For starters, the game has a strong atmosphere, an interesting setting, and an engaging narrative, delivered through audio logs. Unfortunately, (playing on hard difficulty) the game is chuck full of bullet-sponge enemies, and the act of running around these environments fighting the same enemies over and over whilst doing fetch quests which feel like they only exist to arbitrarily extend the length of the game really sucks out whatever excitement I may have had regarding discovering Rapture and the manifold stories contain therein.
It's very similar to System Shock 2 in many ways, and my experience with SS2's endless fetch quests and aimless running around is largely mirrored in Bioshock 2, though I do find that the level design is more streamlined, on top of having a more interesting setting, higher production value, and generally being more enjoyable in every way besides the lack of RPG mechanics and character building potential.
The gunplay in this game had the potential to be much more enjoyable than SS2, being a game from 2007, but it falls flat in bizarre ways — the enemies have a lot of health and brush off extreme pain such as that from being shot in the head or set aflame, so there is little to no feedback for performing well in combat; Furthermore, the enemies seem to take a second to realise that they have been killed when you headshot them, thus leading to them dropping their weapons and masks and gently falling over, as opposed to falling on the ground when they are shot. I am almost wondering if my version of Bioshock Remastered is glitched somehow, because I cannot imagine why a game from 2007 would not simply give me
le funny ragdolle when enemies die, which would have immediately improved the feeling of the combat (this does not address the core gameplay loop, but it would make experimenting with different weapons and plasmids that much more alluring).
Overall, the game feels like a glorified walking simulator — the parts that people care about are the atmosphere, art direction, story, etc; But the game spends way too much time funneling you into repetitive combat encounters to truly deliver on that promise — this could have easily been condensed into, say, six hours, so that the basic combat loop would not get so tiresome so long before the end of the game. As is, you might as well just listen to the audio logs and watch the two cutscenes people care about online, as the gameplay is just not fun.
It's very similar to System Shock 2 in many ways, and my experience with SS2's endless fetch quests and aimless running around is largely mirrored in Bioshock 2, though I do find that the level design is more streamlined, on top of having a more interesting setting, higher production value, and generally being more enjoyable in every way besides the lack of RPG mechanics and character building potential.
The gunplay in this game had the potential to be much more enjoyable than SS2, being a game from 2007, but it falls flat in bizarre ways — the enemies have a lot of health and brush off extreme pain such as that from being shot in the head or set aflame, so there is little to no feedback for performing well in combat; Furthermore, the enemies seem to take a second to realise that they have been killed when you headshot them, thus leading to them dropping their weapons and masks and gently falling over, as opposed to falling on the ground when they are shot. I am almost wondering if my version of Bioshock Remastered is glitched somehow, because I cannot imagine why a game from 2007 would not simply give me
le funny ragdolle when enemies die, which would have immediately improved the feeling of the combat (this does not address the core gameplay loop, but it would make experimenting with different weapons and plasmids that much more alluring).
Overall, the game feels like a glorified walking simulator — the parts that people care about are the atmosphere, art direction, story, etc; But the game spends way too much time funneling you into repetitive combat encounters to truly deliver on that promise — this could have easily been condensed into, say, six hours, so that the basic combat loop would not get so tiresome so long before the end of the game. As is, you might as well just listen to the audio logs and watch the two cutscenes people care about online, as the gameplay is just not fun.