DEVELOPER: 2k Games
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Would you kindly have more fun in Rapture?
Liked:
- Story
- Environment/Art Style
- Plasmid Upgrades
Disliked:
- Length
- Some glitches
On The Fence:
- New Hacking system
- New Research Camera
- Trophies
Liked
Honestly, for everything I liked about BioShock 2, see what I said about BioShock. It would be nearly identical. The story is different but I found it every bit as entertaining.
Sequel or Prequel?
I see a lot of people talking about this being a prequel because you play as the first Big Daddy, and that's half true. Without spoiling much of anything, you play as Delta, the 4th Big Daddy (if my Greek alphabet is correct) but the first successful bonded guardian of a Little Sister. The game starts in 1958, before the events of BioShock 1 but it isn't too long into the game that an event causes you to go into a sort of suspended animation until 1968 - nine years after the events of the first game.
There are new enemies like a Brute Splicer and the Big Sister - who will attack you after so many Little Sister interactions. She was interesting, and later in the game when you get to see them a bit better you can really appreciate the style.
Disliked
To say I'm not pleased with the length is somewhat a double edged sword. It was short. I just started playing this game on Friday evening, and now, the following Sunday, approximately 15 hours of game play later I am done. I find that both disappointing yet rewarding. Another game I can equate that to is Portal.
I think what I dislike the most about the length is that it seems the game got nipped a bit to make room for multiplayer. I haven't fired that up yet but I can tell you I'm at about 40% of the trophies because I haven't touched MP.
Some glitches I found are strange. I was fighting a Big Sister and nearly had her dead when she disappeared. I don't mean she ran off - I mean she vanished. The fight music (which sounds like it was written by Bernard Hermann) kept playing until I finished the level. Another glitch comes from using an awesome tonic called "Fountain of Youth" that allows you to regain health and Eve when standing in puddles of water. It didn't always work, and sometimes the meters refilled really fast while other times it went gut-wrenchingly slow.
On The Fence
The old hacking system in BS1 was pretty much Pipe Dream. You have x# of seconds to connect point A to point B before the liquid fills the pipe. This time it was a strange meter where the needle sweeps left to right and back again about 3 times before you instantly fail. You have to stop the needle in the green or blue zone on the meter's face. Sometimes I had this not register correctly and hit a red zone, setting off the alarm.
The new Research Camera is good because it does four awesome new things:
- Starts recording video and instantly switches to your last used weapon
- Makes the tagged enemy glow gold.
- Has a running meter to show you how well you're doing on gathering research
- Keeps a total of how much you've researched every enemy.
The trophies for BS2 are good and bad. Good because they throw one at you for doing good things - there is a moral choice to be made in a few sections and they give you a trophy for that. They're bad because you'll get some just for doing story-mandated tasks (really? A trophy for completing an area you have to complete to advance the plot?) as well as the aforementioned reliance on exploring multiplayer.
All in all I think this is an awesome follow-up to BS. If you weren't sure about it but loved #1, at the very least rent this one. Biblical and Philosophical overtones aren't as heavy-handed as the original, and that's not really a bad thing.
8/10
