Why has no one made this topic yet?

Just bought it the other day but haven't had a whole lot of time to play it yet.  What little I did get to see last night was pretty awesome, though!  Who else has this and what do you think so far?

I too was a little surprised to see a lack of topic but I put it down to GamingW hating everything good.

I've enjoyed this quite a lot so far. I do know however that it's a lot harder than Bioshock 1. I've got it on Medium Difficulty and I've done nothing but die so far. I don't ever recall having this problem in the last game! I might have to put it down to easy to stop myself from dying so much. It's not that the enemies are very strong or anything, it's just I find myself to be really fragile! The environments are interesting, the atmosphere is creepy and it's all very nice to look at which is good.

As a game it isn't really any less than what I expected. I honestly don't think it's a significant step up from Bioshock to be honest but I'm not going complain about that because the original Bioshock is one of the best games I've ever played.  I haven't tried the multiplayer yet (and probably won't for a while) because I don't think it'll be worth it. As a first person shooter the game isn't very well polished (as in the gun action isn't THAT well polished) and I don't think it'll translate well as a multiplayer. I don't really consider it an FPS, just a game in first person with a heavy emphasis on guns. (I'll probably get called an idiot for saying something so ludicrous and non sensical but I hope this makes sense to someone other than me)

(I'll probably get called an idiot for saying something so ludicrous and non sensical but I hope this makes sense to someone other than me)

Yeah, it feels kind of like Penumbra but with a ton more guns. It IS an FPS, but it plays kind of like a first person horror game, just with a billion guns.

Haven't played this yet, I will probably see if I can get it for cheap soon though as I am curious now that you said it's hard.

I have a friend that is selling an extra Bioshock 2 Key for Steam for 30 dollars.

otherwise, I have not started this game yet. I have it on my computer, though.

I actually never beat the first one, which is common apparently.

I was pretty interested in Bioshock 2 at first, but then I realised I didn't even bother finishing the first one and from what people and reviews are saying it's more of an expansion than a sequel. I'll wait for it to go on sale in a few months and buy it for dirt cheap then.

It's better in every way except story. But BioShock is one of those games where it's impossible to make a sequel because there is absolutely no way they could have brought that first time magic back.

I actually don't find it that hard. And the difficulty in this game is actually reversed. The beginning is really really difficult and gets easier as you progress. They throw a big sister at you (which btw is the hardest enemy in the game) at the beginning of the game when you have almost nothing. I'm not dying at all and I'm playing on hard mode.

IMO they shouldn't have made this game, but it's a better sequel than I thought.

I've enjoyed this quite a lot so far. I do know however that it's a lot harder than Bioshock 1. I've got it on Medium Difficulty and I've done nothing but die so far.

I got a little further into it this morning.  I definitely see what you mean about it being more difficult!  The leadheads are still pretty easy to deal with, but the ones with firearms are becoming a quite a pain in my arse.  I seem to remember the ones from the first one just sort of running around randomly and firing when they had an opportunity or even staying in one place out in the open.  These new guys actually utilize cover and seem to work in unison with the lead pipe crazies who blindly rush you, which makes for some pretty dangerous situations.  I have actually seen one intentionally avoid several traps I had placed in a hallway and set up behind a broken window to fire at me while the berserkers merrily blew themselves up and cleared a way for her to get closer.

I have now acquired the first couple of tonic upgrades so I'm going with Armored Shell and Extra Nutrition in an attempt to make myself a little less squishy.  It seems as if the game is guiding you toward developing a more strategic and accurate approach as opposed to the run-n-gun madness of the first one.  I'm probably going to invest in recoil upgrades for my machine gun next.

I haven't been far enough into the game to decide whether or not it feels like its own game or just an expansion of the first one.  The setting is definitely very familiar, but the couple of new areas I have been to still invoke that familiar sense of wonder and urgency from the first one without feeling too tedious.  

the "first time magic" in bioshock was actually stolen from a variety of games with real "first time magic"

I didn't know there were other games set in rapture!

I didn't know there were other games set in rapture!

that's really it, though. it's just a watered down version of system shock(lol)

yeah, roughly 90% of things that made bioshock awesome was in system shock. it also steals a bit from fallout

well I never even played system shock so shut up bioshock is wonderful...

stupid jaded gamers...

I've been bitching about this game a lot to everyone that would listen over the last few days.

The thing that bugged me the most was the retcon of Sofia Lamb. She didn't exist, at all, in Bioshock but Bioshock 2 makes her out to be an even bigger threat to Andrew Ryan than Frank Fontaine was. That's just stupid. 2K Marin clearly had no grand story to set up for a sequel when they made Bioshock, so when it became a massive hit and the inevitable sequel was announced, they had to start from square one. I'm shocked so many reviews call Bioshock 2's story as good or even better than the first. It's not. Yeah there is something elementally endearing about the idea of a father fighting through hell and back for his daughter, but it's not enough, at least when when compared to the original, which I think was one of the best videogame stories I've ever seen. Bioshock 2 feels like a 12 hour setup with no payoff. I won't spoil anything, but the final level feels vastly longer than it needs to be and there's no sense of urgency despite their best efforts to create it.

Bioshock 2 feels like a game that never had to be made but was born anyway because of the overwhelming success the original was. It's Deus Ex 2 all over again.

I've got a number of complaints about the gameplay too. Firstly, I'm REALLY annoyed that you can't return to earlier areas. You could in Bioshock, taking that out feels like a tremendous step BACKWARDS. There is little in the way of gameplay innovations. You could argue that there's no reason to fix what isn't broken, but this is a sequel to one of the most original first person shooters to come around in years, and their only real addition to the gameplay is the ability to dual wield and a couple of new enemies. Instead of improving the Invention system, they opted to just remove it, and the game is possibly more linear than ever. You play as a Big Daddy, but you're actually weaker than Jack Ryan was in the first game, and aside from your hulking shadow and loud thumps when you jump, you'd never know you were a gigantic hulking genetically engineered golem. Sure, it's more challenging and balanced better towards difficulty, but rather than alter any of the core gameplay, they simply made you weaker and gave you fewer medkits to carry. BEING THE BIG DADDY was clearly more a story idea than gameplay innovation, and simply a nice feature to push in the press and bullet points on the back of the box. Oh yeah, and all that talk about walking on the ocean floor? Yeah, you do, about 3 times in the entire game, and while it's cool enough.. you only do it about 3 times. And for a grand total of about 15 minutes across those three times. You can find ADAM slugs... but there's literally only about 6 in the entire game, and the entire underwater sequences are incredibly linear and simply involve walking a straight line more or less. There's no combat, no exploration at all during these points. It's a gimmick.

Rapture is more of the same this time around. Great, if you loved the original, but don't expect many more surprises. You'll explore the usual mix of ruined living areas, bars, entertainment complexes... all shattered and leaking and generally dilapidated. Again, you could argue that they simply couldn't recapture the magic of the original, of finding Rapture for the first time when that Bathysphere window opened and you saw the city in all it's glory. So maybe you shouldn't have done the same thing.  Part of the problem is that the original felt so complete. You rescued (or I did anyway) all the Little Sisters and had put the two darkest men of Rapture to rest. It was over. But 2K decided it wasn't so they cooked up Sofia Lamb and had her capture a bunch of new girls for Little Sisters. You couldn't recapture the magic of the original - so don't try. If they really had to make Bioshock 2, then do something different with it. Explore a different side of the city. Set it in 1958, pre-civil war. Set it in 2010, when god knows what has had a chance to evolve down there. But no, they set it 10 years later and cast a bunch of reskinned antagonists from the first game. You'll face mostly the same splicers, who look only slightly more messed up, and face most of the same set pieces (with a little more emphasis on static defensive battles). And you'll have endure a disembodied voice spouting repetitive idealogies for most of the game just before they vow to put you out of your misery at last and release a bunch of splicers into the room.

I could really go on and on, but there isn't much point.

well I never even played system shock so shut up bioshock is wonderful...

This, except I didn't think anything about Bioshock was overly impressive other than the atmosphere.  I just wish I could even get System Shock 2 to run on my comp.  It crashes to the desktop as soon as I click Start, or New Game...  whatever the option is.  And Yes, I've tried the windows XP fix, and had the same problem. (now running Windows 7)

playing system shock 2 should be compulsory education, it is truly awesome. bumblebee man, GET IT. GET IT. GET IT.

overall, im enjoying bioshock 2 though, even if it feels a bit like an empty shell to me.

Oh yeah like rowain said, I found it funny you're a BIG DADDY but die in 2 hits to splicers.

But I know why they made it so you couldn't backtrack. They really wanted it story driven and there are lots of parts in the game where buildings EXPLODE so going back and having it all pretty again wouldn't make sense. It's also dumb though because secrets are littered everywhere in this game (imagine if you couldn't backtrack in castlevania or metroid). Sofia Lamb is dumb, but I think Sinclair is definitely one of the better characters in the game.

Also if you want the game to be a cakewalk, upgrade your drill and kill all the bosses with it. Big sisters will die in 15 seconds.

Oh yeah like rowain said, I found it funny you're a BIG DADDY but die in 2 hits to splicers.

But I know why they made it so you couldn't backtrack. They really wanted it story driven and there are lots of parts in the game where buildings EXPLODE so going back and having it all pretty again wouldn't make sense. It's also dumb though because secrets are littered everywhere in this game (imagine if you couldn't backtrack in castlevania or metroid). Sofia Lamb is dumb, but I think Sinclair is definitely one of the better characters in the game.

Also if you want the game to be a cakewalk, upgrade your drill and kill all the bosses with it. Big sisters will die in 15 seconds.

Yes, the problem here is that the 360 version has a ton of achievements that are completely and VERY EASILY missed because they are level and enemy specific. There is one achievement that requires you research all enemy types to max and you only get the camera in like the fourth area and by the fifth you stop encountering Thuggish Splicers. For the rest of the game. It's just all Spider, Houdini, and Leadhead Splicers. So if you don't max research on Thuggish then you just outright miss that achievement. Diaries, Power to the People machines (which are pretty dumb and boring, wish they'd put effort into the weapon upgrade system) etc are all super missable if you don't explore each level COMPLETELY before moving on. And this can get really frustrating when you're bored of a level but don't want to move along because you know you can't come back. Neophyte, you have a point except that if I'm remembering correctly, the only level that "blows up" is Siren's Alley after you activate the Pumping station. Alright, so if you wanna make a setpiece like that, then don't fill it with missable stuff, and instead allow us to travel to all the other places as much as we want. I think like you said it was meant to be story driven, that you have that sense of urgency to rescue Eleanor and all other concerns are secondary, except that I honestly never gave a shit about Eleanor and it was just dumb from a gameplay perspective. I was just frustrated that they made the sequel even more linear than the original.

Haha, just look at their bulletpoint for the game:

New Game Mechanics - BioShock 2 contains many new gameplay mechanics. Just a few of these are: the ability to wield plasmids and weapons simultaneously; flashback missions detailing how you became the Big Daddy; the ability to walk outside the airlocks of Rapture to discover new play areas, and many more.

a) There are no "flashback missions", just a few moments where you're forced to stand still and listen to a voice over from Eleanor about yourself.
b) you can walk outside airlocks, but it's not optional, and there's nothing to explore or discover except the next part of the level that you HAVE to go to. And I can count the number of times with one hand!!!

It sounds like I'm being really harsh on the game. Well, I am, it doesn't just sound like that. But what can I say, I still beat the damn thing and I had fun for some of the time. Part of the reason I stuck with it though was to see if the narrative ever really developed and it doesn't. SPOILER ALERT: it never goes anywhere, no one does anything, and then it ends.

that's really it, though. it's just a watered down version of system shock(lol)

haha. hundley did you like system shock?? i really enjoyed the half of it i played even if the story was a little wonky