Bioshock: The Collection

I was pretty stoked when I found out that Bio Shock was getting the remaster treatment with all three games in one tidy package. At a $60 price point (less if you're a prime member) that amounts to $20 a game which is excellent for a trio of fantastic games. (Much like the recent Resident Evil remasters and Uncharted collection) At the time of this review I have completed Bioshock 1 and 2 and have just begun to play Infinite. (I have played all three previously last gen). All I can say so far is...wow. These games are just superb. The first Bioshock is perhaps one of the most iconic video games of all time and let me tell you-there is nothing quite as satisfying in all of video game history as taking out a Big Daddy. Seriously. Nothing else like it. For me personally-Bioshock 1 is still the most memorable of the trio. Its larger than life characters like Andrew Ryan, Atlas, Dr. Suchong, Sander Cohen, Frank Fontaine, etc.-really immersed you into a fully fleshed out under the sea utopian world gone wrong complete with its own pseudo civil war. Plasmids, Gene Tonics and a wide variety of weapons to experiment with just put the icing on the cake. Plus the Art Deco style, political underpinnings and voice recorded messages spirited you away to a place you had never seen before. Rapture was a place filled in equal measure with wonder and danger at every turn. As for Bioshock 2, many consider it to be almost a carbon copy of the original. There are indeed a lot of similarities, but it's still an outstanding game. The creators must've really gotten a lot of good feedback from the kill Big Daddy/save or harvest Little Sister dynamic because they seemed to hedge all their bets on this dynamic for Bioshock 2. Sure, once again it's fun to end a Big Daddy, but this time there are more "steps" involved with the Little Sisters if you want to max the amount of Adam you receive. While this is fun at first, after the eleventh time of A) killing Big Daddy, B) tracking down and draining Adam from a dead body while twenty splicers attack you, C) tracking down and draining Adam from a second dead body while another twenty splicers attack you then D) finally escorting little Sister to her hide out then E) Finding another Big Daddy/Little Sister and repeating the whole process over again usually twice more each level-it does get sort of repetitive and tiresome. And yes, Killing Big Sisters is very satisfying too, but near the end of the game the whole things gets to be a sort of grind. And quite frankly-if you take all of this away, the game itself doesn't hold up as well story-wise or objective-wise as Bioshock 1. All of the Big Daddy/Little Sister/Big Sister stuff is really what the game is all about in the end. Everything else is pretty forgettable. Still a great game though. As for Infinite, it's a little less action oriented than the other two though even more story driven. All I can say so far with this remaster since I just started Infinite, is that the moment Booker Dewitt ascends to the sky and Columbia comes into view is nothing short of breath taking. Infinite is so gorgeous that I found myself just stopping by certain areas, leaning up against a railing and watching air ships go by or listening to the barbershop quartet sing. When is the last time in a video game you can say that you stopped to smell the roses? It's that beautiful. All in all-despite a few minor glitches (voice recorders getting hung up for a few seconds on certain syllables in Bioshock 1, slow down in Bioshock Infinite) this is a fantastic collection of three outstanding video games at a really great price. If you're sitting the fence-you really can't pass this up. Rapture and Columbia are two places well worth a revisit. These games still impress me more than most of the current gen stuff. For me, my PS4 for the most part has become a remaster machine. I have not been terribly impressed by any of the brand new game on the system outside of Uncharted 4. (Killzone, Infamous Second Son and several others were all duds in my book) My favorite games on the system are all remasters including DMC, The Uncharted Collection, Tomb Raider, The Last of Us and Resident Evil 1, 4 & 5 and now the Bioshock collection. Not sure what that says about Sony's original games, but I am sure having fun with all the remasters. Dead Space next please.

LOVE this trilogy. I've played it through to +95% completion 3 times now, can't recommend it highly enough! ESPECIALLY when you consider when these games were first developed - they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Buen juego, todo viene en dos discos.

Ótimo

Only played a few times, but the story is great, the atmosphere (graphics & sound) is compelling. Super game!