A much improved sequel! (PC version)

While the first Bioshock is a classic, I enjoyed this sequel even more. The gameplay is far improved in my opinion. There are 4 more heavy hitters, and splicers act more aggressively and with better accuracy, forcing you to use a wider variety of your plasmids than I ever did in B1. What I found annoying in B1 was that you had to change between plasmid and weapon before being able to fire one if you had the other equipped. I'm glad that was changed to plasmids being fired with one trigger and weapons with another. This allows the ability to fire a plasmid while scrolling through your weapons at the same time, or vice versa, making combat more fluid and fun. The level design also incorporates vertical combat and wider spaces, which is appreciated since fighting in corridors can become all too familiar after a while. Plasmids have also changed for the better. No longer are their upgrades simply more damaging or longer lasting. Plasmids now act differently and have different effects with each upgrade. Weapons feel more intuitive. Reloading and ammo switching take a LOT less time, and good thing too because enemies take fewer breaks. (Imagine trying to protect a Little Sister while she harvests, splicers in every direction attacking you and her, and B1's reloading/ammo switching time) Boss fights, especially with the Big Sisters in the earlier stages when you're not fully upgraded, instill a sense of dread, something that I thought was sorely missing in the original.

After the first Bioshock, I was expecting something very impactful in the story. While it never occurred in B2, suffice it to say that it's still a very interesting story and feels genuinely from Rapture. You experience a different side of Rapture, one you wouldn't really expect in a city built by Andrew Ryan's philosophy. This made Rapture even more intriguing, feel more alive, and expanded from the first. That's quite a success itself.

In terms of detail, B1 was littered with great weirdness and the characters echoed that even more. B2 kind of takes a different route. More serious and more about tragedy. The characters can exist in our world (Grace Halloway, Stanley Poole, Gil Alexander, Sofia Lamb) and are in stark contrast to B1's eccentricity (Sander Cohen, Dr. Suchong, Dr. Steinman, Fontaine). The detail and art in B2 are equally beautiful, and you gotta love the underwater sequences, though short as they are.

All in all, this sequel doesn't take anything away from the first, and actually makes B1 better by successfully making a good story within the same confines of Rapture while improving gameplay in hordes. Makes me want to play B1 and then B2 again!