@czott - It's hard to take in your argument about the game being "watered down" when you admit that you didn't play the game you claim it was watered down from. What one person calls watered down, another calls an alternate design goal. The very fact that it was deliberately done highlights the fact that your not liking it is a matter of personal preference. I preferred the deeper system of System Shock 2, but the reason I'm going to have enjoyed the time I spent playing this game more than you and several others here have/will is that I can take it for what it is and focus on what it does very well, rather than what it didn't have from a game (SS2) that I can pop in again anytime I want for a deeper RPG experience.

@naznatips - Let's also agree that my arguments are in no sense "rediculous" but for that you just don't agree. I gave you the same courtesy I think.

I agree, it is a good game, I'd say a very good game. But to say it isn't original just because it uses much of the basic formula from SS2 is going a bit far. That much we give sequels; it's due them. The fact that they tried so many different things that SS2 didn't try, and did differently nearly all of the things SS2 did do... well that's a lot more than you get from most sequels.

Edit - Better AI can certainly count as innovation. We aren't talking about how the enemy is better able to find cover; we're talking about how they react realistically to elemental threats, how they react differently when they see you have melee/distance weapon in hand, etc. That is not the direction in which AI is typically enhanced, and it dramatically alters the combat situations, hence innovation.

I'm "just citing improvements..." Well yeah. If you've got it in your head that they're the same game, every added and original feature I mention is going to be marked down as an "improvement" over SS2. But is that fair? To name a handful of things: the concept of the Big Daddy/Little Sister relationship, the pursuit of more meaningful AI relationships and means of manipulating them, the extremely original and convincing story steeped in literary inspiration, the fact that you can't (as you have) simply compare pyrokenesis to incinerate just because they are - in a cosmetic sense - similar only through the theme of "fire" (did pyrokenesis light oil slicks, were objects in the game world defined as flammable and non-flammable, could the fire be passed from object to object, enemy to enemy, or even enemy to object, did the fire cause the enemy to try to put it out, did it distract them significantly in battle?... and that's the example you deemed best for your comparison). All of these things and plenty of others were in no way shape or form in SS2, and they play a major roll in the experience. They did not logically spring from SS2; you really can't call that "just citing improvements."

I guess I should just be glad that you even found Bioshock had improvements over SS2. I can appreciate that you expected more RPG elements and more elements of what was being hyped about this game, because so did I. The difference between us is merely that I didn't let that taint my experience. And it really is quite an experience.

@PlagueOfLocust

I was not comparing the RPG elements of Bioshock to those of SS2 because I haven't played it, so when I said what I said I didn't mean that if you take SS2 and water down the RPG elements you get Bioshock. I was commenting on the RPG elements (or lack thereof in my opinion) of Bioshock in their own right with the frame of reference being what I believe is a true RPG element.

As far as RPG elements comment goes, I will elaborate. It has a story that automatically progresses and you don't interact with any other NPC directly to get the info. You do get the recordings, but again it is still a passive way to tell the story because you are never asking questions in the game. The character customization is shallow and you are never held to your tonic/plasmid choices because there is a gene bank station every 3-5 minutes. I would compare the tonics to equipping different armor in a traditional RPG, and not to choosing base character stats. You don't have to make any either-or decisions as far as weapons go other than when you will upgrade them, and you don't get to choose what those upgrades do. If you consider the customization that is available to be RPG elements then it is your opinion just like when I say that the game lacks any true RPG elements it is my opinion.

As for how much I enjoyed the game... I enjoyed it immensely. I played through it twice back to back because I wanted to see what it was like going through when you know what is going on (i.e. would I pick up on more than I did originally--and it turned out that I did), and I wanted to play it on the hardest difficulty. I give the game a 9.7 but at the same time I recognize that the game is not quite what I expected from the press leading up to the game and it is by no means a perfect game.

@czott - Fair enough. It's the term "watered down" that undermines what you were saying, is all. There has to be a previously existing system for it to have been watered down, and a hypothetical previously existing system isn't enough to warrant the word-usage. The game could have had deeper RPG elements, but I've admitted that.

And yet as you say, the game is still great. That's because the shooter was the core and the RPG its support. Believe me, had they gone with a deeper RPG element, you'd have probably heard more complaints from people who particularly play shooters. Wah, it slows down the game flow, wah, menues, wah, stats. Me, I love all that, but at the same time I'm willing to give the developer the benefit of the doubt knowing that the design was deliberately geared towards a shooter, and in this sense, cutting down the RPG element benefitted the design.

Also note that a lot of what you listed as expectations for RPG elements comes from games that are purely RPG. SS2 itself was not even on par with several of the expectations you listed. There's some things that making the game a fun shooter just eliminates as possibilities here. Still, there's no doubt that they could have done more/better with regard to the RPG system.

Edit - A 9.7 hm? ...I think that's right where I'd put it. Incredible, with room for improvement.

Plague of Locust you should change your Andrew Ryan quote into a Wii pun to fit in more with the crowd :)

@ckmlb - Haha. To hell with the crowd! I can take 'em.

Funny thing is, the only next-gen system I have so far is the Wii. I got Bioshock for PC.