Reviews// BioShock 2

I mentioned plot. There's quite a lot of that. I'm told that there's not as much plot as the previous game so that makes this one less fun. Nonsense. Well, nonsense if you're new to the series. If you've already bored everybody you know to death with how great the first game's plot/narrative (I prefer 'plot', it's got fewer syllables) was, then you're probably going to be a little underwhelmed. In which case I'd suggest taking your head from your ass and facing up to the fact that as video games go, BS2's plot is above adequate. This is a good thing.

It's relayed to you via small diaries (think Tricorders from Star Trek TOG) which, like seemingly everything else in Rapture, you can find lying around the place and pick up. I'll stop here a second – picking things up is essential. It's also quite finicky in places. Here's how it goes, you spot something glinting in a corner, you lumber over to it. You then point your disembodied hand at it and press [A] (360) or [X] (PS3). You do need to be exact in your picking though or you can find yourself clicking away a few pixels over to no avail. Of course, you can use a Telekinesis plasmid to bring the glinty thing to you: this of course uses up Eve and requires you to find more of it.

Swings and roundabouts...

That's really the core of the game, you've got to make your choice. Rampant Randian individualism as selected by adolescent boys? Or rampant Stalinist collectivism headed by a dictatorship of the bitchiest, as preferred by adolescent lasses? That's the philosophical underpinning to the plot.

The underpinning to the game play is, use the Little Sisters to harvest Adam for you to spend on plasmids in order to progress the plot, and then set them free (they are limited to Adam raping only two corpses). Or use the Little Sisters to harvest Adam for you to spend on plasmids in order to progress the plot, and then murder them where they stand.

To be honest with you, even as the father of a beautiful daughter, armed as I am with more compassion and parental instinct than you could shake a cute little puppy's tail at, there were times when I would quite happily have ripped a Little Sister in half to get at the Adam inside her. But why? Mainly due to their inane whining in Dick Van Dyke English. But also due to the fact that they spend so damn long hypo-raping corpses for Adam.

But there lies tactics. Most of the time, having killed another Big Daddy in order to secure a Little Sister, you carry your Little Sister around the admittedly very well presented environment – spooky and atmospheric and very well-rendered on the Xbox 360 I was using it is, too. In order to harvest Adam, however, you have to locate the correct corpse and then deposit the terrifying little person near it. She shoves a needle-pointed gun into it and you have to protect her from the onslaught of Splicers who will come at you from all angles.

Your job? Slaughter them to a man and/or woman. There are no Splicer children. If you're not mad keen on the FPS side of things, well, firstly go play something else, secondly this gathering of Adam enables you to indulge some planning. You've got to prepare your defences well: correct plasmid and ammunition use; cover the exits and entrances; work out who is worth melee-ing... and wait for the Little Sister to do her thing.

Enjoyable? Yes. Frustrating and stress inducing, certainly. Great bit of game play? It still is.

Once you've got all the Adam you're going to get from a sister and dropped her at the nearest vent (nice) or murdered her where she stands near the nearest vent (nasty... see moral choices), it's off back into the plot.

That plot revolves around your attempt to locate your particular Little Sister – Eleanor. She's on the other side of town, without her you can't leave Rapture and find freedom in some other post-Apocalyptic video game environment. It's sort of a buddy-cum-road movie without a buddy but with a dollop of A Level philosophy. Yup, excellent relaxation fodder, exactly what a good video game should be.

Getting through Rapture means dealing not only with the Dick Van Sisters, and the delightfully batty Splicers (you can in fact watch them fighting each other, or just having arguments before you plough into them with your drill whirring). You've also got to deal with a very fey Southern Gent, a bloke again from the DvD school of English who is bitter about railways, a negro lady who might or might not be Bessie Smith and a host of other NPCs who I've been asked not to mention in case it spoils things for you.

(As if I would! But the nice letter I received the day after the embargo lifted that informed me of the embargo kindly suggested that I shouldn't mention certain things. I shall attempt to stop chewing this piece of straw and drooling, and not give things away. Suffice to say that you meet other people and do other things in the plot. I'm not spoiling those for you.)

One thing I am allowed to say, however, is that you also have to deal with another of BS2's additions: Big Sisters.