Though it is essentially a first-person shooter, the key component of BioShock 2 is its story, and while it features a powerful and compelling narrative with a satisfying conclusion, it is not without its issues. Whereas much of the first game focused on the city of Rapture and the mystery of how it fell from grace, BioShock 2 barely touches on these aspects, and as a result, prior knowledge is required to fully understand what is happening. There is supplemental reading on the big details buried within the menus for those who need it, but unfortunately, this isn't effectively brought to your attention. Furthermore, there are a number of inconsistencies present that are never satisfactorily explained. These range from small, nagging issues with the way certain story-based gameplay elements or characters from BioShock were grandfathered in, to larger problems with your very existence as a Big Daddy. It never becomes clear why you alone among the Big Daddies can use plasmids, for example. And while your pair-bond with Eleanor lightly manifests throughout the game, there is never any emotional connection there to latch hold of--the only reason you have to pursue her is that you're explicitly told you need to find her.

Standing between you and your Little Sister is The Family, Lamb's semireligious cult of splicers, or former citizens of Rapture whose years of abusing a genetically enhancing drug called ADAM has granted them superhuman powers at the cost of their sanity. The years have not been kind to the splicers, who are far more warped and disfigured than ever before. They're also more dangerous now, having spent the last ten years honing and refining their predatory skills and abilities. Most of the splicers you encounter, such as creepy wall-climbing spiders and teleporting houdinis, are recognizable from the first game, but they’re now joined by brutes, who can ruin your day with a charging tackle or a thrown piece of concrete. To keep up with these dangerous freaks, you have no choice but to splice up yourself to increase your potential and unlock new abilities. This means you need ADAM of your own, which is where things get As a Big Daddy, you're only too familiar with the way that ADAM is obtained: the Little Sisters. Making regular rounds in Rapture, the adorable but intensely creepy Little Sisters seek out ADAM-rich corpses (which they lovingly refer to as "angels") to drain with their wicked-looking needles. Each Little Sister is guarded by a Big Daddy, and unfortunately, there's no secret handshake that will get a Big Daddy to part willingly with his tiny charge--you've got to put him down. Once the two have been separated, it's up to you to decide what to do with the little girl, who cries in mourning of her surrogate father. As a Big Daddy yourself, you can lift her lovingly onto one shoulder and become her new guardian, or you can ruthlessly slaughter her for ADAM on the spot--an act made all the more cruel and unforgivable by your circumstances. By choosing the former, you can help your adopted Little Sister continue her rounds, earning a nice ADAM bonus in the process, but you're really only delaying the big decision. Do you choose to be selfish and harvest her? Or will you choose to be selfless and rescue her from her ghoulish condition? Each choice offers a different degree of ADAM as reward, but no matter what you decide, sooner or later Big Sister is going to catch up with you. These grown-up Little Sisters have been retrofitted with armor inspired by their guardians, and they are fast, powerful, and angry at you for messing with their pseudo siblings.All players have a persistent rank based on the amount of ADAM they've earned by winning matches and completing secondary objectives like hacking turrets, booby-trapping vending machines, or taking creeper photos of the bodies of their fallen enemies (which has the side effect of granting you a damage bonus against that player). Your rank determines which weapons, plasmids, and gene tonics are accessible, and you organize these into one of three loadouts you can select before a match begins or between respawns. Loadouts can and should be customized for different situations, and while you're dead, it's possible to check out what combinations the other players are using. Reaching certain ranks also earns you new voice recordings left by the multiplayer characters themselves, which provide their intriguing insights into the civil war and their downfall into madness.

Andrew Ryan dreamt of a world where his fellow man could endlessly pursue self-happiness and self-fulfillment, so he chose the impossible--a city beneath the oceans. When given the opportunity, the citizens of Rapture chose self-destruction in their selfish and twisted pursuits of his ideals. Precisely what you choose to do when you are beholden only to yourself and your own moral constraints is the backbone of BioShock 2. Rapture may not be as mysterious and intriguing this second time around, but it is nonetheless host to a powerful and moving tale that allows you to better realize--or pervert--Ryan's principles at your own discretion. Regardless of whether or not this is a return visit to paradise lost, there is plenty to be found here to make it a worthwhile, meaningful, and compelling one.

Once you make the difficult decision between driving as AiAi or Samba, it's time to get a taste of the racing. The controls are tightly honed, making it easy to weave through traffic, slide around corners, and drop a few landmines in front of your unsuspecting competitors. Everything in All-Stars Racing feels just right, so within seconds of starting your first race, you'll be able to focus on positioning rather than wrestling with your steering. The most exhilarating aspect of the racing experience is the boost system. By holding down the drift button when you enter turns, you slowly build up your boost ability. The longer you hold it, the faster your burst when you finally release it, which adds a bit of strategy as you see how far you can tempt fate. The only control issue is some iffy collision detection when slamming into the environment, but occasionally getting stuck on a rock doesn't hamper the overall fun of flying around these tracks.

The final piece that ties this great experience together is the impressive visuals. The courses are jam packed with details, some of which you’re unlikely to notice until you’ve raced them many times. The Samba De Amigo levels are overflowing with chaotic images. Cardboard-cutout suns smile down at the player, wooden kiosks line the track, and every inch is   with vibrant colors. Every course follows a similar mindset, packing the environment with so many little touches and nostalgic imagery that longtime Sega fans will swoon with delight. All of this detail does hinder the frame rate a bit, though. During particularly hectic sections, the game will stutter at times, though it's not enough to ruin your chance at victory. This is more noticeable on the PlayStation 3, especially online, but it ultimately isn't a huge deal. The game usually runs smoothly despite having so many Although the core of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is obviously pulled straight out of Mario Kart, this wacky racer can stand on its own four wheels. The tight controls and excellent track design ensure that head-to-head competition is always exciting, but it's so fun just to play around with these karts that it’s easy to lose hours climbing the online leaderboards in Time Trial mode. All-Star Racing may not push the genre forward in any meaningful way, but it builds so well on established themes that it doesn't even matte burst off the screen, and the fancy graphics do a fine job of tying this entire package together  

With a galaxy full of evil to smite and loot to collect, hopping from one planet to the next also presents numerous opportunities to stay busy in between following the righteous and heroic path of the do-gooder. Boosting your party's noncombat skills lets you cook tasty meals, forge new weapons, concoct magical items, and make all kinds of other helpful junk, provided you've foraged enough key components in your travels. Hunting down rare elements and combining different items needed to craft even more powerful gear and weaponry can grow into a time-consuming addiction with the potential to eclipse the importance of progressing through the main quest if you let it. Acquiring important items and artifacts also plays heavily into the high-paying fetch quests that appear at key shops in the pockets of civilization you encounter on each There are some beautiful landscapes and scenic backdrops here and there, but other areas are dull and devoid of visual personality in comparison. Character designs are also hit or miss. It's hard to empathize with the game's protagonists when they don't emote much, and there are moments when the dialogue is painful to sit through. The main updates in the international edition are in the audio and visuals. Instead of listening to the bad English dubs, you can now switch the dialogue over to the original Japanese voice work (and a few other languages), which definitely gives the package a more authentic anime JRPG feel. It's also possible to adjust the HUD menu appearance to a more classic setup that includes anime character portraits instead of the modern default designs. These aren't groundbreaking additions, but they're welcome ones.

The Last Hope remains a solid and mostly fun JRPG with a few character flaws that don't ultimately sink the ship. The international version is condensed onto a single disc, so there's no irritating swapping to deal with. Aside from the optional additional language tracks and the menu design tweaks, it doesn't hold any vast improvements over the Xbox 360 version. If you're hankering to suit up and go rid the galaxy of evil, you'll find this intrepid jaunt into the unknown packs enough danger and excitement to satisfy your sci-fi fantasy thrill-seeking urges.

The campaign is a focused, largely linear adventure that takes you to a variety of gorgeous locations. The aforementioned arctic and jungle landscapes are standouts, but other places live up to the high standard. Driving a tank through a countryside in the full bloom of autumn provides eye candy and cannon fodder aplenty, while speeding around a dry seabed in an ATV brings strange sights, not to mention a particularly fierce firefight in the courtyard of an old fortress. You have to be sharp to defeat the smart, aggressive enemies who use destructibility to their advantage and avoid your line of fire. The action is challenging but not overly so, ensuring you have plenty of time to revel in the havoc you are causing. Despite one oddly forced situation, the campaign moves through exotic locales at a great clip, providing ample opportunity to flex your firearms and enjoy some intense vehicle sequences. This is a very entertaining, very exciting adventure.