System Shock Demo

The game looks great, it controls well, it's looking really promising. The only real issue ive had is theres an extreme lack of graphics options. Resolution, FOV and Windowed mode are not enough and the windowed mode made it so I couldnt reach the Apply option because the window shoved it down under my PCs toolbar so i couldnt apply my adjustments to the FOV. It's not bad by any means and I know its just a demo, I just hope that this demo is only representative of how the game will look and play and not of how its suite of options will be.

I'll make it clear right away: I've never played SS1/2. However, it totally looks like what I've seen from it and now I want to play them! Back to this demo, mixing PBR and nearest filtering, which is basically mixing the two less original art styles, gives a very nice "realistic pixel art" feeling. The gameplay clearly shows why it is a pre-alpha. This is mostly due to the combat system that needs a lot of balancing and polishing. Also beware of poor performance, thanks to Unity (seriously, they are some better and cheaper engines out there). And finally, I have to report a random crash, but that's ok from a pre-alpha. To conclude this quick review: Nice art, unfinished combat system, bad engine choice.

I couldn´t stay in fullscreen mode, always switched back to windowed, some weird framepacing hitching if vsync is off, couldn´t save seemed intentional from the devs for the demo, crashed once the first enemy was introduced, worked afterwards though. Got stuck between a railing and some medical device. Random gpu usage numbers in certain scenes and pretty high demanding gpu wise, running 1080ti and I could only max 1620p on high with textures and AA on ultra, added by a i5 9600k on 4.9ghz Melee combat still needs some refinement but is close to the original hit and step back or shift and circle around or hit, run, hide and repeat type of combat. I like the guns, some textures could use higher resolution, like the tile puzzles for the lifts, couldn´t make out anything there until you realize, it´s really simple. Movement is excellent! Map needs refinement to clarify where I´m looking and also needed a bit bigger indicators for items so people don´t just run past them easily, maybe make them a bit bigger in general? My eyes aren´t hawk eyes sadly. Gun sounds could use some bass, so does the melee, otherwise animations are all fine and very professionallly smooth. When there´s such an amount of static noise or radio call with bad signal as in the beginning, I found it a bit hard to understand the voice and subtitles didn´t work, they also hurt to listen to on the high frequency spectrum, needs more bass to smooth it on the ear, it´s too pitchy. Audio logs are clear and fine with good voice acting though. Inventory and UI is great except for the fact if you warp it to the max, the minimap level indication is cut off on the lower half of the screen. and the plasma color oiption adds too much and too blurry chromatic abberation, which doesn´t exist on the normal hacker UI color. Enemies could make more sound and move a lot more. They were pretty static and anticlimactic, hurt the atmopshere and immersion. I wonder how the non pre alpha looks like!

Runs rather poorly, but looks promising. As a big fan of System Shock 2, I'm hopeful they can pull this off, and maybe make an upgraded sequel.

If you've actually played SS and SS2, this demo shouldn't surprise you at all. What it should do is make you say "By George I think they've got it." It plays *exactly* like System Shock 2 did and I say 2 because it's the closest thing, as oldschool as Shock 1 was. Textures look spot on, although being Unity they aren't extremely gorgeous. They do look exactly like System Shock, though. Obviously with it being 20 years later there are actual lighting effects and things like steam, etc. The graphics already are very good, especially for a Unity game. Get hype. The demo is only about 450 mb and very, very short - about 5 rooms. Just enough to let you know what to expect. Grenades don't work in the demo and the majority of everything you pick up is trash or a human body part. So far the audio logs seem spot on - although the very first thing that happens is very, very painfully cliche and sounds like it came verbatim from Bioshock or any of a dozen other games, the way it is worded. But that's just because System Shock did it first. Of course, the UI is exactly as expected - just like the original games. If you see anyone complain about it, it's because they've never played the original games before. It is exactly the same, but modernized. The demo only shows 2 enemies and security cameras - and the security cameras don't care about you. It also didn't show hacking, but certainly we'll see how hacking plays out sometime before release. I can't stress enough how wonderful it is to get to relive System Shock the way it should always have been experienced - in glorious modern 3D. All that's left to do is wait 1.5 years. I will be spending $150 for the physical collectors edition on Kickstarter. I already intended to but the demo solidifed it.