I diagnose the first Bioshock with "Old."
Bioshock is a game that as a kid fourteen years ago I found both very frightening and very original as an FPS, but after playing it again as an adult with a much larger game library, it just feels like a stagnant experience.
As I mentioned in the last paragraph, this game scared the ever living crap out of me when I first played it. Getting to Rapture and seeing the first splicer approach your submarine was harrowing, and walking through the decrepit corridors with dripping blood and ominous sounds playing was a thing of horror. Playing this now, especially after playing through the recent games out of the Resident Evil series, makes this game sort of feel cheesy in its attempts at being scary. Now this is more of a first person shooter than it is a horror game, but they intentionally placed both elements within the game so I felt it necessary to include in my review. Of course this issue can be chalked up to the game being old, as other games like F.E.A.R. and Doom 3 don't really measure up in their PS360 era graphics didn't age well at all, but I always review games as I play them with the best attempt at removing any nostalgia goggles I have for the time being. Scary games from this time largely fall flat for me, there are a select few that I feel succeed but those are usually not the norm.
Visually the game does look pretty good in the remaster, albeit not amazing. That's excusable since I don't expect 2K or whoever owns the IP to pump a lot of time and resources into bringing this game to life (especially with a rumoured fourth game on the way.) The pinks and neon signs pop real well and the ocean that holds Rapture in its locale do look very good, however the interior design is not very impressive. Rooms that are supposed to be spooky don't really feel so, and a lof of the hallways feel samey.
Bioshock, as a lot of games from the time did, still struggles very hard with having a usable UX. The menu's kinda just suck, especially when it comes to using the map, which I also found was lackluster in helping players find where they are supposed to go. Playing this game on PC was woeful, especially as a first person shooter. Having your guns go from 1-8 on the keyboard, with one of those being a useless camera was extremely awkward, and having plasmids on the functions keys was an equally poor experience.
The story and twists at this point I'm sure everyone has heard of, and I really don't think they were really ever all that. Playing this in the current year reaffirmed how I felt about the game back then, while not directly biting from stories told in gaming previously, it didn't feel very good to complete. Couple a meh story with awful mission design (plenty of fetch/material discovery quests and a begrudgingly long escort mission near the end of the game,) and you have a very average to not great gaming experience.
Bioshock is a game that as a kid fourteen years ago I found both very frightening and very original as an FPS, but after playing it again as an adult with a much larger game library, it just feels like a stagnant experience.
As I mentioned in the last paragraph, this game scared the ever living crap out of me when I first played it. Getting to Rapture and seeing the first splicer approach your submarine was harrowing, and walking through the decrepit corridors with dripping blood and ominous sounds playing was a thing of horror. Playing this now, especially after playing through the recent games out of the Resident Evil series, makes this game sort of feel cheesy in its attempts at being scary. Now this is more of a first person shooter than it is a horror game, but they intentionally placed both elements within the game so I felt it necessary to include in my review. Of course this issue can be chalked up to the game being old, as other games like F.E.A.R. and Doom 3 don't really measure up in their PS360 era graphics didn't age well at all, but I always review games as I play them with the best attempt at removing any nostalgia goggles I have for the time being. Scary games from this time largely fall flat for me, there are a select few that I feel succeed but those are usually not the norm.
Visually the game does look pretty good in the remaster, albeit not amazing. That's excusable since I don't expect 2K or whoever owns the IP to pump a lot of time and resources into bringing this game to life (especially with a rumoured fourth game on the way.) The pinks and neon signs pop real well and the ocean that holds Rapture in its locale do look very good, however the interior design is not very impressive. Rooms that are supposed to be spooky don't really feel so, and a lof of the hallways feel samey.
Bioshock, as a lot of games from the time did, still struggles very hard with having a usable UX. The menu's kinda just suck, especially when it comes to using the map, which I also found was lackluster in helping players find where they are supposed to go. Playing this game on PC was woeful, especially as a first person shooter. Having your guns go from 1-8 on the keyboard, with one of those being a useless camera was extremely awkward, and having plasmids on the functions keys was an equally poor experience.
The story and twists at this point I'm sure everyone has heard of, and I really don't think they were really ever all that. Playing this in the current year reaffirmed how I felt about the game back then, while not directly biting from stories told in gaming previously, it didn't feel very good to complete. Couple a meh story with awful mission design (plenty of fetch/material discovery quests and a begrudgingly long escort mission near the end of the game,) and you have a very average to not great gaming experience.