This is pretty good stuff. I've never played the original, but after seeing gameplay, I know I can't even try that. I'm old, but I'm not that old; this remake was the only way I was ever going to experience System Shock. If you're tough enough to play games from before 1998, you have a heart of gold and I'm proud of you.
System Shock looks good. The animations are fluid and realistic (on your hands, anyways. Cyborgs act like stiff robots, obviously) and the textures are great, especially with the light pixelization. It's not quite going for the look of something like Prodeus, but you'll see light touches of it that are seemingly only there to remind you that this is indeed a remake of an older game. It was a style choice and I think it was well done. Another style choice, the one people may find sickening, is the lighting. The longer I spent aboard Citadel Station the more normal it seemed, but it is pretty painful initially. Lots of dark spaces lit by drenching, colored, neon lights. It was a weird choice, but again, I got used to it. The game sounds good, too, I was especially satisfied with the magnum's sounds. It just has a reverberating metallic pang to each gunshot and when accompanied by an enemy's head exploding like a hammered watermelon, you feel powerful. Cleaning up SHODAN's mess one skull at a time.
You will get sick of the elevator jingle, though, that I guarantee.
I think where it becomes most obvious this game is “retro” is how the story is presented to you. Once the ball gets rolling and you're in Citadel Station and something is very obviously not right, it's pretty hands-off. You get calls from people telling you where to go, but it's very easy to forget. When you're waking up in Medical, the thought of getting to the Flight Deck several floors up may as well be a pipe dream. I don't need Skyrim-like waypoints, but it can be tough to remember exactly what's happening. If you forget, going back and finding the appropriate tape/email is kind of a hassle, as it'll be buried among many fluff pieces that're there to build atmosphere and basically useless for your journey. You may pick up dozens of these per floor and that's the only way they're organized. There's a “Status” screen that's just an outline of the station and its floors, maybe highlighting which floor(s) you should be looking into would be nice.
The map is also designed in a way that's obviously meant to annoy you. You can even find an email talking about how Citadel Station was designed in a manner to experiment on its crew, testing the effects of stress in space. While an in-game reasoning for why the ship is designed like a video game is nice, knowing that information certainly won't make you feel any better as you're forgetting which elevator can take you to which floors.
The other big baptism by fire is the combat which I really enjoyed. It's very shallow but it's wild how much I came to love leaning around a corner and moonroofing a cyborg's dome. I wasn't initially receptive to how long it takes your character to juice up with the medical syringe, but I ended up liking the challenge with the timing of the mechanics. You really needed to be ready at the drop of a hat for shit to go down and to grip a corner for your life. Any turn could have a cyborg, mutant, or even a flying dinosaur ready to getcha.
The “combat” I did not care for was everything in Cyberspace. It just feels like you're getting fucked in the eyes by an old arcade cabinet, now high resolution!, and the way every shot takes ages to travel makes each section of it miserable. The final boss fight is in a modified version of Cyberspace that's EXTRA boring and was a horrible way to close things.
SHODAN is a delightful villain. She'll talk shit the entire game, assuring you your victories are meaningless and you'll still die miserably, insect. I liked the intro cutscene and the sudden drop/wake up to being aboard the nightmare station, immediately on SHODAN's radar as a problem. You could usually tell when a room was an ambush and it was funny to hear her taunting while she sicced some mutants on you. She's just so charming, but still, she's gotta go.
I recommend System Shock (2023). Again, I've never played the original, but if you're a fan of the eventual spiritual successor Bioshock (and you should be), I think you'll like this game, too.
System Shock looks good. The animations are fluid and realistic (on your hands, anyways. Cyborgs act like stiff robots, obviously) and the textures are great, especially with the light pixelization. It's not quite going for the look of something like Prodeus, but you'll see light touches of it that are seemingly only there to remind you that this is indeed a remake of an older game. It was a style choice and I think it was well done. Another style choice, the one people may find sickening, is the lighting. The longer I spent aboard Citadel Station the more normal it seemed, but it is pretty painful initially. Lots of dark spaces lit by drenching, colored, neon lights. It was a weird choice, but again, I got used to it. The game sounds good, too, I was especially satisfied with the magnum's sounds. It just has a reverberating metallic pang to each gunshot and when accompanied by an enemy's head exploding like a hammered watermelon, you feel powerful. Cleaning up SHODAN's mess one skull at a time.
You will get sick of the elevator jingle, though, that I guarantee.
I think where it becomes most obvious this game is “retro” is how the story is presented to you. Once the ball gets rolling and you're in Citadel Station and something is very obviously not right, it's pretty hands-off. You get calls from people telling you where to go, but it's very easy to forget. When you're waking up in Medical, the thought of getting to the Flight Deck several floors up may as well be a pipe dream. I don't need Skyrim-like waypoints, but it can be tough to remember exactly what's happening. If you forget, going back and finding the appropriate tape/email is kind of a hassle, as it'll be buried among many fluff pieces that're there to build atmosphere and basically useless for your journey. You may pick up dozens of these per floor and that's the only way they're organized. There's a “Status” screen that's just an outline of the station and its floors, maybe highlighting which floor(s) you should be looking into would be nice.
The map is also designed in a way that's obviously meant to annoy you. You can even find an email talking about how Citadel Station was designed in a manner to experiment on its crew, testing the effects of stress in space. While an in-game reasoning for why the ship is designed like a video game is nice, knowing that information certainly won't make you feel any better as you're forgetting which elevator can take you to which floors.
The other big baptism by fire is the combat which I really enjoyed. It's very shallow but it's wild how much I came to love leaning around a corner and moonroofing a cyborg's dome. I wasn't initially receptive to how long it takes your character to juice up with the medical syringe, but I ended up liking the challenge with the timing of the mechanics. You really needed to be ready at the drop of a hat for shit to go down and to grip a corner for your life. Any turn could have a cyborg, mutant, or even a flying dinosaur ready to getcha.
The “combat” I did not care for was everything in Cyberspace. It just feels like you're getting fucked in the eyes by an old arcade cabinet, now high resolution!, and the way every shot takes ages to travel makes each section of it miserable. The final boss fight is in a modified version of Cyberspace that's EXTRA boring and was a horrible way to close things.
SHODAN is a delightful villain. She'll talk shit the entire game, assuring you your victories are meaningless and you'll still die miserably, insect. I liked the intro cutscene and the sudden drop/wake up to being aboard the nightmare station, immediately on SHODAN's radar as a problem. You could usually tell when a room was an ambush and it was funny to hear her taunting while she sicced some mutants on you. She's just so charming, but still, she's gotta go.
I recommend System Shock (2023). Again, I've never played the original, but if you're a fan of the eventual spiritual successor Bioshock (and you should be), I think you'll like this game, too.
2 Comments
@tahaxo_ Haha thank you, dude, I'm really glad you enjoy them!
tahaxo_
10 months ago