System Shock® 2 (1999)

I love the game's atmosphere. They clearly put a lot of effort into building the ships and it's an interesting adventure. It's also quite a disturbing game. I found it exceptionally unnerving on my first play. And the story is compelling and keeps you driven to finish the game. The RPG elements are interesting, but I felt a lot of that was redundant or uninteresting. The respawning baddies are irritating, and so is the weapon degradation. And the later areas of the game don't have the same level of quality as the earlier parts. I found the layout of the second ship to be somewhat nonsensical. Overall this is a classic sci-fi horror first-person RPG experience.

This game oozes atmosphere. You are alone on a big space ship with the ominous Shodan, known from System Shock 1 as your opponent. Or is she an ally? Because there is a new entity too. The Many. Play the game to find out more. It is very immersive, great sound, great pacing, several ways to play it. It was the pinnacle of computer games at it's time and it has aged well!

System Shock 2 is a first person "RPG lite", as I like to call it, much like the first game. However, you actually get stats to upgrade this time around and quite a few diferent abilities to invest on, which will dictacte how you will aproach your obsctacles in each level. The fist game, imo, was held back by it's unintuitive UI and lack of item and upgrade descriptions. Not the case here, as it actually tells even a lot more than it needs to. Which was great. Inventory management is an even bigger importance now than in the first game, as you have more limited space to carry items, weapons and all of that. You can, of course, upgrade your inventory space if want. Better weapon diversity in this one with different kinds of ammo for varying weaknesses. Story is even more engaging than before, with tense atmosphere, well done voice acting and intimidating antagonists. Pacing was good. Visuals were good at the time, on par with other fps. It has some really cool moments visually. Level design is pretty good. While each level is not as large as some were in the first game, it has some items to find and chests to unlock, logs and all of that. It strikes the perfect balance between things to find, do and level size.

I've played this game when it came out and I was astonished by the mood, sound, resource management, and overall gameplay. Over all those years I've tried it maybe a few times more, and suddenly it dropped on GOG at a very nice price. I've decided that as a fan of Looking Glass Studios Games I will lose nothing buying this game now. And so I've bought and started playing. It's rough around the edges, and let's be fair graphics are not even remotely close to today's standards. But just after a few minutes in the game I've got sucked into the game world so much, that it really didn't bother me at all. It's a beautiful game, and I really hope for System Schock 3 in the near future cause this with original Deus Ex was one of the best games I have ever played. Buy it, and play. If You like Deus Ex, then you should feel at home :)

I still remember my first playthrough as it was yesterday. Except that it happened more than 20 years ago when the game was released. It's one of the few games that leaves a mark with its impact. It's as memorable - or maybe more - as Doom, Quake, Half Life and other major titles of the late last century. It's one of the few games that can send chills down your spine and sometimes makes you gasp for air. It's the perfect combination of FPS, survival horror and RPG with its advanced story telling, character development and sometimes brutal action. Even though the graphics will appear dated by today's standards, it's a game that everyone, who likes the first person genre, should get and play. I'm almost sure you won't regret it, it's really that good.