System Shock 2 (video game)

Platform: PC
Developers: Looking Glass Studios, Irrational Games
Genre: First Person Shooter, RPG, Horror
ESRB Rating: Mature
Release Date: August 11th, 1999

The System Shock games are to innovation as Japan is to most types of pornography; synonymous.

The first System Shock set the bar higher than anything of it's time without question. Coming out no more than four months removed from Doom, the revered FPS classic, it was everything that game was and so very much more; despite selling rather abysmally for whatever reason. But if the first System Shock was years ahead of it's time, the sequel is at least two decades ahead. Instead of laying back on old formulas, the developers once again pushed the envelope, creating a complete experience with features that still have not reached mainstream FPS games over a decade later.

Some features were unfortunately lost in the five years, an eternity when it comes to computers and the speed of their advancements, that it took for a sequel to hit shelves. The cyberspace segments, which were all too sparse in the last game, are all but absent here. Instead of being a seperate mode of play with it's own controls, the few points cyberspace appears within the game are the same as regular play, only with a grid pattern to distinguish it from the "real world". Also, the game has several differences in the way energy and cyberware is used.

Thankfully, the game doesn't suffer without any of the things removed from the last game, though I personally missed the cyberspace sections.

The game is a little friendlier to new players than the last game. Instead of being thrust into the action, you actually begin on earth as your nameless character in front of the United National Nominate recruitment building, ready to join the military. This serves as your general tutorial for the game; before you sign up, you can hit cyberspace pods which give you basic and advanced training with different aspects of the gameplay. This includes weapons training, tech training and psi training, or the games equivilent of psychic powers. After you learn the basics, the fun begins.

Cyberware is something that has recieved the largest overhaul between the two games. Gone are the implant upgrades of the last game. In it's place is an entirely stat based system; meaning that while the last game merely had an RPG flavor, it's sequel is a full on hybrid of RPG and shooter. These will determine your affinity for different weapon types, your skills as a hacker and the psi powers you can use, just to name a couple of examples. You gain cyber modules, which are spent to upgrade your rig and stats, for completing story based objectives and once in game upgrading is as simple as finding one of the upgrade systems and choosing what you want to upgrade with the modules you have.

Setting up your basic stats is rather ingenious. After your training, it's tiem to choose your branch of the military, which will determine what you are proficcient at in the start of the game. The Marines specialize in weapons, the Navy are the tech guys and the OSA are the paranormal guys who specialize in psionic powers. Once you choose your branch, you choose from three postings. Each posting upgrades certain stats, stated to you before you enter, and you go through three, each one representing a year of service, before the real game begins with the stats you've gained through your choices.

From there, the real story begins. The setup is similar to how things started in the last game. It's now forty two years after the incident on Citadel Station with SHODAN, a situation said to have been diffused by a nameless hacker. You are on the Von Braun, the first ship with faster than light speed capabilities, on it's maiden voyage to explore the reaches of space alongside it's military ship escort the UNN Rickenbacker. You had been posted on said mission. At some point, however, things had gone horribly wrong. You wake with no memory of events that have taken place. Most of the crew is since dead, the ships computer named Xerxes has seemingly gone haywire and the ship is overrun by grotesque invaders of unknwn origin. Your only friend comes from a female voice that communicates to you, guiding you out of danger. It's up to you to learn what's happened and survive.

As you can tell, the basic setup is similar to the original. You wake up with little to no memory only to find yourself in danger almost immediatly. Most of the story is again told through crew logs picked up throughout the ships, which helps add to the desperate atmosphere of the game.

The story is different in far more ways, however. When the first game began, you found out the basic gist of the situation on the station in the first five or six minutes of gameplay; the stations AI, SHODAN, had gone haywire and become genocidal, fancying herself a god above humans and slaughtering the crew. In the sequel, however, you have little to no clue exactly what has been going down and it stays that way for quite a while. Instead of SHODAN and her powerful cyborgs, you take on what appears to be mutated humans connected by a hive mind, bent on assimilating humans into their unity and spreading the "glory of the flesh". Things only begin to piece together about an eighth of the way through and even after you think you know what the cause of everything is, you'll still be shocked by some of the twists in the game. The first game had a beefy story for it's time; the sequel merely ramped up that concept.

The visuals, like the previous game, suffer from age. Computer technology evolved in leaps and bounds with each passing year of the nineties. With five yers between the two games, the difference in visuals is night and day. However, it's also undeniable that a decade has passed since System Shock 2 and things have taken giant leaps of their own since. The general environments do not suffer as much from this. They look great for the time and still hold up today rather admirably, despite some blocky objects here and there. Even the enemies look pretty decent for the most part, especially the fleshy antagonists of The Many.

It's the models for the human characters that suffer more than anything. They look downright terrible. Textures are bland and stretchy, plus the models they're wrapped around are horrifyingly, disgustingly blocky. They may be more horrifying than anything the game itself throws at you; and they're littered throughout the game. The bodies of the crew, like the last game, are everywhere, so there's no escaping the awful models for the humans. They can take you out of the game easily.

The sound is far more coherant in tone this time around. The first game had a theme for each level of the station, as distinct and vibrant as the level itself. The sequel, however, eschews that for a lower, creepier tone. There are several times where there will be no real music playing or it would be so low it's barely distinguishable. Instead, you're left to hear the enemies creeping around through the corridors, which can get you all on it's own. The hybrids are a great example of this; they mumble and mutter about unity and flesh, sometimes even speaking in your mind. It's liable to creep you out.

There are times when the music will kick in, however. There are spots in the game where, upon passing, a theme will kick in. This most noticably happens right as you walk into a fairly substantial battle or a hallway that is, upon the first time through, rather packed with enemies. The music ranges from rock style themes to ambient music meant to ratchet up the tension in dark, moody areas. While all this means that there isn't going to be any memorable themes that will stick in your head like most games or even the last System Shock, it also means that the sounds and music are more tailored to the horror experience the game strives for.

Gameplay is vastly improved in this game; quite the feat when you consider the last game was pretty damn good in this department as well. Instead of a clunky, action obscuring HUD display, the games presentation is generally minimalistic. The game is always in fullscreen and the inventory is not always up like last time, meaning that you can see everything easier this go around without having to continually switch between the HUD and full screen displays. Looking and turning is all controlled by the mouse this go around, like many modern FPS games. With a press of the button, however, you can bring up your inventory, which brings up the mouse as a pointer to interact with your inventory and things all around you, somewhat similar to the last games general setup.

Speaking of inventory, you equipment has also been expanded; instead of just weapons, you may now find and equip both armor and implants that will upgrade a particular function as long as they have power. Each item has it's own energy charge this go around instead of running off a general energy bar; when you hit a recharge station in this game, everything in your inventory is recharged. Instead of your general energy bar, you have a psionic energy bar your psi powers will run off of. Said bar is replenished by hypo's, similar to health. All of this plus a lot of other little changes add up to provide a different and in many instances superior experience.

A lot of new wrinkles are added to overall gameplay, many of them very, very innovative for today, much less then. You weapons would actually degrade in condition as you used them, meaning you would need to use tools to maintain them for usage. Also new is the ability to modify your weapons, thereby improving them. These will range anywhere from increasing clip size to decreased reload time. Modifying a weapon works similarly to hacking a console, only in this instance once you are successful the weapon in particular is improved.

Another new addition to gameplay is research. Some weapons and items will actually need to be researched first before they can be used. This is done by simply right clicking an unresearched item in your inventory. It's never quite so simple, however, as many items will require certain chemicals for the research, which are found only in chemical storerooms on each deck of the ship. Research is just another layer to the many this game provides.

All these are just the basic new innovations this game has to offer. I've only scratced the surface. I could write an article in and of itself of all the new wrinkles this game has that add to the experience and playtime.

As mentioned, proficciency in a lot of things is handled by stats, much like an RPG. The higher a stat in one of the weapon categories, the more damage you will do with that type of weapon. Some weapons will even require a certain number in a particular stat for you to even use it. The higher a stat in hacking, the easier it will be to hack computers and security crates. The higher a stat in modification, the more you may modify your weapons. And so on.

The game itself has a much higher emphasis on horror this go around than the previous game. Unlike the last game, where ammo was plentiful for the most part, System Shock 2 gives you far less ammo for you guns to play with on the whole, similar to survival horror titles like Resident Evil. This means that melee weapons are the order of the day much of the time; and in this game getting close to an enemy is not always easy. A wrench you pick up once the game really begins will probably be your best friend for a good while.

Adding to the suspense the game provides are the enemies tendency to respawn at any time they please. Unlike other games, when you clear a hallway it doesn't remain that way. If you are away in another section of the area for a while, there won't be any returning without worry; there is a good chance something will be waiting for you there. This makes traversing the halls downright creepy because in some respects you're never really safe; even if you clear out the entire area of the main enemies, some will respawn in the corridors from time to time. Thankfully, only one at a time will respawn in any given place, so you won't be overwhelmed or anything if you go back and you eventually learn to keep your guard up.

Still, turning a corner in a hallway you previously cleared to find a hybrid waiting with a shotgun can be a startling slap in the face if you become too complacent; you're never really safe in this game and you wouldn't want it any other way.

If there's one real flaw I could think of when it comes to this game, aside from some of the ugly character models that really show their age, it's probably the last hour of the game. The game tapers off a bit near the end of the game, slowly becoming more linear. Thankfully, it's a minor quibble that only crops up near the tail end of the game and it's offset by other factors that take your mind off of that.

One of said factors being the last area of the game; the one between the last major out and out fight of the game and the final boss. This area was a masterstroke. I won't spoil it, but I will say that if you played the first game at all, this rea will look awfully familiar and perhaps even get you all nostalgic.

There's really so much going on with this game that I don't think I could ever truly list all of it without doing a fifteen page essay on the game itself. My reviews get long enough as it is, so I wouldn't want to put that sort of thing up. The game has a lot of little things that add up to make a game that is just as much an experience as the first one. It's not to be missed.

My Opinion: Buy It

System Shock (video game)

Platform: PC, DOS
Developers: Looking Glass Studios
Genre: First Person Shooter, RPG, Horror
ESRB Rating: Mature
Release Date: March 26th, 1994

* Note: This review is of the CD-ROM disc version of the game and not the floppy. The difference is far from minimal; the CD version carried a bit better music and sound effects along with full speech in e-mails and crewmember logs. It makes a big difference; if one is to play the game, it's best to be sure to get the CD version.

The truth is sometimes hard to swallow, especially if you're a fanboy. But sometimes, no matter how hard you try to deny, there are undeniable truth's in gaming that can be often ignored. Things like Halo being overrated, how far franchises like Sonic had fallen and so on. One of these truths is that as great a game as the original Doom was, the game that brought First Person Shooters to the forefront of gamers minds from that day forward, the game was the Ewok to System Shocks Darth Vader. System Shock made the game look that pathetic in comparison, from it's gameplay to actually properly conveying the horror theme both games shared.

Doom may have gotten all the glory upon it's release a year prior to this game, but System Shock is where the true innovations in First Person Shooters were being displayed.

This is why it's a shame that System Shocks fate was to be overlooked. Do not get the wrong idea from the previous words; Doom is an unquestionable classic of gaming. But having played System Shock, it's apparent to me that This game is just as much of a classic and deserved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Doom in gamers minds. Perhaps gamers just wanted a simpler shooter, as Doom and Wolfenstien 3D provided. Perhaps the marketing did not present the product properly. Whatever the reason, System Shock sold poorly, but it since has rightfully taken it's place as a major influence in gaming, even if it will never be as well known as it's contemporaries.

When put into the context of 1994, the fact that this game had a fleshed out story was simply amazing. While Wolfenstien 3D and others were simple shooters with any plot relegated to the manual and shot you right into the game, System Shock was not content with this. You're treated to an opening cutscene in the age before they became popular, one that must have been dazzling at the time. All the necessary information is laid out for you from there; in a cyberpunk-esque future, you're a simple hacker who cracks into classified files on an orbital space station owned by TriOptium, a corporation in the future. He's detected and swiftly captured, brought into orbit to the station itself. There he is confronted by a TriOptium executive named Edward Diego, who offers something of an offer the hacker can't refuse; perform a confidential hacking of the stations AI, SHODAN, and if the job is done well the hacker will receive a military grade neural interface. The Hacker does his job and true to Diego's word, is fitted with said implant and put in a healing coma for six months.

Upon awakening, the game begins. Within a minute you pick up your basic instruments, including a data reader that allows you to receive e-mails and listen to logs of the station crew. You recieve an e-mail from a counter terrorist specialist; they know you were the one who hacked the computers as Diego, despite his position, was not as on the up and up as was expected. When you removed the ethical constraints six months prior, SHODAN subsequently went rogue; killing all of the stations crew and quashing their resistance over those six months. You have two objectives; one is to survive, the other is to stop SHODAN's mad plots at all costs.

Normally that opening salvo would be enough story for First Person Shooters of the time. But System Shock went one furthur. All over the nine levels of the sprawling space station, you would come across personal logs of the crew members, allowing you to peer into their thoughts as the six months you were in a coma passed. Some are from when there was only suspicion SHODAN was malfunctioning, others before even that and yet more during the surviving crews desperate struggle to survive after SHODAN began slaughtering the crew and they realized something was horribly wrong. SHODAN her/him/itself is an ample antagonist. Her plans for humanity are as absolutely diabolical as her ego is insatiable. She seeks to be a god and looks down on humans, aptly referring to them in most instances as mere insects. She's creepy and a worthy adversary; the drive to destroy her grows as her taunts and threats grow more numerous as the game passes.

All this was absolutely baffling in those days, no matter what system you were playing; few games gave such an in depth story on top of the solid gaming. System Shock went one better and presented an overall story of the station that holds up to this day, despite the many years that have passed since.

One thing that did not hold up, as expected, is the graphics. This is a 1994 DOS based game without a shadow of a doubt. Everything has pixels the size of Nebraska; if you aren't good at handling dated graphics this may be an irritant. However, nothing seen in System Shock is any worse than the original Doom games, so if you can handle that then this game should be no problem. It actually look a bit better than Doom did and handles some nice effects said game didn't, such as bloody writing on the walls and extremely varied locals. Each level of the ship, from Hospital level to the Bridge, has it's own look which means you'll never be going through someplace that looks the same, making it a better visual experience than it's contemporaries.

The controls take a bit of getting used to, especially if you have never played an older First Person Shooter before. Some of the keys are a bit oddly placed and if you've handled a modern First Person Shooter then the look function not being relegated to the mouse will definitely throw you. That aside, once you get the hang of things it becomes somewhat natural; eventually you won't even have to think about the buttons. Customizable buttons would have been wonderful, but such is the limitation of the times.

Gameplay is quite varied eve among some of todays First Person Shooters. This is not just a run and gun game by any stretch of the imagination. Opening some doors will require solving puzzles. Some main objectives will require you to have a certain number of an item or two. A truly funny side objective, as in passing a retinal scanner, requires a bit of creative thinking. Clues to getting past some doors and access codes can be found in the logs, prompting you to keep track of what you pick up. Your usual health bar is there, accompanied by a new energy bar that will be just as important to keep an eye on. It's all an immersive experience on the whole that is never dull.

One of the best parts of the gameplay is by far the neural interface. Among the usual health and ammo items you will find are plugin's for your neural interface. These range from head lanterns to jet boots to maping systems to a lookaround plugin that allows you to actually see behind you when turned on. Any plugins can be turned on at any time and are upgradable, with new and better effects coming from each upgrade, giving the game a slight RPG twist. When turned on, these plugin's run off your energy meter, forcing you to economize your use of them. Luckily, energy recharge stations can be found on every level of the station and if there isn't one around one can simply use a battery pack you have picked up for a boost.

Your standard gameplay is not the only type, however. Upon finding a terminal, one can actually jack into cyberspace. Cyberspace is basic and yet a great representation of how you might think it would have worked, borrowing more from the early cyberpunk works version of it. Your free float through a wireframe network, collecting programs, data, flipping switches to open doors in the real world and fighting guard programs. It's a fun experience, to be sure, that adds another layer to an already fantastic game.

The sound is generally quite good, but is very much a product of the technology of the time. It's quite MIDI-esque on the whole, owing to the primitive sound technology all those many years ago. Still, it's a fine treat once you get past the fact that it won't measure up to recent games; this game is old remember. Each level has it's own infectious theme that loops throughout that level, as unique as each levels look. They're fantastic in their structure, evidenced by the fact that you never get tired of hearing them despite the looping. The music and sound effects can also help convey the games horror theme; the minimal soundtrack for the Maintenance level adds to the overall creepy atmosphere said level goes for.

On top of all this, the games innovations and influence is vast. If there's a common control or gameplay element in a modern game, chances are unbelievably good that it got it's start here. Looking up and down made it's debut in First Person Shooters here, adding a layer your Wolfenstiens and Dooms did not have. There are no samey visuals to be found here either, as mentioned there are distinct and vast looks throughout each level of the game. The engine also allowed for slopes and and inclined surfaces, literally unheard of at the time. New control options also made their debut here; leaning made it's first appearance here as did being able to crouch and crawl. Item side effects was another of the games perks; taking a sight enhancing patch, for instance, would improve your sight for a little while, but once it faded your sight would be poorer than originally and future patches might not even work as well, if at all. To reverse that you would need a separate detox drug to bring you back to normal. Another example is the Berserk patch, which makes you stronger for a limited time, yet will also cause you to hallucinate.

None of this is even mentioning the physics, which had your head bobbing upon running and bullet impacts to knock your head back in the opposite direction. Another influence was in regards to damage calculations. Some weapons worked best against some enemies but may not work at all against others. For instance, using a gas grenade would prove very effective against a mutant, but the robots would practically laugh at you. An EMP would seriously damage cyborgs and bots, but trying it on a mutant would be the equivalent of throwing chewed up bubble gum at them. Different ammo types also made it's debut here, allowing you to unload your current clip and then choose the type of ammo you wanted to reload with; for instance, giving you the choice between hollow points or slugs for the magnum.

The game in itself was something of an innovation, as can be seen; everything it offered has since become the norm in First Person Shooters, giving it the sort of influence and impact even Doom has never had. Even in this day and age, when you complete this game you will know you have just finished an experience. There are few other games like it.

My Opinion: Buy It