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The Making of System Shock 2
The British gaming magazine Edge, which has teamed up with the website Next Generation, offers up a piece looking back at the creation of System Shock 2 . The cult classic storytelling horror-themed FPS has survived as a popular and often-referenced game despite the eight years between now and its release. The piece covers the reasons behind that popularity, as well as the 'horror' of an inexperienced team taking on a dauntingly high-profile task: "The original System Shock was one of the games that made Levine want to move into the videogame industry in the first place. What made it so special? 'The feeling of being in a real place,' he raves. 'The feeling of a mystery, of unraveling it - not in an adventure game way, but in the context of an action game. You arrive and... what happened? That's a really good storytelling mechanism.' Austin Grossman and Doug Church's original idea from Shock was something Irrational expanded in its sequel. 'In Shock 1 you were a specific guy, you had a backstory,' Levine notes. 'With Shock 2, I started you out with the classic 'wake up with amnesia'.'"
When Bioshock came out, I heard the hype, and was prepared to delve into the amazing awesomeness that Bioshock apparently was. Especially considering how good System Shock 2 was. So I expected that it would be as good as SS2 or better.
I installed it and began playing.
About two hours later I was bored out of my mind at the console-ized, dumbed-down mess that was Bioshock.
I reinstalled System Shock 2.
I played the entire thing through again and loved every second of it. System Shock 2 is without a doubt one of the best games of all time, worthy of any top 10 list as the best FPS-RPG ever. Probably even better than Deus Ex, though that's a hard comparison to make for sure.
How unoriginal. I hope they sue.
I still have the disc and I'd play it again in a heartbeat if it would just run on a modern system - I've tried everything. With patience, my media will hopefully be useful again someday once the Open Dark Engine reaches maturity.
Shh.
Got to the point where you're avoiding cameras and every time you go around the corner a camera sees you. I tried various things to get past but it was just stupid, there was nothing to do. Tried various game guides, none of them had anything to say about it. So I'm not particularly fond of SS2 and I burn inside every time someone praises it.. I have a special hatred for video games that have a f'(x)=infinity learning curve and stump you after 9 seconds of playing. It's just not fun..
The reason it was so good was that for the first time in a game, you weren't in a game. Doom shared that a bit, was one of the first games you could just play without reading the manual. Doom was "real". What I mean by that is that a door looked like a door, worked like a door. Med packs were clearly visible and so on. Compare this to say a driving sim, where you do not have working mirrors, you can only see straight ahead, you have to drive by jerking the wheel hard left or hard right. Doom was "natural".
System shock was not, but it is the first game I remember where you really felt part of the world. Since then I learned that EVERY fps that you are alone. Think about this, even in Alien VS Predator, as either the alien or the marine, you are alone. Not so in System Shock. At one point you are reading mails from someone trying to find a safe spot, as you progress you are getting closer and closer and hope to find them alive. You don't offcourse, solo FPS is solo, but still, for a moment you felt like others were in the space station with you. A magic moment in a PC game. Perhaps even better then actually having an AI with you, this woman never got in my way, didn't commit suicide, didn't get stuck, yet I felt she was another human in this alien world.
But this is about System Shock 2 right? Can I be honest? Didn't like it as much as the original, it was too much. I would have preffered they spend more time on the bugs and less time on the three different main classes and all the various options. Nice and all but endless choice is too often an excuse for not enough flesh in the story. Shodan is back? Yeah, okay, she was nice and crazy and all but we knew her already. There was no shock. Also, the first time you were a hacker, so no wonder you were a bit crap in the beginning with combat, this time you are a soldier, so why do you still suck?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Can't mod you up anymore, so I might as well agree...
Although I did finish Bioshock.
Overall I really liked all sorts of aspects of the story in System Shock 2 more as well, beyond just the gameplay - in System Shock 2 you really felt more in-between two larger powers than in Bioshock (hopefully not spoiling too much for people that have not played either game).
I would love to play through System Shock 2 again, but sadly I sold off my copy a few years ago.
Sometimes I wish they would just update graphics and do gameplay tweaks on older games like that one more often, but not in a Frogger 3D kind of way...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey! I'm a fat SS2 loving attic dweller, you insensitive clod!
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
The guns broke down to fast in SS2 and when you add low ammo and respawning monsters that takes fun out of the game and makes it harder.
Man, how ironic. I just finished this game yesterday, no kidding! I purchased this one back in 1999 when it came out. I started it but then got distracted by some other game. I think it was called Half-Life. Anyway, I ended up moving on to other things like getting married and upgrading to Windows XP, playing Morrowind for five years, then recently upgrading to Windows Vista. When BioShock came out, I almost bit, but when I found out that its DRM bit back, I figured that maybe it was worth going back and playing the next best thing, the now legendary System Shock 2. That was about a month or month and a half ago. Of course getting it to run on Vista turned out to be a challenge, but once I did it ran excellent--albeit with an occasional hang--but still extremely playable. And it certainly looked better on my latest PC than it did back in '99. Anyway, its been a ball playing. It's still every bit as creepy as people say, but its far more the sound that creeped me out than the visuals, which are admittedly a bit dated. Anyway, its still a great game, and one that requires that you think before you act. But the really creepy thing is that the day after I finish it--and about eight years after I bought it--I see this posting on Slashdot. Is that you SHODAN? Dave
I'm playing through DX right now for the umpteenth time.
AFAIK the only time race is mentioned is the Chinese freighter.
When I started playing System Shock, I was really impressed. The graphics were good, the story was good, the atmosphere was scary and oppressive, but I just started to find it frustrating after a while. For example, the "zombies" not only seemed able to use any weapon they could lay their hands on, they were also crack shots, whereas I could only use certain weapons when I'd acquired the skills to use them and even then seemed to be unable to shoot straight or with any power. Maybe it gets better if you struggle through the plain annoying bits, but when a game stops being fun I can't be bothered with it much longer.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
That's the earliest I could guess.
No shit idiot, why do you think Shodan addresses us as "panting and sweating as you run through my corridors". It's isn't because we're fucking marathon runners.
Actually, "Panting and sweating as you stand still in my corridors" would have been just as accurate.
Fun System Shock Fact : Shodan deliberately disabled as many elevators as she could, because she figured instead of hunting down the access codes in radioactive areas filled with Cyborg Death Nannies* and the zombies from Thief BUT FROM THE FUTURE, the fat basement dweller that was the only survivor of the digital apocalypse wrought upon Citadel Station would simply attempt to use the stairs instead and die of exhaustion before reaching the second floor.
Unfortunately her downfall was that her programming didn't take into account the sheer determination of the human nerd to avoid all exercise.
*("The same killer instinct as human nannies, but now with robotic parts!")