+Atmosphere and Design: Rapture has made some changes in the ten year span between the predecessor and the sequel, and while there are familiar locations and the sense of new discovery has worn off, there are environments and characters that just spill creativity all over the game. Ryan Amusement's Museum comes to mind immediately, as Ryan narrates Rapture history with the same snarling tone from the original Bioshock through a prerecorded message box.
+Adam Gathering: Saving Little Sisters can grab you some ADAM, but you can take it a step farther and gather ADAM off of dead bodies by sending the little sisters to harvest the corpse full of ADAM. Once she starts, the game turns into a first person tower defense game - you set up a defensive parameter with turrets, traps, and bombs while enemies come streaming through multiple doorways attempting to kill you and the Little Sister. Some of these standoffs are the best firefights in the entire game.
+Big Sister Fights: I would argue for this reason alone that Bioshock 2 must be played with headphones. The shriek of the Big Sister is one of the most terrifying noises in any game ever created. They have successfully created a successor to the suspense and intensity of the Big Daddy fights, which now feel like second nature.
+Better Conclusion: Let's face it; the ending of Bioshock was a let down of an ending. The conclusion of Bioshock had nowhere near the pacing that the rest of the game did, and the final boss felt like a forced, cliche "overgrown antagonist" battle, which went against the design that the game laid out beforehand. Bioshock 2 wraps up the story well, answering most of the questions from both games while never feeling like the game truly went out of the zone that it created.
+Storyline: Bioshock 2 puts the story into a microscope, looking at the family of Rapture as a family and the relationships between the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters, instead of the society of Rapture as a whole. As the first prototype Big Daddy revived from the dead 10 years later, you are looking for the Little Sister that you had lost before you were killed. The Little Sister happens to be Eleanor Lamb, the daughter of Sophia Lamb, who is the leader of Rapture. One of the most interesting aspects of the story is that Bioshock 2 uses the same roles and settings as Bioshock 1, yet tells a completely different story.
+Characterization: I would argue that Bioshock 2 has a better cast this time around. Subject Delta, Eleanor Lamb, and Augustus Sinclair are characters that feel real and affected to the chaos of Rapture, and help add a lot of depth to the growing Bioshock universe. What needs to be mentioned, however, is the absolutely stunning job that 2K Marin did with Sophia Lamb. I have no problem saying that I consider Lamb to be a superior character than Andrew Ryan was. Lamb focuses on what the community of Rapture can do together, instead of Ryan's philosophy that man should value his work as his own and no one else's. Because of this, Lamb's dialogue is much more personal than Ryan's and much of what she says hit home with my own thoughts and feelings on the human condition. Which leads me to...
+Dialogue: Fantastic, outstanding, unbelievable, etc. Just like the original, this game is a thinking man's game when it comes to the conversations between you and the rest of Rapture. Eleanor Lamb's description of love near the end of the game is one of the most memorable lines in gaming that I have heard in a long time.
+Multiplayer: Like anyone else, I was skeptical about the decision to add multiplayer to Bioshock 2, given that the original was so story driven. Bioshock was one of the rare cases where it never actually needed multiplayer. You can imagine my surprise when I realized how much fun the multiplayer was. By no means am I calling it amazing - there are some balance issues and lag problems that need to be taken care of - but the result that was a guaranteed disaster turned out to be quite a fun diversion. The rank system, although not as deep as other FPS's (Modern Warfare comes to mind), definitely adds some incentive to continue playing. Little Sister Grab is an extremely well done mode for this type of game, and Civil War (Deathmatch or Slayer in other games) allows you to don the Big Daddy suit.
-Big Sister Fights: As much as I loved them, they came at the same time, every time. The realization of this diminished the fear by quite a lot. I wish that they would have been sudden, and if they must be scripted, then at least make the revealing of the battles a little less obvious.
-Nothing shocking: 2k said that Bioshock 2 would come with a massive plot twist equal to the two in Bioshock. So, where was it? At first I thought I had missed it, but it turns out that many forum users were also wondering what the huge twist was supposed to be.
-Conclusion Timing: I thought I had at least 6 or 7 hours left in the game, until I got the achievement for dealing with all of the little sisters. The conclusion is sudden, which makes me question the pacing of the story somewhat.
-Boss Battles: None. You will never fight a boss in this game once, unless you consider the Big Sisters bosses. While it could be argued that it adds to the atmosphere of the game, I'd contend that it sometimes makes the game feel sluggish, that there are no true antagonistic obstacles to overcome.
When I completed Bioshock 2, I was confused at what I had just played. I had many questions, many uncertain feelings, and doubts about how I felt about where they took Bioshock 2. Over time, the game kept itching at me. I kept being reminded of situations, dialogue, and the breathtaking atmosphere. Once I started to see the game as a whole, I realized how brilliant Bioshock 2 actually was. Bioshock 2 is ultimately a better game than the original - something I never would have expected to say. Games like this are proof that games can be considered art - there is simply no reason to ever pass on this game.
