fr33kSh0w2012: Imagine if far cry series and crysis series had those damn annoying Checkpoints!! I hate games where you can't save where ever the HELL you like! I hate having to do the same half hour segment again! I HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT!

GabiMoro: I'm playing Bioshock Infinite right now (only the base game), I think I'm near the end.

Does the first post contains spoilers? :)

Johnmourby: Don't worry no spoilers.

Crosmando: Mindless? Perhaps. Linear? Maybe if you mean that "doing one level and then progressing to the next level" is linear, but in my view any good FPS has reasonably open map design, ie stuff like this:
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061119200337/doom/images/d/dd/E1M6dots.png
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070128082129/doom/images/2/2e/E1M7dots.png

Also Bioshock was marketed as being the spiritual heir to the System Shocks, where puzzles and emergent gameplay were important.

GabiMoro: Thanks, I already readt it, except for part 6. Story and Characters.
I kinda agree with you but somehow, after all the 9 out of 10 ratings I expected more. Perhaps the end will change that.

Randalator: Who does? All I ever see is people saying that it's THE shit.

Crosmando: I remember playing Bioshock some years ago, I thought say the first hour or more of the game was great, really varied and showed off the different facets of the game, the stealth, puzzles, the way the story was telegraphed via finding notes/logs. It just seemed that after that intro part, the game just devolved into a series repetitive shooting sequences in hallways.

Bioshock to me is like Lionheart, interesting idea and varied gameplay at the beginning (like Barcelona), then the rest of the game devolves into mindless combat.

Johnmourby: And I hope I've given reasons as to why that is no the only way to view it? You did read my post right?

lukaszthegreat: I believe there is a bit of nostalgia filter going on with those "open maps"

you tend to run around from one side of the map to another... pick the key here so you can open the door there, go back so you can pick another key which was hidden behind the door and backtrack to open another door. it was linear to the max. do a, then do b, then do c. that's linear design of the map even if the map allows you to go back to a or b at any point. it just reuses the same rooms over and over again as you run from one objective to another.

this kind of map design is not as open as one believes...
There is a reason why we moved away from them... and not because they are harder or more costly to produce. Because they suck nowadays. we have much better ways to present the game.
Instead of reusing the same rooms over and over again we create new rooms. like cod or half life does. giving players new challenges, new areas to see and fight in instead of doing the same battle in the same room like in doom.
or we make the map open world ala far cry. many objectives, various ways to tackle them, skippable content, hidden secrets.

just for information....
cod ghosts hardly a good singleplayer game can be beaten in 6 hours
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=14322

doom 2 can be beaten in 8
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=2711

so doom 2 does not provide a lot of extra playthrough. while cod gives you constantly new areas to explore and conquer in doom you are repeating your fights. crossing the same rooms over and over again in order to find those darn keys.

doom map design was good 20 years ago. it is not good by today's standard.

Crosmando: I never played Infinite, I'm referring to the original.

Though I would say, Bioshock is a weird series in that it has a very serious, even philosophical story-driven approach, one might even say it has the pretense of being intellectual, yet at the end of the day the GAMEPLAY is just go around with guns killing things and stealing their stuff. It's just like if DOOM was made but instead of having some cheesy throwaway plot about demons, it had some long story with pretensions of being deep, complex, thought-provoking. The story might be great, but what does it matter if the gameplay is just about blasting demons into chunks of meat with a Super shotgun?

Bioshock would of been much better as say a Myst-clone/first-person adventure without combat. The FPS combat of the series has always been tacked on to give the series a broader reach to the dudebro console shooter audience, even though many (most?) people would agree that the FPS combat fucks up the story and is nothing but filler.

Lorfean: I loved BioShock Infinite and am looking forward to playing the Burial at Sea DLC's. But each to their own, man -- no reason to get all worked about about some people not liking the game.

For me, the original BioShock never impressed me all that much, and as a result I never even tried BS2. I got BS:I when it was on sale and it blew me away. Together with last year's Tomb Raider It's easily one of the most impressive and enjoyable modern games I've played.