2K Boston has jumped off of the horse to let their sister-studio 2K Marin go for a ride with the sequel to 2007’s Game of the Year. BioShock 2 is out, and it brings with it a good host of additions to complement the return of a lot of what made the first game as successful as it was. Is the sequel worth checking out? Read ahead for our review.

In BioShock 2, you return to Rapture just 10 years after the events in the franchise’s debut. A major power shift has occurred since the fall of Andrew Ryan, with a new antagonist introduced to impose her own ideologies on Rapture and its inhabitants. As you play the game, it’s very easy to get lost in the story, which can be told as elaborate as you want it to be. Thanks to the collectible diaries, you can opt for either a passive or fully-engrossed story-telling experience, but you’d be selling yourself short if you don’t listen to the voices of Rapture’s past (and, in some cases, present). This is good if you’re someone who likes to run through a game with the sole prospect of getting from point A to point B, but for someone wanting to get the most out of the narrative, it can prove to be unexpectedly frustrating.

In order to make as much sense out of the story as you can, you’re forced to find as many diaries as you can. From a collector’s standpoint, this is an amazing incentive to explore the world of Rapture, but it’s off-putting when you find yourself more concerned with finding audio diaries than progressing through this underwater dystopia (and it’s arguably unfair to people who might miss a few nicely hidden tapes).

Besides the way the story is told, the actual story is well-written, solid, and deep enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a complete pendulum swing from the first game where you had to survive in a dog-eat-dog world of addicts scrambling about and fighting for Adam. Now, you’re dealing with a similarly crazed overseer who leverages the devastation from the previous game to her advantage in trying to restructure the ravaged city. Without spoiling too much of the story (which is pretty hard to do given how much there is to it), I’ll just say that it quickly transitions from a plight to save Rapture to a very heart-warming conclusion that helps establish an emotional connection between the player and the main character (which is very impressive considering you’re playing as an actual Big Daddy).

A lot has been borrowed from the original BioShock, but that’s to be expected from a traditional sequel. Plasmids and tonics are still a huge part of the experience and very crucial to your success if you’re playing on some of the harder difficulties. Some of the more familiar plasmids have returned, such as Incinerate and Telekineses, but upgrades to these are much more progressive than just a boost in how much damage is dealt. If you upgrade your Incinerate plasmid to the highest degree, you’ll be able to charge up a stream of fire not unlike the behavior of a flamethrower, or you could upgrade your Electro Bolt plasmid to shock the life out of several splicers at once. This new level of progression really serves its purpose in making you appreciate the use of plasmids and encourages the player to collect as much Adam as they can to purchase more.

Most of the traditional gameplay arcs return, too, such as the hacking mechanic and the collection of items scattered throughout the world. Hacking is a lot easier now but can be just as involved as it used to be. One such reason is because hacking no longer pauses the game, so you don’t have time to fiddle about if there are enemies in the area. Hacking is done by stopping a moving needle within the right points in a series of attempts. If you hit the green, you’ll get closer to cracking it, with red areas to trigger alarms and blue areas to award you with a little extra if you manage to hit it successfully. You can get extra ammo from a vending machine, a free health pack from the health station, or extra money from a locked safe. As you progress through the game, it becomes increasingly difficult to hack, but the extra effort can be alleviated through the use of one of many gene tonics.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes to the gameplay, though, is the actual combat. While you have access to most of the same plasmids and weapons from the previous games (including a very special plasmid later on and some new extremely cool weapons), you have access to the most feared tool in all of Rapture: Big Daddy’s drill. While it may sound like a small bonus on paper, the drill is just as deadly to your enemies as it was to you on the first game. It really does its job in helping you realize your role as a big daddy, as there isn’t much else that does that outside of the ongoing narrative. Other new weapons include the rivet gun, which becomes an invaluable tool throughout, and the remote hacking utility which makes things easier for you with trying to seduce enemy cameras and turrets. One thing the rivet gun is priceless for is its Trap Rivet alternate ammo. These become your best friend when you take your little sister along for Adam-gathering sessions. As a big daddy, you can now use little sisters to gather Adam for you, which is another way you can acquire the addictive substance in addition to harvesting or saving your mentally-intertwined partners.

There are a few new enemies in the game, with the most notable being the big sister. She’s brutal, ruthless, unforgiving, and will make you wish you could’ve saved or harvested any little sister you found before they transformed into these grotesque beings. Your usual cast of splicers return, with a new Brute splicer making its debut to add some muscle to the pack. There’s also an Alpha big daddy there to cause trouble for you if you haven’t had enough. Performing research on your enemies is still a big part of the game, but it’s now a lot more dynamic. Instead of using a still-image camera to snap photos of your defeated foes for your own sick pleasure research, you can record video of them as you’re fighting. What’s really cool here is the attention to how you fight each enemy you meet as it determines your grade. The game rewards you more for approaching each enemy differently than the one before. It encourages the player to mix up their bag of tricks if they want their research to progress faster, and it really challenges you to come up with new ways to fend off those annoying splicers.

BioShock 2 is as visually pleasing as its predecessor with no real jump in graphics to be found. Some of the textures and models from the first game are recycled here, but it really doesn’t mean much when it’s already a beauty to look at. I wish we could’ve seen more new objects added to the mystique of Rapture, but it doesn’t become much of an issue when you’re distracted with making sure a spider splicer isn’t stalking you from the ceiling as he gets ready to pounce on you (and ultimately bring about his immediate demise). With the distinct look of Rapture comes some very compelling music as you’re often treated to some nice tunes that were left behind from the partyers in this once-stable colony. Some of the other audio in the game is great, too, with the dialogue sucking the player in as Rapture’s history is told throughout your trek. One problem I had with the audio, though, was the trailing sounds of a splicer that’d already been killed. I was able to hear footsteps and screaming from one of the leadheads long after I drilled a nice-sized hole into her abdomen.

In order to help the replay value, the player is treated to multiple endings depending on how you play through it. Being given the option to either save or harvest little sisters, as well as deciding the fate of some of Rapture’s more sane inhabitants who lead you awry, goes toward the type of ending you’re to receive. I won’t spoil anything here, but there are six in total to be seen and they’re all interesting enough to play through again and see what you’ll come up with. Extending your initial playthroughs is now complemented by a new multiplayer mode. Players can jump online with up to nine other people and get their mayhem brewing in a number of gameplay modes. Capture The Sister is your traditional capture the flag mode, but with a nice twist. One team is given the task of protecting the little sister, while the other attempts to take her. The most interesting thing about the multiplayer, though, is the ability to become a big daddy. The game will randomly spawn a big daddy suit every so often that one lucky player can acquire. It makes for some especially fun moments in Survival of the Fittest (free-for-all) when everyone drops their Adam-induced hate for each other and bond together to take down the designated big daddy.

As you get more Adam (experience points), you’ll gain more plasmids, weapons, and gene tonics to aid you in your online battles. The main issue I had with the online component was the map design. It almost feels like bits and pieces of Rapture were taken and slapped onto this part of the game. Rooms are often riddled with entry-ways and annoying obstacles, but you could probably argue that it’s a matter of being skilled enough to know how to combat this hindrance. The visuals in multiplayer take a hit compared to the single player, but I can’t knock 2K Marin for this as it’s usually the case with most games that look as good as BioShock 2 does. I did have a couple of freezing and framerate issues, but it was nothing to fret about. Overall, it can be a very addicting experience if you approach it with the mindset that this is still BioShock.

With 2K Boston stepping back from the sequel, 2K Marin has had some big shoes to fill with making this a viable sequel. With the return to Rapture, it’s easy to criticize them for not doing anything to make the now-familiar city feel epic in its atmosphere. The age-old saying “if it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it” comes to mind, as cliche as it may be, because BioShock 1’s Game Of The Year tag awarded in 2007 was well-deserved and 2K Marin would be plum fools to not emulate (or, more appropriately, expand upon) that success. On its own merits, it’s a great game that can be easily approached from both a gameplay and story standpoint from anyone wanting to see what the fuss is all about. You might be a little lost in the story if you haven’t played the first game, but the amount of fun that can be had blowing through the game might make up for it for a chunk of you speed runners, and the new multiplayer component is more than enough to stretch an already memorable and valuable experience.

AnalogHype Rating: 8.5/10

Buy Rent Demo Rating: Buy