Bioshock Burial At Sea: Episode 2

Worthwhile DLC has always been something of a rarity but Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode 1 was genuinely enjoyable... mostly because the original Bioshock (unlike Bioshock Infinite) never showed you Rapture before the collapse.

Burial  at Sea allowed you to wander around Rapture and get a feel for that city under the sea before it was exclusively the preserve of murderous freaks... which was a pleasant change of pace because, regardless of what people say about Bioshock - it's gameplay is not (and never was) "genre busting".

In fact, Bioshock Infinite marked a fairly substantial regression to the rather wearisome status quo of console gaming by way of Halo's seemingly inescapable two weapon limit and regenerating health - although, there's no regenerating health in Episode 2... but still a two gun limit, although it's rather more stealth orientated and even has a mode focused EXCLUSIVELY on non-lethal takedowns but as with the first episode, it's the NON-COMBAT sections which are that much more interesting.

The fights aren't particularly interesting and in fact for the vast majority of the time, you can effectively avoid them either by being stealthy or simply by running away or using your invisibility plasmid. In fact, you fight generic Rapture (and SPOILERS! Columbia) goons almost exclusively and are even denied the opportunity of a Big Daddy beatdown - the game puts you in an area with a Big Daddy and then goes "Yeah, you can't kill him."

There's one section where there is the arbitrary "kill x many goons to proceed" but that's pretty much the only time fighting is mandatory. The rest of the time stealth or speed are pretty much expected - on the higher difficulties just one hit can be enough to wipe out your health bar - and are helped with the new "peeping tom" vigor/plasmid and the ability to use vents.

The real problem - aside from the lacklustre gameplay - is the story... the ending of the first episode was good but it didn't lend itself to a continuation... and episode two seems to demonstrate that in spades, unfortunately mistaking a lot of technobabble and pseudo-philosophical navel gazing on the nature of choice as an alternative to characters and story.

Between that and some forced attempt to tie Bioshock Infinite to the original and trying to be entirely too clever (and failing) again... it's a rather unsatisfying finish to the franchise and while it's nice to return to Rapture (and Columbia) again... there's nothing of value added... Episode 1 succeeded because it offered an insight into what had been alluded to but never shown in Bioshock... Episode 2 just feels like it's riding coattails.