Too Long; Didn't Play: System Shock 2

Sponsored By: Jillsammich, Wandering Taoist and Davet010 (I only accepted one copy, but I’m not telling whose it was. Neener neener!)

Requested By: Rubb Ed

Time Played: 70 minutes

XERXES Review

I want to call this Bioshock in Space, but it would be more accurate to say that Bioshock was System Shock 2 underwater.

SHODAN Review

It’s funny, going backward. Not dad-joke funny (Why did the AI go to the dentist? Because it had a kernel stuck in its teeth!), more “Hmm, that’s interesting” funny. The kind of funny that leads naked scientists to run through the streets of Syracuse telling everyone that they smell bad. I’ve learned some things. About games, about myself, and, well, mostly about myself and games. This ain’t Kerbal Space Program, where I learn about myself and games and albedos.

The first thing I learned is that I am grateful to whomever decided that WASD was the way to control a first-person shooter. When I first booted System Shock 2, I wanted the authentic experience. I loaded the original controls, which uses S to crouch and X to walk backwards, and played for twenty minutes, at which point I died because I kept ducking when I meant to backpedal. When I realized I had to start from the beginning because old games don’t autosave, I grumbled “eureka” at the game and started over with modern controls.

What a difference!

The next thing I learned was that I’m terrible at navigating maze-like environments in games. I’ve always kind of known this, but older games that require you to search every cranny for key-cards throw that fact into sharp relief. After a while I get sick of walking past the same crate that I already opened ten minutes ago, and I realize I’m not grokking the level design. I had a similar challenge with the Bioshock games, but overcame it by not giving a crap about audio logs. Sorry, Mr. Levine, but I’m a spiteful person, and if I get the impression that the game is teasing me, I’m more likely to just ignore the stuff that I’m supposed to be tantalized with. If you want me to see all of your story then don’t make me play hide-and-seek with it.

The thing I learned about video games is how far we’ve come while simultaneously standing almost still. System Shock 2 and Bioshock are, fundamentally, the same game wrapped in the trappings of the decade they were a product of. Spooky, corpse-laden corridors hide gibbering monstrosities that used to be human, and the explanation for it all is buried under a mountain of well-acted wav files. Your character has super powers, which can be upgraded in a million different directions, and which are justified by the scientific bogeyman of the era. In Bioshock it was genetic manipulation. In System Shock 2 it was nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. If there were an analog of System Shock 2 in the 1960s, the powers would have been related to radiation somehow. In another ten years the same game will be made with, oh I don’t know, VR headsets or something – whatever bugaboo makes the Airport Bookstore Best Seller list.

This is not me complaining. I’m an advocate of doing one old thing well being better than doing a bunch of new things poorly. New things are necessary and all, but nothing beats watching an artist evolve to mastery. The timeline from System Shock 2 to Bioshock contains exactly that kind of curve, and it’s fascinating. At any point in the game you can spot what got better, what got cut, what got rethought completely. It’s like watching a person’s thoughts directly, and I’m grateful for the experience.

The fact that System Shock 2 is a well crafted first-person shooter in its own right is just an added bonus. It reminds me of a time when I went to a renaissance faire and got to watch a master glassblower explain his craft. In the heat of the summer, there stood a man holding a ball of lethally hot glass on a long tube, swinging it from side to side to shape it as he casually spoke to a crowd of a hundred people about the process. He turned what looked like a cave troll’s booger into a vase before our very eyes. It was mesmerizing.

I can see why System Shock 2 is so beloved. In an era when everyone was trying to make the next Quake, Irrational was forward-thinking enough to realize that what everyone would eventually want is an FPS with RPG trappings.

Will I keep playing?

If I can ever figure out how to get to the next objective in the first level, I’d love to continue on, even if only to see what sort of stuff the engineering character-build I’m working on can do in this world.

Is it the Devil Daggers of turn-of-the-century RPG-FPS mashups?

Games of the 1990s were difficult more by accident than design. A lot of them were just poorly made, like Daikatana. System Shock 2 is not poorly made. It is also designed to accommodate myriad approaches to playing it. That simple design choice mostly negates the ability of the game to be simultaneously hard and fun. It’s one thing if your choice of attacking an enemy is between shooting them and hitting them. It’s quite another when you want to make avoidance and hacking a viable option. So no, System Shock 2 is not the Devil Daggers of the day. Unless you play it with classic controls.

Seriously, what were people thinking in those days?

EDIT: I want to apologize. An earlier version of this post contained a reference to an author who is now deceased. I was unaware, being the out-of-touch sort of guy I am, but now I'm better informed and have replaced the joke with another one.

We thank you for your patience.

Comments

I think I got stuck about the same spot you did and haven't returned to System Shock 2 since. I spent way too much time remapping keys while completely aware that I'd forget almost all of the mappings by time I needed them. It suddenly made me realize why a bunch of my PC gamer friends were complaining about Bioshock being "dumbed down" when I viewed it as confusing convoluted with complexity. A contextual use key would have suited most of those key mappings perfectly.

But that's just one part of the game that felt poorly aged. I guess it reveals to me what it's like to tell someone "Yeah man, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy VI have totally aged well!" Granted, I'd still lean in favor of Nintendo's usability. I wish I could find the Interview, it was with Rare developers on the subject of developing games like Battletoads on the NES, but they were surprised when Nintendo told them that you must be able to beat a game to ship it. Evidently a lot of developers didn't test their games thoroughly enough to know whether they could even be beaten or not (which, I suppose, is partially where the origin of cheat codes comes from seeing as devs used it for testing). If this is true, it's not a surprise as such a mandate is programmed into Super Mario Maker, where you cannot share a level unless you have beaten it yourself.

I'd like to give System Shock 2 an honest try at some point, but the truth is I'll go back and replay Silent Hill 2 before I'm able to get through the entirety of System Shock 2.

This is the greatest game ever. I replayed it last year and it was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a LONG time.

Three things to do for a new System Shock 2 run:

1. Install the System Shock 2 Mod Pack, a collection of texture/model updates that make the game look fantastic on modern displays.

2. Load the "standard FPS" controls preset.

3. Turn the music Off.

The first thing I learned is that I am grateful to whomever decided that WASD was the way to control a first-person shooter. When I first booted System Shock 2, I wanted the authentic experience. I loaded the original controls, which uses S to crouch and X to walk backwards, and played for twenty minutes, at which point I died because I kept ducking when I meant to backpedal. When I realized I had to start from the beginning because old games don’t autosave, I grumbled “eureka” at the game and started over with modern controls.

You did play the "authentic experience", because we all played the game on WASD back then too. System Shock 2 released in fall 1999; that's two years after Quake 2, and both Q3A and UT were about to release. It was the original System Shock that predated WASD, and SS2 defaulting to that kind of control scheme was a concession to players coming from the original. The rest of us rebound the game to WASD within the first 10 seconds of playing.

Also, there is an unofficial sequel chapter to the game called System Shock 2 Infinite, which I have yet to play, but like the Thief T2X user-made expansion pack, apparently it's a worthwhile continuation of the game.

Legion beat me to it, the mod pack is excellent. I really hope you'll keep playing, even if you use one of the many walkthroughs just to get to the cooler parts of the game.

edit: I haven't done this but if your hacking skill is high enough supposedly you can unlock more mini games in your GamePig.

Well now I'm going nuts trying to reverse engineer the dead author reference, since it was gone by the time I got here.

Spoiler:

Tom Clancy?

AnyLameName wrote:

Well now I'm going nuts trying to reverse engineer the dead author reference, since it was gone by the time I got here.

Spoiler:

Tom Clancy?

Spoiler:

I'm thinking Michael Crichton.

Gravey wrote:
AnyLameName wrote:

Well now I'm going nuts trying to reverse engineer the dead author reference, since it was gone by the time I got here.

Spoiler:

Tom Clancy?

Spoiler:

I'm thinking Michael Crichton.

Gravey wins the prize.

Take two nanomachines out of petty cash.

*Legion* wrote:

This is the greatest game ever.

As long as you modify it to be a different game from its original release, apparently.

ccesarano wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

This is the greatest game ever.

As long as you modify it to be a different game from its original release, apparently. ;)

No. Same game. Updated HD textures.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/300woe6.jpg)

The original textures were for display at 800x600 on a CRT, they look a lot harsher on modern high-res fixed pixel displays. Mod pack is just an "HD remaster", gameplay is unaltered.

I played System Shock 2 for the first time about 3 years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the graphics are chunky, but that's no big deal for an ancient gamer who remembers wiring up an old Coleco Telestar to the family TV.

The really surprising thing about the game is the duration. Modern games have been cut back so far, with a visual density to really grab you with environment... but that takes time to build. This old game took hours to walk through, and even longer to go through at a safe exploratory pace. The levels were designed to be a satisfying, long GAME instead of a visual experience.

The game had limited resources: it rewarded saving ammo. I was trained by Marathon in my formative gamer days to be very respectful of ammo, and it was lovely having that pay off for a change. "Glad I kept those ten clips in reserve... I can make it through this terrible level."

It DID suffer from the 'you can save anywhere' problem, allowing players to slice the game up into manageable chunks. All the more reason to have long boring stretches punctuated by huge ambushes, just to trick the metagamer.

I played this game a long time ago, well before mod packs, etc. I do believe I used a "mod" to reduce/eliminate weapon degradation, but that was it.

I remember having a lot of trouble once the game moved into its second act (on the Rickenbacker).

I remember being terrified of monkeys.

Hrdina wrote:

I remember being terrified of monkeys.

That doesn't go away on subsequent replays. Even when you find them fairly easy to dispatch with in combat, their little monkey noises echoing through the hallways is still a panic trigger.

I've never gotten around to System Shock 2. I really should, but I probably won't. This was a fascinating read to prompt me to reconsider it once more, though!

Greg, have you ever played Deus Ex?

RnRClown wrote:

I've never gotten around to System Shock 2. I really should, but I probably won't. This was a fascinating read to prompt me to reconsider it once more, though!

Greg, have you ever played Deus Ex?

I've never played the original, though I did play and finish Human Revolution.

One of my favorite games of all time.

Don't forget to pick up the basket ball at the start and use it later in the game.

Also if your inventory gets full you can store everything in one of the main lifts.

I'd disagree with Legion re the music - I have the soundtrack on my phone, still, but otherwise, yeah. This was a hugely influential game for me.

This was on my Steam wishlist for years.
Even £1.79 sale prices didn't prompt me to purchase.
However GoG gave it away free last month. I really enjoyed the first 20 minutes, being into my retro games.
But then I died and went back to the beginning.
This has now been put on the bottom of my pile.

Does anyone know if the new patch introduces any incompatibilities with mods, etc?

I assume not, as it's basically just the latest update to the NewDark engine, but just wondering.

What is the best way to play system shock 2? I mean with modern mouse support and wasd controls?

Strangeblades wrote:

What is the best way to play system shock 2? I mean with modern mouse support and wasd controls?

SS2 as sold on digital platforms now uses the NewDark engine, meaning it has modern KB+M control support. (You may need to select a keybind preset to replace the old Shock style keybinds, although I think WASD keybinds are now the default. If it's not the default, it should still be in there as the "Standard FPS" preset).

*Legion* wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

What is the best way to play system shock 2? I mean with modern mouse support and wasd controls?

SS2 as sold on digital platforms now uses the NewDark engine, meaning it has modern KB+M control support. (You may need to select a keybind preset to replace the old Shock style keybinds, although I think WASD keybinds are now the default. If it's not the default, it should still be in there as the "Standard FPS" preset).

Thanks