… erase my memories of Bioshock 2? Don’t get me wrong, Bioshock 2 isn’t a terrible game by any means, however it y holds no light to its predecessor. Instead we’re left with a pale imitation that is full of repetition and and bad pacing.

I should state that the original Bioshock is among my favourite games of all time. From the art direction to the engrossing characters, I truly see the game as a work of art. That said, I went into Bioshock 2 with a mixture of expectations. One, I hoped the game would live up to the original. On the other hand however, I knew it could not.  Either way, I blasted through the game in eight hours but simply left with a feeling of “meh.”

Sadly the majority of those eight hours were spent finding Little Sisters and escorting them around so that they collect EVE for me to use (EVE is the material that allows you to use plasmids, a weapon system in the game akin to magic, though based on genetics). Needless to say, finding three sisters per area (5 areas?), defeating their guardian, following them to two corpses, defending them while they extract EVE from the corpses, and returning them to their safe-point is a bit repetitive and time consuming. If I had not done this, I can see the game lasting  maybe 5 hours?

Another issue I had with the game was the overall story. The game does the obvious/cleverly utilizes a story that is the polar opposite of the original. Instead of fighting out against Andrew Ryan, a man who champions the individual, you fight against Dr. Sophia Lamb who champions the collective-whole. The main problem with Bioshock 2 is that you only really get into the meat of the story about 80% into the game. The rest is a slow buildup that unfortunately left me not caring for what happened that much.

The game also suffered from what I’ll call the “George Lucas Effect.” One of the great things about the original Star Wars trilogy is that it hinted at things that happened in the past, which left you to imagine what happened beforehand, thus sucking you into the Star Wars Universe. The “George Lucas Effect” came into existence in the new trilogy (Episodes I – III). In these movies George Lucas decides to spoon-feed you information that relates to the original film trilogy. While this is done with good intention, as in to provide answers, it destroys the fundamental magic of the original trilogy. Sometimes too much information can be damaging, which is something Bioshock 2 suffers for.

Overall, as a first-person shooter, the game is better than a lot of other things on the market. It’s just no Bioshock.