BioShock Remastered...what's the verdict? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

I'm a enjoyed the first two Bioshocks and love the overall experience of Infinite. I'd hoped for a PS4 release. And it's happened with the "Bioshock Remastered" which includes all three plus their DLC. But I'm reading mixed reviews. My impression is that Bioshock 1 and 2 have improved high resolution textures, but are otherwise unchanged: animations, control scheme, and bugs are all original. Bioshock Infinite is unchanged from its release and is included as-is.

That is, Bioshock looks better than it ever has on a console, but this is not a "remaster" like "The Last of Us", which to my understanding involved a thorough scrub and revitalization for the PS4.

What's the opinion here of BioShock Remastered? Is it worthwhile? There's certainly no lack of modern games I haven't played, but I'd probably enjoy re-experiencing Rapture and Columbia on my PS4 later this year or next.

 

[DavidMiller]

I'm playing through Bioshock right now on the Xbox One S up converting to 4K. It is amazing!! It took a little while to get out of the water just because I was enjoying watching the realism. It plays silky smooth... I did the digital download.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The PC versions are having a lot of problems but the console ones seem to be fine.

It's Bioshock. If you never played it before, it's a good enough series to pick up and play through. If you have played it before, there's nothing new here. Most remasters don't add much other than prettier graphics, so this seems to be pretty much par for the course.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Are you saying that the Bioshock Infinite in this collection doesn't look any better than the old PS3 edition? The Amazon listing, at least, says that everything's remastered in 1080p.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

"Remastered" doesn't mean they went through and tidied up every texture to be sharper. It means they ported the game up to PS4 and got it to run well at a higher resolution. I wouldn't be surprised if it runs at 1080p but otherwise is identical to the PS3 version.

 

[LeoA]

Remastering generally implies that the textures have also been retouched. Only the worst received remasterings in recent years have ignored that, such as the initial Resident Evil 4 HD port on the PC/360/PS3 that only had upscaled 480p textures.

It's definitely not identical to the PS3 version with the only improvement of note being 1080p rendering.

Are you saying that the Bioshock Infinite in this collection doesn't look any better than the old PS3 edition? The Amazon listing, at least, says that everything's remastered in 1080p.

It looks better.

The 2013 PC edition running maxed out looked so good that they just didn't think it was necessary to remaster it, just port over the PC iteration. Remember that we're talking about a game that originally released only about six months before the XB1 and PS4 launched.

Here's a Eurogamer comparison article of the three versions from the original release, to give you an idea of the advantages of the PC version running on a then top of the line PC (And by extension, the PS4 and XB1 versions today). Should look nice even if the leap isn't as dramatic as the earlier two.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-bioshock-infinite-face-off

And here's their preliminary Digital Foundry video about this new collection. About 2:23 in is the portion pertinent to Infinite.



It's not like you'll get to Infinite and decide that the visuals are the lowest quality of the three despite being the latest game of the bunch. It just needed the least upgrading to get equivalent visuals thanks to it not being very old.

 

[LeoA]

Must've missed this the other day, but here's their full analysis of the finished version of Bioshock Infinite. The hiccups seen prerelease haven't been fixed and while an advancement over the older console versions, not all of the PC features are here and the frame rate is a far cry from a solid 60 fps.



Should've let us select a 30 fps cap...



And they also have a Bioshock analysis up. Sadly, it's far from perfect even though it's evident a lot of effort went into it. All the textures have been redone, but a lot of subtle changes have been implemented that people don't seem fond of. And it has bugs, especially on the PC.

Not sure how worthwhile this is for people that wanted to see their favorite games remastered. But as someone that doesn't own the two sequels, this is still a must-have thanks if nothing else due to the fact that the DLC is all bundled in.

 

[LeoA]

They've done a BioShock 2 video as well, if anyone wants to check it out. And today they released their article about this release and how the various versions compare.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-bioshock-collection-face-off

I've decided to get BioShock 2 for the 360, and buy this one eventually for the 3rd game and the DLC.

 

[DaveF]

Thanks for the video links. I watched two of them. I'm hearing "bugs, tearing, stuttering, imperfect" but all I'm seeing is "BIOSHOCK"!!!

This probably goes on the Christmas list. So many new games I could play. But the BioShock series was so compelling that I think I could replay them.