Bioshock 2 (360)

An increasing trend spreading the modern video game industry is "Unnecessary Sequel Syndrome". Now when a developer hits on to a fantastic one-off hit there is usually a juggernaut of a publisher like EA or 2K games behind them meaning they see it as the birth of a franchise to be exploited rather than a one-off classic.

Whilst i'm all for sequels if the franchise can truly exploit it (Metal Gear, Mass Effect etc) Bioshock 2 does certainly not fit in this category in my opinion. And neither do Skate or Dead Space - two other examples of unexpected classics which now have churned out sequels, Skate in particular has had it's fantastic purity filtered by two rushed sequels.












Where Bioshock 2 struggles as a sequel is that it tries to push a story after the end of the first game which really doesn't work - it shoehorns in new characters that are supposed to play a major part in the problems in Rapture but yet are never even mentioned in the first game. This wouldn't be so bad if the story was actually coherent and gripping, unfortunately it isn't, it's disjointed and devoid of most of the wonderful tense moments that made the first game so fantastic. It strikes me that the developers sat around and brainstormed one idea they though was "cool" (playing as a Big Daddy) and built the entire thing around that, losing out on most of the narrative in the process. It's safe to say that Ken Levine's input is sorely missing from Bioshock 2.












It's not to say that the game doesn't have it's moments, playing as a Big Daddy can be very pleasurable indeed, it does however make an easy game (with the vita-chambers etc) even easier! Which again contributes to the lack of tension in the game. Sound can also border on the annoying, which is hard to imagine if you've played the sonically excellent original, there is a section in the sequel where a bombastic orchestral track keeping playing over and over to try and elevate tension - instead it just grates as it just plays the same few bars constantly in quite a long segment.

I really don't see why the developers didn't make the game a prequel, with the already strongly developed characters such as Ryan and Fontaine this would have been easy to slip into. Instead we get a cast of forgetables (the excellent Moe Szyslak alike Stanley Poole aside)

In closing i found Bioshock 2 a bit of a disappointment. It's fun to play but just feels hollow due to the lack of decent atmosphere and narrative.