System Shock's 2023 remake felt like an insight into what people valued about the original, why it left a mark, and how far the imsim (immersive simulation) genre has come.
Citadel Station is big, bright, and labyrinthine. Seemingly every wall and ceiling covered in glowing screens and lights, making readability (what can I actually interact with? what am I supposed to do in this room?) hard to parse for the first several hours of play. The station's layout intensifies this sense of disorientation. Each floor of the space station is sizable and sprawling, with twisting, intersecting, and hidden rooms making navigation as much of a mental exercise as the game's basic "redirect the flow" puzzles. This sense of disorientation feels thematically apt, but it has costs: prodding at every surface and/or overlooking critical buttons & switches is frustrating, and the puzzling architecture eschews any sense of verisimilitude. (The game pokes fun at itself with a one-off audio log about how SHODAN intentionally designed the station to be maze-like, which, haw haw, but remains a barrier to immersion.)
The means of interacting with the environment are also generally primitive: run, jump, shoot, and press buttons. While the game does find some simple but effective ways to iterate on those, I couldn't help but think about the ways Arkane's imsims have pushed environmental interactions forward (Dishonored's blink & rat possession! Prey's foam crossbow & mimic matter! Metroid Prime's scan visor & morph ba- wait a second).
Narratively, the game feels a bit thin. After a tightly-paced opening, nearly all of the written content that follows is audio logs of the crew at various points of suffering and SHODAN's taunts. It still hits some good narrative beats, but anyone hoping for thoughtful insight into Shodan's motivations or, frankly, any well-developed cast members (arguably beyond Shodan) will be disappointed.
Speaking of Shodan - while her taunts and traps were fun, it felt a little flaccid due to the reanimation mechanic. (Basically, you can unlock fixed respawn points that will allow you to die & return without losing any items or progress otherwise.) When her most devious trap turns a game over into a slap on the wrist, it starts to feel like she's all bark and no bite. (Segments without these respawn points are a bit more engaging.) Were other consequences for taking the respawn - additional enemies encroaching into new places, traps set for your return - deciding between taking the respawn or reloading a save would be fun! But as it stands, it felt like an odd and underdeveloped choice. (There is a difficulty option that addresses this by putting a hard 10-hour cap on gameplay. It's an interesting option, but it seems ill-fit for a first playthrough - mine took me 18ish hours.)
Other bits are similarly impressive by 1994's standards but undercooked or unremarkable today. Combat is fine - some of the weapons are especially satisfying to use, but enemy AI is disappointingly limited. Cyberspace segments play like baby's first Descent & could be shortened or cut. The soundtrack is extremely functional cyberpunky techno that left little impression.
As a fan of imsims, I enjoyed the look into the genre's history through the murky lens of a faithful-seeming remaster. I wouldn't recommend it to those interested in trying out immersive sims - honestly, just play Prey (2016).
Citadel Station is big, bright, and labyrinthine. Seemingly every wall and ceiling covered in glowing screens and lights, making readability (what can I actually interact with? what am I supposed to do in this room?) hard to parse for the first several hours of play. The station's layout intensifies this sense of disorientation. Each floor of the space station is sizable and sprawling, with twisting, intersecting, and hidden rooms making navigation as much of a mental exercise as the game's basic "redirect the flow" puzzles. This sense of disorientation feels thematically apt, but it has costs: prodding at every surface and/or overlooking critical buttons & switches is frustrating, and the puzzling architecture eschews any sense of verisimilitude. (The game pokes fun at itself with a one-off audio log about how SHODAN intentionally designed the station to be maze-like, which, haw haw, but remains a barrier to immersion.)
The means of interacting with the environment are also generally primitive: run, jump, shoot, and press buttons. While the game does find some simple but effective ways to iterate on those, I couldn't help but think about the ways Arkane's imsims have pushed environmental interactions forward (Dishonored's blink & rat possession! Prey's foam crossbow & mimic matter! Metroid Prime's scan visor & morph ba- wait a second).
Narratively, the game feels a bit thin. After a tightly-paced opening, nearly all of the written content that follows is audio logs of the crew at various points of suffering and SHODAN's taunts. It still hits some good narrative beats, but anyone hoping for thoughtful insight into Shodan's motivations or, frankly, any well-developed cast members (arguably beyond Shodan) will be disappointed.
Speaking of Shodan - while her taunts and traps were fun, it felt a little flaccid due to the reanimation mechanic. (Basically, you can unlock fixed respawn points that will allow you to die & return without losing any items or progress otherwise.) When her most devious trap turns a game over into a slap on the wrist, it starts to feel like she's all bark and no bite. (Segments without these respawn points are a bit more engaging.) Were other consequences for taking the respawn - additional enemies encroaching into new places, traps set for your return - deciding between taking the respawn or reloading a save would be fun! But as it stands, it felt like an odd and underdeveloped choice. (There is a difficulty option that addresses this by putting a hard 10-hour cap on gameplay. It's an interesting option, but it seems ill-fit for a first playthrough - mine took me 18ish hours.)
Other bits are similarly impressive by 1994's standards but undercooked or unremarkable today. Combat is fine - some of the weapons are especially satisfying to use, but enemy AI is disappointingly limited. Cyberspace segments play like baby's first Descent & could be shortened or cut. The soundtrack is extremely functional cyberpunky techno that left little impression.
As a fan of imsims, I enjoyed the look into the genre's history through the murky lens of a faithful-seeming remaster. I wouldn't recommend it to those interested in trying out immersive sims - honestly, just play Prey (2016).