Splicing and Dicing

You're a Big Daddy on a mission.

I'm not a huge fan of remasters, re-releases, or any other semi-cleverly marketed lure that is designed to drag more money out of people.  One thing I am not opposed to though is free stuff, so when a remaster is offered for the fine, fine price of $0, I'm completely fine with that.  At some point in the quasi-recent past, I began a quest to play through the remastered versions of BioShock and BioShock 2.  I've always enjoyed the BioShock series and wanted to see what the remastered versions had to offer.  Well, it turns out that other than the awesome original gameplay, there is very little additional content or extra features to make the remastered versions any better than the originals.  In fact, in the case of BioShock 2, I would recommend playing the original over the remastered version...but I'll get to that.

I'm fresh off finishing a playthrough of the remastered version of BioShock 2.  For some weird reason people haven't enjoyed the second game as much as the first.  The story isn't as twisty and unexpected as the first game, there's a lot of high-falutin' psychobabble worked into the plot, but there are still plenty of other things to enjoy.  The decision to allow players to simultaneously wield a weapon and plasmids is a huge improvement over the annoying switching back and forth from the first game.  There's nothing quite like the refreshing feeling of setting a splicer alight and then spearing them like a human shishkebab.  Tell me that you don't enjoy that!

The decision to make the protagonist a Big Daddy also provided a fun, new aspect to the story--choosing how to deal with those creepy Little Sisters.  The most ADAM-friendly choice is to adopt the little freaks and take them on a romp through Rapture to look for corpses to suck dry.  There's quite a bit of added challenge in the defensive aspect of guarding your Little Sister while she (slowly) drains corpses.  Of course, once she's harvested two corpses you have to make another decision--you can choose to release her from her freaky, yellow-eyed hell as a Little Sister or you can harvest her for extra ADAM (which means you kill her...you monster!).  The decisions you make throughout the game do have an impact on the ending that you receive, which makes saving or harvesting them impactful.

The main story itself isn't horrible, it's just not quite as interesting as all the crazy plot twists that were worked into the first game.  Dr. Lamb isn't the villain that Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine were in the first game.  She mostly talks at you in a very soothing, psychologist kind of voice.  Sure, she has some really messed up motives, but she's just not the looming, scary boss type that you would expect in a shooter.

Rapture itself is still one of the best environments in gaming.  Plus, they decided to stick with the occasional jump-scare/freak you out tactic.  There might be a corpse in a corner, but the second you look away...it's gone.  Then you turn around and BAM!  Splicer right in your grill.  It gets me every time!  It's not a true BioShock game if you're not freaked out by your own shadow.

I'm not really the type of gamer who has a lot of technical expertise--I can't tell you how many FPS I was getting or if the the shadows were ultra-high quality--but I didn't really feel like I noticed a huge difference in the way that the remastered version of the game looked.  In fact, I was a little disappointed that the last cutscene seemed really pixelated.  So, I really can't tell you if the remastered version offered some kind of uber-graphics that I was just blissfully unaware of...sorry.

My major irritation with the remastered version was the fact that once I reached Dionysus Park, my game started crashing.  I can handle some occasional game crashing if it means that I don't lose much play time, but I didn't pay attention to how infrequently the game autosaves.  Just FYI, the game autosaves at the beginning of levels and that's really it.  Needless to say, I was very irritated when I had spent over an hour clearing the level--killing Big Daddies, adopting three Little Sisters, and guarding them through six harvests--to have the game crash while I was fighting the Big Sister just prior to completing the level.  I had to start over at the very beginning!  (And here's where I will admit that I forgot that there was a quicksave option--I was kicking myself after I looked).  There was no choice but to start the level completely over (this time, using plenty of quicksaves).  I still had the level crash 3-4 times before I completed it.  The weird part is that the game only crashed on that level.

I definitely think that fans of BioShock should play the sequel and will enjoy it.  My personal recommendation is to opt for the original version over the remaster (if you purchase it on Steam you will receive both versions).  I don't think that the remaster has much to offer over the original game and I cannot recall having any crashing issues with the original game.  Sometimes older is better.