System Shock

Nightdive Studios have done an excellent job of remaking System Shock. I've only ever gotten halfway through the original game, but what changes Nightdive have done are better ones in my opinion. In cyberspace you can now move in 6 directions (yes, you can now move backwards!). The graphics are beautiful, using 'unfiltered' textures to give a retro feel, yet are still crisp. Terri Brosius returns as the voice actress for SHODAN and does a marvellous job. My only misgivings are the final battle which is quite a chore, and the real lack of inventory space (and storage space!). In similar games (e.g. Resident Evil), you are limited by inventory but you have a large storage space, and in the original System Shock I don't remember having an inventory limit (or perhaps I just never reached it). If you like the genre, or enjoyed the original, I _highly_ recommend picking this game up, it really is brilliant, and now that Atari have bought Nightdive Studios, I doubt they'll make another game nearly as good.

To start off, there ARE bugs but I have not encountered anything more than minor oddities here and there and a single fatal error throughout an entire playthrough - nothing that detracts from the experience and nigh permanent tension stalking the halls of Citadel Station. The soundtrack is phenomenal with some of the background ambience making me believe I was being followed the entire game. It quickly became a (necessary) habit to constantly look back and peak every corner out of paranoia. Overall, I believe the core loop of System Shock to be nearly perfected here. It never grew boring and there are always items and logs to draw you in a bit further as you creep through the ducts. Unlike more 'modern' games you are expected to hunt down a lot of information without much or any guidance to speak of - there is no real progress tracker either, so keeping in mind the main and side objectives might be frustrating for some. Codes are not filled in for you. They must be written down whether three or six digits long, some of which will end with quite a bit of backtracking for the unaware. A good rule of thumb is to write down anything that remotely seems like a code and save it for future reference.

As I haven't played the first version of the game I will state what was the overall feeling of the game for me. For the pros: 1. Very nice graphics and if you play it with graphics in ultra it really adds to the atmosphere of the game. For me I went for medium because the game was jumping some frames in higher quality. 2. Really nice atmosphere, you really feel the isolation in space and when the next enemy will appear in the corner. What adds to the atmosphere is the lack of ammunition and and medikits. 3. There are not cutscenes like videos, like half-life, in my opinion this adds to the immersion since you aren't cut from action or graphics. 4. Really nice mechanics for a game of 1996. 5. Nice puzzles not too hard on normal difficulty. You have to keep track of the media recordings for some of them. 6. The game in my opinion is not mainly FPS but a blend of Adventure + FPS. 7. Story is decent too. A with SHODAN adding to the clastrophobic feelling every now and then by talking on com. 8 The cyberspace was a nice touch. Reminded me a bit like Descent the game. Cons: 1. I felt inventory was a bit small or the items big maybe. The Cargo lift too could hold very few stuff. This makes you very conscious of what to carry and when since from the start of the game till the end the weapons you need to use differ. 2. Cyberspace felt nice at the start but got a little tired later on when I had to pass the stage in order to progress. It wasn't a filler for stuff. 3. It has an add marker on the map. It could be useful if you added a message because after a while you forget why you placed it. Bugs: 1.The game crashed 5 times.2 Random and 3 in cyberspace of maintenance I think before exiting. The music stopped and after a minute the game crashed. I bypassed this by running for the exit the last time. 2.When hovering over a weapon to see the total ammunition the bullets are behind a ware on the right and can't be seen. 3.And please. Add a skip button on the death screen!!!!

I played the original System Shock in 1994 and have finished it quite some times over the years in every difficulty level. The game set standards in so many ways and I was absolutely blown away by the 2023 remake because the devs did an AMAZING job of recreating the original game. The only thing that got quite some overhaul are the cyberspace fights, and tbh they did a great job of re-imagining that part. Everything else is basically back to 1994, the fights are tough, the puzzles not a joke and ammunition is always low. Also very refreshing that they did not add any helpers to the game (like "now go there" or "follow the arrows on the screen") so the game rewards you for paying attention and punishes you for leaving important things behind (yes, it's possible to fish the head of the lead engineer from level 3 out ot the recycling bin). I can see people struggling with this game a lot, but just pay attention to your surroundings especially the sounds. This isn't Doom so ammuniton is always a problem, but the game gives you lots of grenades to balance the fights. EMP grenades are the most underrated item in this game, and if you want to set fight difficulty to 2 or 3 you basically can't do head-to-head shootings with enemies anyway. For me, the game kicked in really hard, and it just sucked me back into my childhood in 1994. Leave a like this review after you surived the final room on the bridge on difficulty 3. I was almost tearing my eyes out because of how hard it was, but it felt so very satisfying. If you played the original, you MUST have this game. Thanks to everyone who worked on the remake and thanks to everybody who pledged support on Kickstarter.

IMO this is a well done remake. It hits all the points of the original and smooths over its rough edges as well. For most people I recommend this over the OG one, unless you are super dedicated.