GB Feature: BioShock 2 Review

A lot of game reviewers were interested to see if BioShock 2 could reach the plateau of its predecessor. Being made without Ken Levine, the father of BioShock, who has not even played the game yet, this is a valid question, but of more interest to us might be if it improves on the RPG mechanics and narrative structure of the original. Does it? Read our review to find out.

Why is she talking about my body tearing itself apart when there is no gameplay equivalent of this? What does my design being amongst Rapture’s greatest flaws have to do with negating my claim on Eleanor? And worst of all why is she asking me why I’m persisting after just telling me the need to find her is driving me insane? BioShock 2 is full of little nonsensical speeches like these, and the overall philosophical consistency over all the rants is even worse. In the end, this makes the whole game feel as if the writing is just a bunch of strung together phrases that sound cool or awe-inspiring or epic, without due consideration to consistent writing.  

BioShock was widely praised for its philosophical undertones. I thought this point was a bit overdrawn, as BioShock’s hammy delivery of Ayn Rand’s already unimpressive philosophical views was hardly enlightening, but even this low plateau BioShock 2 does not even approach. In fact, it ruins quite a bit of the philosophical tone of BioShock in its approach. One of the points of BioShock was about the inevitability of the fall of Andrew Ryan’s city. A grand experiment, but you get the sense its doom was inevitable, as the underlying world-view simply did not match reality. Sophia Lamb, however, gives the failure agency, it turns it into the problem being a person, changes it into two competing world-views fighting and ruining each other through competition. That pretty much negates the earlier point made of inherent fallacies, making Sophia Lamb and her philosophy not just derivative, but detrimental to the game’s setting.