While I didn't object to the respawns in SS2, I don't like respawns in principle. Many developers consider it 'lazy programming' since instead of making new content you just get the person to keep killing more of the same thing.

Now in the case of SS2 it wasn't that bad since the respawns weren't really frequent enough to become tedious. Also, respawns only occur in certain areas. So you can find yourself alone in one area that you cleared, only to enter another area you cleared and run into enemies.

Volume is everything, and the volume of respawns in SS2 is not high enough to be considered a nuisance IMHO.

So that's how you define RPG? By having stats and skills that are crucial to success? There's first misconception right there: you have no idea what RPG stands for. It's Role Playing Game. RPG =/= stats and levels. There are games with stats that aren't RPG and there are RPGs with no stats or levels. Shocking, I know. There's A LOT of role playing in SS2: when you're scared and move slowly carefully leaning from behind corners to scout area ahead you're pretty much role playing lonely survivor. Increasing ability level from 3 to 4 is NOT role playing. Acting like a character would is. The same is true for almost every cRPG. No matter what you do you're destined to be good guy who saves the world and evil choice are usually insignificant or plain impossible. You want true RPGs, grab pen and some paper. And that's how it is advertised: FPS/RPG hybrid. Survival horror would be pretty good description too, I guess. Nitpicking: this is forum, not your personal blog. If you're not willing to discuss your viewa, why are you even here? Wrong again. Horror comes from setting and stories you read from PDAs and logs. Even biggest cannon won't help you against annenid flies, and having fully maxed grenade launcher won't raise your confidence when you hear spider but can't see it. If anything, having powerful weapons gives you false sense of security that can (and will be) easily shattered. If you think replays aren't scary enough, try harder difficulty mode. Wow. This is so stupid I literally had to stop and ponder for a while about average gamer's intelligence. Tree? TREE? There is no tree, skills DO NOT BRANCH. If your analysis had any credibility, it lost it right there. You're using terms you don't even understand. And no, putting it in quotation marks doesn't make it any less stupid. The word you're looking for is simply "skills". Better? Since when apples are better than oranges? Different skills might be more or less useful for different playstyles and some can make game easier, but that doesn't make them better. The only one that comes to mind is assault rifle. Just think about it as SS2 "easy mode". What other weapons lack in pure power, they more than make up in coolness. Are you seriously implying that D2 had balanced skills? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Frozen orb. Blessed hammer. Need I go on? This is survival game. Not yet another boring FPS where you can hoard tons of ammo and all the guns and can clear area and call it a day. Expecting to kill 3 dudes and thus clear entire spaceship is just ridiculous. Spaceship with QRD machines and enemy who can create more monsters. Having NOT respawning enemies would break suspension of disbelief for me.

Huh, this has to be the very first time somebody used term ARPG where it actually makes sense. For those who don't get it: Diablo (and its clones) is not ARPG, it's hack&slash. There is literally no role playing in Diablo and similar games.

Yeah, they should totally add Zeal from Diablo 2. That would solve all the problems. Mindless clicking is what makes games great. Every time I read post made by kid from Failbook generation, I weep for humanity.

It's B.

And it scares me that I remember that.

I have started to actually construct a response, but ... I wonder where all that hostility came from. Needless to say you're obviously not willing to listen to any of what I have to say (you're not even willing to read the entire topic, as most of what you're replying has been discussed already), so all I can say is: I'm sorry my opinion and view on the game differs from yours. If you are genuinely interested in discussing this with me, please, try to be polite and read trough the rest of this thread. If you just want to fight, don't bother.

Contradictory much?

System Shock 2 isn't perfect, because nothing is. But saying it's not RPG because you have weird definition of it or saying it's not balanced because some choices make it easier to play than other? Just ridiculous. It's not game's fault today's gamers can't understand something as simple as "SS2 is not Doom clone with finite enemies and infinite ammo. It's survival horror RPG with infinite enemies and finite ammo." And by horror I don't mean Doom 3 "lol teleport behind your back" crap. Or bloody corpse popping out of nowhere screaming directly in your face cheap tricks from hollywood. I mean story-based horror, Lovecraft style.
People who understand what this game is cherish it despite it's flaws, not criticize it for what it is. Some arguments in this topic make as much sense as complaining that Fallout is RPG and it has no dragons in it.

Where did I say I was responding to the 'RPG' bit? You're actively trying to pick a fight, aren't you?

You clearly love the game. So do I. If you believe the game has flaws, do state what do you think is wrong with it, I'll add it to the OP if you actually add reasonable arguments. If you don't, well that's fantastic, go ahead and enjoy it. But I'm not as arrogant as to dictate what should people prioritize, what should they like / dislike, and what is / isn't important for them in a videogame.

The entire point of this topic is to slightly go against the entire hype that surrounded System Shock 2 before release - I was worried that even people who might not enjoy the game will pick it up based on that, and so I've started thinking long and hard about expectations arised by this hype. Now I'm not very good at rhetorics and 'putting down my thoughts', so yeah, it's not worded very well (thank you very much for basically calling me stupid because of something I've got to battle every day, very thoughtful of you), but I have made it clear that vast majority of that post is subjective while being just as objective as I possibly could be.

Most players of today don't have the same values we do in videogames. We should respect that as opposed to condemn it on every turn, and as it's their money they use to buy the videogame, they should go informed into the purchase. Then there are people with pet peeves, like respawning enemies, that could just hate the game for doing that. Again, not our business to tell them they're wrong.

Pathetic creature of meat and bone!

Bwahahaha.

I'll make a Carmageddon 2 vampire mod, just to spite you. You'll play the vampire, not run over them.

Since everything in this thread has been pretty much peoples subjective opinion, I will add mine too.

This game is boring! Like really boring.

For the first few hours where you have to scrounge to survive it is good. However once you have 'leveled up' a bit the problems set in. I.e. the awful generic plot. Don't get me wrong it is a pretty cool plot once, and if SS2 is your first experience then great. However it is a completely predictable carbon copy of SS1 otherwise. The few twists I had predicted well in advance. It is a shame because it is a very rich setting that SS1 setup, but then they just ruined it for me with this game. I never originally finished the game, only finally doing it now with the GoG release. Honestly by the time I got to the upper levels I had such a stockpile of items that it essentially turned into a run and gun shooter. Which is of course dull and with no intriguing story to keep me going it became almost a chore to finish.

Well it's not like you didn't have a crapload of items at the end of SS1 as well... Then again, SS1 at least had a much stronger exploration, and I suppose enemies were far more threatening as well (especially those invisible SOBs, god I'll never forget entering the 3rd deck). And I loved that you could shoot down - or even redirect - slow moving projectiles. Nothing to do with discussion at hand, just saying :-P

Hahahahahaha

I agree. This is what i meant few weeks ago. Some people just need to learn to accept there are people out there with different opinion. Much simpler than trying to prove others wrong.

Also, on GOG there are various gamers with different background, like you for example. A man in his forties, i bet there are many people around here which is younger than you. Anyway, one doesn't need to know other person age even on the internet. Learn to respect and tolerance.

Like i said before, this is general gaming forum, not a forum dedicated to System Shock fanatic only.

This game should come with a warning sticker:

http://imgur.com/SXa71kU

Yeah but when I had a crapload of items in SS1 I still had a story and exploration to keep me going. Whereas when I have a crapload of items here there is much less reason to keep going, unless an only slightly modified version of 'stuck on space vessel with crazy AI' is that appealing to you.

As I say they had a rich setting and went for pretty much exactly the same game again, apart from the various tweaks to gameplay. They could of given this one more human interaction to differentiate it a bit for instance. And no, twice seeing a person on the other side of glass is not interaction. ;P

I don't see why these types of stories often insist on having no NPC interaction at all virtually. First Dead Space at least anyway, both System Shock games, Bioshock to an extent (it did have interaction, but they were such staged setpieces that they hardly felt like it, they were just people to shoot) etc. People are only something you see just before they get munched. I find it very boring story telling.

Because video games suck at human interaction.