Originally released in 2010, Bioshock 2 was placed slightly below the first game by many reviewers. It still offers a welcome return to Rapture with enough fun to overcome its flaws.

Eight years after the last title, Subject Delta, one of the first Big Daddies, awakens from a coma, intent on finding his lost daughter Eleanor. In the years he was asleep, Rapture fell into a power vacuum with the collectivist Sophia Lamb rising to power. Lamb and her family of cultists also claim ownership over Eleanor and Delta sets out to take them down.

The big selling point of Bioshock 2 is playing as the lumbering behemoth and this brings a range of refinements; you can now dual wield both plasmids and firearms for a smoother combat experience, use a remote tool to place turrets and hack machines from a distance and most satisfying of all, carve up splicers, other Big Daddies and anyone else who gets in your way with a massive drill.

With a new perspective comes new enemies, new locations and new moral quandaries. Brute splicers are able to take you on toe-to-toe, but it's the vicious Big Sisters who will give you most trouble. While these encounters are quite scripted, they succeed at delivering a firm challenge. You'll be battling in new areas of Rapture which expands an already vibrant setting. The expanded moral choices are a good improvement on the first game as well, impacting Delta's relationship with Eleanor over time.

Bioshock 2 has all the key ingredients, but its flaws do stand out more than the first game. There is some repetition in the early going, and the higher amount of combat can end up diminishing the atmosphere and exploration a bit. While the environments are well-presented, it's harder to shake the feeling of going through corridors rather than taking in an area organically.

Bioshock 2 may not match its predecessor in some ways, but don't let that stop you. It's still an incredibly enjoyable sequel that maintains the same tenets of the franchise while refining its core gameplay to a fine edge. If you played the original, this one is probably already in your collection, but it's still a solid immersive sim in its own right. The remastered version also includes the Minerva's Den expansion pack for some extra hours of play.

My extended retrospective on the franchise can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/jHe6ckTflSA?si=Gap55_9c_24IJpBr

a massive upgrade from the original
I love that hacking now it skill based and doesn't take a whole minute to do and that they made it so you have abilitys in 1 hand and a gun in the other, I didn't even use the abilitys bc I was so janky to switch between them and weapons, love that they added more enemies the first game lacked type of enemys
I just wish the game was longer

Pretty good