Bioshock 2 Remastered

I dropped this game somewhere between Pauper's Drop and Siren Alley. The story is worse than the previous game, while the gameplay elements were made better. They made this bioshock much more focused on action and dropped the horror of the previous. Ken Levine declined to lead this game and I can see why. What he wanted to tell about Rapture was finished and the tight deadline meant that they wouldn't have much time to explore new grounds. This is a very complex type of game to make. The executives wanted to explore the same world of Rapture and make more cash. They were successful because this isn't an average game, but it failed to generated a greater impact.

You no longer have to be next to a turret or security camera to hack it. You can fire a dart that allows for hacking from a distance. The pipe dream puzzle was replaced by meter that moves sideways, left to right and right to left. It's better for controllers because you don't have to move pieces of a puzzle around and just have to press a button at the right time. The removed the life loss penalty if you err. Now if you err the alarm is fired and drones come firing at you.

One of the biggest changes in comparison to the previous is that now you can use powers and guns at the same time. It's clear that they wanted a more action packed game. To have to constantly switch between powers and guns made the previous game too clunky.

The moral choice of saving or harvesting a little girl is brought back with a twist. The little girl harvest ADAM from a dead splicer and when she does so, hordes of splices come to kill her. It's the same concept that was used in the first game, during the level in which you have to escort a little sister. I'm not a fan of having to replay the same mechanic of waves upon waves of enemies.

The camera is upgraded in Bioshock 2. Now you can record videos while you can use the weapons at the same time. This is yet another change that shows how they wanted to favor action in detriment of stealth and slow paced exploration. Personally I very much prefer plain "earn points, spend points". In Wolfenstein for example, upgrades depend on completing challenges such as "10 headshots, 10 grenade frags, 20 stealth kills". I think that having to complete challenges is at least less intrusive than forcing the player to use a camera to earn the upgrades.

The level design has changed. It's now a strictly linear game and once you finish a level there is no turning back. In the previous game you could freely travel back to older areas if you wanted to farm, but there was zero reason to do so because there was no point in revisiting already completed areas. Unless you forgot a secret or something. Each level in Bioshock 2 feels more open, because you can go inside buildings and for the first time you can explore the ocean floor in some parts. Despite the linear nature of the game, each level on its own offers some non linear exploration. The levels in Bioshock 2 are somewhat larger than in the previous game.

It may sound too much nitpicking, but to have to constantly press a key to open a safe and then again to grab the items becomes tiring over time. This can also be said about the vending machines and gene banks. They invested in world building and environmental art, but such outdated mechanics should had been replaced. Look at Prey 2017 for example, it has machines, but the skill system does not depend on forcing the player to visit machines.

In the previous game there was the fact that players were visiting Rapture for the first time. Things could progress at a slower pace as the player was uncovering secrets and the story of the place. Now the players already know Rapture, with the exception of those who never played Bioshock. The idea of having the player be a Big Daddy isn't new, it was used in the previous Bioshock near the end. I can't help it, but in the previous Bioshock the Big Daddies were a powerful foe and in Bioshock 2 the player doesn't feel as powerful as they were in the previous game.

I the end I think Bioshock 2 offers more of the same. It's worse in some ways, better in other ways.