System Shock

Well, I have to say after some skepticism because of the time involved, 'System Shock Remake' is another win by 'Night Dive'! I already reached in a couple of plays what took me so long before, because of the primitive DOS controls and interface. Also am an old guy who likes to play more than be held up by the action, so no shame in 'easy' difficulty on all settings, because the puzzles and strategy will be a challenge in any case. For die-hard gamers, also have at it; you will likely die often. It also does remind me of Prey 2017 as well in this, and in all the right ways, as some Others here have said. It's also better, if you played the demo previously: a complete overhaul of the graphics, that were a great improvement over DOS, but now looks more like a textured version of the original, and easier to navigate in areas like 'Cyberspace', where I quit the demo months ago for the confusion and glare. Not an issue in the official release: THANKS AGAIN, GOG! And 'Night Dive'! One final note about quirky or dysfuncional controls: later uninstall the 2015---2019 or whatever visual basic that installs. Reinstall or install 2015, with no additional years added; those ruin everything all the time. I swear, someone likes to ruin things with these lately ('Microsoft' likely). In fact, with other games, this same process of getting rid of the multiple bs 'vb' installs fixes many things: 2015 version, maybe 2017 (not for this game on my machine) seems to work fine... It's tricky also fooling launch after you do this -- this is a problem GOG/Night Dive SHOULD patch themselves; and some more variety with the corpses and some others appearance would help, but I Know this is original to the DOS version... Four stars for the wonky controlfile problem that does break the game before repair, or I would have given 5 stars for a great job and great game! :-)

My GOTY for 2023 (either this or Trepang2). The first game had some cool ideas and puzzles, but aged like shit. This however, is damn near close to a perfect game.

As much as I love playing games from decades past, sometimes the reason is more nostalgia than enjoyable gameplay. Not so with this remake. It's not just nostalgia, but an excellent game revived. Night Dive Studios have managed to keep everything essential in the original - annoyances included - while doing polish and making it feel much less 30 years old (the original came out 1994!). The mechanics, like inventory management in particular, is a bit rough compared to more modern games. It's also something I realised that I've missed. Opening your inventory does not pause the game, and swapping weapons, ammo or reloading your weapon takes time, so when taken by surprise you will suffer. One of the most disputed features is finding items that you don't know if you will need later on. Loosing or destroying them will soft-lock the game, forcing you to revert to a much earlier save - if you have one, so _save_ your game before doing anything you'll regret later. On easier difficulties the game will tell you if something is junk, but I recommend not taking the easy route. There's a charm in not knowing, having you log along objects in your scarce inventory, and creating stashes in safe places etc. The game is unforgiving in ways that I wish modern games would appreciate - the feeling of reward is always dependant on the risks. The plot and gameplay is a solid as it was thirty years ago, so I'm ready to recommend System Shock Remake for both nostalgia trippers and new players alike, who want to try something different. Turn out the lights, put on your headphones and just enjoy.

This is one of the best games I've played in ages. It's beautiful, combat feels good, sound is excellent - the works. My only reservation is that it is not as simple to keep track of things in this game as in most modern games. In Prey (another excellent game in this style), I have markers to follow. In System Shock, I really just have to remember what is said in the audio logs, etc. Perhaps, though, that's a blessing in disguise. It got me to turn off my podcast and pay attention. When I did that, I started having even more fun! I love System Shock. I can now see how it defined many of my favorites - Prey, BioShock, even Dishonored. I'm tempted to play the original as well, now!

Like the old game but better.