Of course being a Big Daddy you'll have access to the weapons that made them legendary in the first game, namely your drill and rivet gun, and let us just say that it is as good fun as you think it is to wrap your drill around a Splicers head when using the melee attack. The drill must be kept powered by fuel instead of regular ammunition and can also be upgraded to perform more powerful attacks as you progress through the game. Other weapons are available to you, such as a machine gun and a shot gun, and like the first game these are all upgradable allowing you to increase their firepower and how much ammunition they can hold at any one time. As already mentioned Delta has the ability to use Plasmids unlike the other Big Daddies that wander rapture so you can collect those in the same way you could the first game, these are also upgradable and can be used in conjunction with your main weapons to create devastating attacks on the Splicers.
You've got the same eleven plasmids as you had access to in the first game, plus a couple more for good measure. Like the weapons they can be upgraded as well, the one that allows you to control fire, 'Incinerate', can be first used to throw fire balls at people and flammable objects, upgrade it to level two and you'll be able to throw a charged shot to ignite multiple enemies, once you've maxed it out on level three you'll be able to use it like a flame thrower weapon. As well as being able to combine their use with your more traditional range of weapons you're also able to use the plasmids in conjunction with each other, so if you've got the Cyclone Trap plasmid which normally allows you to throw an enemy into the air then once you have upgraded it to level two you'll be able to use it with the Incinerate ability, and other plasmids to create a deadly trap.
Those familiar with the first game will be aware that Rapture is littered with security devices in the form of flying bots equipped with machine guns and stationary turrets that will blast targets on site; to combat these remote enemies you're given a Hacking Tool which allows you to shoot the device with a dart and take control of it, this is achieved by simply pressing a button when a moving arrow lands in a green sweet spot, some devices are harder than others to hack so the green areas are smaller and it also requires more stages before you can change the nature of the device to attack your enemies. You're also given a camera which enables you to do research on your enemies, you record you actions and the camera will analyse your attack patterns and see what works and what doesn't. Occasionally the camera allows you to watch an enemy and how it is able to perform certain actions, once the camera has performed analysis on this action it will translate it into a useable action for you to perform so it's always worthwhile getting the camera rolling before attacking an enemy.
Multiplayer is a welcome addition to the game, it takes the form of a story driven mode, and unlike the main game is set in 1959, before the events of the original BioShock in the Civil War. You take control of one of six splicers who are testing out new weapons and new Plasmids from Sinclair Solutions, as you progress through the ranks more and more become available to you. On starting the multiplayer mode you find yourself in an apartment in Rapture, you choose one of the characters which range from a housewife to a football star, then you select your weapons of choice and your attire before making your way to a Bathysphere; from there you can choose one of seven game modes; Survival of the Fittest is basically a Death Match variant where the players fight each other until a player either reaches 20 kills or the time runs out in which case the player with the most kills wins the match. Civil War is the games answer to Team Death Match where the same rules apply, first team to reach the target or get the most kills wins.
The Last Splicer Standing mode is another variation on the Death Match mode, similar to Civil War but there are no respawns for the characters and each match lasts for several rounds. Capture the Sister mode is, as you might expect a variant of the Capture the Flag mode with the idea of getting the Little Sister to the vent instead of a flag to a pole. The Little Sisters also feature in the ADAM grab modes, ADAM Grab and Team ADAM Grab, in this mode players must hold onto the Little Sister for a total of three minutes to win the match, finally we have the Turf War mode which is another team based mode but this time the aim is to hold onto various Waypoints on a map, the team holding the most Waypoints for the longest amount of time wins the match.
For the most part the Multiplayer is an enjoyable experience, we only use the term "for the most part" because we sometimes found it hard to get a match going. The online games are all designed for 6 – 10 players with six being the minimum, but more than once we seemed to spend a long time trying to get six players into one match and we we're left staring at the screen tutting. This isn't the games fault and it was pretty much dependant on the time as well but we felt it could have been done better if a game was allowed to start at any point with permission from the host, after all, you don't really need to have 6 players to start modes like The Last Splicer Standing.
As you can see from the various screenshots dotted around the game is a joy to look at, it's another game making use of the famed Unreal Engine, this being based on the 2.5 version of the engine but incorporating bits of Unreal 3 engine as well, much the same as the first game. One of the things that is most striking is the water effects in the game, obviously with Rapture being an underwater city then the developers had to spend some effort getting this right and it certainly pays off, the outside fauna of the sea moves around almost hypnotically in the tidal patterns of the sea, parts of Rapture have been damaged so water is either leaking into certain sections or has flooded them entirely and it always looks as it should with the distortions and reflections of the water all used to good effect. The Splicer's could be more varied in there appearance, but, you don't really notice it to much and with the different combinations of their outfits and masks then it's even less noticeable, everything is extremely well animated and there is a high amount of detail gone into the scenery making Rapture seem like a real city as you make your way through the various sections.
The music and sound effects in the game are all well done, there's a selection of 50's music that sometimes squawks out of nearby radios (very similar to the music in Fallout 3 we thought) and all the voice actor's put in a good performance which is just as well with all the diary entries you listen to. In the same way that the Splicers could be more varied then so could their incidental dialogue, once you're about half way through the game you've more or less heard all the little arguments they have between themselves and all the different versions of their attacking screams, again, this isn't a bad thing but once you've noticed it you've noticed it.
So, is it all a welcome return to Rapture? Most certainly "Yes", BioShock 2 takes the premise of the first game and builds on its own mythology with some style and grace, there's just enough familiarity to make it feel like a sequel and just enough new stuff to keep you interested, the story is well told and easy to follow and certainly has some surprises to keep you interested, we'll almost guarantee you'll be amazed at least a couple of times while you're working your way through the main campaign. With six different endings dependant on how you played the game there is also plenty of replay value in the main game as well, again we won't go into details on how or what changes these endings but we dare say you'll realize these moments when you come across them. The multiplayer is icing on the cake, 2K Games have made an excellent job of giving you more bang for your buck with the different game modes and it definitely doesn't feel like a tacked on extra as it so could easily have turned out to be, it's pretty fair to say that you'll be playing this one for along time to come.
