Bioshock 2 manages to feel overly familiar and awkwardly different at the same time. The storytelling and ambience ape its predecessor while the mechanics shift away from role-playing and toward FPS. However, it’s difficult to fault developers for sticking with the formula that gave them a game of the year, and the polished plasmid/shotgun gameplay is still there for everyone who liked it the first time around. It’s just ironic that Bioshock is always overshadowed by expectations.

2K Boston may have changed their name back to Irrational Games, but some things are immutable. Fire up your consoles, because the PC release of Bioshock 2 will feature everybody’s favorite DRM: SecuRom. Bioshock veterans will recall the stink about SecuROM in the original game, what with the unrequested rootkit installations, the accusations of spyware, [...]