System Shock

I never played the original so fair warning. I imagine quite a few people stopped reading right there. I went into this with a pretty healthy respect for the franchise due to the original games being held in such high regard, though I really didn't know what to expect. I was very happy with what I got. I will say that I heard it was pretty faithful to the original and knowing how games were in the 80s/90s, I put it on normal instead of putting on hard (like I usually would cause you know, I'm a pro of course). That was a mistake I think, and it overall was a little too easy. Ultimately the game is about exploration. I resisted the urge to use google the entire time, except to check I think once or twice exactly what an upgrade did. Explore Citadel station, find new weapons, resources, ammo, find data logs, information, and the clues needed to progress. There's very little to basically no handholding, except I think on the easiest difficulty. There were points where I had to do a lot of backtracking, and two points in the game where I searched every floor and was looking at every surface for how to progress. I was fine with this though, it was actually refreshing. No one in your ear saying "Hacker! You've got to stop Shodan! Press the red button!" over and over. No yellow paint. Just you, and a mountain of logs you have to dig through sometimes to figure out what to do. If I could go back in time and give myself one piece of advice before playing it would be to take notes. It's a very polished and fun game. The combat feels good, and managing your resources feels rewarding. I would honestly buy this at full price.

I'm in two minds about this game. It is a fairly faithful recreation of the original, and to its credit, it doesn't dumb down or compromise on requiring you to pay close attention. I decided to try it out to get an idea of the experience which went on to inform a huge gaming legacy, and that is essentially what I got, give or take additions to the remake which muddied my perception, like the talking vending machines and the musak. This is a difficult game. The level designs border on ridiculous, but are in-universe established to be intended to drive people to madness. The puzzles come with zero instructions, as in, you can't really tell without simply bashing your face against it what function completes a puzzle. You can lose hours and hours trying to beat an AI at chess. Your only weapon in the face of these demands is outright familiarity. Slowly becoming less lost, knowing the backtrack path to each elevator and which floors connect, slowly lowering the security level to make each area more survivable. And, though a slog, there's a definite sense of pride in overcoming each floor of this hostile, mind-bending station. On the other hand, there are a lot of detractions. Bugs, for one, needled my enjoyment - sometimes a quickload that you punch in too fast will cause a CTD. The deceased enemies will vibrate, float, explode on respawn, and sometimes wedge into the walls and ceilings - or gyrate uncomfortably in your peripheral vision. A few elevators did not register on my map after using them, leaving me far more confused than I should have been trying to navigate, and the mission markers can just float around unhelpfully. After being at least decent enough to obtain 45/46 achievements in the game, the final one - which should unlock as a reward for getting everything else - just did not drop, which did not exactly feel satisfying after surviving 3/3/3/3. What tips this into a not-recommend, though, hinges on the final cyberspace fight with SHODAN, which is uncompromisingly awful. I never minded cyberspace personally, but the boss fight changes what you're used to into a half-and-half with reality - you can't fly, and you get a gun. There is something just so pathetic, so creatively unburdened, about being told you can only combat SHODAN in her own realm, in digital form, leaving the physical world behind, and then just being given a new gun you're not used to, and shooting incredibly annoying floating things for half an hour. Being killed in cyberspace leads to a nonsensical real world death on all difficulties. I don't like handholding, but there is zero indication for how to proceed, no visual signposting or building on gameplay skills that you've perfected through the preceding hours. It's just random, punishing, and starts with a several minutes long cutscene you have to rewatch on every attempt. Were this true to the original I would be lenient, but they changed the boss fight into something incomprehensible where a simple easy pulled switch would have been more than adequate after the big final firefight gauntlet on the Bridge. Worth playing for curiosity's sake? Sure. A faithful adaptation of a classic? Eh, kind of. But be prepared to put up with a lot beyond the intended difficulty level of this genre-starter.

It's kind of a shame that we're basically getting a prequel in reality... can't wait to buy a PC dedicated to my best ai buddy so it can tell me what to think so I don't have to because that's what our wise technocrats know is best for us. I'll call it Shoddo and I'm sure it will all go splendidly, far far better than in System Shock 1.1x

The game just feels very high quality in general. A remake that's crafted with great love, care and attention to detail. SHODAN has a lot of charm as a video game villain. The premise is simple - an evil faulty AI on a remote space station but it is done so in such a very stylish unique and interesting way. I don't get people who post negative reviews because of difficulty and backtracking. This game is difficult but not to the point where you'll get stuck unless you don't quicksave regularly and keep track of your resources. And it's not like it's hard to go through the levels you already cleared and have a layout of. Backtracking is what for me made the station feel like a system - you don't just beat the game level-by-level but you see how the station's departments are interconnected and act as a whole system, a body of SHODAN. People also question the ending, how it's very abrupt and unsatisfying and how the SHODAN fight is bs, but it was so in the original as well. If you look up 1994 game ending, it is exactly 54 seconds, a cutscene being a slideshow of images. This remake simply does exactly what it's supposed to do - makes an old game available to new audience. It keeps all the best from the original and makes it better. With that said, it did feel like I'm playing an old game, which is not a bad thing but might push away some players For example, I had to write down all the codes I encounter, they are not just auto-filled when you know them or how there is no objective displayed or journal menu that tells you what to do and you have to pay attention to what is going on in the story to be in the loop.

This game is absolutely phenomenal, an absolute cornerstone of gaming history. I never played the original, but I've now beaten the game twice, and it'll probably be one I revisit every couple years. The game has 4 different difficulty sliders, and I recommend not setting them to the highest setting on your first run, just leave it on setting 2 for each category unless you feel like you need the help in a particular area of gameplay. Unless your story difficulty is set to the lowest setting, you will need to pay close attention as you play through the game. The map is very intentionally a labyrinth that is not friendly to navigate. You will find audio logs (a mechanic that the original introduced to the gaming landscape) which give you information ranging from throw away lines to extremely important information which is vital to progressing the game. It is very helpful to take notes to keep track of things like codes and locations of importance. You can also use the pins on your map to mark any location you might want. Immediately after placing a pin, you can type out whatever you want, which is not very obviously displayed, but which makes your pins much easier to keep distinct from one another. Combat in this game is the bread and butter, in my opinion. The weapon variety is very good, and it feels like each weapon (aside from the starter melee weapon and pistol probably) is completely viable through to the final boss. Cycling out which weapons you carry on you is encouraged by the fact that you're trying to conserve ammo, meaning dipping into a different weapon's ammo reserves can keep you from having to fall back on your melee weapon. Later, as you have access to more guns, you can cycle melee out of your inventory if you manage your ammo well enough. You can also ignore every gun in the game and beat the brakes off your foes with a pipe or a wrench (or a later, much more high tech variety of whackus bonkus). Use cover to your advantage, or you will get deep fried by most enemies. The small puzzles are nothing groundbreaking by today's standards, but the original was the game that introduced many of these types of puzzles to videogaming as a whole. The larger story puzzles are more entertaining as you need to find certain items and complete certain actions on multiple floors of the space station. Cyberspace is my least favorite part of this game, it mostly feels like something I have to deal with to get back to progress the actual fun part of the game. I can see what the original devs in 97 were going for, but it's just not fun. I understand its inclusion in the remake, as its removal would drastically alter the game's identity, definitely for the worse. As an immersive sim, this is still one of the best in the genre. It can feel a bit clunky and outdated in areas, but progress feels rewarding and earned every step of the way. Inventory management has a few hiccups that I think could have been easily resolved, but it's functional. Exploration is enjoyable, and slowly mapping out each floor of the space station scratches an itch in my brain. Finally, the setting is just phenomenal. It's cyberpunk, it's sci-fi, and each floor of Citadel Station has its own character. Speaking of Citadel Station, the AI inhabiting its walls is one of the best written villains in any game out there. SHODAN, the rogue AI (whom your character causes to go rogue in the first 5 minutes of the game), is ever-present. She watches you through every camera, every monster you kill an abomination crafted by her in an attempt to make lifeforms superior to humans. She's got one hell of a god complex, and she's going to make it your problem. Thwarting her plans makes you feel like a badass, but she's swift to remind you that you're not indestructible. You're guaranteed to walk into more than one trap during your playthrough, and it makes SHODAN feel like a proper threat, not just some voice chattering in your ear. If you like immersive sims, games that require you pay attention, well written villains, or using a railgun to blow the head off of whatever poor shmuck crosses you, play System Shock. There's nothing else quite like it.

banger, i forgot that i love immersive sims so much, it just feels good to play, looks crazy, interesting narrative, ppl in 97 were eating good, glad it got remastered

Я слышал об этой игре много хвалебных отзывов, и вот как то мне попался ключ от этой игры на одной из площадок за копейки, я купил сразу же. И вот как добрался до игры был очень приятно удивлён. В игру я играл впервые сразу скажу, в оригинал я не играл, поэтому сравнивать не с чём. Игра мне понравилась, очень такой приятной шутер, но есть и большой минус (а может для кото - то и плюс) отсутствия задания как такого, то есть чтобы понять, что нужно делать надо находить записки и голосовые сообщения. Я конечно же играл с гайдом, т.к. понял еще на первом уровне, что потрачу часы на выяснение того что происходит и что нужно сделать. И бывало записи и сообщения того что нужно сделать я находил очень поздно, хотя по сюжету продвинулся довольно далеко уже, то есть разбросаны подсказки крайне не равномерно. Ну это самая моя большая претензия, а так играть не сложно (я играл на средней сложности), исследования уровней поощряются как ресурсами так и различными облегчениями дальнейшего прохождения. Но скажу сразу исследовать все равно придется, т.к. даже идя по гайду я сталкивался время от времени с нехваткой аптечек и патронов. А так игру рекомендую, как-нибудь сыграю в ремастер второй части.

[h3]I had to play this game for a while, before I realized what a masterpiece it really is.[/h3] Requires attention and deliberate slowdown: you'll need to listen to audio logs to unfold the story, make notes on the map, manage resources/inventory and use your brain to find your way as there's no handholding. All of this mixes well with the tense space-horror atmosphere, which is very original and genuinely unsettling at times, yet there's some dark humor to it as well. I jumped into this game with an FPS-mentality and came out understanding what an immersive sim is. (BTW it runs well on Steam Deck, but a desktop with KB/M and bigger screen, is where the gameplay really shines)