Cleril said:
I'm scared to play Bioshock 2 because I'd be going for the evil playthrough and there's spoiler reasons why I don't want to do it, for I am scared.
Good god, I'm in the exact same boat. Played it through as a good character the first time, replayed it twice since then, and the most evil I've ever managed to make myself be was in the decision over Gil Alexander's fate (and that's such a grey area that I can never tell whether one decision is more or less evil than the other).
Anyway:
Justyn Stahll said:
I just recently got Bioshock 2 (thanks Nebraska) and to celebrate I re-played Bioshock. I finished it and had a lot of fun from playing it again. Then I looked at Bioshock 2 and I don't know I just couldn't bring myself to play it and I don't know why. It's just Bioshock with a new look,character and story. I don't know if I'm scared to play it or I just can't bring myself to play it? HELP ME ESCAPISTS! PWEEZ!
Play it. In my opinion, it surpasses the first in every way. As stated, the gameplay is better, and I won't really be going over that in much detail. The antagonist, while she doesn't have the charisma of Andrew Ryan, at least makes a helluva lot more sense than Fontaine, and given the state of Rapture it's easy to see how someone like her would come to power (plus, I find the idea of a religion set up by a psychologist to give her control over people that were already rather crazy to begin with far more plausible than Ryan's mysterious pheromones).
On top of that, the supporting cast is, as one, far better than any of the characters from the first game. Augustus Sinclair is a character that I actually found myself liking, despite him effectively filling the same role as Atlas (the moment Atlas was egging me on to rip open a little girl, I knew he was going to be evil, so the huge shock reveal that was such a big part of the first game fell a little flat for me). Sinclair gives you the same advice, but he comes off as a good person despite it. I actually really liked him as a character. Of course, Eleanor is the one that hit home the strongest for me, but I can't really say why without major spoilers. Suffice to say, if the Booker-Elizabeth relationship is half as good as the Delta-Eleanor one in Bioshock 2, I will love and adore that game as well.
Which brings me to Delta, who is so much more interesting than Jack they can hardly be compared. People say playing as a Big Daddy diminished the tragic sense of awe you feel towards them, but for me, playing as one and learning about his history reinforced that sense. On a related note, while still hardly excellent, the moral choices in the second game are far better than the first, with choices aside from just rescue or harvest the Little Sister (who benefit from looking more like children than like demonic monsters), choices that fall into steadily greyer areas as the story progresses.
Then there's the world. It takes place in very different parts of Rapture, and for me the second game was what made Rapture feel like a plausible setting. In playing the first game, you get this impression that the entirety of society is made up of nothing but artists, scientists, and others who are all geniuses or tops in their field. For a city based on Objectivist philosophy, there doesn't seem to be anyone who failed in the almighty free-for-all that Rapture was supposed to be. In Bioshock 2, they show the other side of that story. The failures, the dregs, the ones who came to Rapture in search of fortune but fell by the wayside, living in slums and working as common labourers. It was only when playing the second game that I was actually able to believe in the world of Rapture, and as a rule I found the locations in the second game to be larger, more interesting, and a lot more fun to explore.
Finally, the story, while it suffers from horrible pacing (but the first game did too, so no change there), has an amazing ending. The final two levels provide the single best ending sequence of any game I have ever played, in my personal opinion. Just, a bit of advice. If you intend to play the game twice to experience both good and evil endings (and technically there's four different endings that it's possible to see), then be evil first. I played it once doing the good guy options, and since then, despite replaying the game, I haven't been able to bring myself to be evil.
So, to sum up, play the second one. I loved it, I think it's a vastly superior game to the first, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. While it isn't for everyone, I very much doubt that it will diminsh the first game's experience for you, even if you hate it (unless, of course, you love the game so much the first appears lessened by comparison, which is kinda what happened to me).