Firestorm said:
The gameplay was "first person shooter... WITH A TWIST!" which wasn't bad, but it wasn't done all that well either. The much-touted "you can play this game like, a thousand different times and no two play throughs are ever the same" was uh, exaggerated to a great degree. The level design in particular bored me. Without any danger or consequence of dying, all I had to look forward to was a well-made maze with some decent puzzles thrown in there, but I didn't get even those. The presentation was top-notch. I always feel like I have to say that, because I started playing it late one night and had to turn it off once I first entered Rapture (the shadows on the wall, the people shouting and screaming... it was all so frightening and engrossing until you found out you were basically invincible).
And the story felt like it was built around the plot twist. And actually, the plot twist feels like it was the designer saying, "Aha! Now I can explain why the game is linear!" I'm not sure if it's clever or frustrating, but it did kinda feel like they sacrificed some of the gameplay/level design for story and setting, or they tried to make up for a particular lack of talent with something they were stronger with.
I don't dislike Bioshock as much as other games like GTA IV or Jak 2, because at least Bioshock was an original attempt at doing something. It's not like it was an existing game in a franchise where the creators thought that their game needed more focus on story because that is what gamers really wanted. I'm just confused that when a game comes along, and it does the game part really right (like Portal or Braid or Super Mario Galaxy), that they're essentially overlooked in favor of the more Hollywoodish thing. Though to be fair, I think Wii Sports got most of the accolades in 2006. Not that it does the game part really right.