Does Bioshock Bring New Gameplay Elements?

Is Bioshock revolutionary in terms of gameplay? Certainly not. It goes however, without a single doubt, that Bioshock is the best designed fps since the times of System Shock 2/Deus Ex and I still uphold my opinion that Ken Levine is a brilliant game designer AS he is also a marvelous screen writer. However, I must say that Bioshock showed little if any novelty in terms of game design. While the game is fun, 90% of its design is a rip-off from Levine's earlier production, SS2. The 10% I am speaking of comes from games like Doom or Half Life 2. I do not think anyone can deny this, the game is nicely polished, but in the end its just a reiteration of System Shock 2, dumbed down to appeal to the wider audience. There is NOTHING revolutionary about the game, and I cringe as I write these words, but that is the whole truth. I was expecting Levine to come up with something new, something interesting but in the end I was disappointed. Hell, he didn't even manage to achieve Deus Ex's greatness and made the game utterly linear in terms of plot-branching, and given the depth of the plot, its almost laughable that the player was given so little choice in the matter. So yeah, there are two endings, but the plot is nearly identical and Deus Ex, a very time-honored game, is still far more "revolutionary" than Bioshock in that matter.

But even without the plot choices, I would have expected from someone like Ken Levine to incorporate another aspect, the possibility to adjust the game to the gameplay style of the given player. Basically, I would like to see at least two modes, a Shooter mode and a Simulation mode in the vanilla version. I mean please, is it that hard to change some numbers in the .ini file and perhaps decrease the number of goodies strewn out throughout the levels? It would be even greater if the changes went much farther, introducing permanent character development choices and limited inventory like in SS2. Or maybe the game could actually adjust the respawning rate and such by analyzing your gameplay style? Now, that would be a revolution: a game that really gives the ultimate freedom when it comes to gameplay style, a game that would appear to both the action as the thinking types. It wouldn't really be that much of a revolution now that I think of it, but a really proper and deep implementation thereof COULD be revolutionary. Anyway, given that even SS1 allowed the player to set whether he wants to concentrate more on action or puzzles and plot, it seems utterly silly that such a "Revolutionary" game as Bioshock doesn't give any semblance of that option. I really hope that Mr. Levine IS going to take up another project and that perhaps he might incorporate some of these features in his future games. No matter how much the disappointment, Ken Levine remains one of the most competent game designers of all time and I really think he can still do it, bring about the ultimate gaming revolution that we've all been waiting for. Bioshock I treat as an appetizer before the real deal.