BioShock 2 will not only let you revisit an old haunt or two--you'll also be able to explore a whole new chunk of the city. One of the new spots you'll visit isn't even in Rapture itself--it's on the outside. A new gameplay mechanic lets you make use of your fancy diving suit to take a stroll on the outside of the city. The underwater segments are being incorporated into the game to offer a breather from the tension and generally hazardous interior action. The short walk we saw as part of our demo let our boy gain access to another part of the city that would be otherwise inaccessible if he had simply stuck to the interior. The walks will be hazard free and will give players the chance to check out the exterior of the city (which looks incredibly cool) as well as the surrounding ocean life. One of the more-interesting and subtle details you'll see throughout the game is the impact that Rapture and ADAM are having on the larger sea environment. As it turns out, it's not a very pretty impact. Coral and plants are shaped oddly and mesh weirdly with the city. It's beautiful but also a little creepy.

The interior section our character then entered was part of Fontaine Futuristics, which fans may recognize as the place where the plasmids come from. The area looked like an unmistakable part of Rapture, being a combination of slick art deco and neon design...and rundown rubble. A little sister, one of the new models who wear a dark dress, was being menaced by some splicers, which we dispatched with our handy drill and firearm. Once she was saved, the little sister showed off one of the new perks of playing a big daddy in BioShock 2: characters will react differently to you than they did to Jack. In the little sister's case, it was like she'd just met an old friend...or Elvis. Rather than running away, she eagerly approached her savior, which called up a new set of moral choices. You'll once again have the option to harvest ADAM out of your little friends, but in the sequel, you'll also have the option to "adopt" them. This means they'll hang out with you and help you find sources of ADAM (you know...corpses). You'll use ADAM to enhance your abilities (though these abilities are still being kept under wraps). So, adopting little sisters seems like the smart thing to do. Once you've adopted one, she'll sit on your shoulders and enhance your vision, which will let you see where the ADAM is. Since you're the muscle, you'll have to take them to the source and get them to harvest it.

Given the raw power and range of abilities the big daddy you'll play, the team felt the need to create a formidable predator. We saw hints of her handywork in the debris throughout the level, which included numerous battered big daddy corpses. But it wasn't until she popped into sight that we got a sense for how dangerous she is. The big sister is a lithe being that's unsettlingly thin, but has a fat needle arm, and a cage on her back to hold little sisters. She's fast, maneuverable, and has special abilities of her own. In her brutal attack in the demo, she had what appeared to be a telekinesis plasmid--which she used with deadly accuracy. Though she initially seemed to just be stalking our character, we quickly realized that she had been herding him into a specific area by smashing glass and letting in the ocean. Before he could get his bearings, she unleashed a telekinetic barrage of debris and followed up with a mighty slam that temporarily incapacitated our hero. This is an impressive and menacing adversary, and her eerie animations, which resemble a cross between a splicer and a jungle cat, and her overall design, make her look like a very dangerous and disturbing foe.