Maybe it's just cause I'm an old player of this game, but I can't understand why there aren't more reviews of this card. Astroscript Pilot Program was one of THE defining cards of pre MWL netrunner, and Remastered Edition is its reinvention. I'd have thought that would draw more inspiration for comments!
For myself, as someone who played almost exclusively NBN in the olden days with every deck having an instant full set of Astroscript Pilot Program, I think Remastered Edition is an amazing bit of redesign.
I actually disagree with folks who say Astroscript Pilot Program wasn't fun to play with or against. When you were NBN, scoring one felt like you were picking up the star power in Mario. Music started playing, lights started flashing, and you felt invincible. If you lost, it came with a quiet shock and admiration that the runner got to win one over against Goliath. If you won, well... winning feels good. As the runner, the corp scoring Astro felt like someone poured gasoline over the whole game and took out a matchbox. You knew the chips were down and so it became do-or-die time. Bold risks that failed felt like a heroic stand and managing the win with the APP token sitting there unused made you feel like a real criminal. No matter who you were, APP turned up the heat and made the game exciting.
That said... the way APP got used meant that NBN decks felt 'one note'. I love FA decks, but it felt weird that even in a PsychoBeale deck you had APP as your primary threat goading the runner into making runs that could trigger Midseason Replacements. It's like an episode of House where Dr House isn't even at the hospital and everyone's asking each other what he would think about the situation. He's not there, but... c'mon, it's still about him.
Remastered Edition tweaks APP's power in just a perfect way to preserve what felt fun about it while allowing other kinds of play to come to the surface. Having an APP token scored still feels like an incredibly powerful ability, arguably the best hosted agenda counter power in the game. If I manage to score Remastered Edition in a game, it adds the same delicious pressure to the runner to hit me hard to make sure no Beales or Tomorrow's Headlines can sneak out, bringing the game within reach. Add to that the fact that the current meta has cool tools in it for scoring 4/2s (annoying ICE, Vladisibirsk City Grid, and Seamless Launch to give just a few examples), and Remastered still feels very scoreable. What makes it more fun, though, is that as a 4/2 scoring each individual Remastered Edition is its own puzzle, rather than a single chain of puzzles where you get the answer to all of them at the beginning as it was with Astroscript Pilot Program.
Remastered Edition stretches the excitement of fast advance threats out over the whole game, rather than turning it into a timed rush when the first APP gets scored. I don't win as much with NBN FA as I used to, but each game is more fun and exciting and what a win that is for a card rebalance.
PS: What theming, oh my god. The salty attitude in the flavor text is exactly what I feel when I win with NBN FA even without APP.
