BioShock™ Remastered

I have been encouraged to play Bioshock as it has made its way to classic status for many. My playthrough of Bioshock was enjoyable but I am reluctant to recommend it. First and foremost is the game’s performance. This game is riddled with graphics, sound, and stability issues that make this game unplayable off the download. Only with some backend finagling is this game functional. I was able to mod the game to look and sound exquisite. Were the modified version the one that was sold to me, I would be much happier with my purchase. The city of Rapture in its post-apocalyptic state carries with it both a feeling of horror and mystery which wanes in its potency during the play through much like chewing gum. The horror of Bioshock is short lived and I believe this has to do with the limited enemy set. The skins and the actions of the enemies are so similar that Bioshock effectively has 4 enemies for the entirety of the game. There simply isn’t enough in game material to keep the horror of fallen Rapture present throughout the story. Likewise, the mystery of Rapture is methodically broken down into nuisance by a bombardment of numerous lengthy audio files meant to fill-in a story that should have been shown as opposed to narrated. I guess I should have counted myself lucky that I wasn’t met with walls of expositional text. (I am looking at you Mass Effect 2) I keep thinking that the story of Bioshock takes off in the wrong place. I never got to feel the impact of the glory and collapse of Rapture. The story arc and character depth would be much more impactful were I able to play through the transition of the fallen city of Rapture as, Jack developed as a character while he discovered first-hand the horrific price of plasmid augmentation and uncovered the mystery as to his origin. Again, Bioshock needs to show more of its story; an easy thing to say now fifteen years later. It was alright/10

I got to the medical pavilion and found a new plasmid, and then everytime I try to use it, the game crashes.

FYI: Remastered version is a lame port, but I still suggest playing it over the original for reasons below! So Bioshock 1 is an incredibly fun first person shooter with a big emphasis on RPG'ish elements and big open-ended levels. Let me tell you why it's SO good first! - Its story is my favorite of the franchise. The game's villain is Andrew Ryan, the founder of the big underwater city you're trapped in. There are also tons of other great characters that you can learn about directly via conversations over your radio or by audio logs similar to how System Shock 1 and 2 worked. - It also has an interesting setting of an early Cold War, extreme Anarcho-Capitalist society. The underwater city is like nothing else we've seen in video games before and has great fitting music. - Fun Economy System! So you loot money, ammo, and crafting materials from crazed enemies and buy medical kits or ammo from vending machines. You also use the crafting items to obviously manufacture unique ammo types or useful devices. - GREAT Combat! You get a selection of 8 different upgradeable weapons. Almost all of them can use different types of ammo. On top of that, you get Plasmids, the "magic" of the game. You can zap, freeze, and immolate enemies. This really spices up the combat! - Great Character Progression: You can obtain and swap different "genes", which essentially give the player useful perks! Unfortunately, there's some bad to be found here too: - Unbalanced Weapons: The pistol, shotgun, and machine gun becomes obsolete once you get the grenade launcher, chemical launcher, and crossbow. - Hacking is BORING: You gotta hack a LOT of machines, and it's a boring mini-game that takes too long. - Port Is Kinda Crappy: It mostly works out of the box, but the Remastered's only improvement is better resolutions, an FOV option... and that's it i think. Some people report that it crashes a lot, but it only crashed once for me. Still a great game, and I recommend it!

Bioshock is still an amazing game 14 years later. The setting is one of the best we've ever seen, the visuals and art direction are beyond stunning, the gameplay is unique and engaging, and the storytelling is also at a high level throughout most of the game. The ending is poorly thought out and executed, but that remains the only real weakness of this masterpiece. However, this version is utterly broken. I am among a very large group of people who have experienced regular crashes. In my case the game would crash every few times I access the map and on occasion when loading a level or when saving. I had to restart it probably 50+ times to get to the end. Then it crashed right at the final pre-rendered cutscene, so at that point I just gave up and watched it on Youtube. The remaster has done virtually nothing to enhance the visuals as well. The remastered dev's name is kind of telling. As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. Blind Squirrel didn't this time.

I was excited to get this from GOG via my Amazon Prime account. I have played the intro probably 12 times and every time it crashes right after getting into the elevator to Rapture. When the elevator stops and the loading screen pops up it sits there for a minute or 2 and then crashes out of the game altogether. It does not save so you cannot get back into the game and start after the elevator....you have to go through the plane crash, swimming, getting on the elevator, pulling the lever, and then the game crashing again....