Remember Natalya Simonova? She'd constantly get you killed. It didn't matter that you'd already taken out a nuclear facility, stormed a Siberian bunker solo, and totted up a body count in the hundreds.

Outstanding voice work; Columbia is a jaw-dropping setting; particularly on PC; Art direction is superb; Skyrails are lots of fun; Elizabeth's AI is fantastic; Story is alost dangerously engrossing

Tear mechanic never quite lives up to its potential; Combat proves a little uninspired; particularly in the guns themselves; One or two narrative missteps; Wasted Songbird; How the hell will DLC work? What is that Season Pass even for

Sky-high with character, conspiracy, controversy and chaos. A great all-round shooter, even if it doesn't innovate as much as expected.

Brilliantly-realised setting; with a real sense of foreboding; Razor-sharp shooting - the best in the series; Bold and intelligent story

Lacks some of the magic of the original BioShock

One of the trends of this console generation is that shooters have become as disposable as sports games, quickly forgotten and discarded every Christmas in favour of an updated model. Not so BioShock .

Elizabeth is the most believable and affecting AI companion in years; Columbia's an incredible setting that sits comfortably alongside Rapture; The ending will leave your head spinning and you won't want it to stop

Some of the weapons are a little unimaginative; Vigors aren't that different to plasmids; It lacks a knock-you-down "Would You Kindly?" moment; although it comes close

The trailers for Bioshock Infinite cause a bit of a stir because it appeared to ditch the well trodden aquatic environment of Rapture for a strangely bright steampunk world in the clouds. How would they reconcile the new story with the old? Would the new game be worthy of the name Bioshock?

Infinite is about constants and variables. An opening seaward journey to a lighthouse echoes the original more closely than might be expected, given creative director Ken Levine's intention to differentiate beyond BioShock 2's conservative return to Rapture.

A truly fantastic experience which very much lives up to the original. It has some hard hitting themes that stand out as unusually realistic, not just for a fantasy title but for games in general. Beyond that, though, it treads well-worn paths.

Presented as more of a side-story than anything else, the first episode of this two-parter moves away from Columbia and back into the familiar setting of Rapture, the underwater city from the first two

Bioshock Infinite places you as Booker De-Witt, a grumpy hired gun and veteran of the U.S. Cavalry, owing too much to too many wrong people, but there's a chance to wipe the slate clean by rescuing Elizabeth, a girl who's been imprisoned high up in the flying city of Columbia, suspended in the air...

Party like it's 1999 mode

Bioshock Infinite has been highly anticipated since it was first teased. It takes the setting of the original games and raises expectation massively. A wildly different setting as the game moves from Rapture, deep under the ocean, to Columbia way up in the clouds.