After spending time with this game, I can personally say it's phenomenal... iiiiif it runs for you. I've seen the reviews, and some people have had serious issues with it; I personally have experienced none of them, but it's very much worth considering either way.

That in mind, I'm going to outright admit that part of what I'm about to say is probably gonna fall into the realm of 'only the biggest nerds will care as much as I do', but I'm gonna say it anyway. I've seen some people criticize how this game handles story delivery, and I can see why they don't like it; a lot of the game's story- spoken, anyway- comes from other characters monologuing at you, or monologuing into diaries you can find throughout the game. This is honestly a 'your mileage may vary' type of story delivery, but I personally think it works in this context- you're playing as a Big Daddy, and most of the time the main sounds they make are whale impressions. Bad ones, but whale impressions nonetheless.

Buuut some tend to glaze over some of the more subtle ways the game delivers its story- through the environment. There's lots of little things you can pick up on if you look around- from literal writing on the wall to the general condition of your surroundings, and all sorts of other details. Sometimes the game is decidedly unsubtle about it, but an interesting aspect of this method is that, if you don't care about the story, it doesn't forcefully present its full breadth to you; if you want it, you can find it easily; if you don't, you can ignore it easily.

This combines with some absolutely phenomenal gameplay-story integration. Plasmids and Vita-Chambers exist, and the story acknowledges it, and even exploits it at times. You can respawn basically infinitely in most circumstances, and the characters in the world... or at least, the sane ones, are aware of it. It produces a product that honestly feels basically seamless in many regards. Add in excellent environment and sound design and you have a recipe for an extremely immersive- and sometimes even a bit terrifying- experience.

It's not all sunshines and rainbows though- I will say that the gameplay could use a bit of work. The game likes to starve you of items and money if you're not being incredibly (and dare I say excessively) religious about searching bodies, and tracking down loot, and it can get extremely punishing because of it, even on the easiest difficulty. This doesn't sound like too big of a deal, but with the finite resources available in the world and the fact that it usually takes resources (particularly first aid kits, since it's often hard to avoid damage during fights) to get more of them. But other than that, it's generally pretty well-designed, with a wide variety of weaponry to use and a huge amount of options in all sorts of different situations. Things can get a touch repetitive sometimes, particularly with the Little Sisters, but otherwise the gameplay is very solid.

The runtime of the story is a bit short, but the Remastered version does come with both DLCs to offer even more playtime, and with how expansive the levels are, and their many secrets, plus four different endings (if I remember correctly), there's plenty to go back and do even after you've completed the story once. Ultimately, I'd say it's worth the 20-buck price tag.

If it runs.