nah.
well first, Bioshock 1. Definitely didn't feel correct. It's gameplay was not massively loved at all back then. And while people seem to have forgotten the flaws with time, they were there, and known.
Both BS1 and infinite suffer from grand ideas, with mediocre execution in terms of gameplay. although for different reasons.
In BS1 a number of things come to mind. Guns vs plasmids. you couldn't use them at the same time. you had to weapon swap to plasmids. You could argue intended, as a tactical choice and to slow things down. but really thats not quite how it worked out. It was mostly just annoying. BS2 fixed this, and so does Infinite of course.
Plasmids were gutted. Mostly me guessing here, but I am almost positive, plasmids as implemented, were only the bare essentials of what was intended. Several clues. Whirlwind traps. Decoy. etc a number of plasmids are more tactical. but in reality, mostly useless, as the game never really embraces tactical play. Additionally, higher ranks of plasmids, don't don anything extra. they just maintain effectiveness. There is NO way any sane dev would put that in a game on purpose. Having to invest in higher tiers of pyro, just to make it deal the same amount of damage it did at rank 1. No way. That HAD to have been a placeholder for plasmid growth, that never got implemented. Again, BS2 DID do that. t2 of pyro makes it a flamethrower. t3 makes it throw a bigger/exploding fireball. And so on.
The same issue is likely applied to weapons and ammo.
BS1 absolutely had way more weapons. And ammo did different things of course. Swapping for tactical play. Dropping mines. Placing tripwires. leading enemies into turrets you hacked. Some of the groundwork was laid for a very robust combat system. but unfortunately, the actual gameplay didn't really encourage doing any of that. Electric shotguns to the face did the job better/too well.
Run and gun was probably just too effective with healing, melee tonics, electric buck, and the rail shooter.
Infinite of course has 2 gun derp and this:
"walk/loot/sightsee --> scripted encounter --> walk/loot/sightsee -> scripted encounter"
The thing on the skylines however. nah. Again, this is like I say with bs1. This is clearly a gutted feature. For whatever was PLANNED, what we got was a horrid shell of what they intended. Definitely not a corporate choice. its a technical failure, or budget/time one. well, almost certainly.
There is the possibility the skyline encouraged too much open world play, and the desire for Levine to make this tight scripted story just couldn't allow the skylines freedom. which is kindof a problem with these games.
Rapture and Columbia, the worlds are practically the most interesting thing. Which is why I say, make them a 3d metroidvania. Those games are built around showcasing environments and having the backdrops BE the story. while Levine keeps taking those backdrops, which are often more interesting then his personal story... and tells us a personal story. Its a bit weird, as we as players all too often want to ignore the story, and go explore the world. and the other problem of course is the gameplay itself being at odds. as again, we want to explore they city on one hand, and on the other experience the narrative. NEITHER one of those mesh with generic fps of kill 10 baddies as they charge into a room.
For infinite, part of the game was showcasing the brutality. Making it clearly Booker is a monster IS important, granted.
