The events of BioShock have taken place ten years ago. Rapture, the underwater metropolis, has deteriorated further, with water breaking everywhere and entire portions submerged. But, as horrible as things are, the city isn’t deserted. Following Andrew Ryan’s death, his long-time enemy, Dr. Sophia Lamb, took over the helm, establishing her religion and making the city’s mutant splicers her followers. Delta, the first of the defenders of the Little Sisters, also known as Big Daddies, stands in the center. He is eternally bound to one, and only one Little Sister named Eleanor, daughter of Sophia Lamb, and is cursed to scour the city for her or perish trying.
The player steps into Delta’s big boots, making his way around Rapture in a standard first-person-shooter style to find and confront Dr. Sophia Lamb, who keeps Eleanor against her will. The change in perspective (in the original game, the player was a typical person) causes a few gameplay modifications. The most significant difference is that the player can now use one of the eleven possible plasmids and one of the many weapons simultaneously, allowing him to burn adversaries while filling them with bullets. Other plasmids include “Winter Blast,” which freezes an enemy, and “Scout,” which allows the player to exit his body unseen and look about—the weaponry on hand ranges from the well-known Big-Daddy-Drill to a powerful double-barrel shotgun and a grenade launcher.
Weapons and plasmids, like in the original game, can be upgraded. While weapons only require the player to locate a specific workstation, upgrades for plasmids and tonics (which offer passive effects) must be purchased from special vending machines called “Gatherer’s Garden” using the uncommon material “Adam.” As in the original game, the Little Sisters roaming the levels are the key to gaining access to Adam. However, because the player is a Big Daddy, the method is slightly different this time. While the player must still kill the accompanying Big Daddy to gain access to the Little Sister, he can adopt it rather than harvest it. The Little Sister will then sit on his shoulder and search the level for Adam-infused bodies to collect.
Setting down a Little Sister to harvest a body will unleash hell, with every splicer in the level attempting to murder her, necessitating the player’s protection of the little girl until she is finished collecting. Once a Little Sister has harvested two bodies, the player can harvest her again or free her. Either action provides him more or less Adam while also alerting a Big Sister. They are more agile, swift, and lethal than the Big Daddies.
Another significant change is the new hacking mini-game, which requires players to strike the green or blue areas on a gauge with a constantly spinning needle. He will receive an electro-shock or sound alarm if he doesn’t hit the correct field. A successful hack, on the other hand, will lower vending machine costs or turn turrets to the player’s side. The new mini-game also allows players to fight and wander around while hacking and hacking from a distance using the hacking tool’s arrows.
BioShock 2 has a multiplayer mode for up to ten players that were developed independently from the single-player and tells the tale before the first game. Gaining ranks for kills and winning matches grants the player access to new radio transmissions that advance the story of the city’s civil war between the Splicers and Andrew Ryan’s security force. The multiplayer modes are Deathmatch, Team-Deathmatch, Capture and Hold, Capture the Sister, and Adam Grab. The latter asks players to gather and defend the level’s lone Little Sister to earn points. On the other hand, Capture the Sister pits two teams against one other, with one attempting to get the Little Sister to a vent and the other trying to prevent this from happening. Each scenario also includes the option for one player to take on the role of a Big Daddy.
