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BioShock 2 Special Edition | 
| From: 2K Games
Category: Video Games
Buy New: Too low to display
as of 3/11/2010 05:06 CST details
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 945
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: shooter_action_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Special
Number Of Items: 1
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Xbox 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 7.3
Dimensions (in): 16 x 16 x 4.2
MPN: XB3TK239630
Model: 39630
UPC: 710425396304
EAN: 0710425396304
ASIN: B002I0HEZ4
Publication Date: February 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | A wide range of multiplayer options, including team-based options, the ability to play as different characters and experience points used for new weapons, plasmids and tonics. | | • | BioShock 2 Special Edition bonus items including: an art book, posters, audio recording and more. | | • | All-new BioShock single player adventure, set 10 years after the first game featuring play as the prototype Big Daddy and a new Powerful opponent in the Big Sisters, a Big Daddy/Little Sister hybrid. | | • | New plasmids such as "Aero Dash" allowing for bursts of speed over short distances, and "Geyser Trap" a stream of water used as a jump pad and electrical conductor, join the ample list of Plasmids from the original game. | | • | New game mechanics including the ability to dual wield plasmids and weapons; flashback missions detailing how you became the Big Daddy; the ability to walk outside the airlocks of Rapture to discover new play areas, and many more. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The limmited edition contains: collector quality box packaging. Vinyl 180g lp with bioshock 1 orchestral score and frameable jacket. Audio cd with bioshock 2 orchestral score. Three vintage r
Amazon.com Product Description
Follow-up to BioShock, 2K Games' critically acclaimed and commercially successful 2007 release, BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter set in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. As in the original game, BioShock 2 features a blend of fast-paced action, exploration and puzzle-solving as players follow varying paths through the overarching storyline based on the decisions that they are forced to make at points in the game. In addition to a further fleshing out of the franchise's popular storyline, players can look forward to new characters, game mechanics, weapons, locations and a series first, multiplayer game options. Finally, bonus items included with the BioShock 2 Special Edition (see contents list below), provide the most complete BioShock 2 experience available and are destined to become collectors items. 
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The new power in Rapture.
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Duel wield plasmids & weapons.
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New choices as Mr. B.
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Franchise first multiplayer options.
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Dig into the crazed history of Rapture.
View larger. | The Story
Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline, a monster — somehow familiar, yet still quite different from anything ever seen — has been snatching little girls and bringing them back to the undersea city. It is a Big Sister, new denizens of Rapture who were once one of the forgotten little girls known as Little Sisters, known to inhabit the city's dank halls. No longer a pawn used to harvest ADAM, the dangerously powerful gene-altering lifeblood of Rapture, from the bodies of others and in turn run the risk of being harvested herself, the Big Sister is now the fastest and most powerful thing in Rapture. You, on the other hand are the very first Big Daddy, in fact the prototype, that for some reason has reactivated. You are similar to the Big Daddies familiar from the original BioShock, but also very different in that you possess free will and no memory of the events of the past ten years. The question is, as you travel through the decrepit and beautiful fallen city beneath the waves, hunting for answers and the solution to your own survival, are you really the hunter, or the hunted? Gameplay and Multiplayer
In BioShock 2 players will take on the role of the original Big Daddy, not that of game one protagonist, Jack. As a Big Daddy you will have access to all the strengths and weapons of a standard Big Daddy, including the drill and rivet gun. More importantly you also possess free will and the ability to use plasmids and gene tonics — genetic modifications allowed for through ADAM, a stem cell harvested from conquered enemies, or sea slugs outside the Rapture air lock, and powered by the in-game injectable serum known as EVE, which can be found, captured or purchased. Plasmids and gene tonics provide a wide range of aggressive and passive abilities which can be upgraded and arranged for quick use. The ability to use plasmids and tonics gives you a decided edge over other Big Daddies and most other denizens of Rapture, excluding the powerful Big Sisters. In addition, due to their role as a Big Daddy, players will experience a new relation to the Little Sisters. Upon defeating standard Big Daddys you are given the familiar choice as to whether to harvest or adopt them. Harvesting gains you ADAM immediately, but could alter your path through the game, while adopting makes you responsible for Little Sisters, who then accompany you through Rapture, but also provide aid and warning in times of danger. Additional gameplay features include: new plasmids, weapons and the ability to combine these two. The game also features the anticipated multiplayer modes. Several of these are team-based, allowing up to 10 players. Within these players are provided with a rich prequel experience that expands the origins of the BioShock fiction, and allows you to play as one of several characters pulled from Rapture's history before the events of the first game. Key Features - The Big Sister - No longer just something to be harvested or not, the Big Sister is the most powerful resident in Rapture.
- You Are the Big Daddy - Take control with the original prototype Big Daddy, and experience the power and raw strength of Rapture’s most feared denizens as you battle powerful new enemies.
- New Plasmids - New plasmids such as "Aero Dash" allowing for bursts of speed over short distances, and "Geyser Trap" a stream of water used as a jump pad and electrical conductor, join the ample list of Plasmids from the original game.
- New Game Mechanics - BioShock 2 contains many new gameplay mechanics. Just a few of these are: the ability to wield plasmids and weapons simultaneously; flashback missions detailing how you became the Big Daddy; the ability to walk outside the airlocks of Rapture to discover new play areas, and many more.
- New Locations - Just a few of the locations and environments debuting in BioShock 2 are Fontaine Futuristics, headquarters of Fontaine's business empire and the Kashmir Restaurant.
- Evolution of the Genetically Enhanced Shooter - Innovative advances bring new depth and dimension to each encounter, allowing players to create exciting combinations to fit their style of gameplay.
- Return to Rapture - Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the story continues with an epic, more intense journey through one of the most captivating and terrifying fictional worlds ever created.
- Genetically Enhanced Multiplayer - Earn experience points during gameplay to earn access to new weapons, plasmids and tonics that can be used to create hundreds of different combinations.
- Experience Rapture’s Civil War - Players will step into the shoes of Rapture's citizens and take direct part in the civil war that tore Rapture apart.
- See Rapture Before the Fall - Experience Rapture before it was reclaimed by the ocean and engage in combat over iconic environments in locations such as Kashmir Restaurant and Mercury Suites, all of which have been reworked from the ground up for multiplayer.
The BioShock 2 Special Edition for Xbox 360 Includes: 
View larger. | - BioShock 2 for Xbox 360
- Vinyl 180g LP with BioShock orchestral score
- Audio CD with BioShock 2 orchestral score
- Three vintage Rapture advertisement posters (rolled)
- BioShock 2 Art Book, 164 pages and hardcover
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
A familiar return to Rapture March 11, 2010
C. Samuel (Acworth, GA United States)
I really enjoyed playing through this game although I wouldn't quite say it tops the first one even with the multiplayer features. I think it's safe to say if you enjoyed the first game, you will like the second. Not a whole lot has changed in my opinion. I really enjoyed the bonus material in the Special Edition. A vinyl record!!?? How cool is that!! I'm a sucker for soundtracks. Now I just need to pick up a record player!
Awesome special edition for a collection. March 9, 2010
Frosty
As I have been opting for the special editions of any game that comes with one for a few years now this is a great addition to anyones shelf-space. That being said the single player game is great and cannot be beat. The story is amazing and overall feel of the game, is as expected, wonderfully engrossing. However it failed to receive a 5 star rating for me because where the special edition and single player made up, the multi player sorely lacked in anything fun. It feels as if it was just tacked on and not a whole lot of attention was put into it. Games/characters feel sluggish and the overall experience is just not to much fun. Now I have been spoiled by MW2 so maybe that has something to do with it, but if multi player is just as important or more important than single player to you, keep looking this is not your game.
 Bioshock, What Have They Done to You?! March 3, 2010
ARK (Computer Chair)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
My verdict: If you're here for gameplay and atmosphere, and like good FPSes and good survival horror, you'll be happy. If you're here for a story as powerful and incredible as the first Bioshock, you'll be disappointed.
If you are currently playing through Bioshock 2 and want to go in blind, you might not want to read the rest of this (that said, I don't give any spoilers for either 1 or 2).
Special Edition
Loved it all, especially the art book, the record, and the soundtrack. Great swag, very much worth it. The art of Bioshock is incredible and fun and oh-so-inspiring, and Garry Schyman's unique, gorgeous orchestrations do not disappoint. (Check out "Pairbond," which is fabulous in particular.)
Gameplay
Is awesome. In fact, the only reason that I didn't throw down my controller with rage by the end of the game is because it's so fun to protect Little Sisters and kill Splicers in inventive ways. Also, unlike the first Bioshock, where it seemed EVE hypos and ammo were in endless supply, in Bioshock 2 it's harder to find resources. In a few levels you're simply scraping by -- which is exciting in its own right. It forced me to adapt and improve. I was awful in the first few levels; by the end I was actually pulling off clever kills.
I'm sorry to say that the Big Sisters don't live up to the hype. They're just a nimble, plasmid-wielding Big Daddy who shows up after you Rescue or Harvest the first Little Sister of every level. Look. I am an awful FPS player. I played through on Medium. At one point, when I had to fight two Big Sisters at the same time, I destroyed them handily. Yikes.
There are also plenty of bugs. The most noticeable one for me was in Pauper's Drop, wherein the Big Sister song started to play over and over and over for no discernible reason, until I finally had to turn off the music entirely. Also: the Bouncer just standing beside my trap wires and letting me shoot him from afar was too much.
The Story
I don't care for survival horror or FPSes. I never play these things unless there's a good story to go along with them. So I was not playing this game to shoot things up. I was playing this game to experience some Grade A storytelling. Needless to say, I came away from the story feeling disappointed and mildly put off. I felt like there was this big setup and then no equally big payoff. At every plot point, I found myself saying, "Really? That's all?"
The saddest thing is that it's not that it's a bad story as much as it has so much potential and does nothing with it. I mean, just try to get over that SWEET opening movie. I think that's the best beginning to a game I've ever seen. The writers of this story dreamed up all of these COOL things, and they hooked me from page one. I was ready to rock and roll.
Then, what do they do? The vast possibilities just hamstring them. They apparently just looked at the basic ideas for their story and froze in place and didn't know where to go. "What do we do with this character? OH GEEZ I could do this or this or... ahhhh there's so many possibilities and so much backstory and... oh screw it I'll just turn Subject Delta into a conductor!" (toot toot!) Yes, did I mention you're ferrying Sinclair all over creation while he yaks commands at you? Not to mention, you could see the storywriters wildly trying to think of what the heck they were supposed to do with all of the characters. Their solution is to... well... you'll see. Three people: You, Meltzer, Sinclair. It just gets goofy after a while.
You do get little payoffs that make it somewhat worthwhile. Unfortunately, for the most part, what you see is what you get. Sometimes the game goes, "OOOOH! MAYBE SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN!" and you're like "OHHHHH SNAAAAAP HERE COMES THE TWIST!" Then no twist comes and you feel rather let down, and you think: "Well, maybe a good twist will come up later!" Meanwhile, the story giggles nastily in a shadowy corner somewhere and traipses off to... do nothing!
I kept hoping for big twists, memorable villains and heroes and incredible characterization. None, really. Grace Holloway and Alex the Great were the only characters who really stood out. The radio diaries were great, but didn't escalate the feelings of tension and horror or enhance the story as the game went on. Tenenbaum only has a bit part -- and she is promptly swallowed by a Plot Hole, so that you never figure out what happens to her. All in all, there was something huge missing and I couldn't put a finger on what it was. I don't know that I ever will. It's funny how some games get all of the technical things right and just don't seem to have a "soul," for lack of a better word.
As for the Best ending, which I played for... oh, it was so unsatisfying. Really, 2K? Really? That's all? And why is it the Worst Ending is far cooler? Not right.
The Villain
So how about our villain? In Bioshock 1, it was zillionaire and Rapture founder Andrew Ryan. And what a foe he was! But in Bioshock 2, our enemy is... A PSYCHIATRIST.
Initially, I had a bad feeling about this. I'm sure you can see why.
Psychiatrist and cult leader Sophia Lamb, although the perfect picture of a holier-than-thou, cold-fish English madam, inspires fear only at first. Later, she just becomes the equivalent of an evil Mary Poppins. She's annoying, and her voice becomes an incessant drone, and you keep hoping that by the end of the game, you can just punch her in the face. Compare her to Andrew Ryan, who was terrifying and awe-inspiring throughout Bioshock 1, whose upper class bearing actually managed to make you feel lacking and ashamed of yourself, and whose intelligence and power were frightening because he could do so much with them. Even stranger, you could really understand his point of view, and even felt sorry for him when you saw his lofty ideals crumbling all around him. He was an incredible character. When Jack finally meets him... it's the perfect climax. In fact, when I picked up Ryan's diaries in Bioshock 2, I almost always found myself shivering. He's a scary mofo, you get me?! A scary freaking mofo.
On the other hand, when I picked up Lamb's diaries, I gritted my teeth. I HATE HER VOICE. And I hate her. I didn't hate her because she was a good villain; I hated her because she was boring and annoying. And I really couldn't tell you why, because she's just the female version of Ryan. Upper class? Check. Arrogant? Check. Intellectual? Check. Powerful? Check. She's everything Ryan is. So why is she a dud and Ryan so SCARY? I mean, he is scary without any effort at all. The first time I heard his voice I was scared of him.
Maybe it's because Ryan is so much more than Lamb is. Lamb is, to use Ryan's terminology, a "parasite." She moseys on in to Rapture, which was built by the efforts and resources of somebody else, and takes over in the vacuum when the Big Players exit. Not very impressive -- just a vulture swooping down to take advantage of an easy meal. Furthermore, she has no foil in any character in the game -- except for you as Subject Delta. That's... not exactly a good sign, especially as you are a mute gun-toting idiot who can't remember what he had for lunch the day before. In Bioshock 1, Ryan had Atlas and Fontaine, and Jack was the hapless little guy who showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not comparable at all.
The game tries and tries to make Lamb sound impressive, to the point that she's practically a Mary Sue. Apparently, she engaged in several public debates with Ryan and became a large sensation with the Rapture populace, eventually instating a large cult presence. But if she was such a Big Player herself, why is she so noticeably omitted in Bioshock 1? My friend, who played through the game concurrently with me, said that she thought it was because our adventures were limited to the poverty-stricken areas of Rapture, where such ideologies could take better root. This makes sense to me. Even so, Lamb is STILL not impressive. So, the only people she can sway are desperate? That's not a good sign.
Perhaps it's that she doesn't have anything to lose. Ryan tried to save his city and vision to the end. By the same token, he had lost so much by the point you start the game -- his ideals, his vision, his moral code, all of his dreams. He became what he professed to hate and he knew it -- and that tragic realization was a huge reason for why he was so incredible as a character. What would happen if Lamb failed at her goal? Nothing. She'd start over again, I guess. Her story could happen anywhere, with anyone. It wasn't specific to Rapture, in short. And she wasn't like Ryan in that she could see her own hypocrisy. She was the same from the earliest radio diary to the last squawky monologue. Boring, boring, boring, and pretentious to boot.
So as much as the game tries to elevate her, Lamb is still a lame villain. It's not that hard to rally the members of Rapture to your cause; they're INSANE, for heaven's sakes. It's like a dork trying to come across as cool by wearing leather and sunglasses and riding a motorcycle. You can't be cool if you try. If you're cool, you just are. You're defined by your actions, not by what people say about you or what you look like.
Actually, that sums up this game rather well. Stop talking -- start doing.
The Philosophy
The first Bioshock was intelligently written and envisioned, and is, in fact, based on a philosophical treatise. So how about Bioshock 2?
The whole idea of this Bioshock was to present the extreme alternative to Ryan's extreme individualism. Lamb believed in a Utopia achieved through the eradication of self consciousness and the attainment of earthly nirvana, in which each "individual" sought to increase the common good. Think a "hive mind" (to oversimplify things). It's an interesting idea in my opinion -- seeing what would happen if the pendulum swung too far the other way. It just isn't very striking, is all. Why? Because it's so IMPOSSIBLE. You know she's going to fail. Because, whereas you can visualize complete individual freedom, it's almost impossible to visualize complete lack of self. Ryan's plight was so sad because his plan had seemed to work so well, then backfired; but how can Lamb's plan lose any "progress" when she hasn't made any to begin with? I mean, she's failing right and left from step one. People are dying for her vision on every side. So. You can see the problem here.
Jack v. Subject Delta
Forgiving the fact that you start out the game as the Model T of Big Daddies (which was extremely disappointing to me), it's still great, great fun being a Big Daddy. I loved saving Little Sisters and I loved laying the smackdown on those who crossed me. By the end of the game you're an incredible powerhouse. But maybe part of my disappointment with the game deals with Subject Delta, who had so much promise story-wise -- promise that never pays off. What does Subject Delta want? Eleanor, his Little Sister, right? And if he doesn't find her he's going to go kaput, correct? Well... that's... uh... rather straight-forward, don't you think? The entire angle of "you're going to die if you don't find Eleanor" doesn't really seem like a threat. You don't ever "suffer" for not being close to her, except for maybe one or two "moments" per level. Eleanor tells you your heart is weakening, and Sinclair informs you of your certain demise, but words are insubstantial things.
In the first Bioshock you're Jack, the last survivor of a plane crash, trying to escape this horrible nightmarish dystopia. He's just trying to get the heck out of Dodge. The game is terrifying because in every level, you keep hoping that maybe this time, this time, you'll find the way out... the result being, it's an adrenaline rush from beginning to end.
Bioshock 2... not so much. It's even SLOW in some parts. Why? Because the story doesn't pay off, and just kind of slopped out half-baked. Story is everything. When will people learn this?! I don't blame those players who think that Bioshock 2 is just a grind, killing the same enemies over and over; without a compelling story, that's what most FPSes are and that's why I don't play them.
In Conclusion...
The magic of the first game wasn't really here. I realized that I brought a lot of Bioshock 1's magic with me when I played Bioshock 2, and I had ridden my combined hopes right to the end. And nothing happened of any value whatsoever. Well, maybe-sort-of, in an awkward limping sort of way. All in all, it was very anticlimactic.
I still think most people will enjoy it. The gameplay is solid, after all. But if you're like me and you want a story that rocks, this game will not deliver. That's a tragedy.
 Best yet! February 28, 2010
Christopher Campbell (Naples, IT)
I liked the first game. It was entertaining, had an original story but this second one is lightyears ahead and plunges in directions that are revolutionary to the level that Ocarina of time was when it burst out on N64. The story evolves and adds to the plot of the first game and has added so many new levels to an already deep story. the game play has advanced right along with the plot making new challenges and rightly adding in new functions for weapons, tonics, etc. all in all my #2 game only to ocarina of time.
USE A BLACKLIGHT ON THE POSTERS!!! February 24, 2010
Alex York
I was impressed with the contents of the SP edition in the first place, but when I put the three posters on my wall and turned on a blacklight (for other posters on my wall) the rapture posters have graffiti on them like in the game! Byfar the coolest gimmick in game swag ever. Try it out.
As far as the game...well come on now, its bioshock how is it not awesome in its own right :)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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