Bioshock 2 PC Game Review 

This game is so underrated. I actually think it's my favourite entry in the series.

Bioshock 2 is probably one of the most underrated games of all time. It simply was overlooked cause it had a different developer and lacks the surprise and unique settings of the other 2 bioshock games. BUT it is every bit as good as those across the board, and makes so many great little improvements on the originals gameplay and story formula that it COULD be argued that it's the best overall game in the series. I don't personally hold that opinion as the first time playing bioshock and bioshock infinite were more memorable and surprising experiences that I'll never forget. But in terms of refined, polished packages with great gameplay and tons of replayability Bioshock 2 probably holds up the best of any of the games in the series to this day

I gotta say if it's one thing I love about this guy it's that he is more, well, professional. I also watch reviews from Zero Punctuation and The Rageaholic. But really they are good at two things: Entertaining you, and one of two other things. If you already agree with their opinions, it is just validation. If you don't, it just pisses you off. This guy, he's much more practical. He talks about technical aspects, and actually can sway you to one way or another instead of just reinforcing your existing impression. I like all three though, don't get me wrong.

This is without a doubt the most sensible review I've ever seen of Bioshock 2. I've always thought this game was rather unfairly criticized. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and found myself coming back to Bioshock 2 far more than Bioshock 1 and Infinite. I've never understood why so many people shat all over this game when it refines everything that made the first game great yet offers enough little changes to make it feel like a 'new' game and not just Bioshock 1.5, especially when Infinite was treated like the second coming of Christ with it's game play that lacked options and depth in combat. Sure, infinite's story was good, but in combat it was pretty sub-par, you HAD to shoot your way out of everything. There was no sneaking around, no tactical opportunities and all of the Vigors were pretty limited in their tactical applications, they were basically the same thing just with different fancy effects. They definitely lost their way with Infinite, but redeemed themselves somewhat with Burial at Sea episodes 1 and 2 (2 especially). I really like all of the Bioshock games, but 2 might be my favorite.

This game doesn't deserve the hate it got, it was a fantastic game.

FYI an audio log explains Lamb was brought to rapture as a therapist to soothe whiny but still needed people. Ryan puts it as "quieting the rattles of the Great Chain's weakest links."

It's good to see a positive review on bioshock 2. i don't know why so many people hate on this game when it improved a lot of the problems of the original, while infinite combat felt dumbed down in comparison.

7:22 "Who I really don't think holds a candrew..."

Great review, underappreciated game. Even though bioshock was more memorable and had a better story, bioshock 2's gameplay was just better. Very similar in quality overall. According to steam hours bioshock 1 took me 11 hours to beat and bioshock 2 took me 8 hours, i didn't feel i was rushing either, both on hard too. Idk why bioshock 1 took you 20 hours the game would have dragged on like crazy if it was really that length.

TBH, you are probably the best RU-vid reviewer i have watched.

I thought Minerva's end was one of the best dlc's i had ever played, the story was amazing

Bioshock two is definitely the best in the series. underrated as hell, idk why this game gets so much hate. it's miles ahead of the first game to me at least

I remember Yahtzee's review of this game tearing it apart, but to be honest when I played it all I could think was that, gameplay-wise, I was actually having more fun than I did in Bioshock 1, and I already liked the first game. Yeah, the story didn't really need a sequel, but when I look at the combat and hacking in 2 I can't help but wish the devs thought of using similar systems in 1. I'm glad I played the first Bioshock, but if I ever decide to play the series again odds are I'm gonna go defend Little Sisters in 2 for a while. Then after that, maybe go back to 1 if I want to experience the atmosphere again (and to perhaps get away from 2's glitches for a while). And I'm sure other folks have mentioned it, but if I remember some of the tape recordings correctly, Andrew Ryan let Sofia into the city because Rapture needed a good psychiatrist. He knew she had radical and diametrically opposed ideas to his own, but he hoped it wouldn't be problem. Of course later on it turned out they *were* a problem, which led to him throwing her in prison.

Also, i have to say that the game suffered GREATLY from Levine fanboys rage at launch, who claimed that it is the worst shit ever just because someone else worked on it.

You have officially replaced AngryJoe as the person I come to for game reviews. Keep up the good work!

The negative comments for this game have always baffled me; after all, can you ever truly hate a game that allows you to play as an unstoppable steel behemoth roughly the size of a car?

My FAVORITE Bioshock game! Excited to learn the people who made Bioshock 2 are making Bioshock 4.

It's a shame this game got blasted since it is an improvement in every way over the previous Bioshock. The only reason people hate Bioshock 2 so much is because of the little sisters "escort and protect" parts, which aren't even that many.

One of your best reviews! This game blew me away when i first played it and Minerva's Den gave me goosebumps. Just a heads up, if you own Bioshock 1,2 and Infinite on PC you get the remaster for free when it releases in September.

Gggmanlives is by far one of the most, if not, the most underrated review channel ever, I mean shit, look at his videos, top of the line quality, beautiful editing, and most importantly explains the games thoroughly in detail, why he has only 50k subs is beyond me, keep up the great work man, I'm a huge fan of your reviews.

You mentioned that the ending of Bioshock 2 moved you to tears.What is your opinion of the endings from the other games in the series, including the DLC Campaigns?

The twist at the end of Minerva's Den hit me like a sandbag.

Best Bioshock game hands down, the story was just heartwarming and emotional. Haters can just hate. :)

Glad this game is much more loved than it used to be

I don’t usually comment very often on RU-vid but I Love your content man. Sometimes I’ll just go on binges and rewatch your stuff over and over. Great work!

It's good to see that it's not just poisonous animals that come out of Australia but also great reviewers like Gggmanlives. Keep up the good work, sir!

your review makes me feel like playing this game again. really enjoyed it on the xbox 360. love the Bioshock series

Gggman, bioshock 2 actually also runs in unreal 2.5

Once again another spot on informative review.Good job.

love you're reviews, I felt the same way when I played this game after playing the first one

Houdini Splicers don't teleport; they turn into invisible. They just give an appearance of "teleport" to fool their enemies. You can easily track them with Insect Swarm Plasmid. You can also see their footprints. On Sofia Lamb, one of the audio logs explains why Andrew Ryan invited her into Rapture.

Bioshock 2 is by far the underrated bunch of the 3. Fantastic narrative driven FPS, incredibly improved gameplay (in my opinion) and just has a grand story and pacing if not better than the first game. HEAPS BETTER than Infinite in certain departments for sure

Just found your channel and i'm hooked!

You really deserve more subs... Great reviews.

I feel a lot of people pass over Bioshock 2 as just a cash in, but its clear that 2K really, really cared about their products. On its own, its a good game, it just lacks the twists and originality of the first game. But i have met peps who prefer Bio2 over Infinite as its far more closer to System Shocks roots.

In terms of gameplay, this is definitely my favorite Bioshock, everything works so fluid: double wielding guns and plasmids was great, defensive traps actually have a purpose due to the little sisters defense sections, and weapons like the drill and others were sooo fucking satisfying to use! (Unlike some other game aiming for the clouds) Some people consider it the black sheep of the franchise just because it was developed by a different team and because the story did not brought that hit the first game had, still, like ggman, Bio2 story managed to bring a tear to my eye during the ending.. Neither Bio1 or Infinite managed to do that.

Watching these reviews gets me excited to play the Bioshock collection. I remembered playing this game on xbox and I had a pretty good time with it even though the multiplayer was a call of duty clone

You make great choices on which games to review, usually other channels only review new releases (which isn't bad).

that's the only Problem i had with this game, that it was short.

This review about BS2 is the only one that nails it. Excellent work Gggman!

This has gave me the motivation to play BioShock 2 all over again. Thanks GGG.

Great Review gggmanlives thumbs up!!

Now “Would you kindly” keep up the good work!

After watching the completionists review on bioshock 2, your's felt like a healing balm for the soul. Thank you for this.

Omg a positive review of my favorite game

Glad you did this one. I loved Bioshock but skipped this one because I really didn't think it needed a sequel and heard a lot of negativity about it. You're a trusted reviewer, and you really sold the game. I'm going to check it out.

Great video as always, Sonny Jim. I played and enjoyed all three BioShock games, but 2 kinda felt like Fan Fiction to me. I didn't really get attached to the Little Sisters as some might, and found the ending and forced attachment uncomfortable (intentionally maybe?). Which makes sense since the original creator/writer Ken Levine had nothing to do with BS2 and only worked on the original and Infinite. BS2 had solid gameplay though. Just my opinion.

Hey is there any chance that you might Redo some of your Reviews for Early Access Games and Modifications when they are Done or Fully Released, like Black Mesa & Fistful of Frags for example?

7:22 "Holds a 'candrew' to Andrew Ryan"

I just started playing Bioshock 2, and I immediately agree with everything you say. And I just started, so this ought to be fun.

I've been waiting for this review for a long time and it was worth the wait. I always thought this game was very underrated.

Amazing review as always. Definatley the go-to reviewer for me. Just a quick question Gggman, would you have any tips for a new reviewer? I.e, things to avoid/go for in your reviews etc... And again, great review. I've been wanting to check out the first 2 Bioshock games for a while now and I think this gave me the push I needed. :)

I'm glad others also appreciate this awesome game despite its undeserved low ratings. I thought the same thing about Lamb at first, but there's an audio log where Ryan laments that Lamb somehow slipped by "the Council" upon entry into Rapture. And the further I got into the game, I started to realize that Lamb is wickedly manipulative, and probably used her psychiatric knowledge to fake-out the screening council and tell them everything they wanted to hear. If there's one person who's a natural at deception, it's her.

Couldn't agree more. Bioshock 2 is by far the best Bioshock game out there - gameplay wise. The exploration and pacing of the story and combat felt really neat. It felt like a natural progression and evolution from Bioshock, which - to be fair - probably has the more interesting story and themes, as well as the big twist everybody loves so much. The thing is though, people seem to shit on the sequel for not having such a twist and being a relatively straightforward story. They call it blander, less charming, and just all around worse. That couldn't be further from the truth. While I agree that the story and themes are better realized and more interesting in the first one, the gameplay and world design felt more fleshed out in the sequel. Let's not even talk about the pseudo-philosophical, wannabe-intellectual bullshite that is Infinite. That game has beautiful moments and wonderful art direction and overall fantastic visuals, but the gameplay is shit (the shield is required as a pseudo health-regen, but it's too weak, just one example but it has huge knock on effects), and its story is garbage in a lot of places, with brilliant parts in between the chunks of mental masturbation by Ken Levine. Lots of wasted potential and the smell of cut content (all footage of all the demos and trailers doesn't even appear in the game, not even remotely!), lots of buildup that never amounts to anything (the "choices" for example, if that isn't pseudointellectual wannabe-philosophical bullcrap, I don't know what is; Levine actually said that he wants us to waste time and nerves on those decisions, that's what matters, not what happens in the game; fact is we only think about is because we know it's a game and that there will most likely be consequences, but there aren't... whatever), and magical BS that is far beyond the cringe-line in the sand (the key just appearing in Elizabeth's hand at the end). The big "twist" could've been vey interesting and cool, but the way it's presented (basically just a huge exposition dump with extremely limited input from the player) is both uninteresting, unnecessarily confusing and not at all as clever as it wants to be. I left the game disappointed and even a bit shocked that they appearantly couldn't realize their vision, but to that degree... that shocked me. The trailers looked promising as hell, especially the gameplay demos. I still remember that Zeppelin demo vividly. That's not in the game. Heck, one simple complaint concerns Songbird: The fucking thing is clearly meant to be a bossfight, but there's no payoff. Instead, he becomes a short-lived ally to the player - press X to destroy shit. Thanks, but I guess I'd rather go back to the original, or the superior sequel, Bioshock 2. If anybody actually reads this comment: Here, have a symbolic, virtual hug and a pat on the back.

i love this game i just finished it and minervas den last week on 360

Nice review.

looking forward to the remakes this year

Bro I thought Cole Porter looked and felt like a Lawrence Fishburne

Big Sisters are pushovers once you realize you can freeze them and use your drill to eat away at their health bar in seconds. Same goes for Big Daddies too now. I played through on the hardest difficulty using only the drill and plasmids and outside of early issues dealing with lack of money to spend, the game gets really easy because of just how incredibly OP the drill is with Winter Blast.

Bruh this is what you call a game. The levels were big. The story was very immersive for me. And the way you progress with the train through the city. Definitaly one of my favourite games

I wish the research cam was in his helmet on consol and you had to push l3 to take the pic its a pain switching to your weapon and tryna take a pic

I never thought i would hear atlas making a review of bioshock 2

Very good review mate. I'm glad you saw differently too given how Bioshock 2 is often disregarded. I will have to get the remastered trilogy sometime when it comes out. :)

I just felt there was no drive or motivation to finish this game, the mystery of the first one and infinite is what drove me to continue on and finish them. Whereas this one no fucks were given and the gameplay just felt eh.

FINALLY, I can't begin to understand how people could say they hate this game or dislike it. I've always enjoyed it and felt it was a natural sequel to the series. As for why she's there, from the way Andrew Ryan describes her and her work, I get the feeling he doesn't put much stock in mental illness or health and see's it lil more than selling someone snake oil to combat an infection. He only chooses her because she's considered an "expert" in the field, a field that he doesn't care for nor believes in.

I think you can have fun with the game on a basic level but if you really breakdown everything you can find inaccuracies and design flaws. I started to play it over a year ago but never finished it because it was such a chore to get trough it. But I think I should give it another chance. Good video ggg 👌 always a joy to hear your voice. Grüße aus Deutschland 🇩🇪

It was mostly developed by 2K Marin, in California. 2K Aus did help, along with some other studios.

Just beat this game for the first time and went into having already judged it to be not that good, thanks to reading all the reviews and comments over the years. This review is exactly my reaction to playing it, I had SO much fun and didn't understand what people were complaining about. This game is a victim of Bioshock 1's greatness.

Hands down the best game reviewer on youtube.

2 has always been my favorite, best gameplay in the series with a fantastic atmosphere and story to back it up.

You should read Bioshock: Rapture, its a fairly long and well written origin story of rapture and what led to its downfall told primarily through the perspective of Bill McDonough the head of maintenance and also the perspectives of many other key characters, it even explains how Lamb got to Rapture!

One of my all time favorites! :)

Never played any other Bioshock game, but this one is pretty good. I liked the combat and atmosphere, and it was always cathartic to save the little girls.

I like you because you like actually talk good about Bioshock 2

Hey Gggman I think you'll find Riddick assault on dark athena very interesting. cheers

Oh yeah, could you also review The Evil Within? A game that is released in 2014. Which you had missed after the new order.

I played most of the game using melee combat, that drill omg

So you had the audio issue too? I once managed to "fix" it, but I couldn't figure it out again

The multi-player in this was actually pretty fun. Basically it like a standard multi-player for first person shooters like call of duty Except you are splicers who can use plasmids. Also there are modes where one of you can be a big daddy and he can be on your team or you can fight them. It was pretty damn cool as a change of pace for call of duty

I have been meaning to play this for a long time but just haven't gotten around to it. Time to move it up near the top of my "to play" list.

You should do a retro review of Chasm: the rift

Any chance of a Riddick Dark Athena review?

And when people speak poorly of infinite I wonder if I played the same game as them, but what can you do.

hey gman. will you review the remastered ediions of bioshock 1 and 2?

between all the Bioshock games which one do you think has great story,great gameplay, and out of all the three games what makes you feel immerse the most the sky city of Columbia or the underwater Utopia rapture ?

The sound glitches are also present in the first game. From what I read up, its an issue with Windows 7 (and now 10), which is odd because the games release would suggest it should have been optimized for W7 and not XP, but w/e

Overall very good review. keep it up mon. though playing as a big daddy I didn't really enjoy it that much. enjoyed the big daddy encounters of bioshock 1 more. the sisters felt like complete pushovers.

The most important difference is the addition of the harvesting scenes. This means you have to carefully examine your environment and see where all the chokepoints are, and place traps. Traps were useless in the first game. Having to examine the environment and plan a strategy is always great fun. The main problem with the game is that it reuses the assets and world of the first game. There is no more sense of wonder when you enter an area. And for most people that was the main attraction. I like bio shock 2 more then 1.

Another great review as always Gggman! Say, how would you rate the quality of the PC version of this game? You seemed to have no troubles with it (asides from the texture problems and the audio stuff), but I've heard a lot of people say that the port was half-assed and that people had a bug that would randomly corrupt your save file, forcing you to start all over. I'd like to replay this game on PC (previously owned it on PS3) but I'd hate to buy a game that will ultimately break on me. Also, no mention of the multiplayer? Don't get me wrong, the multiplayer was unbalanced garbage tacked on as an afterthought, but still. You usually briefly mentioned the multiplayer in other games, even when it was dead/shit. Not complaining or nothing, just curious.

Great Review. I don't understand all the bad reviews of this game either. It's my favorite of the Bioshock series by far!

I bought this game a year or two after it was released. I played both it and BS1 (Infinite as well) on the console XBOX360 - I remember loving BS1 but the lack of death penalty kind of bugged me a little, but other than that I loved it, and BS2 I remember the graphics took a small hit, but yeah, I couldn't agree more with this review, it's more refined, the game play is really more fun, and it's so streamlined, that's saying something as BS1 was indeed quite fun. I'm going to pick up the collection for PS4

Wasnt Sophia Lamb's character based on actual person, Anne Hamilton-Byrne?

I really enjoyed this one. A worthy sequel imo!

Noticed you never mentioned the Multiplayer

I am eagerly awaiting your review of the columbine doom mod.

And honestly like in infinite the ram charge was my favorite like in 2 i loved the drill charge I'd always use it on big sisters and other tank enemies

can you review the old pc game die by the sword?

Best game in the series IMO

Great review :) It actually only took me 8 hours each to beat all 3 games xD (Just the main campaign)

cant wait for the remasters of the first 2