Since DevilMayCry 4 was technically a cheat, i've already gone ahead and started working my way through the next game.
In fact, a little over 7 hours worth of game time i've finished it! No really. I spent my New Years bank holiday going through this since Steam had it on sale for £3.50. Not bad to be honest.
Now, i knew that the game was going to be short. I'd had the massive spoiler, that pretty much ruins any subsequent playthroughs but i had such fond memories of the experience originally that i wanted to go through it again to refresh that memory.
First off, i had problems getting it to work through Steam - switching over to DX9 instead of DX10 got that solved and off i went. 7 hours later, with a quick break in the middle and i'd finished it. Making extra special effort to save all the little girls rather than harvesting them, along with finding as many of the recorded messages as possible.
In retrospect, considering the limitations of the game (i think my first playthrough was not that much longer) can the game really be justified such a high score? With almost zero reply value (even the good/bad endings are pretty much so close to each other you wouldn't need to go through the game again), with a very linear story and quirky gameplay (everything is pretty much a joke, other than the big daddies - i even just went around with a wrench for the last half of the game).
The zero punctuation review of Bioshock, from way back in 2007 pretty much nails some of my gripes. If you look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R (both of them), Fallout, the original System Shocks. There was a hell of a lot more to those games, aside from the story and click here and choose which super power you want next.
I think the biggest problem with Bioshock, is that it wants so desperately to be one of those games. When in fact it's a lot more like the Half Life series, or even Doom 3 where the RPG element is contained within the story and related conversations with other NPCs or notes/tape recorders littered about the levels. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but looking back on the game now i can't help but feel jaded about the whole thing. Sure it's pretty, got a nice story, the ghost scenes/background story are great, voice acting is great - but it is very much a very confused little boy. Unsure if it's a full blown FPSRPG or a simple FPS game. Bioshock, definitely sits somewhere in the middle.
Ah well, already making progress through the next game of the year. Which is
Resistance 2.