As I open my eyes, I feel dizzy and tumbled. Trying to lay perfectly still, I turn my eyes to the monstrous machine standing just a few feet away. My heart starts beating harder and I can hear the blood rushing through my head.
A young demonic-looking girl walks toward me with a huge syringe in her hand.
“Mister Bubbles, Mister Bubbles, look, it’s an angel!”
I am talking about Bioshock 2, a game throwing you deep into the abyss of the human mind, and all this in the middle of the 18th century. I won’t spoil any story of the game, but I can say the pressure of the underwater city of Rapture, the city you find yourself mysteriously guided to, sure is enormous. This sequel to the first Bioshock, personally, is a huge success. As soon as I finished this game I felt I wanted another look around Rapture. It draws you back with its mysterious environment, feeling and appetite for violence.
Walking around with a heavy wrench in one hand and electricity in the other, you ought to feel safe in this game you might think, but no, in this game you will never feel entirely safe or secure.
I enjoyed this amazing game on a PC, and the graphics are great, with its own little touch of an artwork-look through the entire game. Even though you find a few bugs here and there, for example corpses waving their hands or enemies just standing there aimlessly, the game still deliver what it needs to. Bioshock 2 has this ability to make you feel lost and alone even though you are most of the time guided by this arrow on the screen pointing directly to your objective, which is at points very helpful.
You do indeed sometimes during this game feel helpless and alone, but the happy, cheerful 1950-feeling that is hanging like a cloud over the whole area has its way to keep you smiling. When seeing this, it reminds me of playing Fallout 3, with the same kind of “old touch” throughout the game.
The interface is simple and not at all overwhelming as some can be. You have your ammo, health and all the necessary things, as well as your plamids as they call it, DNA-altering “magic” abilities which makes you able to for example shoot fire from the palm of your hand, electrocute any enemy that might stumble in your way, or throw them several feet in the air. The game length, single player mode, is average for a game. I played it through in approximately 10-13 hours if I remember correctly, though the second time I ran through it quickly it took just about 5 hours of pure game time. There is a multiplayer mode, which is pretty much a Player-VS-Player mode, though I did not try this mode when playing Bioshock 2.
I highly recommend this game, although it is a good thing to have played the prequel first, seen as the whole story makes much more sense if you have.
I’ve got one last thing to say about this game, and that is, do not trust anyone fully in this game, ever.
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Game Length: 6/10
Overall: 8/10