re once again shown previously unmentioned yet important aspects of Rapture, with a focussed and genuinely interesting narrative that comes quite close to the best parts of the original BioShock.
Also bundled with the game is a multiplayer mode, which offers various PvP modes for up to 10 players. Included are most items from the main game as well as some wholly new ones, letting you build varied loadouts containing 2 weapons with an upgrade each, 2 Plasmids and 3 Gene Tonics. Matches are set in various locations introduced in BioShock 1 and 2 and feature a bunch of game modes, including regulars like deathmatch, but also more BioShock-feeling ones in which you e.g. have to capture and protect a Little Sister. As you complete matches, you unlock new guns, gun upgrades, Plasmids and Gene Tonics as well as challenges, which keeps things fresh, but also felt a bit grindy for me, outlasting the novelty of the mode.
With the multiplayer taking place during the city’s downfall, it provides look at a more put-together Rapture as well as some bits of lore, which I quite liked. While the multiplayer is decently enjoyable, the game’s age sadly results in the multiplayer being mostly abandoned, meaning you’ll likely have to put some work into setting up matches from outside the game.
There’s a remaster available for BioShock 2, which mostly overhauls the game’s presentation and removes the multiplayer mode, but otherwise hardly differs from this regular version content-wise.
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I had a great time with BioShock 2 and found it to be a fantastic sequel, improving on almost all aspects of its predecessor while delivering a fun gameplay experience and an interesting narrative.
