System Shock

The game feels absolutely amazing during the first hours. Until you hit the drawbacks of the 90s design of overly large and confusing levels, when you easily end up running around without a clear objective and with an inventory and stash that aren't even big enough for you to keep weapons you'd like. I'm not even talking about carrying them but you can't even store all the weapons as they won't even fit to the tiny cargo elevator. The game looks amazing, the soundtrack is great, and the story and feel are incredible. Until you open yet another overly massive level and start the same old again. None of the game mechanics is explained. How recycling works, and how junction box puzzles should be sorted out. Once you figure it out, they are simple even on higher difficulties, but OMG is it so hard to include the simplest tutorial for the first one? How is the ice drill supposed to work? It doesn't seem to have any effect. And if you made it halfway through the game without using a single of the powerups.... because it's not obvious how to turn them on? Welcome to the System Shock remake! 90s drawbacks with nice graphics. Maybe it’s the early 90s thing as the late 90 brought some of the best games of all times and also their remakes are amazing. And you can collect and recycle all the junk in the game only to find it useless as there's barely anything to spend the credits on. And while you carry an overpowered arsenal of all the nice weapons and ammo that your inventory is so full, you're not even taking the first aid kits anymore; regular enemies can eradicate you in no time. It's good the game is not easy, but I guess the right word is unbalanced. Overall, it could have been great, but the further in the game I am, the more I think that I have better things to do with my life.

I paid for this game almost 90 PLN (around 20USD) and in my opinion it is a wasted money. This game is remastered but i felt like playing games that were around 20 years ago. Yes, this is a remaster but graphic looks like retro pixel art, there is no sharpness when we are close to the object. Game is totally claustrophobic and soon i feelt bad playing ig. Im dissapointed because i played early Quake, early Doom and they are much better than this. Location A, open this, check that, try to use this, open that and all the time this horrible claustrophobic atmosphere because of small room locations. I have not finished it yet and won. After around 2 hours switched this off. I bought it also because on gameplays it looked well. No, it not. At max settings i see pixel retro art as i said. Horrible. I love old games, pixel games but not this. Even the old games that were made 10 years ago looked better. People who fell dizzy, who have problems with motion sickness, even when the motion blur is disabled - avoid it. I did not could disable DOF and so on.

took me 30h It's good that such remasters are being made because they gave me a chance to get acquainted with classics I've never played. It must have been impressive 30 years ago, but not so much now, the hacker sections are weak. You don't feel any danger, dark atmosphere or gore. I somewhat regret that I chose the 2nd exploration difficulty level, because it made the game much longer. 1 armor consumes energy even if we don't take damage 2 I think I lost the elevator tag on map in engenering and I had to look for it 3 the entire station looks similar, plus it's a maze 4 puzzles, despite set to easy, are quite difficult 5 you can't put ammunition directly in weapon if you don't have space 6 AI is super stupid, running around the pillar 7 buttons / switches, it is often unclear what they switch 8 game seemed quite difficult, but the last stages were the opposite, the bosses melted from the railgun

And no this is not nostalgia. The first time I played System Shock was 2021. Heck, the first time I played an Immersive Sim was 2016. To me, this remake reads as "We at NightDive, love System Shock, but we stopped playing Immersive Sims since then". This game lacks both the crucial element that made the original memorable and basic quality of life I expect in any game. First, positive: - I love the new intro. Though it is a little drown out - I like being able to throw a grenade without killing myself in the process - Terri Brosius kicks ass Now, things I don't like: - Canned animation. I hate them with of passion and I really don't understand why there were implemented. Last time I checked, Thief 4 was panned for the overused of them. Not only that, but Arkane cracked the code one and a half decade ago. Canned animation are not immersive, there are obtrusive. The click and drag of the orginal were clucky sure, but the thing is you have control while you do that. You might get shot to death while fiddling around in both game, but you can stop dragging an item. You can't stop a canned animation. Canned animation should have been nuked. Even the short one. - Music. System Shock 1 and 2 made space horror dancable. There is no excuse for what they did here. And yeah, Prey wasn't dancable, but they didn't remade System Shock 2. And the music had much more personnality then this. - Item pick. In Fallout: New Vegas, if I kill an armed opponent, I take their gun by either picking up from the ground or looting the corpse. The fact this doesn't work the same way here drive me insane. - The new currency/crafting system adds nothing and should have been abandonned. Last time I played System Shock, I didn't wish to vaporize every single item for scraps. It just bloat what should be a simple game. System Shock 2 did that as well, but it was unecessary even there. - The idle animation for the laser rapier is dumb. It looks like my character might cut his finger at any time.

I liked this effort, but I only give 3 stars as the developers just had to refer to the protagonist as "them" and not "him" in game. It as silly as making the protagonist a christian because modern audiences are puritans and not a welcome change.