Total BS2! [ get back to me when you can make the series actually FUN to play! ]
If you really think about what you are doing while you play, you realise you are merely being led from tape recorder to tape recorder in a semi-linear fashion. That IS all you need to do in the game. It's about uncovering the story, but in my opinion a game should never solely rely on it's story to give entertainment as when your eyes start to glaze over after the 40th tape deck you start looking for more compelling reasons to continue.
Like the first game the 'shooting' part of the game, the actual *interactive* part, isn't very fun at all. The new dual wielding is much better than the first game, in general the combination of plasmids and weapons should work great in theory. In practice though it all feels too 'loose' and unfocused, and just not that fun from a gameplay perspective.
That feeling comes from 3 key problems:
. Guns and weapons feel unsatisfying
Plasmids fair a bit better as it's sort of fun to shock a pool full of splicers, but overall the gunplay feels weak and by the numbers. Any number of other (less hyped) shooters do this intrinsic element properly. You should want to continue playing because of the adrenline of combat, the sense of victory with each kill, the need for thought as you progress. It is more like Splicers are just thrown in to slow you down, to stop you getting to the next story element. They are not fun to deal with because of…
.Enemies
Easily one of the worst enemies in an FPS game, splicers suffer from many problems including a 'joke pressence' whereby their silly voices, silly animations and capped/jerky physics ruin all sense of fun from dispatching them. They are as dumb as Doom1 enemies but actually far less fun to kill. In a game like bioshock with it's 'glorious' theme and premise, the enemies should be awesome.
I don't mean overpowering or frustrating, they should just feel like you want to kill them for the right reasons (because it's fun) and not simply because a whole bunch of them just spawned predictably. I think Bioshock 2 failed in this way, they should have adapted the story to say a new breed of enemy had taken over the abandonded rapture, and made those enemies not have spindly bodies, silly masks, basically make them completely different from bioshock one. This is one of the main reasons the game feels all too 'samey' compared to the first.
Really though if the A.I and animation was to the same level as it is here it probably wouldn't matter what enemy you had, it would still feel like a tedious chore to get rid of them rather than an exciting and immersive tactical shooter. 2K threw in all the weapon combos and varied ways to get rid of enemies but opted to not make the enemies in anyway interesting to kill. I often feel/felt that the bioshock games would actually IMPROVE without splicers/enemies. Sounds strange I know but all the good stuff the games do (build up atmosphere and a sense of 'exploration', only a sense mind you) they kill with the tedious gameplay and poor interaction which leads me to….
.Physics/animation/sound
The whole game in many areas (again like the original) feels unfinished. In part due to the physics STILL be capped at a much lower frame rate than needed. When you shoot exploding tanks or barrels for example, it's almost like you miss the moment of impact, like you virtually 'blink' and only see the affter effect (a large, jerky explosion). If they had nailed the physics and interaction of this game better it would feel at least 50% better to play, so why did they insist on capping the physics again? I've not seen many games do this, even ones far more graphically intense than Bioshock. It ruins it and makes it feel dated. It makes the game world and everything you do in it feel 'softened' and 'cartoony'
This is hampering the game from being fun, seriously. No matter who is reading this and thinking they love bioshock you have to admit this game would rise from it's curse if only they implemented proper physics. Maybe you can't tell on the consoles so easily but on PC it stands out a mile, it feels extremely dated. And shooting anything is simply not as fun as it should be because it constantly reminds you it's 'only software' by running the physics updates so slow. And for information purposes, it is not my PC - a fast system that runs Crysis without complaint and can even run GTAIV not to badly, the game itself runs as fast as any other, the physic have had their updates artificially limited - as in the first, as complained about by many people in the first, and now ignored. You can also see it in some of the procedural textures like groud water sheets that are supposed to be rippling, at 12 frames per second instead of at least 24 preferably the same as the game to keep the world 'in sync' and believable
They probably did this to save performance elsewhere but it wasn't needed (at least on PC) and has really ruined the game for me. In this game for example, the telekenisis plasmid basically makes an object fly at you in a jerky/unpolished fashion, then the object stutters around in front of you, you fire it and it's at it's target in about 5 frames instead of a smooth frame rate. Actually a bit hard to explain this properly, but many have noticed it and those who know what I mean will probably agree. The game is hurting itself in all these areas and 2K learned nothing from the complaints about bioshock 1. In that respect this is a step backwards.
Sounds are also very imbalanced, they didn't test them properly to get a cohesive level.. some sounds (explosions, drill whacking) are into borderline distortion, they sound very bad.. others are too quiet.
I know the vast majorty disagree with anything critical said about Bioshock/2 but those points above really ruin what could be a very slick and immersive experience. Hopefully 2K will actually listen for future games and stop making schoolboy errors that hurt their own games. Underneath the flaws is a good idea waiting to get out, I can see what all those who love the game can see. That it drips with atmosphere, it could be very immersive. Unfortunately gameplay and ergomics take priority, not a story led design. Don't try and compete with books/movies when making games, play to a games strengths and sort the interactive gameplay part out first, make it solid and breathtakingly enjoyable, THEN your story and setting will be delivered in the way it should be.
As I said I love the setting but the gameplay was very badly designed, you can't simply stick on a corridor traipser to some story and forget about the game play. Game play needs to come first, unfortunately as with the first game it's all to obvious their only focus was the story, trying to create the impression of an immersive epic through a psuedo-clever twisting plot, but then they tacked on a horrible mediocre FPS game play system. I think this game would be better as more of an RPG or at least make it's mind up whether it's a shooter or an adventure game.
Lastly, the unreal engine 3 has had it's day. I've been a fan of the unreal engines since the first unreal (1998) but this engine peaked with Gears of War and any other developer that has used it has tended to make very lazy choices (like poor widescreen implementation) and it also shows it's age when in the wrong hands (Epic can still make it look good but 2K just don't have the skills to fully understand the engine it seems).
Oh and finally, the PC game is obviously a 'quick' console port again, even worse than the first – not even got Xbox360 controller support this time (which normally in FPS isn't a problem but with this game's poor controls and already 'abstracted' feel a vibrating controller would be good to help pull you into the game a bit and make it feel more solid, the mouse/kb on this game feel floaty and tiresome). I think it's much better suite to consoles, as it's not even strictly an FPS anyway, it just has FPS elements in, it's more an interactive novel but the flaws show through really badly on the PC version and may perhaps be masked more easily via a gamepad and a large screen which you sit further back from (hiding some very poor texturing in places for example).
If the 3 areas above were nearly perfect this game would be so much better, anyone insisting it's a 10/10 I can't believe you can't see room for improvement. All you do by saying it's perfect NOW is not make the developers work harder to please gamers in future. Bioshock could be so much better if people were actually honest with the developers and told them where their game is failing so that where it is excelling isn't wasted.