It has been a weird week for me, and I had to bail out on blogging Wednesday due to some pressing real life matters (like some emergency roof repair).
Nevertheless, I did get the chance to get a review up at PopMatters before the weekend of Bioshock 2.
I think that the first Bioshock is one of the most important games of the last decade in terms of setting a standard for how atmosphere can be evoked through the tiniest visual and oral detail and also for wedding serious philosophical themes with complementary gameplay. Thus, I come at the second game with high expectations (as well as some significant fears).
Jordan Thomas and his team have done a smart thing with the game by both shifting its focus from the philosophical to the persoanl, but also, by reconsidering the issues of free will and determinism raised by the first game in a new context. Luckily, they also do a good job at wedding those themes with the gameplay once again through a few subtle tweaks to the original's mechanics. It is a serious game about parenting, which is pretty unheard of in the medium.
I don't love it as much as I do the first, but it is pretty damn good in its own right.
To read more:
Review: Bioshock 2
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