They are led by Sofia Lamb, a clinical psychologist who came to Rapture to, get ready for this, treat the crippling depression and utter loneliness of living at the bottom of the ocean. Ten years after the events of the first Bioshock you wake up to find that Rapture has been taken over by another faction of Andrew Ryan’s merry men of disaffected industrialists however rather than the Randian individualists, captains of industry scientists and scholars looking to operate outside of administrative controls, this group of them are Bellamy-esque advocates of a collectivist society. Left for dead sometime before Rapture falls, the big galut is revived about ten years after the fall of Rapture by way of a Vita Chamber, (those magical, mystical devices that allow you to be cursed with immortality while others fall by your hand). In Bioshock 2, you assume the role of Subject Delta, a prototype of the Big Daddies. As such, I feel Bioshock 2 must ultimately be judged on the strength of its single-player campaign. There are plenty of critics who have gone over its multiplayer moreover, as time goes by the multiplayer servers will inevitably decline either through technical shutdown ( as EA recently did with Army of Two) or from the natural order of multiplayer gaming as players move on to newer and fresher games ( this Escapist article offers an interesting perspective on how players experience mulitplayer maps for games that have little or no remaining followers). As such, I will not be delving into its multiplayer. I will also be addressing Bioshock 2 as a single-player experience, because I will be paying attention to how Bioshock 2 works as a storytelling game. ![]() However, I will also make note of how Bioshock 2 stands on its own merits. As such be aware that like many of you, I will be comparing Bioshock 2 in light of what Bioshock accomplishes. For me Bioshock is one of the best games in recent memory, both as a game and for the issues it raises in its story and mechanics. It is also important for a scholar to be aware of his own biases. However, I’ll try to frame it in a way that would not compromise your experience of either game if you choose to go back and play them. The following contains spoilers, both for Bioshock 2 and the original Bioshock, so as you read on be aware that you will be exposed to the endings of both games. (For more analysis of the original Bioshock, would you kindly check out this compilation put together by the folks at Critical Distance) ![]() I also hope this will get more people thinking about video games beyond your ability to teabag and call players sexuality into question. For that purpose, I submit to you a review of Bioshock 2, a game that raises interesting moral and ethical issues with its narrative while also raises some questions about the construction of games (particularly moral choices). However, I have been playing games for a long time and sometimes the spirit moves me to share my opinions, so in the interest of considering games academically and intellectually I thought I’d try to explore this review in the hopes of encouraging greater thought about both a video game as a game and as an intellectual idea. Another part of it has been that if there is one thing the Internet has an overabundance of besides pornography and cats with poor spelling, it is game reviews. This has partly been a matter of my personal and professional obligations preventing me from devoting the time necessary to play a game through to the end in any kind of timely fashion. As a rule, I have tried to avoid doing reviews.
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