This review contains spoilers
Good remaster, Fun game, meh story, No Multiplayer
BioShock is one of my all-time favorite games, everything from its story, gameplay and environments all fixated me as a young teen. Bioshock at the time was very much one of a kind with its unique way of telling its story entirely though audio logs and the environment rather than big scale cutscenes. It’s a game that combines a bunch of elements from different genres of gaming, from horror, survival horror, rpgs, FPS, action-adventure games and it balances these elements fantastically. Bioshock 2 returns to Rapture to tell us another story of the most intriguing part of rapture being the big daddy’s and little sister and give us a convoluted origin story that has more or less been retconned by the original team since then in Burial at Sea which was an expansion for Bioshock Infinite. (I’ll cover all that stuff later in my review for that game.) This one is very much like the first game, maybe too much but also loses some of the horror elements 1 had.
Gameplay: This is a FPS game where you use old timey guns mixed with special powers called Plasmids that you can get and upgrade though out the game. The game works much like most FPS mixed with some horror-ish elements while you fight off crazed people, splicers. These are vicious drug addicts addicted to plasmids who will stop at nothing to get what they want even attacking children. This is one of those games where you search your environment for survival materials, keys, audio logs and upgrades while also fighting for your life. This time around we get to play as a Big Daddy and the basic objective of this game is to try and find your original little sister. The combat is pretty smooth but can be difficult at first, a large variety of weapons, new tools and some new plasmid and tonics are available in this game. This is one of those games where dying is very easy but with little consequence aside from losing money. It works very similar to Borderlands where you are revived in a chamber and then you pay money to return to life. There are vending machines that sell ammo and plasmids along which take different currencies. There are hacking mini games that allow you to get items discounted or free. There are sub bosses around the map like other big daddies that you can steal their little sisters from if you want adam for upgrades and once again the same system of deciding which ending you get is based off how many little sisters you either rescue or sacrifice. Another cool but annoying feature that was added is the inclusion of the big sisters which are super strong and fast female big daddies that will hunt you if you if you take too many little sisters. The overall gameplay of this one only slightly improves with almost all the same features and abilities being present which brings me to my first complaint about this game, it’s too much like the first game and I honestly would sometimes forget I was even playing as a big daddy unless I was using his drill arm and ability to fight enemies.
Graphics, Voice Acting, Music: This game takes place in the 1960s, so all the environments have this 1960s vibe. Visually this game looks great and feels like you are actually under water with every area looking different than the last, telling a tragic story of what once happened here. The voice acting plays a big part in this game because most of the story is told through audio logs and much like the first one, I found a lot of the voices to give great performances. The music is still fairly decent in this game, giving us a bunch of old timey music again but I didn’t find this one as memorable as the first game’s music.
Story/some spoilers: The story of this game is mostly unconnected to the first one and only really serves to give the player another excuse to be in rapture. The story of this game is about a big daddy that died before the events of 1 and revived after the events of 1 and follows his journey of finding his little sister Eleanor. Narratively this game isn’t as interesting as the first game, playing as a big daddy finally was cool but more or less feels about the same as playing as Jack in the first game. The game’s side lore does expand the events of the first game slightly better but overall, I felt like I had more questions than answers about the big daddy’s and little sisters at the end of this game rather than answering them. There were some cool areas we got to explore in this one with a fun segment towards the end of the game where we get to see things from the little sister’s perspective which was really cool and the cinematic cutscenes were much better and more frequent in this one. The original version of this game included a multiplayer mode where you play as splicers during raptures civil war, but they did not include it in this version of 2. They did, however, include the DLC for this game about another big daddy and his journey of helping this scientist in a different part of rapture. It’s a smallish expansion that wasn’t too bad with a few new enemies and abilities, giving a cool twist at the end. Ultimately this whole game was mostly deemed non-canon to the rest of the series and is said to take place in an alternate universe. Personally, I did enjoy this BioShock as the gameplay was fun and a bit more improved, but the story wasn’t super amazing. Hardcore fans probably love this game, but average players may get bored with it. This game wasn’t made by the original team at Irrational games and was put together by another team at 2K games to sell off the hype of the first one. 8.5/10
BioShock is one of my all-time favorite games, everything from its story, gameplay and environments all fixated me as a young teen. Bioshock at the time was very much one of a kind with its unique way of telling its story entirely though audio logs and the environment rather than big scale cutscenes. It’s a game that combines a bunch of elements from different genres of gaming, from horror, survival horror, rpgs, FPS, action-adventure games and it balances these elements fantastically. Bioshock 2 returns to Rapture to tell us another story of the most intriguing part of rapture being the big daddy’s and little sister and give us a convoluted origin story that has more or less been retconned by the original team since then in Burial at Sea which was an expansion for Bioshock Infinite. (I’ll cover all that stuff later in my review for that game.) This one is very much like the first game, maybe too much but also loses some of the horror elements 1 had.
Gameplay: This is a FPS game where you use old timey guns mixed with special powers called Plasmids that you can get and upgrade though out the game. The game works much like most FPS mixed with some horror-ish elements while you fight off crazed people, splicers. These are vicious drug addicts addicted to plasmids who will stop at nothing to get what they want even attacking children. This is one of those games where you search your environment for survival materials, keys, audio logs and upgrades while also fighting for your life. This time around we get to play as a Big Daddy and the basic objective of this game is to try and find your original little sister. The combat is pretty smooth but can be difficult at first, a large variety of weapons, new tools and some new plasmid and tonics are available in this game. This is one of those games where dying is very easy but with little consequence aside from losing money. It works very similar to Borderlands where you are revived in a chamber and then you pay money to return to life. There are vending machines that sell ammo and plasmids along which take different currencies. There are hacking mini games that allow you to get items discounted or free. There are sub bosses around the map like other big daddies that you can steal their little sisters from if you want adam for upgrades and once again the same system of deciding which ending you get is based off how many little sisters you either rescue or sacrifice. Another cool but annoying feature that was added is the inclusion of the big sisters which are super strong and fast female big daddies that will hunt you if you if you take too many little sisters. The overall gameplay of this one only slightly improves with almost all the same features and abilities being present which brings me to my first complaint about this game, it’s too much like the first game and I honestly would sometimes forget I was even playing as a big daddy unless I was using his drill arm and ability to fight enemies.
Graphics, Voice Acting, Music: This game takes place in the 1960s, so all the environments have this 1960s vibe. Visually this game looks great and feels like you are actually under water with every area looking different than the last, telling a tragic story of what once happened here. The voice acting plays a big part in this game because most of the story is told through audio logs and much like the first one, I found a lot of the voices to give great performances. The music is still fairly decent in this game, giving us a bunch of old timey music again but I didn’t find this one as memorable as the first game’s music.
Story/some spoilers: The story of this game is mostly unconnected to the first one and only really serves to give the player another excuse to be in rapture. The story of this game is about a big daddy that died before the events of 1 and revived after the events of 1 and follows his journey of finding his little sister Eleanor. Narratively this game isn’t as interesting as the first game, playing as a big daddy finally was cool but more or less feels about the same as playing as Jack in the first game. The game’s side lore does expand the events of the first game slightly better but overall, I felt like I had more questions than answers about the big daddy’s and little sisters at the end of this game rather than answering them. There were some cool areas we got to explore in this one with a fun segment towards the end of the game where we get to see things from the little sister’s perspective which was really cool and the cinematic cutscenes were much better and more frequent in this one. The original version of this game included a multiplayer mode where you play as splicers during raptures civil war, but they did not include it in this version of 2. They did, however, include the DLC for this game about another big daddy and his journey of helping this scientist in a different part of rapture. It’s a smallish expansion that wasn’t too bad with a few new enemies and abilities, giving a cool twist at the end. Ultimately this whole game was mostly deemed non-canon to the rest of the series and is said to take place in an alternate universe. Personally, I did enjoy this BioShock as the gameplay was fun and a bit more improved, but the story wasn’t super amazing. Hardcore fans probably love this game, but average players may get bored with it. This game wasn’t made by the original team at Irrational games and was put together by another team at 2K games to sell off the hype of the first one. 8.5/10