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[Insumatposa]

That is an impossibility IMO, as moving from customised UE 2.5 to UE4 would require rebuilding all of the game basically. It would not be a port at the point.

No need to rebuild the whole thing from scratch to make the game's materials all PBR based according to UE4 pipepline. Some games were ported directly to UE4 without shifting to PBR, just benefiting from the enhanced lighting and other effects i.e: The Vanisihng Of Ethan Carter, MIND: Path to Thalamus, Batman Arkham games etc. There are also games which were ported from Unity or Cryengine and kept the same assets.

At around: 6:00 in the video: we faced that same bug in a certain vending machine late in the original game, now we have more instances of that annoying bug in the remaster.

 

[Devil]

Wow. That video completely got me de-hyped

I was looking forward to the collection quite a lot but have no time to actually play anything until next month. The remaster looks worse than the original to me in that video, honestly. What's up with the lighting? The missing reflections on the ground? The water effects? Everything looks extremely flat. Also, worse audio? Wtf did they do?

No matter if they provide patches or not, those are issues that probably won't be solved with a patch, unlike some of the bugs mentioned.

Really, really disappointed right now.

 

[Deleted member 325805]

It's rare that a game is literally unplayable for me but that's the case with Bioshock remastered, it just keeps hard crashing on me. And looking past that rather massive problem it's just not a very good PC port at all. Virtually no options, heavily compressed audio which sounds massively worse to the original (I played the demo of the first game and it was miles better), lots of texture pop in, lots of visual bugs, mouse acceleration, mouse aim that never feels right even after applying all the tweaks, keybinds that keep resetting, whenever you try to adjust the sensitivity it enables the controller even when one isn't plugged in etc etc. It's just a total shit show of a port and I'm so disappointed as I've been waiting months to play it for the first time.

 

[Messofanego]

You're never overt, that's for sure.

Can I please subscribe to your Shinobi602 Conspiracies newsletter?

 

[clutch.as.it.gets.]

The lack of specular mapping on a lot of the "remastered" textures really kills the look of the game in most parts.

This!!

 

[boredandlazy]

Can I please subscribe to your Shinobi602 Conspiracies newsletter?

It's not really a subscription per se, it's just a single edition made of tin foil with some folding instructions attached to the back.

 

[viHuGi]

Jaguar CPUs.

No, that won't cut it here.

Bad Port is bad just that, Uncharted Collection is a rock solid at 60fps with much more going on.

Just give Remasters to Blue Point.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Its Shinobi. I like the guy and he brings the scoops, but if you threatened his dog with a gun and said, Shinobi my man im a kill your puppy unless you say something bad about a Playstation version of a game, he'll sit there and watch you shoot.

ha ha ha ha

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

Welp. Maybe I should wait for a patch...

Spoiler

I don't know how these things work.

 

[Jedi2016]

The lack of specular mapping on a lot of the "remastered" textures really kills the look of the game in most parts.

This is the problem I have with so many remasters these days. I understand that what the original game did with specular highlights wasn't exactly "realistic", but it was absolutely one of the defining aspects of the game's art style. An art style that still holds up perfectly well today, regardless of texture resolution or general graphical fidelity. And an art style that was seemingly ignored by the third party that they shoveled the port onto. Just "make it look better" without any comprehension of what that really entailed.

While I appreciate that I got the new version free on PC, all this remaster is doing is making me want to go back and just play the original again.

 

[Messofanego]

It's not really a subscription per se, it's just a single edition made of tin foil with some folding instructions attached to the back.

Oooh, limited edition, even better!

 

[FTF]

I'll stick with the OG from almost 10 years ago thanks. This is like a George Lucas of remasters.

This pic makes me sad.

 

[MisterR]

Its Shinobi. I like the guy and he brings the scoops, but if you threatened his dog with a gun and said, Shinobi my man im a kill your puppy unless you say something bad about a Playstation version of a game, he'll sit there and watch you shoot.

Shinobi is the furthest thing from a console warrior in my experience.

 

[Jombie]

It kills me that a remaster is taking everything out that made the game pop and making it look more drab. This isn't as bad as Silent Hill HD, but to say it's a missed opportunity is putting it fucking lightly.

 

[John Kowalski]

Woah, those red block glitches look really cool.

 

[Maximo]

Im amazed some people have been so lax about the Remaster in the OT, this Remaster is not worth a purchase and I sure as hell am not supporting this level of respect and effort put into this series. Don't have Bioshock 2 and Infinite on Steam and was happy to purchase them again but certainly not after this, the patch will help some things but it won't fix some of the visual changes like the (IMO) shitty water and fire effects,

 

[ghst]

did ken go all office space on the server with all the different shader maps on it?

new version looks so drab.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

That's what you gathered from my post? Anyone who's been on here for as long as I have and knows me knows I don't care about your "system wars".

Please don't involve me in that stuff.

Then maybe don't try to downplay findings in a technical analysis thread? You're contributing nothing by saying "Nah, I personally don't see the differences" when the whole point of the thread is to discuss the differences that were found.

 

[Gravidee]

Guess I'll be avoiding this release until all of the issues can be sorted out.

 

[kamspy]

Wasn't there a Vita version in development at some point?

 

[Ridley327]

Wasn't there a Vita version in development at some point?

There was an Infinite spinoff that was discussed a bit that sounded like it was going to basically be a FFT clone set in Rapture, but it never got off the ground for obvious reasons.

 

[shinobi602]

Then maybe don't try to downplay findings in a technical analysis thread? You're contributing nothing by saying "Nah, I personally don't see the differences" when the whole point of the thread is to discuss the differences that were found.

The differences are clear and factual in front of everyone's eyes, I'm not disputing anything. I'm sharing my personal experience with the game in that it doesn't feel or look that bad to me while I'm playing. My bad, I didn't know that was frowned upon.

 

[HueyFreeman]

That's maybe something to consider. My first impressions were much more positive until I started looking back at the original. It was a "wait a minute here" kinda moment when you suddenly realize that things are looking quite right. If it's been a decade since you last played it , you might not notice.

Yeah it's so apparent once you realize fire up the PC version how much is missing. The game was built on its atmosphere - much of which was lighting, fog, the wet texture look and the audio mix. It's staggering to me that you would "remake" the game and fuck up ALL those elements. I'm just so pissed I paid full price for these. Love to get a refund from Sony but know that's a long shot - ultimately it's on me for buying into the goddamn hype, just didn't Realize 2k was capable of this.

 

[Atolm]

I was waiting for DF's veredict on those two to replay the first game and play & finish the second and Infinite (never played those).

In the end I just installed the original with the 60-fps patch. Unsurprisingly I can downsample it from 5k no problem and keep 60 fps. I remember playing it at 1024x768 and less than 30 fps on my old 7900GS. Sometimes it's just better to wait a few years haha.

And I have to agree with everyone here. Much of what the game has going for it is the atmosphere created by the fog, ice and other effects here and there. Can't believe they fucked those.

 

[JaseMath]

Boy...that video deflated all desire to purchase. The changes to Bioshock are disappointing (especially the specular highlights throughout), but I'm really interested in the problems with Infinite. The video kept alluding to them—is there a video?

 

[Succinct Verbosity]

Can these kind of effects be patched back in? Surely it can't be hard to do on PC?

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Boy...that video deflated all desire to purchase. The changes to Bioshock are disappointing (especially the specular highlights throughout), but I'm really interested in the problems with Infinite. The video kept alluding to them—is there a video?

Yep

 

[Nachtfalke]

In addition:

A framerate test between PS4 and XO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U-P2-srbwc

Framerate can tank pretty hard in combat with fire effects as shown at the end of the video.

 

[JRW]

https://youtu.be/NakbSQZ2pwg?t=5m7s Look at the water in the remaster ... this scene looks superior in the original version, the water itself and how the dimming lights are being ignored by the water in the remaster ....(referring to 5:07 through 5:28 in case link doesn't go there).

 

[chromatic9]

In addition:

A framerate test between PS4 and XO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U-P2-srbwc

Framerate can tank pretty hard in combat with fire effects as shown at the end of the video.

29fps. The game sits around that for a long time. I though John from DF said it was fine with minor drops.

Crazy to think I used to blast this game out the water on my GTX 580 with downsampling and actual AF

To be fair, the remastered PC version can feature much better texture filtering.

The difference in the pic is more than lower AF.

 

[dark10x]

29fps. The game sits around that for a long time. I though John from DF said it was fine with minor drops.

Crazy to think I used to blast this game out the water on my GTX 580 with downsampling and actual AF

The difference in the pic is more than lower AF.

Yeah, it looks like it gets worse. I simply didn't have time to play as far since I'm heading out of town this morning and i felt the other changes were more important to cover than just raw performance numbers.

That said, the frame-rate numbers for this game are tricky due to how it works - my initial measurements suggested a more dramatic drop in frame-rate but those numbers were wrong. Many of the torn frames happen faster than 16.7ms and were being picked up as dropped frames when they were not. We had to use a special algorithm for this game which raised the frame-rate numbers.

 

[KOCMOHABT]

No need to rebuild the whole thing from scratch to make the game's materials all PBR based according to UE4 pipepline. Some games were ported directly to UE4 without shifting to PBR, just benefiting from the enhanced lighting and other effects i.e: The Vanisihng Of Ethan Carter, MIND: Path to Thalamus, Batman Arkham games etc. There are also games which were ported from Unity or Cryengine and kept the same assets.

At around: 6:00 in the video: we faced that same bug in a certain vending machine late in the original game, now we have more instances of that annoying bug in the remaster.

It's not about the materials or lighting.

This is a pre-Unreal Engine 3 game. You cannot export the levels etc and load them as they are in UE4. Maybe they had their own customized editor /exporter / tools.

Plus this is a custom engine. The gameplay mechanics are build into that, you would have to recreate that again. The custom special effects are a while other beast, but recreating the "feel" 100% perfectly is pretty hard if you have to redo so many parts.

In fact it would be much easier to implement PBR shaders in the Bioshock engine, but then you would need to compromise with the materials. You can automate the conversion from spec/gloss to roughness but not to roughness/metallic.

Of course one could do that manually for a proper remaster but still it would take a crazy amount of work and fine tuning to recreate the bioshock feel in terms of athmosphere.

 

[8byte]

If I haven't played 2 or Infinite, and don't have a PC that can run this well...worth it, or wait for inevitable patches?

 

[Durante]

Here's a picture of that same area I just took.

Wow, that's more of a downgrade than any other shot I've seen so far.

Pretty rough.

 

[gollumsluvslave]

I suppose some people's experience with the remaster will depend on whether they are comparing the console remasters to the existing PC game or the 360 / PS3 versions.

In my case, I no longer have my 360, and with the announcement of the remaster i'd given up on any hope of getting the BC versions of these games.

I've never played the PC version of any of the Bioshock, only 360 versions, and so far I am really enjoying the remaster, and i'm happy enough with my purchase, it seems to be sharper and better than what I remember from the 360 by a fair amount (just recently completed Wolfenstein NWO as a contrast, Bio holds up reasonably well to me)

5.1 Audio seems fine and i've had no crashes or save issues or whatever, although I'm pretty early in the game.

I can understand folks who have the PC version being pretty pissed about this kind of thing though, but then I've never understood the idea of a PC remaster to be honest.

 

[televator]

I suppose some people's experience with the remaster will depend on whether they are comparing the console remasters to the existing PC game or the 360 / PS3 versions.

In my case, I no longer have my 360, and with the announcement of the remaster i'd given up on any hope of getting the BC versions of these games.

I've never played the PC version of any of the Bioshock, only 360 versions, and so far I am really enjoying the remaster, and i'm happy enough with my purchase, it seems to be sharper and better than what I remember from the 360 by a fair amount (just recently completed Wolfenstein NWO as a contrast, Bio holds up reasonably well to me)

5.1 Audio seems fine and i've had no crashes or save issues or whatever, although I'm pretty early in the game.

I can understand folks who have the PC version being pretty pissed about this kind of thing though, but then I've never understood the idea of a PC remaster to be honest.

It makes sense if you consider old games from the 90s - early 2000s that you really have to wrestle with to get runing on new PCs. And even when they do run, they can have some defunct proprietary tech that simply isn't supported in modern PCs and they lack certain effects as a result... *Cough*KotOR*cough*

 

[SmokedMeat]

I haven't been folkowing this thread, but the verdict seems to be to just stick to the PC originals?

 

[Lonely1]

I haven't been folkowing this thread, but the verdict seems to be to just stick to the PC originals?

Once fixed, I would take the remake of Bioshock 2 over the original based on higher framerate physics and animations. The art direction on that game wasnt its strong point anyway.

 

[Memorabilia]

What a sad, sad shit-show. Seems to be in the running for worst remaster ever.

What are the chances this piece of shit gets patched up to actually surpass the originals? I was holding off on playing B1/2 so I could do my first playthru on the remastered versions, but looks like I might as well play the originals. I don't even want to waste the bandwidth downloading 'em for free.

Did they also fuck up Infinity? Or is that unchanged on PC?

 

[Minamu]

Did they ever fix the missing subtitles for audio logs on pc? I've tried several fixes I think, but nothing seems to work. The problem is, I do get subtitles, but they disappear after like 2 seconds and never come back.

 

[Melchiah]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NakbSQZ2pwg

Bioshock Demastered.

Edit:

- 1080p.
- 60fps when you're not doing anything, drops and screen tearing otherwise.
- 60fps physics.
- Improved textures.
- No texture filtering.
- Lower quality effects.
- Lower quality audio.
- Missing graphics and audio options on the PC version.
- Forced mouse acceleration.
- Bugs.

Damn. I'm glad I didn't buy it.

 

[WordAssassin]

If I haven't played 2 or Infinite, and don't have a PC that can run this well...worth it, or wait for inevitable patches?

I'm wondering this too. Would it be better to just... play the PS3/360 versions? I haven't played any of them and I've let sales come and go since the first rumors of the remaster but now I don't know wtf to do.

 

[Dommo]

Jeez. Another one bites the dust. It seems like almost every remaster has some sort of problem. Seems particularly bad here. I'll just stick with the original versions for now.

Granted it's a different company but I wonder how bad the Ezio collection is going to turn out.

In general, I think there's a lack of respect for preservation of video games - there's always an attempt to 'update' the game for a newer generation with little thought into the care keeping what made the original worthy of remaster in the first place.

In Bioshock's case, I actually thought it was pretty damn faithful and sort of disagreed with the DF's point that the artistic integrity of the game has been mangled. I've played through the original countless times and the remaster, overall, at least 'feels' right, on a macro level. This isn't like the Arkham games where it's blatantly obvious they failed to capture the original mood of the game. And the textures looked good on first glance. I was directly comparing the original (PC) and remaster in the Medical Pavilion, and that first room with the writing in blood on the ground looks really good in the remaster. The textures are extremely crisp compared to the original.

But looking at these specific examples is a tad worrying... lack of specular highlights, missing bump mapping, some straight up-sampled textures, not to mention the sound issues. This is one of those annoying remasters where it's not bad enough that I can just simply ignore it and return to the original game, because in a lot of ways it's handsomely and respectfully updated for 2016. In other ways, not so much. So I actually don't know which version to play and no matter which one I do, I'll feel like I'm missing out on something.

It does remind me of the Star Wars Blu-Rays - better fidelity, better PQ than what's come before, but with all these unfortunate side effects. Yuck.

EDIT: Actually, one of the things that's pissing me off the most are the bugs mentioned in the DF vid - mostly just AI not behaving quite right. In the original, I don't think I ever ran into a situation where the splicers would just stop moving/shooting. Or sometimes I've sent sentry bots out onto splicers, and they're not bloody shooting at them. The bots just dangle around while I'm getting shot in the face.

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

I wish they would do a comparison between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One version.

It would help me decide if I should go back to the original 360 version over the new remaster.

 

[Barrow Roll]

Another good comparison that highlights some more differences.

Apparently Rapture has a bit of a breeze because cloth and plants now move in the remaster.

Missing caustics in the remaster.

And this lady's shadow is cut-off at the top for some reason.

 

[JRW]

Remaster is lacking shadows on the girls face and look at the 2 candles in the background.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoYZ3OVL9Rk (BioShock 2 – Original vs. The Collection Remaster Graphics Comparison on PC 1440p)

 

[synce]

Par for the course, the original version looks better in every way

 

[Beer Monkey]

Here's a novel idea; the developer and publisher should compare remasters to the originals themselves as part of the process of developing and QA and approval.

You know, instead of waiting for the internet to do it.