The vita-chambers are pretty dumb, but they weren't really one of my main issues because I restarted from saves every time I died.
Some of my biggest complaints include:
- Enemy leveling as you progress through the game. It just negates your character building.
- Nothing changes. It's the same game throughout. Wouldn't be a huge problem, 'cause I've enjoyed games that don't evolve, but I don't think the core gameplay in BioShock is particularly engaging.
- Some broke-ass security devices, like hacked security cameras that only rarely actually work to detect enemies (even when I've got a big daddy frozen right in front of the camera) and hacking mini-games that are actually impossible to complete. I also refilled my EVE about a thousand times instead of opening the hack menu as I approached a turret. Nothing more miserable. Even after hacking everything and setting up traps for big daddy, all the creativity was foiled and a shotgun full of electric buck was pretty much the only thing needed.
- Oh wait, yes there is something more miserable. The escort mission at the end blows real hard. It was especially satisfying to find out, after trying real hard to do it flawlessly, that it doesn't matter if you keep the little sister alive or let her die endlessly and just summon new ones. This was a great way to end the game.
- Almost as great as the dopey boss fight at the end.
BioShock's atmosphere is outstanding (though a bit dull after the
Sander Cohen stage) and I was hooked early on. But the game doesn't evolve at all, and its core elements are either buggy or just basic. Some of my frustration with the stale gameplay is due to how I played the game--I rarely spent any ADAM, just bought new tonic and plasmid slots. The bare minimum approach is how I try to play games when doing guides, but even my experiments with other plasmids didn't show any compelling changes to the gameplay.
The atmosphere was enough for me for a while, but my frustrations with the gameplay had me hating the game near the end. It's overall a better game than average and I'm glad I played it, but compared to something as nearly flawlessly executed as Prime 3 and Portal, BioShock, for me, doesn't stand up.
