System Shock: Enhanced Edition

System Shock is about great atmosphere and exploration of space station citadel sci-fi dungeon. System Shock can be enjoyed also in story mode by setting combat and cyber difficulty to one or simply to zero. Then nobody is shooting at you and it is just exploration, adventure, puzzles and story. I just finished GOG enhanced version. The enhanced version has better graphics and mouse control over the original version. It took me about one month of casual game play without a game guide. My actual play time was 18 hours with score 1,251,535 but I got stuck for 2 or 3 hours many times. When I got stuck I did not know what to do next or I could not find some hidden button so I stopped playing and returned to it week later.

If I had to pick 5 or 6 games to spend the rest of my life with, System Shock and it's sequel, which is my favourite game of all time would probably be my first choices. System Shock 2 might be one of the best games ever made, however, System Shock 1 is where it all began. Warren Spector's superb design shines through incredibly well here, and the game still looks incredibly charming even today. The game feels very fleshed out for such an early FPS/cRPG hybrid. If you've ever played System Shock 2, then you should feel right at home. Many of the people who worked on SS1 also worked on SS2, so it's not entirely surprising, but they do feel different enough from eachother as to not get too boring. The game is impossibly difficult, and honestly one of the hardest games I've ever owned (to the point where I have never completed it on it's regular difficulty) however the game allows you to crank down (or up) the difficulty entirely to the point where it's either a simple adventure-like game or a sprawling, puzzle filled near impossible reflex test. The entire game feels extremely well cooked for such an 'old' game and makes other FPS's of the time like Doom and Quake look like simple, baby games. However, the game is certainly not for everyone, to people who grew up with FPS's like the ones listed above or have only played games from the past decade or so, the game will just come off as being an awful, over complicated, abhorrent mess with a UI from hell. But that's looking at it in the wrong way. You have to put yourself in a 1994 mindset and forget what you think an FPS is. It's more of an RPG than an FPS, featuring upgrades, puzzle solving, loot collecting etc. which is really no surprise as the team that made the original Ultima Underworld also made this. This game is the definition of a cult classic, just like it's sequel, and also the definition of a flawed masterpiece, which is fine. If you've never played it, I'd highly recommend this game to anyone. 10/10 game

One of my all time favorite games, which redefined the way we started to look at 3d action adventure games. Great-grandfather of Thief, Deus Ex and Bioshock series. True masterpiece, intelligent, atmospheric and technically advanced jewell. Total must-have for every gamer. Enhanced edition fixes a bit clumsy controls and adds widescreen support which is still well playable on 27''+ monitors.

Despite what the requirements say, it seems to run fine on my ancient 2 GHz single-core machine with WinXP. Try it at your own risk though. I've always liked the 3D LGS games (System Shock and Ultima Underworld 1&2) but felt the controls didn't age well, making them hard to revisit. This release of SS seems much more playable.

With the mouse-look toggle added, the game now has a significantly smoother play experience. Worth getting, worth playing.