I picked up Bioshock 2 and was really excited to play it. I loved the first game. Everything from the controls to the story line and scenery. It gave a sense of sorrow for Andrew Ryan who meant well creating Rapture, but you see it crumbling all around you. Bioshock 2 I was hoping would not do any less. The first thing that I noticed when I put the disc in was the picture was “letterbox”. Meaning it was made for a widescreen TV. Now I do not have a whole lot of money so I am still using my old SD standard format TV that I have had for years. So not only am I missing 3/4 of an inch from the top and bottom of my screen, the text is unreadable! I had this happen once before with the “it-was-meh” Infinite Undiscovery title from SquareEnix. I changed my 360’s format to widescreen even though I did not have the TV for it. The picture was not distorted, at least not that I could tell, and I could read the text (although still small). Once I began to play the game though I really enjoyed it!
I like that they kept most of the old plasmids in the game. Incinerate was always my favorite. The new tonics were fun to find and experiment with as well. The weaponry was a definite bonus. New weapons like the chain gun (which could be compared to the Tommy Gun from the first installment) and the drill made the game interesting. Fighting of new enemies the the brutish splicer and the Big Sisters with the drill was a lot of fun.
The game’s difficulty curve seemed to be a bit all over the place at first. I started the game on the normal difficulty and played all the way through it on that. They do give you the option to change the difficulty at any given time as well. Once I got used to everything it seemed to get easier though. The story was easy to follow and it filled in some gaps from the first game nicely. The ending left a sense of incompletion for me though. I obtained the “good” ending”. There are four in total: the “good”, “evil”, “less evil”, and “sad” endings. I won’t say anymore so I do not ruin anything.
I recommend the game. Even if you do not have a lot of time to play it. It is not incredibly long. You should be able to finish it up in under 20 or 23 hours and still get a good amount of the achievements. Good luck!
