System Shock Demo

I think this is a great demo and a great remake, even without comparing it to the original System Shock. I never played System Shock 1 or 2, because I typically don’t like games that make me go through a bunch of menus. But this is a solid demo and I have high hopes for the full release. Of course, I also have my fair share of criticisms. The first is that some of the flashing lights are really hard on my eyes. I know I’m opening a door if I press E on it, I don’t need a strobe light to remind me the door is opening. Maybe just one shift to a brighter intensity would be a nice middle ground. The other issue I have is with the size of some of the UI text, like object names above the compass and the lower left hand map’s text as well. Those two bits in particular have text that’s pretty small, so having their font be bigger to match the hotkey UI’s text size would be great. The melee attack with the pipe to me feels...flat. Enemies sometimes don’t reel in pain when I hit them, which makes melee a bit unreliable. As for technical issues, here’s the ones I’ve come across so far: 1. When I use a healing patch, it reapplies motion blur and ambient occlusion, which I usually turn off right at the start. 2. Subtitles didn’t show up for me when I enabled them. 3. Log entries sound very muted and quiet. Even though most of this review is me criticizing the game, I didn’t want to echo the already-abundant positive reviews here, because I agree - this demo is pretty good and it only needs a bit more fixing up to really shine. Best of luck to the team at Nightdive making this. I understand it’s a huge undertaking to remake a famous title, but so far, I think they’re doing a great job.

This game looks and plays awesome i can't wait for it to come out, i don't condone pre ordering games but $40 pre order plus a free bonus game is tempting.

The Beta demo is phenomenal! The sounds, the visuals, the infinitely better controls than in the original. This is a dream come true! But it needs to be updated here on GOG! Can't wait for March 31st!

Playing the demo was a fun experience for me, and I wanted to play more of it. So as a teaser for the game, it is certainly a success. I will eagerly await for it to be released. As many have pointed out, the graphics are rather basic, there are sound issues (the audio logs are of poor quality, and subtitles don't seem to be implemented in the demo, despite the option in the settings), some parts are too dark, the combat is a bit weird given that there is no visible reaction from the enemies as you hit them... But all these flaws can be expected in a demo. What matters is the "feel" of it, and for me the play was very atmospheric. However, I cannot give it more than a 3/5 rating because I was unable to play the Cyberspace part. I am an "old-school" gamer, started playing games with a joystick on a Commodore 64, and hence for me the only natural way to play is with an inverted look (even when I use a keyboard and mouse). Unfortunately the demo doesn't allow this during the Cyberspace part. And, as one can imagine, I kept going up when I wanted to go down, and vice-versa, to a point where it became so frustrating that I gave up. For me this is an important shortcoming for the demo, as it doesn't allow you to experience a significant portion of the game. But the exploration of the station was great fun. And the retro feel was also cool (though, of course, younger generations may not get the same kick out of it).

I know this is an alpha, but I feel like I've gotten from it a sense as to what direction the developers are going in - and it's a very muddled one indeed. Torn between wanting to be a modern experience and simply wanting to update the 1994 original - it naturally fails at both. Let's start with the graphics because they're kind of emblematic of the experience as a whole. The environments retain the boxy rooms and 45 degree walls that were a limitation of the original game's engine -- for no apparent reason than to be faithful to the original level design - but they have added details like fully modelled pipes, shelves, consoles, etc and it just looks weird. The art assets sort of attempt a retraux aesthetic with pixellated textures like those of the original game, but the models are of a modern standard in terms of poly count and still make use of normal maps and glowmaps. The combat is somehow less fun than that of the game from 1994. Your melee attacks have very little range and their animations look glitchy. The guns feel meek and unsatisfying to use. The devs appear to have implemented locational damage (ie, headshots) but there's no option to aim down your guns' sights, apparently because it wasn't a feature in the original game that didn't have precision aiming. In a radical departure from the original game, the inventory system is now a Diablo inventory tetris style affair, but implemented poorly. There is now a Deus Ex-style hotbar to which you can assign weapons to number keys. This includes grenades, but for some reason, pressing a number key to select a grenade from your hotbar is the same action as throwing it -- working like a hotkey. To end on a perfect example of the clashing design philosophies -- the cyborg drones now drop their weapons like modern video game enemies do -- and you can pick them up, but they can't be used, probably because enemies didn't drop weapons in the original game. In short, this remake doesn't know what it wants to be.