History VideoGame / BioShock2

* ObviousBeta:
** The PC version lacks the controller support of its predecessor, suffers from texture pop-in, and eats up 100% of the player's CPU even when idle, as well as various minor bugs (for example, for a long time it was impossible to rebind certain keys without breaking the hacking minigame). Most patches have focused on multiplayer, and one of them introduced a new bug that made Little Sisters unable to speak unless the Protector's Trials is downloaded and installed. On a lighter note, players who found the talking vending machines annoying in the first game will be glad to be rid of that.
** Thankfully most of the above was ironed out in late 2013 when the PC version was switched over from Games for Windows Live to Steam. Controllers are now officially supported, texture pop-in is typically only present when loading a level or save file for the first time and then there is no more afterward, and many keys are rebindable. Unfortunately, though, the game's UsefulNotes/DirectX 10 mode is still very buggy, as the game is prone to crash randomly when played in that mode. Switching the game over to [=DirectX=] 9 (via a launch command) typically fixes this issue for most (and all that's lost are slightly better-looking water and smoke effects). [[AndZoidberg And the vending machines still don't talk.]]
** All of this, including the vending machine voices, was fixed in the 2016 Remaster.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: The game makes no secret of the fact that Andrew Ryan dies in the first game. A hand full of audio logs also blatantly reveal that Atlas is really just Frank Fontaine. Being that this is the direct continuation of the first Bioshock ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin hence the name]]), the only way you'd know these things before hand is if you deliberately played this game first.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Splicers are so obsessed with ADAM that their collective addiction has caused societal collapse. That said, it's a wonder the Splicers only ever attack Sigma as opposed to say the Gather's Garden Machines or any of the other Big Daddies escorting Little Sisters. Sometimes they'll even attack a Little Sister-less Sigma while another Big Daddy with a Little Sister is only a few feet away! Furthermore, they never seem to collect the plasmids and tonics literally just lying around the Den.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Splicers are so obsessed with ADAM that their collective addiction has caused societal collapse. That said, It's a wonder the Splicers only ever attack Sigma as opposed to say the Gather's Garden Machines or any of the other Big Daddies escorting Little Sisters. Sometimes they'll even attack a Little Sister-less Sigma while another Big Daddy with a Little Sister is only a few feet away! Furthermore, they never seem to collect the plasmids and tonics literally just lying around the Den.

* HaveANiceDeath: Reed Wahl will taunt you over the radio if you die.

* RememberTheNewGuy: Turns out, Sofia Lamb was out of the picture by the time Atlas was picking up steam, but still a forefront in the "Maybe Ryan's not right" train of thought. Posters of "Rapture's Best and Brightest, 1958," can be found around Rapture in the second game. They include Suchong, Cohen, Fontaine, and Ryan (major characters from the first game), and also newcomers Lamb and Alexander.

** Andrew Ryan is an industrialist who founded the underwater city of Rapture as an objectivist Utopia, where citizens can become [[SelfMadeMan self-made men and women]] free from regulations, inhibitions, religion, and [[TheUnfettered fetters]], and where cutthroat capitalism reigns supreme. [[spoiler:For all his preaching about individual freedom and the "Great Chain", Ryan ultimately becomes a megalomaniac and tyrant who tries to silence his critics and grip his city with an iron fist [[OriginalPositionFallacy once said ideology is used against him]], culminating in the CivilWar that left Rapture in [[CrapsackWorld the state the player finds it in]].]] Ironically, his biggest competitor at the time -- Frank Fontaine -- is the very embodiment of Ryan's objectivist beliefs, being an unfettered self-made man who does everything for his own benefit at the ''expense'' of the city.
** Meanwhile, Sofia Lamb is a psychologist and an obssessive believer of absolute collectivism, to the point of [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill denouncing individuality and sentience as a curse and obstacle]] to serving the common good. Posing a threat to Andrew Ryan's ideology and authority upon her arrival to Rapture, [[spoiler:she was thrown into prison along with the rest of Ryan's enemies, where she was able to gather supporters and eventually found her own cult -- the Rapture Family -- centered around her collectivist outlook.]] Unlike Ryan, Lamb believes in what she preaches, but her ideas of altruism and serving the common good only manifest as a [[TheSociopath callous disregard for human life]], viewing her followers as tools to be eventually sacrificed -- [[spoiler:even her own daughter]] -- if it suits her goals.

* PermanentlyMissableContent: The Scrounger Tonic can only be obtained by fully researching Thuggish Splicers. The problem is that Thuggish Splicers disappear from the game after Pauper's Drop (the same level where you get the Research Camera), so you have to get all the research done in that level. While there are more than enough Thuggish Splicers to do this, it's awkward to keep swapping back and forth, especially mid-battle where the distraction can cost you.

* PlotHole: Subject Delta is somehow able to cure the Little Sisters despite never receiving Tenenbaum’s “Antidote” plasmid. She doesn’t even give it to you when you meet up with her near the start. It is possible Tenenbaum gave the Little Sister that saved Subject Delta the plasmid so he could be revived with it, but Tenenbaum not mentioning it at all, along with Subject Delta’s violent reaction to receiving [[ShockAndAwe electro bolt]] (indicating that that was his first plasmid) points towards it not being the case.

* GiantMook: Among the different Splicer types--Leadhead, Spider, etc.--they are all roughly the same size, but the Brute Splicer is a great, hulking mass of muscle that [[SmashMook will clobber you with debris]].

* PedoHunt: At least two Splicers react this way when they see you with a Little Sister. Baby Jane's (the flapper girls) are disgusted that you "brought a kid," and Lady Smith's (the cranky old ladies who think you're a misbehaving butler) demand you step away from the "helpless little girl."

** In the first level, you can hear the little sisters singing about the "house of upsidedown" and see some of their drawings of an upsidedown house throughout the game. It turns out Sophia Lamb's main base is Persephone, a prison that hangs over an ocean trench. It litterally looks like an upsidedown building.

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: The shotgun's damage upgrade entails cutting down the barrels, which the game insists makes it more powerful. Cutting the barrel down on a shotgun widens the spread a little (not as much as you'd think, though), but it also drastically reduces the muzzle velocity, making a SawedOffShotgun considerably ''less'' powerful compared to a longer-barreled version. It begs the question of why the developers think long-barreled shotguns exist at all, let alone are so commonly used in both sporting and military applications.

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: The shotgun's damage upgrade entails cutting down the barrels, which the game insists makes it more powerful. Cutting the barrel down on a shotgun widens the spread a little (not as much as you'd think, though), but it also drastically reduces the muzzle velocity, making a Sawed-Off Shotgun considerably ''less'' powerful compared to a longer-barreled version. It begs the question of why the developers think long-barreled shotguns exist at all, let alone are so commonly used in both sporting and military applications.

* DrowningMySorrows: Jack [=McClendon=] clearly took the failed project to make robotic Little Sisters pretty hard. The corpse you find in the room clutching a bottle of whiskey implies he drank himself to death.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Some will still hold on to their beliefs, including racial bias, even in a utopia where you're free to be who you want without the stigmas and laws from the surface world. In one of Porter's audio diaries, a businessman had the gall to ask Porter why he doesn't, and I quote, "splice white"? Porter, who's African American, is understandably pissed at the guy.

-->[[spoiler:'''Grace Holloway:''']] You had me under a gun, and you just walk away? No monster alive turns the other cheek. Ha, no monster does that. ''(horrified)'' ...[[ItCanThink A ''thinking man'' does that]].

* TeleporterAccident: After being interacted with enough times, the unstable Teleport Plasmid will teleport Delta throughout Fontaine Futuristics.