T
hefirstcoupleofhoursof
BioShock 2 are overly familiar
as I pound the corridors of
Rapture and pummel the
heads of Splicers as a Big
Daddy. Yet it’s far more refined than
the first game. The familiar done better.
While the original BioShock ranks as
one of my favourite games, its combat
is clunky. It’s an RPG dressed up as a
shooter, after all. In this sequel combat
is vastly improved. I’m turning goons
to ice and smashing their statuesque
frozen bodies to pieces with ease. It’s a
joy to juggle Plasmids and my wheel of
weapons to find new combinations. The
Pipemania hacking game is gone. In its
place is a real time-test of skill, lending
a new risk-and-reward tension to
bringing gun turrets under my control.
This sequel’s creepy too. The
suggestedhorrorofGilAlexander’sfleshy,Cthulhu-like,ADAM-infused
mutation is a sight I still can’t shake off.
Yeah, I chose to kill him. Did I do a bad
thing? That’s my choice. This sequel still
plays with ideas of free will even if the
continuous push forwards and reliance
on combat can feel at odds with the
freer nature and back-tracking of the
original. And there’s no revolutionary
surprise ending as we had our first
time around, but that decision to flush
Cthulhu-Alexander like a dead goldfish
will have repercussions, I’m sure of it.
Holding everything together is
villainess Sofia Lamb. Her obsession
with ‘making the world your family’, of
collective thought trumping individual
thinking, lands with more clarity than
the original BioShock’s theme of free
will versus destiny. I am in control.
I’m changing the outcome. I am an
individual set against Lamb’s plans for
ADAM-fuelled world unity – one planet,
one Family. It’s an empowering game,
even if technically we’ve all played in
this pond before.WHO?
Ian Dean loves
making choices.
Chicken soup
or tomato?
Chicken, nailed it.
Community versus
the individual?
Libertarianism or
collectivist ideals?
Erm, what?...Don’tlikeit. Nevertriedit. Everymonthweforce
oneof ourteamto playtheirmostfearedgame
INFO
PUB2KGAMES
DEV2KMARIN
RELEASED2010,PS3/
PS4REMASTER
GETIT NOWPSSTORE
£24.99,PSNOWQMore of the same? Not quite. Give BioShock 2 a chance and it slowly reveals its own twists on
Rapture. Choices, great combat, and one of the best villains in videogames: it’s a game worth playing.BIOSHOCK 2
THAT DECISION
TO FLUSH CTHULHU-
ALEXANDER WILL HAVE
REPERCUSSIONS.WHAT?
Sequel to one of the
best games ever made,
BioShock 2 had a mixed
reception on release.
Too similar to the
original? Perhaps. Set
eight years after the
first game, it treads
the same corridors. Is
that a bad thing?DON’T MAKE ME PLAY!
109retrostation