November 2020 Playthrough - Bioshock 2

[Disposed Hero]

I'm hesitant to speak for Rich but he and I are a little behind, still working on Fatal Frame.

Steven, would you mind putting up a few checkpoints for the first couple of weeks? I trust your judgment and if you're halfway through the game already I think you're the right man for the job. Feel free to add them to the op if you're down for it. Thank you!

Added checkpoints for the first 2 weeks.

[GrayGhost81]

You are THE MAN!

[shaggy]

I just got to the first Big Sister battle.  It's a tough go for me to play seeing the PS3 is in the living room and I have two kids.  It's tough to be able to play when they aren't around.

[MetalFRO]

Wow, looks like I'm already creeping towards the week 2 goal. But, I'm having fun, so I see no reason to stop now.

[shaggy]

I'm currently in the train station.

[Mr_Stubbes]

I started playing today. After finishing the first game last month, I think I might just take my time with this one and then see if I have time to play the third game.

***Edit***

For some reason I was having a weird issue where I couldn't save the game, so I had to go into my system memory and delete all of my Bioshock saves. Luckily I didn't get too far, but I'm able to save the game now and am currently at the amusement park/museum.

[shaggy]

I just got to Ryan Amusement and I'm on my way to El Daredo to get my first Little Sister.

On another note, does anyone know how to take only certain objects when you search?  If I recall correctly, in the first game your could take all of the items or choose which items to take.  This would be very helpful if I could choose what to take as I want to take the Dollars but I don't want to take the health or eve replenishments when I have full health or eve.

[MetalFRO]

I'm currently in Dionysus Park, and looking for the 3rd of 3 Little Sisters. I've found that, once you get the spear gun, assuming you can aim reasonably well, things definitely get easier. Also, once you pick up the grenade launcher along with some frag grenades and proximity mines, along with the explosive spears, each subsequent Big Daddy fight becomes easier, and I'm able to get through them w/o using up all my first aid kits. I definitely feel like combat is improved in this game.

[shaggy]

I'm currently in Dionysus Park, and looking for the 3rd of 3 Little Sisters. I've found that, once you get the spear gun, assuming you can aim reasonably well, things definitely get easier. Also, once you pick up the grenade launcher along with some frag grenades and proximity mines, along with the explosive spears, each subsequent Big Daddy fight becomes easier, and I'm able to get through them w/o using up all my first aid kits. I definitely feel like combat is improved in this game.

I just got the machine gun but I feel it goes through ammo too fast and I have upgraded the Rivet gun to do more damage and I feel it does more damage than the machine gun.  I have yet to fight any Big Daddys yet so by the sound of it, I'm in for a battle once I start seeing them until I get the weapons you mention.  What difficulty are you playing on?  I'm on Easy.  I did that because I turned Vita Chambers off so I can get that Trophy so I'm saving a lot.

[GrayGhost81]

I started playing the game on Thursday and you guys are right, this game goes really fast and is hard to put down. I haven't finished it yet, but I have put up the rest of the checkpoints. Thanks again Steven for your help with the first two.

While this game doesn't quite have as strong of a story as the first, the gameplay and flow are much better. I have only had that "what the hell am I supposed to do next?" feeling once or twice in this playthrough, while I remember getting lost frequently in the first game.

I turned off the helmet in the HUD and I think it's way better that way. I have chosen Swarm and Incinerate as my go-to plasmids and upgraded them both to level 3. For the little sisters, I'm not trying to get every one and the ones I get I throw right in their hidey-hole unless there's a harvest point very close. Much like the first game, ADAM is not quite at the premium that I think the developers wished it was. Just make sure when they tell you they left a present by the Gatherers Garden that you go and get it because it will have a lot of ADAM.

I'll probably finish this one today or tomorrow. Severely underrated game and in many ways better than the original.

[Mr_Stubbes]

I finished Bioshock 2 this morning. I forgot how short this game feels because I was able to beat it within a couple nights. I’ll hold off on my full thoughts for now, until others have time to play/beat the game.

[Disposed Hero]

I finished the game last night and really enjoyed it overall. I've seen a few people say that the action was better in this game than the original, but honestly I didn't see a big difference, although maybe I would have if I played them closer together. And this may be a contentious point, but I actually really liked the hacking minigame from the original and was disappointed by what it was replaced with in this game.

Regarding ADAM, I saved every Little Sister and did as much 'gathering' as I could, and I had way more than enough ADAM to buy everything I wanted. I agree that it should have been at more of a premium. I'm also assuming that saving more Little Sisters meant more Big Sister fights, which was always pretty draining on resources.

I had some issues with the game freezing or crashing which was pretty annoying, especially when it happened right at the end and forced me to replay the entire final sequence. I'm not sure if this is common on all platforms or if this is just a shoddy PC port. I'm still not sure what point I got to in my original playthrough 10 years ago as nothing really jumped out at me as being familiar, but I think it was somewhere in Pauper's Drop.

As a huge fan of the original BioShock, I'm really glad to finally get around to playing through the sequel and really hope to get around to Infinite sooner or later.

[MetalFRO]

I also finished it last night, and would agree, it was hard to put down. I enjoyed this more than the original. I think there are just enough quality of life improvements to elevate it. I don't know if the narrative is sufficiently better than the original, but it's an interesting extension of the first game's story. Strictly from a story perspective, I feel like I would have been a bit lost, had I not played the first game, though there's still stuff to be gleaned from the main plot points. I won't spoil the ending, but I'll just say, I should have expected it, from all the monologues Lamb does throughout the game, but it still took me slightly by surprise.

Anyone have a favorite weapon or plasmid? I really liked the Spear Gun, once I got it, and I had a lot of fun with the Incinerate plasmid. Electro Bolt is great to use in water, but Incinerate does so much more damage, and usually provides distraction for a bit, so you can unload on enemies for a few seconds w/o reprisal, before they start fighting back.

[shaggy]

While this game doesn't quite have as strong of a story as the first, the gameplay and flow are much better. I have only had that "what the hell am I supposed to do next?" feeling once or twice in this playthrough, while I remember getting lost frequently in the first game.

I recall the same with the original, not knowing where to go.  So far I've had no issue but I'm still fairly early in the game.  I just got the Incinerate plasmid.

[Disposed Hero]

Anyone have a favorite weapon or plasmid? I really liked the Spear Gun, once I got it, and I had a lot of fun with the Incinerate plasmid. Electro Bolt is great to use in water, but Incinerate does so much more damage, and usually provides distraction for a bit, so you can unload on enemies for a few seconds w/o reprisal, before they start fighting back.

I tended to leave Electrobolt equipped by default since it has so many applications, so that was probably the one I used the most. I didn't use it much, but Winter's Blast could be really effective since you could pretty much kill enemies while they were frozen. I think I rotated between all the weapons pretty evenly except for the Drill which I didn't use much. I used the Rivet Gun a ton early on, but used it less often later in the game when it took so many more shots to kill enemies and the slower fire speed started to feel like a liability. I pretty much just used whichever weapon I had full ammo for since I don't like leaving resources lying around.