Obscured View

I’d like to consider myself at least semi-intelligent.  Some games make me question that… or they make me question if the game itself was trying too hard to be intelligent.

Bioshock 2 makes me think there’s a bit of both going on.

Before I get to the story, let’s talk about the game.  It’s Bioshock.  More.  Not as fresh this time around just because the newness is gone.  Still beautiful, still under the water.  Still doesn’t use water as much as it should.  Still has the goal arrow, still has Gatherer’s gardens and Circus of Value, gene tonics, plasmids, weapons, weapon upgrade stations, and vita chambers are all around.  Still has big daddies and little sisters.  Most enemies are the same, except for a new big fat one and of course, the big sisters.

This time around, you’re a big daddy prototype that apparently had a lot more free will and ability than other big daddies.  You can use plasmids and do all kinds of things that the regular models can’t.  There’s some logic questions to scratch your head about, but whatever.  You also have this nice diving helmet masking part of your view for the entire game.  Yeah, turn that off and the game is more enjoyable.

You immediately get your goal — rescue your little sister — and from there the entire game is a stream of movement towards that goal, with roadblocks thrown up to make you detour elsewhere.  The areas you travel to in the massive city aren’t as connected to the story.  They’re just places that have problems.  You travel to different areas because you have to (you’re following a train route), stopped each time by some impassible gate that requires you to take detours into whatever crux problem each area has and deal with it in order to eliminate that gate and progress further; Powers are doled out, moral decisions made.

All the plasmids return from the first game (I think — it’s been a while) with a few optimizations and refinements to make the choice a bit less overwhelming.  However, they’re not that special any longer.  You just find them and buy them and you’re off using them.  Remember the drama the first time you injected yourself with the swarm tonic in Bioshock?  Your character screamed as the hive burrowed out of your skin.  That kind of stuff is just glossed over this time around.  The idea of splicing is taken for granted.

Kudos to allowing me to use both weapons and plasmids at once this time around though — that’s the biggest improvement over the first game without a doubt.

Weapon selection wise, they’re all kinda standard templates for FPS weapons.  Gun, machine gun, shotgun, sniper, rocket launcher, melee, and two tools for combat / exploration support.  Some of the weapon upgrades are fun to play with, although others (tesla shotgun?) I don’t see how they’d be useful.  Maybe there’s a nice mix of plasmids and tonics that would make them beneficial that I didn’t see.  After I got the option to go completely plasmids and melee alone, that’s what I did.  The drill charge was just too much fun not to use constantly.

As for playing uniquely, my combat style worked out to letting bees out everywhere, then dropping a decoy and mini turrets.  While everyone is busy hitting the decoy (and healing me by doing so) I’d drill charge or use telekinesis to grab enemies, melee them to death with the drill (also giving me back health) while holding them up in front of me, loot them, then hurtle their corpse at another enemy to weaken them.  Yeah, that was fun.

The level designers did a good job in presenting you with plenty of turrets, objects, and oil / water pools to allow you a wide range of plasmid / weapon strategies.  The new research mechanic, while clunky to start up, at least was not overly taxing in order to get full research on any one type of thing.  Very doable with one play-through of the game.  Getting full research was a pain in Bioshock 1, so I’m glad to see that it’s easier this time around.

The mechanic with the little sisters, which you had to “liberate” from a big daddy, then harvest OR use to collect ADAM, THEN either harvest OR release was… OK.  I’ll talk more about this in the story section, since it contains spoilers.

Bioshock 2′s moral pivot, which the nemesis (Dr. Lamb) balances her scheme on is one that I’m still having difficulty groking, even after finishing the game.  Since this part is laden with plot spoilers, I’d suggest not reading any further if you’ve not completed the game or have any interest in doing so.  Really.

Not kidding.  Stop reading, right now.

Ok, so here we go.

If your master plan is to kill everyone in order to gather all their ADAM (i.e. talent / morals / consciousness) and then put that all into one person to create a new “Utopian”, do you really think everyone is going to be willing to go along with this plan?  Especially the people you’re taking the material from, who die in the process?  Even if you brainwash them to believe in the greater good and that this new creature you’re creating is everyone’s “child”?  It seems like Dr. Lamb’s entire cult should have been dead by the time you got to the end of the game… maybe you interrupted the methodical suicides and they couldn’t get around to the rest of the cult?  Her “family”, the cult members, are all just pieces towards the creation of a new whole… but not really.  It’s like she sold most of the riff-raff on the idea of creating this new being but without including them in its creation.  Interestingly enough, she wasn’t including herself in this merger either.  Kinda convenient, as someone would need to hold the leash.

So all this ADAM is supposed to all be put into Eleanor (your little sister) and create the first Utopian, a selfless embodiment of intelligence, creativity, and love that exists only to serve the greater good.  Sounds more like a robot than a person, tbh.

Of course, your arrival screws all this up, and in the end Eleanor forges her moral compass for the use of this new power from your direct actions as you ventured through the game, adopting your moral choices as her roadmap, rather than remain neutral and free of morals as Lamb wants.  Ok, that’s at least neat at the end.  If you were good, you’ve instilled her with good.  If you were evil… like father, like daughter.

I can’t help but wonder if the game would have been more interesting if you’d rescued her very early on… like immediately.  Then, you’re just fighting to get the hell out with Lamb and her cult hot on your heels, throwing up roadblocks and forcing you to divert from any direct exit options.  Since you’re in the suit and your little sister isn’t, you have to find a safe way out of the city, which is where the rub comes in.

If Eleanor is supposed to be this amazing creature that can be “a dancer, a scientist, an architect at will” as Lamb says, wouldn’t that have been much cooler for puzzles and play?  You have to find certain types of people’s ADAM in order to allow your daughter to harness their powers and unlock areas / puzzles / abilities.  Of course, you could have made moral choices along the way as to how you got those samples too… It would have been like you had an angel or a devil on you shoulder while beating an escape out of Rapture.

She could also be the only little sister you have in the game, so you have to protect her against splicers and intervene if she gets stolen by them.  A merger of what they’ve got now with a bit of Ico, I guess.  The entire dilemma of the separation anxiety / death they only very briefly explore at the end would have made more impact as well.  Get too far from her, you die / suffer consequences.

But that’s not what they did.  In the end, there’s some cool moments (how little sisters see the world was especially cool) and some neat areas, but none of them felt like Cohen’s maniacal hold on Fort Frolic, if that makes any sense.

All in all, Bioshock 2 was not a bad game by any means.  A solid 8/10.  I don’t think it did enough to separate itself from the original and introduce a new way to play with all the cool stuff you got used to in the first game.  The ending tagline “Rapture is only the beginning” has me a bit worried for the future of the series, but we’ll see what the inevitable Bioshock 3 brings.

Multiplayer?  I didn’t touch it.  Why include it in a solo player focused game?