We are tantalisingly close, at time of writing, to the release of Nightdive’s long-awaited remaster of System Shock 2. When it happens, I think we can put the BioShock era behind us. We all had a whirlwind time in Rapture and also that one in the racist sky hamlet, but between the System Shock 1 Enhanced Edition (and remake) and System Shock 2’s remaster, the true kings of the horror-tinged imsim are home and alarmingly playable.
But if you want to relive all the magic of late-aughts BioShock discourse, Humble Bundle is currently selling the whole set as part of its 2K Classic Trilogies bundle, alongside the Mafia trilogy too. For $18 (£13.44), you get:
- Mafia: Definitive Edition (that’s the remake of the first game)
- Mafia 2: Definitive Edition (that’s the slightly prettied-up version of the second game)
- Mafia 3: Definitive Edition (that’s Mafia 3 with its DLC packed in, but they added on the Definitive nomenclature so it wouldn’t feel left out)
- BioShock Remastered
- BioShock 2 Remastered
- BioShock Infinite
You can also fork over $10 (£7.46) for just the BioShock games.
Which is a hefty chunk of game, it must be said. I poke fun at BioShock—or, really, how people talk about BioShock—but I like those games well enough. If you haven’t played them, or it’s been a long time since you played them, you could do much worse than picking them all up in one fell swoop.
But it’s the Mafia half of this bundle that’d really tempt me if I didn’t already own everything in it. They’re all slightly strange, imperfect games—neither 1 nor 2 take full advantage of their open worlds, while 3 stuffs its own with a whole bunch of grindy repeatable missions—but they’re good, fun crime flicks in videogame form.
I’m a particular sucker for Mafia 3, whose tale of rip-roaring revenge in ’60s fake-New-Orleans kept me invested even through my 1,000th weed delivery mission. Plus, what a soundtrack.
With Mafia: The Old Country due out this August 8, there’s surely never been a better time to stab like 12 million bigoted mafiosos while listening to the Rolling Stones.
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