Bioshock 2

FALLEN IS BABYLON. THE DEATH OF RYAN IS THE DEATH OF THE SELF. BIG SISTER IS WATCHING. These are just a few examples of bloodstained graffiti that litter the halls upon your return to Rapture. Andrew Ryan’s great underwater behemoth once stood for unhindered greatness, but Ryan, however, is now dead. The bones of Rapture have been broken and re-cast in a new shape, which has one body, one face and one will; the Rapture Family.

Okay, so most families don’t consist of genetically enhanced psychopaths (or maybe yours does, who knows?) but this is a family none the less and sat at the head of the table is Rapture’s new matriarch, Sofia Lamb. She is everything Ryan was not; she’s cold, composed and decidedly communist. Her mission: eradicate mankind’s fallen instincts at the genetic level.
It’s a philosophy that’s both refreshing and fascinating in equal measure. In one of my favourite nuggets of propaganda gold she announces “We reject the gene, we reject the self, we reject the tyrant.” _Bioshock 2_ hasn’t slacked off in its intelligent approach to storytelling and it feels for once like the gaming audience isn’t being spoken to like trigger happy teenagers; this is art, and there is a genuinely interesting philosophical and sociological dialogue going on here that deserves real credit. Though this new Eden is most certainly not about navel gazing; this is an FPS and every single one of these happy commie drug addicts is gunning for your blood.

Here is where _Bioshock 2_ begins to distinguish itself from its predecessor. In most FPS games you’re granted a basic weapon to begin your journey; something suitably humble that the latter “big guns” inspire enough awe by the time you eventually get your hands on them. Who can forget the Half Life crowbar? _Bioshock 2_ crushes this notion. You don’t wake up with a pathetic 5mm pistol or rusted wrench, instead, mounted to your arm is a gargantuan spinning drill of death.

As you must already know, you return to rapture this time around as subject Delta, an old model of big daddy. As a design decision this really works. There’s something terribly Freudian about loving the size of your ‘drill’, but it’s simply irresistible. When spinning the drill makes mincemeat of splicers and can usually bash a splicer to death in only two hits. But the best feature is the ‘drill dash’ ability which allows Delta to cover huge ground in less than a second in order to greet someone’s face with a fistful of spinning metal.
After this you feel like a galvanised death machine. But without fetishising the drill too much, all weapons have due merit in Bioshock 2 and the rivet gun which you also receive in the opening stages manages to provide a sense of weight and force when it is fired that’s deeply, deeply satisfying. 2K Games channel exactly the right sensation of deft speed and lumbering weight in movement and weapons of subject Delta.

The improvements don’t stop there either and 2K Games have concerned themselves with speed and functionality in _Bioshock 2_. The hacking minigame of the original that ripped you away from the immersive environment has been replaced with an elegant new remote hack tool which has a tiny interface and requires a series of timed button presses. It’s a great improvement and leads to a less fractured experience if you’re someone who’s keen on hacking every bot, turret and security camera you see.

The sometimes clunky combat system of the original has also seen an intuitive overhaul. Plasmids and weapons can be used simultaneously as Delta holds one in each hand. The result is that combos can easily be completed with artistic flourish and where it would have been difficult in the first game it becomes second nature in _Bioshock 2_.

Releasing a torrent of different attacks is a pleasure, whether you harass your enemies with Insect Swarm and then dash them down with the drill or set a few cyclone traps and then grenade them into pieces in the ensuing chaos. Equally as pleasing, each plasmid has also been reengineered and now responds much more effectively than before. Electro Shock is snappier and more likely to hit your enemy and Insect Swarm now hunts for enemies within a large radius making the use of several swarms extremely deadly.

Regrettably there is a lack of innovation in the absence of almost any new plasmids. If you’re expecting a dozen new ways to petrify your foes then don’t hold your breath. This loss isn’t felt too keenly though, as the new super smooth dual weapon system provides enough new opportunities for destruction that the experience feels fresh.

One of a few gripes is that the standard difficulty is a tad easy for any experienced FPS player. The amount of first-aid kits and eve hypos you can carry has been reduced to try and compensate and prevent stockpiling, but these are found so regularly that they must be discarded or ignored more often than not. But never fear, there are moments which present challenges throughout each of the environments. Most of these arrive when you’re fulfilling one of your principal tasks in _Bioshock 2_; protecting your little sister.

Rather than acquiring ADAM solely by saving the little tykes, this time around you must also give also your youngster a window in which to harvest ADAM from a fresh splicer corpse. In this time splicers pour in from all angles allowing for fast paced frenetic shoot outs that show off how much damage the big daddy is capable of dealing. You’re a tank and the game treats you like one.

Similarly, the new big sisters challenge how fast you can lay down damage and charge at you with terrifying speed. Though these teenage assassins are more interesting in their presentation than their combat, announcing themselves with nauseatingly shrill screams and diving upon you from the rafters with an awkward swiftness.

Both harvesting sections and the arrival of big sisters or daddies provide great opportunities for the use of traps of all kinds and as the difficulty of the onslaughts increases it becomes more and more necessary to line the walls with nasty surprises for your unwanted guests. Some of the best moments in the game revolve around using multiple traps, plasmids and weapons to create utter chaos.

Guests to these bloodbaths come in all shapes and sizes, including the new Brute Splicer who’s a hunkering mass of muscle who charges you and throws all manner of rocks. Thuggish, lead, and houdini splicers all make a reappearance as well, each one providing their own unique flavour to combat. Yet the residents feel fundamentally different this time around. The previous game played out like a piece of black, carnivalesque theatre, but now the splicers have lost their uncanny aura. Some still wear masks but most don’t, and 2K Games have favoured a grittier look where newly endowed physical mutations make a few splicers look like tumours that have sprouted teeth and hair.

The same can be said for the environment of Rapture which, once vivid and brilliant with neon signs and crisp 50s architecture has become dilapidated and overgrown by the encroaching sea. The interior of the submerged metropolis is rusty, dirty and littered with corals, barnacles and all kinds of unwanted growth.

The level designers even feel the need to show off their new green fingers in underwater jaunts between districts of Rapture. These provide peaceful punctuation to an experience that is usually loud and violent but unfortunately these wanders often feel rather redundant and lack the imagination of other set pieces that break up the action.

This all said, the city is still stunningly rendered but the result of the homogenised look is a Rapture that no longer displays quite the same ethereal quality of the first game, and while _Bioshock 2_ is unmistakably the offspring of its predecessor it doesn’t possess the same magical twinkle that can be seen in the eye of its parent.

Luckily it is still extremely atmospheric and bolstered by superb voice acting with exception of Eleanor Lamb who is ham acted in sections. She delivers terribly affected lines of dialogue that sometimes make you think that you’re in an underwater remake of Mary Poppins. Though Eleanor’s performance attempts to titanic the whole affair, her mother’s austere yet multi-layered dialogue keeps the narrative afloat and provides the ideal voice of antagonism throughout your journey. It’s a shame that the plot itself isn’t as cohesive or engaging as the previous game, there are so many interesting elements but they’ve been imperfectly sewn together. By the end it feels rather like the writers finished off their gaming Mona Lisa with finger-painting.

Despite giving birth to beautiful concepts and slowly rearing them throughout the narrative, they then proceed to chuck them carelessly in the nearest skip. However this doesn’t make the journey itself any less fantastic or sublime. _Bioshock 2_ succeeds in recreating the most important aspect of the original game; it’s a piece of art that’s complex, curious and lovingly crafted.