FOR GAME FANS! BIOSHOCK 2! WELCOME BACK TO RAPTURE!

Welcome back to Rapture, the underwater city of creepy little girls and ultra-violent junkies.

The city is the setting of the “Bioshock” video game series and is its most compelling character. Founded by industrialist Andrew Ryan as a safe haven for brilliant minds seeking respite from the institutionalized mediocrity of the surface world, Rapture is an extraordinary combination of art deco design, steam punk horror and failed Objectivist philosophy.

Yet, for all its ruminations on excellence and achievement, the most remarkable thing about “Bioshock 2” is how pedestrian it is.

The key to understanding how the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2007 game can be so run-of-the-mill begins in recognizing that the first “Bioshock” was seriously flawed as well. If it didn’t have one of the most satisfying twists in the history of video games, it would have been remembered as an interesting but largely unremarkable shooter. That twist, which comes near the middle of the game, was so brilliant it made the remaining exposition, tepid boss fight and choice of unsatisfying or idiotic endings all the more foolish in comparison.

If a game can’t even shoulder the weight of its own story, the idea of making a sequel seems questionable at best.

The developers at 2k Marin had their work cut out for them with “Bioshock 2,” but they achieved some noteworthy accomplishments.

The city is packed to the gills with details and design work so rich it is creates an impressive sense of history. In every room, it is possible to simultaneously picture Rapture at its apex, its horrific decline and its wretched present. The game practically body slams you with atmosphere.

The amount of care put into the environments and the art direction is immediately apparent. The Little Sisters, little girls who collect sought after gene-modifiers from corpses, are even more expressive and sympathetic this time around, while their new protectors, the scarecrow-like Big Sisters are sad, broken and terrifying all at once. Even the very ocean, almost an after thought in the first game, has been transformed into a menacing presence that is always attempting (and sometimes succeeding) to invade the ruin city.

But beyond the first thrilling set pieces, the action quickly becomes stale and the story falls flat. You will groan when you realize your first real mission is to get a fire plasmid to melt ice obstacles…just like in the first game. You will be frustrated that, even though you are supposed to be a Big Daddy, one of the original armored protectors of the Little Sisters, you never feel powerful and three measly bullets can put you down.

Worst of all, you will feel disappointed. Not because “Bioshock 2” is a terrible game – it is not; despite my criticism, I still love Rapture and its twisted denizens – but because it is so easy to see the amazing game that it never quite becomes.

Andrew Ryan wanted to build a place “where the great would not be constrained by the small.”

Perhaps his hopes will be achieved in the next sequel.