Bioshock 2
Back to reviews
Game Reviewed:
Bioshock 2
Publisher: 2K
Developer: 2K Marin
Reviewer: Thaius Tydane
Platform: Xbox 360 (also on PS3 and PC)
Category: First-person Shooter
ERSB Rating: M
Game Description (WARNING: Review contains spoilers.)
In Bioshock, we were introduced to a dark city under the
sea, founded by Andrew Ryan in the mid 20th century, designed to be
a utopia, where science and personal freedom would not be held back by
government or religion. As can be
imagined, this went horribly wrong, resulting in an undersea dystopia populated
by people who went crazy over-splicing themselves with the various genetic
alterations that the unbridled science of Rapture had developed (these people
are called splicers). Also inhabiting
the leaking, frightening halls of Rapture are Little Sisters, young girls
genetically programmed to wander the halls, gathering ADAM (the genetic
substance that makes all this possible) from the dead bodies littered around
Rapture. These Little Sisters are protected by huge men in diving suits, called
Big Daddies. In the first game, a man
found this city and fought his way through and out of it, causing some pretty
big changes along the way. Now, ten years
later, one of the very first big daddies, Subject Delta, is awoken, with a
mission to find the little sister to whom he was once paired and save Rapture
from a new tyrant that has risen from the ashes of the last one.
The original Bioshock was praised for its atmosphere and
story: Rapture was a truly terrifying world, yet beautiful and captivating in
its wondrous existence and violent nature.
Music and posters from the 50s and before set a strange, tense mood and
really made the city a strange, intriguing place to explore. Beyond that, Bioshock was one of the most
thought-provoking, philosophical stories gaming has yet had. These are the things that made the first game
such a success, and they are all back full-force in Bioshock 2. Andrew Ryan has been replaced with Sophia
Lamb, a tyrant with an ideology to the opposite extreme from Ryan’s: Lamb is a
radical collectivist, believing that everyone must completely give up
themselves for the good of Rapture as a whole.
And she has horrible plans for Elanor, her daughter and Delta’s former
Little Sister. This setting allows for
the same thought-provoking storytelling that made the first game so loved.
The game is played from a first-person perspective, meaning
you see from Subject Delta’s perspective as you wield various weapons and
plasmids (genetic abilities such as incineration and lightning) to survive the
attacks of the insane citizens of Rapture.
You will also often find Little Sisters, being led around by their Big
Daddies: at this point you can kill their Big Daddy (not an easy task) and
adopt the Little Sister. This allows you
to take her to certain bodies that have ADAM in them, at which point you can
set her down and let her extract the ADAM while you defend her from the hoard
of splicers that will try and kidnap her.
After this, you can choose to rescue her, setting her free from her
Sisterdom and turning her back into a normal little girl, or you can choose to
harvest her to take the ADAM: a process she will not survive. This allows for multiple different endings to
the game, depending on what moral choices you make throughout the game.
Bioshock is a game that understands that if you want to make
a point with your story, you cannot dumb it down: Rapture is a horrible place,
destroyed by societal misconceptions and selfish people. This is a dark, violent story, and for the
story and message to have full impact it must be as raw and uncensored as
possible. This is why the game has an M
rating, and this is why parents must be very careful when deciding if Bioshock
2 is appropriate for their family or not.
What Parents Need to
Know
Violence
The world of Rapture is a dark, violent dystopia, with
demented murderers and spliced up crazies at every turn. The most notable violence is in the form of
the Big Daddy drill: a giant drill attached to your right arm. If you rev this drill up, you can use it on
your enemies, which is when the blood really starts flying and the victim will
thrash about madly: however, there is no visible hole in their bodies, only
lots of blood.
Many different types of guns can be used in the game, and
most simply fire bullets that impact into your enemies with a bit of
blood. You can hit your enemies at any
time with any weapon, resulting in a bloody impact. The two exceptions are the launcher and the spear
gun, which launch exploding projectiles and spears, respectively. Explosions send enemies flying, and spears
impale them, likely pinning them against the nearest wall. In addition, the plasmids can set enemies on
fire, attack them with bees, stun them with lightning, or even freeze them
(after which you can shatter them if you hit them hard enough). Some weapons, once upgraded, can have similar
effects.
It is worth noting that though there are large amounts of
blood, there is no real gore. No
dismemberment, disembowelment, or even beheadings take place in this game;
there is just a lot of blood.
Language
Many characters throughout Rapture will often swear. The
words F**k, S**t, A**, B**ch and damn are used throughout the game.
Sexual Content
Some female splicers wear revealing clothing, but no sexual
context can really be added to these disgusting freaks of nature. Though the player may, at one point, may overhear
a conversation between a prostitute and a rather awkward, befuddled man:
nothing too graphic, but quite suggestive.
Spiritual Content
There is some religion mentioned, but Rapture is mostly just
filled with fanatical worship of Lamb and her plan to resurrect Rapture and
create a truly idealist society. There
are shrines built to this effect that you will see now and then throughout
Rapture. You can also find boxes of
Bibles here and there: these are, as explained in the first game, the result of
attempts to smuggle the Bible into the faithless city of Rapture while under
Ryan’s control.
At one point, there is also a man who has turned Lamb’s
ideology into a religion of sorts, attempting to unite splicers into “The
Family” that Lamb is always talking about, and influencing them with some odd
mix of Lamb’s collectivist philosophy and religious terms. He preaches at Delta over loudspeakers
throughout one level.
Misc.
There are a few moral choices in this game: the most
prominent are the choices to either save the Little Sisters or harvest them for
ADAM. Obviously, more ADAM means more
stuff in the game, but getting it requires, essentially, killing a little
girl. It is a moral dilemma that affects
the outcome of the story as a whole.
There are also times in the game when the player will have the
opportunity to kill someone who has really wronged you in one way or another:
the player can kill them if he/she wants, but saving them earns an achievement/trophy
(the award systems of the Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively) and has good
consequences for the rest of the game.
Reviewers Thoughts
Bioshock 2 is atmospheric, thought-provoking, and
intense. It lacks the surprising plot
twist of the first game, but the story makes up for it by being a more
personal, character-driven tale. The
gameplay is a marked improvement over that of the first, while still staying
familiar to Bioshock veterans. Parents should be aware, however, that this is a
dark, violent story, and for the story and message to have full impact it must
be as raw and uncensored as possible.
Despite its necessity to the plot, the fact still remains that Bioshock
2 is a bloody game with some strong language and potentially terrible morals (depending
on the player’s choices.) With this mind, parents should keep the above
mentioned content in mind when deciding if Bioshock 2 is appropriate for their
family or not.
