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The Words of Shodan

Via GameSetWatch, an article by Keiron Gillen about System's Shock's deeply creepy villainess, Shodan. The deeply disturbed AI is in some ways a cliche, but Gillen examines why Shodan transcends genre tropes to become a truly unique character. From the article: "The core of understanding Shodan in System Shock 2 is to understand that she's no longer the AI she once was. In the first System Shock she was the cold, perfect bully aboard citadel station. The position she finds herself in orbit around Tau Ceti, millions of miles from Earth, is somewhat different. In short, for the majority of the game, she's not the antagonist anymore - but the main supporting actor and even mentor. She's not who you try to stop - she's who you work with."

3 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. SS3? by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 3, Funny
    Also worth noting that the feature was written before news of System Shock 3 emerged properly.
    Fungwha?
    --
    ... I'm addicted to placebos
    1. Re:SS3? by swordgeek · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Fungwha?"

      Exactly my response to that comment.

      Did some looking. Bioshock, which looked like a fairly cool and immersive FPS, is apparently the spiritual successor to SS2.
      Now I'm all a-quiver! Time to upgrade the P3-1GHz, finally.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  2. That is easy by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just take any ordinaly speech syntasyser and remove the ethical constraints with some hacking and you too will have your very own shodan.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.