Trapped in a hell he created, on a space station far from home, a lone hacker sneaks in and battles terrifying mutants and killer robots to defeat the giant artificial intelligence behind it all. Great game villains. System Shock pioneered so many first-person shooter concepts in 1994 that they are now fundamental, while also paving the way for the immersive sim he genre as a whole. Nightdive Studios has done a masterful job with this 2023 remake of him, updating a great game that’s been difficult to play for years with modern conveniences to keep you entertained for decades to come. .
Nominally a shooter, System Shock is more about exploring the labyrinth of TriOptimum’s Citadel space station than the combat that takes place inside. Your hackers and their military-grade neural implants defeat AI SHODAN’s ethical restrictions and cause a significantly worse situation here. So naturally, SHODAN chopped everyone up, spliced them together as terrifying cyborgs, created her own strain of a world-ending mutagen virus complete with strange mutants, and now her god We want to export such divinity to the earth. We love SHODAN for this. Because it makes her feel so fun and uneasy while she does it. Evil artificial intelligences are often portrayed as ruthless, calculating super-geniuses, but SHODAN is not. SHODAN is completely, apparently insane, she is haunted by her delusion that she is a god, and she is happily preoccupied with both herself and her often very bad schemes. .
If SHODAN’s body is a giant Citadel space station, you’re a terrifying little parasite that kills her from the inside out. She knows the extent of her plans and it’s your job to thwart them. System Shock is the oldest and oldest style, with levels being deliberately designed labyrinths of interconnecting corridors, rooms, and locked gates. The basic design has been maintained for 30 years, with significant visual updates since, offering deep spaces that are difficult to navigate by their very nature, and a very satisfying challenge to learn how to do it. Offers. There’s actually no main quest handhold or log of what you’re doing next (although there’s an optional difficulty setting to change that). So when you stop SHODAN, it’s time to actually explore, listen to the audio logs, and figure out what the now-deceased crew had planned.
A great setting and style to explore is facilitated by 100% pure grade uncut space cyberpunk. atmosphere. cyberware? It was done. Cool smart guns? We have those too. Has evil corporation become government? But of course. The revamped visuals and effects are great, I love the semi-pixelated textures and blocky objects. Probably best seen in the power interface panel. New music and sounds are also great accompaniments. All of this works together to remind you that you’re still playing a game from 30 years ago, but this version is brought forward to make it easier to understand what made it so special in the first place. It is a reminder that You can also tweak the color of the interface if you don’t like the fluorescent green.
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As you can imagine, you’ll need to punch, shoot, burn, and blow up pesky monsters to escape the Citadel. Exploration is definitely at the heart of System Shock, but there’s still plenty of combat to do along the way, with some enemies requiring pure gunfights to defeat, and instead the exploitative stealth ambushes of a survival horror game. There are also enemies. Brute force doesn’t always work. As such, it often requires maneuvering around corners and through maintenance shafts to defeat foes far more powerful and dangerous than you.
Combat is probably the biggest change for this new System Shock from the original game. The previous enemies were pretty slow and less intelligent, and the whole notion of what a first-person shooter game was wasn’t as established as it is today. That said, many of the coolest weapons on paper were actually hard to use, and enemies weren’t very good at fighting back. Most experienced players will run towards anything and tear it to pieces with a laser rapier, a kind of electrified lightsaber, but that’s no longer a viable option.
But that doesn’t mean the laser rapier is weak. Please note: laser rapiers are still great.
but other Weapons are cool now. I don’t think you used a grenade to kill yourself in the original, but this time you not only use a grenade, but you can shoot it from a really cool grenade launcher. Other weapons like the Magnum and Assault Rifle also come into their own thanks to a more modern design sensibility, and for the first time System Shock felt like his real FPS. It’s a testament to how thorough and thoughtful this remake is that I always had to check if certain weapons and scenes existed in the original. New things feel totally natural.
The cyborgs, mutants, and robots that serve SHODAN have received even greater improvements. Gone are the clumsy moves of the past, with adversaries with the right AI that know how to get out of line of fire, hide behind obstacles, and charge in groups. The ghastly patched cyborgs are the ones who benefit most from the visual upgrade, morphing from goofy cinematic Frankenstein to brainwashed surgical nightmare.
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I really appreciate the unique design of how each enemy fights and behaves. Jury-equipped worker robots and brainless mutants charge at you, but most cyborgs will try to outmaneuver you. Heavily armored enemies will relentlessly move towards you, shooting all the while, then ripping you apart with melee attacks. Bosses that were once simply tedious encounters (such as the malevolent Cortex Reaver or a militarized gun platform powered by an unwilling human host) are now tense battles to be won. To do so, you’ll need to gather the right gear from around the station, and you’ll probably have to kill a few people. times.
When you die, your gear and equipment will respawn intact in the nearest unlocked medical room. It’s a comfortable respawn mechanic that accomplishes its goal of punishing you without being frustrating and encouraging you to explore really well. You can rush through levels, but it’s easier to find a way to respawn nearby if you accidentally fall off a platform and fall to your death.
It’s a little old design with a season, and it’s convenient to move around the station. not. Hacker’s movements feel awkward and slow at times, and he can’t perform some actions that have become staples of modern games, like sliding down ladders. I can forgive that, but I don’t know if I had to force a crouch jump to get onto the object anymore. This is old gaming wisdom best left to the past.
What I didn’t like is cyberspace. At certain points in System Shock, a terminal can be found that can enter the station’s cyberspace mainframe. There, reality is a sort of “six degrees of freedom” shooter with mediocre wireframe graphics. Questionable, but perhaps to its credit, the remake is very faithful in leaving these sections intact, but that doesn’t change the fact that it can often bring you to tears.
However, to our great honor, the remake will allow you to adjust separate difficulty settings for four separate areas of gameplay: combat, puzzles, cyberspace, and main story missions. If you don’t like exploring blindly or perusing audio logs, the lowest mission difficulty will give you clear instructions to follow. If you hate cyberspace like I do, turn down the difficulty and clear those parts quickly. If you want a more hardcore survival experience, you can step up your combat and be completely dunked into Cortex his Reaver. I did this and it ruled.
However, we expect puzzles to be the most commonly adjusted difficulty. Power-rerouting mini-games like Pipedream are all over System Shock, and you’ll find that security access keycards are required to open many doors and activate locked sensitive equipment. I find these puzzles almost therapeutic. For example, after being chased around by a double-faced zebra gorilla mutant, you are asked to take a step back and take your time to let your pulse settle. I also really like the snappy in-world interface for plugging and unplugging power cables.
