BioShock® 2 Return to the drowned city

The twist that sets this sequel apart: instead of a stranded outsider, you play Subject Delta, an early Big Daddy, one of Rapture's most feared protectors. That changes everything about how the city feels. You wade through flooded art deco halls in a heavy diving suit, and the splicers who would tear a normal survivor apart are now the ones who should be afraid. Your drill tears through enemies, though it drinks fuel fast, and the rivet gun and machine gun hit with real weight. The story gives the armor a purpose too: Delta was bonded to a Little Sister named Eleanor, taken from him by Sofia Lamb, the psychiatrist who now rules what is left of the city. Finding her drives the whole campaign.

The biggest mechanical step up from the first game: you can hold a weapon and a Plasmid at the same time, no switching. Freeze a splicer solid, then shatter him with the drill. Lay cyclone traps by a doorway, then open fire while they do the work. Later in the game the combinations get genuinely absurd, in the best way. Hacking has been reworked too: instead of pausing the action, it plays out in real time while enemies close in, which keeps the pressure on. New enemies raise the stakes, above all the Big Sisters, fast, armored hunters who arrive with real menace and force you to use everything you have. The fights are fluid, aggressive and satisfying in a way the series had not managed before.

Rapture ten years on is older, wearier and more broken, and exploring it remains the heart of the game. Coral grows over ballroom floors, water drips through flooded apartments, and the soundtrack and voice work carry the loneliness of the place. Audio diaries and environmental details tell you what happened to the people who stayed behind after the collapse. The seven districts, from the Adonis Baths to Dionysus Park, each have their own atmosphere and their own story. Along the way you meet a cast of distinct, strange survivors, and your choices with them, sparing or killing, matter: the game has several endings, and Eleanor's own behavior reflects what you taught her. The story is more personal than the first game's, a drama about a father and daughter, and it lands.