System Shock

This is not the remake I wanted it to be. The original System Shock is in my top five games of all time. I got the demo from one of those shareware discs, installed it on our 486DX4-100 and fell immediately in love. The game had an atmosphere like nothing else at the time. System Shock is one of those games that was so far ahead of its time that I'm not sure people knew what to make of it, but its influence in games of the next three decades is undeniable. Without System Shock there would not have been Deus Ex, Bioshock, Doom 3, Prey, Thief, Dishonored, and more. SS1 tends to get overshadowed by its sequel. System Shock 2 leaned harder into the survival elements and for that reason was, in my opinion, the lesser game. I have no doubt this claim will upset fans of SS2 because if I've learned one thing about people who like survival games, they REALLY like survival games. Having played the remake I suspect quite a few devs at Nightdive are in this camp. Because this isn't a straight remake of System Shock 1. This is a quasi-remake that tries to remould System Shock 1 into something more like System Shock 2. It injects new and unwelcome elements like a grid-based inventory that needs constant management, or scavenging for junk to feed vending machines, that were not present in the original game. System Shock 1 was its own game with its own style. It didn't need to steal some its younger brother's clothes. Even with mods you can't revert these changes entirely. What you end up with is a game that just doesn't play like the original. Which is a real shame because Nightdive have done a fantastic job elsewhere with the visuals and sound design. If they had simply not chosen to add these new elements to the game it would have been an amazing remake. Instead the game suffers from a kind of identity crisis. I wanted System Shock 1 but what I got was System Shock 1.5.

I've been playing the remake for a few days now. I have to say, I'm really impressed by quite a lot of things: * Enemies don't magically know where you are * The textures in this game, while low-res, really give a nostalgic feel while looking good, like playing a high-res original system shock * They remembered the elevator muzak * Level loads are seamless - really, this impresses the heck out of me how well this was done compared to most modern games * Shodan is her expected egomaniacal self * The game files are small! This is so welcome in today's era of 50GB+ installs. Honestly, I have to say WELL DONE to Nightdive. This is how remakes should be done. I'd love to see their take on a Deus Ex remake. I'm running the game using Lutris (Proton 8.7) on Devuan Linux 'daedalus', on a Radeon 6700XT GPU and AMD 5600 CPU. No real issues found here. Haven't tried it on my Steam Deck but I anticipate no issues there either.

Nightdive Studios did an excellent job in faithfully recreating the 1994 classic into a magnificent game. However, like the original, System Shock Remake doesn't do a good job of telling you where to go and what to do. I found myself using a walkthrough on my first playthrough because I was completely lost. I suppose that's the appeal of the game; to make you feel like a rat in the maze. For newcomers who have never played a System Shock game, may I suggest the following steps: 1. Majority of the in-game codes are random. No 2 playthroughs use the same codes. Be sure to jot them down manually. 2. Every level of the Citadel requires you to lower the security level (destroying the security cameras and CPU nodes) by 0% 3. After destroying the CPU nodes, jot down the number that appears on the screen. Do this for the other 6 levels. This will save you a lot of time. 4. Spend a good amount of time recycling every junk you see lying around for in-game currency to upgrade your weapons 5. Stick to only one melee weapon, which is the laser rapier 6. Tempting as it is, do not hoard every single weapon in your inventory, Have at least 1 melee, 2 handguns, and 1-2 SMGs 7. I recommend starting with the lowest difficulty settings for each criteria (enemies, mission, cyberspace, puzzles) because the game be unforgiving 8. Save often! F5 (autosave) is your friend Besides the lack of an Objective tab, System Shock Remake is a beautiful game and it's highly recommended to Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk fans and shooter fans who want a good challenge.

As most are positive reviews (which are also valid views) I will list my gripes with the game: - Music is not as good as Greg's LoPiccolo original. All BG music remains unisteresting up onto hitting the exec suites. But then only the exec suits, then the tracks are not as memorable. - There's significant performance drops on certain areas. Mostly the Grooves. Some open areas with lots of enemies also can cause stability issues. - There's a big chance you can loop into a crash after exiting cyerspace from an specific point. I managed to get pass this by lowering all settings to minimum. Again this could be patched by now but it's a thing. - This game was revolutionary also due to it's physics engine. Originally you could crouch, lean and crawl on the floor, mostly because the original was not designed so much on to the combat so the idea was to take pot shots from cover. Now you can only crouch and lean which is esentially less features than the original. - The whole ending sequence/fight is very dissapointing. Granted these games (shock I & 2) are not remembered by exceptional final boss fights but somehow this version makes it worst than the original.

This is an *extremely* faithful remaster of the original System Shock 1 from the 90s. So faithful in fact that in many regards it feels very old despite the new graphics and models. But, that old feeling is also its greatest strength, boasting an immersive sim gameplay that has often been copied, frequently really well, but never *quite* matched. And it shows. The atmosphere is perfect, and also presents an amazing stage for a new polish of the greatest video game villain ever created. SHODAN has, from what I understand, been re-recorded by the very Terri Brosius who voiced her in the original, and she is just **perfect**. She is scary, dangerous, unstable and psychotic in just the right combination. Highly recommended game, it is atmospheric like basically no other game in the past 30 years is.