After years of waiting, No Man’s Sky finally took off last week. For some, it soared above the clouds. For others, it crashed into a ditch and exploded. Our John had a rocky flight himself, saying that, while he was enjoying the journey, it was often infuriating. My own experience was one of disappointment. I didn’t enjoy the focus on crafting, the endless menus, the lack of purpose to it all. But it was strange that I felt this let down. Then I went back and watched the early trailers and quickly realised that I was not playing the same game I had been shown.

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So I can’t play the original BioShock because I can’t deal with injections at all. I played Binfinite, though, and that was better, although I think some of the DLC is perhaps not my cup of tea in terms of icky moments. That’s why I’m now watching the BioShock: The Collection Remastered [official site] trailer through my fingers, ready to cover my eyes at any moment should a needle make a sudden appearance:

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You might have noticed all your friends’ avatars and profile pictures turning into comic book drawings or impressionistic paintings over the last few weeks. That’s because of Prisma, a photo editing app for iOS and Android that let’s you apply a couple of dozen filters to images you feed it. The app goes further than simply messing with the hue like Instagram does, using a process similar to Google Deep Dream to warp and twist photographs – without shoving fucked up dogs in every corner.

I spent last night feeding it game screenshots, to find out what No Man’s Sky, Half-Life 2, SimCity and more would look like if their artists abandoned realism.

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“Day 4. I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find anything to eat or a clue to get me off the ship. Just… more audiologs! They’re everywhere! For some reason I keep listening to every minute of every one thinking there’ll be some useful information but… they’re just filler! Filler that’s driving me to madness!”> – South Park: The Stick Of Truth

It’s hard to argue. They’re kinda dumb. But I’m still fond of this stupid little trope.

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Rapture is still one of my favourite video game places, and I’m quite keen to return to it all fancied-up. Following a string of leaks, publishers 2K today announced BioShock: The Collection [official site]. It’s coming our way in September with all three BioShock games and their singleplayer DLC plus a video series with words from sweet Ken Levine. Most notably, the first two are being revamped – though 2K say Binfinite is pretty enough already. It is quite pretty, that’s true. Here, catch a few glimpses at the nice improved Rapture in this announcement trailer:

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BioShock: The Collection is the deeply uninspiring name for a bundle of all the previous BioShock games that for some reason 2K are still refusing to acknowledge. It’s now been rated by bodies around the world, including the ESRB, and yet 2K still remain schtum. Which is weird. Anyway, it’ll contain all three games, and in case you’ve forgotten, “Cutscenes also depict intense acts of violence,” and the c-word makes appearances. All games should be announced by the ESRB! It’ll potentially have had a little brush up and tidy, to look prettier on the young people’s modern consoles, but that’s not yet confirmed. Right, I’ve somehow included all the news about this above the jump, so join me for some fascinating sea-life facts below. BioShock is set in the sea, and that’s my excuse.

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And now on Vague, Possibly-Nothing News Hour, it’s the apparent leak of something called The BioShock Collection, which appears to comprise BioShock 1, BioShock 2 and BioShock: Infinite Art Budget. Which isn’t super-interesting in itself, given we’ve all been able to pick up said bundle or the components thereof for absurdly low prices in various Steam sales. What is> twisting my Plasmids, man, is that the leak claims this pack is coming out for Xbone and PS4 in addition to PC. Which might meant that we’re in for a – oh lord, save me from the buzzwords – next-gen spit’n’polish of the series.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

It’s not all we hoped it would be, but I liked BioShock Infinite [official site]. Am I wrong?

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Expansion packs were once a core part of playing PC games, but they can often feel less essential in a world of constant updates and microtransactions. Original game Alec, expansions Adam and Graham, and brief DLC Alice gathered to discuss their favourite game expansions and why they still think the model works.

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A few months ago I published up my impressions of an early build of The Flame in the Flood [official site], a sort of roguelike/white water rafting mash-up set in the backwaters of a drowned but contemporary America, and made by ex-Irrational, Harmonix, and Bungie devs. Which was jolly stupid of me, given the only other people who could play it at that point where those who’d backed its Kickstarter. Fortunately, it’s now on Steam Early Access, which means you can buy it, which means I positively demand that you read my earlier article on it first.

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