I love the city of Rapture. A beautiful steam-punk noire metropolis built beneath the ocean, it is an Objectivist utopia in the vein of Raynd. The greatest virtue is to be a man to oneself, an individual not subject to the designs of a widowed world of indolent squalor. The ocean is an uncaring void, a blanket nihilist without a care for the insignificant lice that strive for breathe beneath it's gaze. Man must take for himself what he wills, for it is his will that is all that he has. The only warmth you may ever feel is the heart beating in your breast, for there is none to be found in these cold, dark waters. You are alone, an island to yourself.
The strength of the setting lies in the city of Rapture serving as a surreal metaphor for the Objectivist philosophy. However, the game fails to develop the critical thematic elements of the Dystopian Philosophy in any meaningful way. Instead the game ditches the intrigue to instead retain the Steam-Punk Art-Deco aesthetic, maintaining the superficial trappings of philosophical discourse without ever actually contributing to the dialog presented by the game from the outset.
New to Bioshock 2 is the introduction of another Philosophical 'figurehead' representing the anti-thesis to Objectivism, that being Collectivism. The idea that the individual exists only to serve the society, which represents a social-organism.
Again, the thematic elements introduced exist mostly to serve as a backdrop for some pretty visuals and atmospheric survival horror game design.
I am going to say that I enjoyed this game much more than the first, even though the art wasn't as refreshing the second time. I am not going to lie to myself and say the first game had a good story. It didn't. It had good settings, like a dinner with good dishes, cutlery, a fine table, a woven table cloth all set up in a well lit room with candles, wines and accoutrement set up. Bioshock 1 served us Papa John's pizza with these settings, Bioshock 2 maybe gets us some good chinese takeout.
The controls retain the same blend of sloppy console port-seconds found in the first Bioshock. The Hacking mini-games are now drastically shorter than the previous game which greatly improves the pacing of the game. While the first game had a fun/not fun ratio of about 1:10 Bioshock 2 moves the game to about a 1:5. That's a good sequel in my book.
