System Shock 2 coming to GOG.com

Bought! I'm such a proud supporter of GOG.com

Suppose I should play it.

Bought it. Installed it. Played for a bit. Awaiting the kids going the hell to bed so I can play more, because I think demonic cyber-monkeys and midwives are not the kind of thing they need to see at this point.

Still creepy as @$!! hell.

The chimps aren't demonic, in fact besides from you they're probably the most rational beings on the ship. They're just pissed off that they were experimented on, and they have tire swings.

I excitedly installed this before going to work. I was looking forward to playing it when I got home but just realized it's valentine’s day, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Jucofett wrote:

I excitedly installed this before going to work. I was looking forward to playing it when I got home but just realized it's valentine’s day, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

SHODAN IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND NOW, INSECT.

Downloading now!

I started going through the mod stuff but decided against it for now at least. It was a bit too much trouble, and after watching a comparison video, it doesn't seem worth it. It's gonna look dated no matter what, so I might as well go with what was originally intended.

Stop me if I've told you this one before...

One night while trying to get a precious couple of hours sleep I was walking down the darkened corridor to the bathroom. I noticed a green light up on the ceiling. I stumbled backwards and then ducked into a doorway. I was OK, the light was still green.

Then I realised that this is my house and not the Von Braun and the green light is a smoke detector not a security camera. Lucky, because i was out of ammo.

That game got deep into my brain.

Ah, still plays beautifully, and looks very decent at 1366 x 768. I made an OSS guy and got down to engineering before running out of steam for the night.

This game is still creepy as all @#$!!! hell. I stayed up too late, and now I'm going to hear those damn monkeys screeching in my head all night. Early impressions is the graphics have clearly aged, but the game has really held up amazingly well. The atmosphere is really phenomenal.

Ugh, who knew that a game from 1999 would make me miss my internet connection most. I'll have to wait until the 22nd of February before I can download this! Too long!

And bought. Selling my hard copy of this game is one of my great regrets. It's cool to see people new to the game enjoying it.

*note to self*

Old video game=lousy checkpoint system.

Still fun though.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

*note to self*

Old video game=lousy checkpoint system.

Still fun though.

Make sure you find the reconstruction points, like the vita chambers in Bioshock.

Scratched wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

*note to self*

Old video game=lousy checkpoint system.

Still fun though.

Make sure you find the reconstruction points, like the vita chambers in Bioshock.

Yeah, just rediscovered those. It's been a while.

1 More Castle posted a recent article listing some texture and model upgrade mods if anyone is interested.

stauf7 wrote:

1 More Castle posted a recent article listing some texture and model upgrade mods if anyone is interested.

I'm interested but am not familiar with modding games. Are these difficult to install or is it just a matter of downloading and moving the files to the correct folder?

Is there any chance this game would run well in VMWare Fusion? I'm curious about it, but not curious enough to run a non-virtual Windows machine. Thanks!

Just purchased it and am installing it. Once the anklebiters (and the wife) are in bed, it is headset on, and time to see what this is all about.

IUMogg wrote:
stauf7 wrote:

1 More Castle posted a recent article listing some texture and model upgrade mods if anyone is interested.

I'm interested but am not familiar with modding games. Are these difficult to install or is it just a matter of downloading and moving the files to the correct folder?

you just extract the mod archives into a specific folder. I believe it's called "PermaMods-something" or.. something. No subfolders, just straight up "extract here" and you're all set.

psu_13 wrote:

Is there any chance this game would run well in VMWare Fusion? I'm curious about it, but not curious enough to run a non-virtual Windows machine. Thanks!

It's not System Shock 2 and it's not VMWare Fusion, but Thief won't run properly in Parallels. Um, so that's at least an experience with another Dark Engine game under virtualization.

IIRC, the game itself might have played but the menus were black, so it was quite the crapshoot to even get a game started.

So I'd give you a conditional "Don't count on it".

Most wrote:
IUMogg wrote:
stauf7 wrote:

1 More Castle posted a recent article listing some texture and model upgrade mods if anyone is interested.

I'm interested but am not familiar with modding games. Are these difficult to install or is it just a matter of downloading and moving the files to the correct folder?

you just extract the mod archives into a specific folder. I believe it's called "PermaMods-something" or.. something. No subfolders, just straight up "extract here" and you're all set.

It's called "DataPermanentMods". Read the mod readmes for any information about the order you should install - some mods want to be last or close to last.

IUMogg wrote:

I'm interested but am not familiar with modding games. Are these difficult to install or is it just a matter of downloading and moving the files to the correct folder?

There is a thread with FAQs regarding mods on GOG.com with all the info you need I would presume:

System Shock2 FAQ - patches, mods, recommendations wrote:

!! IMPORTANT !!!
-you will need the latest DirectX9 redist and VC++2008, the game will NOT run unless you have them installed.
-make sure the game is not installed in program files or windows if you are using vista or win7.
-ignore any FAQs, readmes or guides, unless they are on systemshock.org or here. there is a 99% chance that they are outdated, and will mess things up.
Installing mods:
-the mods are installed by unpacking the archive(s) into the DataPermMods folder (or, alternatively, DataTempMods). they must NOT reside inside their own separate folders (wrong setup, and proper setup). there will be some overwriting when you put multiple mods into the DataPermMods folder, just click yes when this happens. use of modmanagers is discouraged, as they are outdated/meant for version 2.3 and will not see some (new) mods. to remove mods, you will have to delete the content of those two folders.

There is also a download link where you can download all the mods combined instead of pulling them one by one from the internet.

Finally here's a video so you can decide if it's worth the trouble:

I still have my CD/box copy of the game from 2000 or so and replayed it about one year ago and actually decided that I wouldn't mod it because it felt strange in some places to have some models and textures looking better than others.

Even with the mods it won't look like a modern game and it also doesn't play like one so I didn't really mind leaving the game the way it was released.

MEATER wrote:

I still have my CD/box copy of the game from 2000 or so and replayed it about one year ago and actually decided that I wouldn't mod it because it felt strange in some places to have some models and textures looking better than others.

Even with the mods it won't look like a modern game and it also doesn't play like one so I didn't really mind leaving the game the way it was released.

That's how I feel when there's the option of mods. Short of doing something like Black Mesa, it just feels weird and inconsistent. I can easily 'believe' or get immersed in a game if it's coherent, but when you start having a mix of quality in there it breaks the illusion. There's a certain 'right' level of detail for certain eras of games that you need to really push hard to move it into another era.

Good grief does this game bring me back to the old days when you feel like you have to quick save every 60 seconds. I don't know if that's a good thing. I'm 30 minutes in and have died a couple times so far for reasons that I didn't really know how to combat.

Scratched wrote:
MEATER wrote:

I still have my CD/box copy of the game from 2000 or so and replayed it about one year ago and actually decided that I wouldn't mod it because it felt strange in some places to have some models and textures looking better than others.

Even with the mods it won't look like a modern game and it also doesn't play like one so I didn't really mind leaving the game the way it was released.

That's how I feel when there's the option of mods. Short of doing something like Black Mesa, it just feels weird and inconsistent. I can easily 'believe' or get immersed in a game if it's coherent, but when you start having a mix of quality in there it breaks the illusion. There's a certain 'right' level of detail for certain eras of games that you need to really push hard to move it into another era.

That's pretty much why I gave up on the mods when it took more than 5 minutes to figure out.

First time playing, I using a couple mods, rebirth and SHTUP. They were easy to install and I know little about mods.

This game is hard. I think I just need to start developing some skills. Intrigued so far though.

I'm assuming this still works in this version, but if the constantly respawning bad guys and crazy weapon degradation get annoying, they introduced a way of toning both down when the original game got patched.

Just create a file user.cfg in the main directory then add the following on separate lines (not the commented stuff // ):

no_spawn
// minimises (but doesn't turn off completely) creature respawning

lower_spawn_min < X >
// the game 'rolls' randomly to see if it spawns a new creature when ever there are a set minimum creatures on the level, so if X=1 then
if there is only 1 creature left on the level it will try to spawn a new one.

raise_spawn_rand < X >
// this is the random roll it makes to determine if it spawns a new creature (between 1/i and 1/i+X)

gun_degrade_rate < X >
//Lowers the gun degrade rate - X is anything between 0 (off) and (1) on... so (0.5) would slow the degradation rate by half.

*edited to include the < >

stevenmack wrote:

I'm assuming this still works in this version, but if the constantly respawning bad guys and crazy weapon degradation get annoying, they introduced a way of toning both down when the original game got patched.

Just create a file user.cfg in the main directory then add the following on separate lines (not the commented stuff // ):

no_spawn
// minimises (but doesn't turn off completely) creature respawning

lower_spawn_min
// the game 'rolls' randomly to see if it spawns a new creature when ever there are a set minimum creatures on the level, so if X=1 then
if there is only 1 creature left on the level it will try to spawn a new one.

raise_spawn_rand
// this is the random roll it makes to determine if it spawns a new creature (between 1/i and 1/i+X)

gun_degrade_rate
//Lowers the gun degrade rate - X is anything between 0 (off) and (1) on... so (0.5) would slow the degradation rate by half.

You're only cheating yourselves if you use these.

Nothing beats the experience of being in the middle of a fight, lining up a shot and firing only to hear *clunk* - "Weapon jammed" - "Your song is not ours. Raaaahhh", and then scramble around for a weapon with ammo.

If you're running out of ammo, scavenge, scavenge, scavenge. Be in the habit of looting broken weapons, unloading them and dropping anything useless.