Pretty much as soon as I was done BioShock, I was ready to start BioShock 2 (also in the Collection)! I went into this one almost completely blind because I’d actually seen or heard very little about it, versus the first and third games. All I knew was that it was set around 8-10 years after the first game and that it was still set in Rapture.
So I was quite surprised to discover that you play as a Big Daddy in this game, named Delta, looking for his Little Sister, Eleanor, who was taken from him when he was forced to shoot himself in the head by her mother ten years ago. Now he’s suddenly awake and determined to find her, alternately aided and hindered by some of the few remaining Rapture residents and Eleanor herself.
Suffice to say, I was hooked on the story from the get-go and totally fascinated by the new characters! The game has the same great atmosphere as before, but even more beautiful detail in some of the otherwise mundane trash thrown around. The graphics were awesome with the same steampunk-type feel, but with much higher detailing from being a new game. The splicers were more unique looking versus the first game where you could only really tell them apart when they acted. The Spider splicers were much more “whoa” looking than in the first game, and OMG, that first encounter with a Big Sister @_@
I didn’t get very far due to a bit of a glitch in the game early on when a hall floods. After the area flooded, I kept getting stuck until I finally figured out if I just kept moving as it flooded, I’d get to an area where I’d be able to move like I was supposed to. I also suspect I wasted some health stuff twice in battles I was supposed to lose, but still, I did enjoy the gameplay overall. I quickly dropped from normal back to easy mode after dying 4-5 times though.
I suppose you could argue the mechanics were a bit repetitive versus the first game, other than the underwater walking bits and some subtle control changes, but I still had fun so I didn’t mind at all. This one does add three more ethical choices, in addition to the same Little Sister choices you have from the first game. And again, your choices can influence the ending. I did disagree on the “right” choice for one of those, though, so while I still got the good ending, my choice kept me from earning the “Savior” trophy (and I’m fine with that).
Most of all, I really enjoyed getting more depth into the rise and fall of Rapture, while having a much greater focus on a singular pair of people affected by it, namely Delta and Eleanor. The first game technically had a bit of a personal story, but Jack felt more self-insert and honestly I only even knew he had a name after Googling it. His role in the grand scheme of things, while big in the end, felt more like the role of 3rd party helpless observer most of the game, while here in 2, it never felt it lost focus on Delta’s primary goal of finding Eleanor.
As with the first game, I have not played the extra DLC content as of this time, though I’ve been told I really should play Minerva’s Den, at the minimum.
