Ready to sink back in? Ryan has fallen, but Rapture still lives on. It is now up to one lone Big Daddy to fight against the new Fascist leader and liberate Rapture from itself once and for all. The pipes of Rapture need to be flushed, and your the right person for the job.
1. Gameplay _
_Bioshock 2 puts the player back in Rapture, this time as a lumbering hulk known as a “Big Daddy”. The player is still able to use all of the awesome powers from the previous game, as well as some new additions. The majority of the timeline takes place after the events of the previous game, so it’s nice to see what happened to Rapture after the fall of Andrew Ryan. _The game communicates the overarching theme from almost the very beginning. Even though many things have changed in Rapture, the city hasn’t changed at all. Things like religion are now practically required, but that doesn’t keep people from going insane and trying to kill the main character. New management, same result. In the end, everything in Rapture is still falling apart and there’s no hope of putting things back together. _The problem is that Bioshock 2 feels like little more than an expansion pack on the previous game. Bioshock 2 does fix a lot of the problems from the previous game, but does little to differentiate itself. While there are new powers, most of them are passive. Powers from the previous game have become even more awesome, but the changes are so subtle that, had they not been included, the gameplay would have been almost exactly the same. _I’m not saying that Bioshock 2 is a bad game, quite the opposite. It’s a great game. But part of what I expect from a sequel is an improvement on the previous version. I wanted to see something new, something that showed me what the developers have been working on for the past year or two. Unfortunately, the only new thing seems to be the multiplayer (and even that is just a rehash of what other games have included). _I believe this game fell victim to the high expectations that people had as a result of its predecessor. I understand that it’s difficult to be original while following the same formula that was already proven to work, but there has to be something that sparks my interest and shows the truly imaginative nature of the developers. _If you’ve played the previous Bioshock game, you should definitely play this one. It’s worth the money, but don’t expect things to be as fresh as last time. _
_The multiplayer isn’t particularly unique. There are a few modes with unique names (i.e. Capture the Sister) but these modes are only different because of the look and feel of the game. Players are able to use adam-based powers during the matches, but the powers are less important than the weapons. There is a leveling system which will increase the longevity of the multiplayer, and fortunately it’s relaxed enough that level 1 players do have a chance against level 50 players. _There are also a few DLCs that add to the length of the game as well. One of the DLCs, called Minerva’s Den, is supposed to be extremely well made. I haven’t tried it yet, but the scores on IGN and Metacritic seemed promising. _
_Yet the speed isn’t the only problem that the player will have early in the game. While ammunition and “eve” are abundant enough to make most battles relatively even, the player is absurdly weak and I found myself dying time after time even on the “normal” difficulty level. The problem is not just that I was not given enough health to fight the stronger enemies, but also that my perception of how much health I was supposed to have completely contrasted with reality. _The main character is a “Big Daddy”, a huge, lumbering, scary hulk of a man. He wears a heavily padded deep-sea diving suit. Almost all of the Big Daddies that the player will fight against will be a challenge. So I found myself often wondering how it was that my character, armed with a variety of high-powered weapons and awesome superpowers, would have to spend up to five minutes battling a single Big Daddy when I could die in as little as a few seconds. _Later in the game, as health upgrades became available, this problem slowly disappeared. I still find myself dying almost unnecessarily, but the amount of health that I started out with did not work with the skill of the enemies I had to face. 2. Parental Notices
_The most obvious exception is the “drill”, the melee weapon that the player is given from almost the very beginning of the game. The drill will spin and can be used to cause significant damage to an enemy at point-blank range. As the drill hits an enemy, blood will spurt from that enemy in large amounts. The enemy will typically only survive for a second or two, but during that time a significant amount of blood will be shown. _The Adam-based abilities that the player receives can also create different effects. One effect that the player will commonly use will light an enemy on fire with the snap of the player’s fingers. Enemies who are on fire will react to it and will try to run to a source of water to put themselves out. _There is one scene late in the game where Lamb uses a pillow to suffocate her daughter in an attempt to kill the player. The attempt proves unsuccessful in the end. _
_One advertisement for the “Eve’s Garden” strip club is somewhat similar in its depiction. The mermaid holding the apple is completely topless. Her hair partially covers her breasts. There was one room that was clearly designed to be some sort of peep show. Unfortunately for the customers, the show was clearly dead. _These are extremely subtle elements though, and unless a player was looking for them there’s a very good chance that they would be entirely missed. _
_The second substance is called “Eve”. Where Adam gives the player new abilities, Eve is required in order to use any of the active abilities. Active abilities are the powers that the player can use against enemies, such as Incinerate. Normally, Eve would have to be injected into the bloodstream regularly, but the game does not include the injection. Instead, the player squeezes a blue orb, which somehow replaces the lost Eve. _There is one image shown of the previous injection process, but without knowing exactly what was happening the process could be completely overlooked. The image is an easter egg for those who played the first Bioshock game. _Cigarettes and alcohol can be found throughout the game. The player can use these substances, which will result in different effects to the player’s health and eve. For example, using cigarettes or some other smoking-related object will result in a small decrease in health but a small increase in eve. _Alcohol of various types is also present throughout the game. _There are also a number of instances where pills are seen in the game. The most obvious example is the pharmacy within the infirmary, where pills are strewn across the ground of the entire office. There are also a number of syringes. The player is not able to do anything with the pills. _
3. Other Factors _
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_Under Lamb, the entire dynamic of Rapture swung the other way. Where Ryan outlawed religion, Lamb practically required it. _Lamb’s entire system was based on the idea that her daughter was the savior of rapture. However, her system fell apart for similar reasons to the previous collapse under Andrew Ryan. The splicers (normal citizens of rapture) were so insane that they couldn’t think for themselves. Instead, they created a cult-like obedience to Lamb that is present in almost every section of the game. _Rapture has almost constant references to different religions, each some sort of reference to a specific place, person, or event. For example, early in the game the player can see that someone has painted “Fallen, fallen is Babylon” on the wall, obviously comparing the fall of Rapture to the fall of Babylon. _Later on, one of the locations in the game (I would presume it was some sort of restaurant) is called “Demeter’s Banquet Hall”, an obvious reference to the Greek god Demeter. _
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_There are benefits for leveling up and playing the multiplayer significantly, and while these benefits are helpful in small ways they aren’t unbalanced. Skilled players at lower levels will die frequently but still be able to get a decent number of kills. _
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While suicide was present in the previous Bioshock game, the frequency of suicide has increased dramatically in Bioshock 2. The opening cinematic cutscene depicts Lamb forcing the player (presumably through some sort of mind control) to shoot himself in the head to kill himself. Somehow, this does not actually kill the player, as he comes back to life a few years later. _Early on the player discovers a number of bodies of people who have poisoned themselves with an overdose of pills. _Later, the player will find people who have killed themselves in other more gruesome ways. The sawed-off shotgun blast to the head, for example. _Hanging is also a somewhat common sight. _Human Disfigurement Adam works by breaking down the user’s DNA and reforming it so that superhuman powers can be used. Unfortunately, this creates a serious instability in the user’s DNA and makes them much more susceptible to cancerous growths. That may underplay exactly what I mean, so let me explain it like this. _Yes, the users of Adam, especially those who use it heavily, are almost certain to have huge cancerous growths and have their skin start separating from their body. Many of the splicers that the player will encounter are called “leatherhead splicers” because of the way that their skin seems to have been separated from their body (and thus gained a leathery appearance). _Income Redistribution In one audiolog, Lamb talks about how she would play poker with friends. Somehow, she was skilled enough to not only throw the game but to throw the game in favor of who she believed would benefit from the wealth most effectively. She could somehow make every player lose except the player she deemed to benefit most from the winnings. _She specifically mentions “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs”. Obviously, this system did not turn out well since Rapture never recovered from its problems. _Mind Control
The opening cinematic of the game clearly shows that Lamb has some sort of control over the main character’s actions. However, she never makes another attempt to control the player again. The game may explain exactly what happened, but if they did I missed it entirely.
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