New enemies and meatier combat
The same can be said for Rapture itself, ten years may have passed since you first wandered its halls but it's still pretty much the same dank blend of art deco furnishings, bloodstained walls and leaky ceilings it was before. There are some more subtle differences though, in the ten years since you last visited things have obviously become a little more desperate for Raptures psychopathic citizens as the environment looks even more run down than it once did. The art deco interiors that hinted at Raptures opulent past have since been stripped bare and are now strewn with makeshift wooden walkways and shacks that give a real sense that people have been living down there for too long, many of the ceilings are now propped up with huge supports in an effort to hold off their inevitable collapse and flooded areas are much more common.There are new enemies to get to grips with as well the most notable of which are the Big Sisters created by Lamb to harvest new Little Sisters from the surface, they don't appear often but they're agile killing machines seemingly purpose built to take down any Big Daddy that dares get between them and a Little Sister with lightning speed and are very worthy adversaries. The way you deal with the Little Sisters themselves is slightly different now as well. Rather than simply either harvesting or saving them on the spot you now have to protect them against waves of Splicers while they harvest ADAM from a few nearby corpses before sending them on their merry way. Well you do if you want the good ending anyway, having played escort to a Little Sister already in the first game and knowing what a drain on your time and ammunition it can be I harvested all but one, I've got places to be.
Where Bioshock 2 really excels is combat. Being a Big Daddy every weapon is now suitably beefier, for instance the equivalent of the original games Tommy gun is now a mini-gun and it and all your other weapons can be upgraded at various points throughout the game. There are a few brand new weapons as well such as the mini turret, perfect for helping you defend a Little Sister as she gathers ADAM or just watching your back while you hack a vending machine. Control still isn't as precise as other first person shooters but that doesn't mean there aren't some truly epic battles to be had in BioShock 2, enemies now come at you in waves and it doesn't hold back when it comes to ramping up the difficulty either. As a result you've really got to think about how to best use the tools at your disposal to increase your advantage. Get it right and you'll be grinning as you fling Splicers coolly this way and that with your upgraded telepathy Plasmid and the Big Sister you'd rather not fight scraps it out with the Big Daddy you hypnotised earlier. Charge in guns blazing however and odds are you'll end up back in a Vita Chamber licking your wounds before you can say "would you kindly".
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