GreenLizard0 speaks...
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Version reviewed - PC
Reviewer - GreenLizard0
I did understand what people were saying on the earlier levels, it was very similar to the first except eg. you made a lot more noise jumping around. However as it went on you became more powerful. But then so did enemies. Yes there were the same things as Bioshock 1 in the beginning, but they expanded it; hence why this could have been a large (but really good) expansion pack.
I completed it on hardest, without any real issues. There are far too many first aid kits and hypos, especially once you increase their capacities, and use other tonics that allow e.g. a bit of one or the other everytime you did a hack, or extra nutrition from eating food. Hacking a first aid point as well was too generous. I lost count of how many big fat deep voiced splicer men I got to 20% health who then went onto kill themselves. Eve Link was invaluable as soon as I could get it.
There's also too much money around, earlier on in the game I'd occasionally run out and have to drill/melée but not for long. Once a machine's hacked more effective ammo (armour piercing rounds, heavy duty rivets, solid slugs) with a good aim meant enemies were cheap and the normal splicers were easy.
The fact that there's too much money around is compounded by me being able to use Freeze III plasmid as soon as I could get it. I killed almost all the remaining fat men splicer and Big Daddies this way; by shattering them you don't usually get bodies to search but still found finances everywhere else. There's also something I think a bit too wrong and easy with being able to freeze and destroy a Big Daddy (or a better series) with one rocket spear in the head.
However there was one thing I couldn't do very well, and that was protect the Little Sisters from gathering Adam. Even with few entrances to the area in question, and me setting up defences (mini turret, trap rivets and proximity mines) I could barely do the first gather. And I couldn't do any more. However again, because of how effective Winter Blast III was, I didn't use any other plasmids (never even tried Insect Swarm, Hypnotise, Scout, Security Command or Cyclone Trap) and didn't bother with getting more tonics (once as said, I'd slowed down hacking etc.). This meant I had a huge surplus of Adam at the end with doing just the one gather. You also got them from Big Sisters, and if you healed all the Little Sisters, I was given a few teddy bears.
I'm a huge fan of keeping the good points of previous games, and the atmosphere and the "thrill" aspect of #2 was equally good. I jumped a few times, and the bit where you're the Little Sister and you see Rapture through her eyes, but then for a second it flips back to "normal" view.. creepy.
The game length and music score were pretty decent. I thought it was enjoyable. At the end I thought there was a good balance of keeping the best parts of the original and giving it a few expansions.
Score - 8/10.