System Shock: Enhanced Edition

System Shock is a sort of a dungeon crawler FPS set in a cyberpunk fantasy, where you get all sorts of energy weapons, conventional ones aswell, cybernetic enhancements and consumables which glitch your PoV if used too much. it has a good story with well voiced characters, an intimidating and crazy AI antagonist and well thought out level design. Visually, it looks good for it's time. It's got all of that "cyberpunk style" with walls filled with electronic panels and wired, but also has some more fancy places with carpets and chandeliers. Each floor is different in both level design and visual aspect. Pretty much every level has doors which are locked behind "security measures" which you need to get rid of by destroying cameras and power/CPU core. However, the unintuitive UI, lack of item and cybernetic descriptions makes it very confusing and weird. The lack of direction in some parts of the game are also a bit problematic, as I got a "Where the hell do I go?" situation a couple of times because of lack of details in mission update logs and emails. But most of time, it's all laid out for you.

I'll spare you describing the game since it's a cult classic with so many reviews and stick to a few very specific details. The game was incredible in 1994 and is decent today. Without any nostalgia (since I didn't play until 2020), I can tell you this game holds up today, as long as you have a medium tolerance for "what the hell am I supposed to do?" and initially clunky controls. This version can run in higher resolutions such as, 1920x1080, this is great because you can alt-tab really fast in and out of the game, I really liked this. Persistent mouselook lets you toggle between the mode where [your mouse moves your cursor] and the mode where [your mouse moves the camera]. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this was added in the Enhanced Edition - it's a godsend, as it makes the game much less annoying to control. In particular, cyberspace is borderline impossible to control if you're not in mouselook mode. The only major downside to the game (perhaps specific to this Enhanced Edition) are the ridiculous respawns, which is half the reason I'm giving it 4 stars. I'm not against respawning and I'm not being overly sensitive here, this is something that happened to me: I was in Corridor A and opened a door into Corridor B. Corridor B had two enemies, and I started shooting at them. While killing them, 2 enemies spawned behind me in Corridor A, in such a way that they could immediately start firing on me. Before I could finish dealing with them, 2 more enemies spawned in Corridor B. So essentially, 4 enemies spawned very close to me in a very frustrating and immersion-breaking manner. The game constantly respawns enemies in areas it defines as corridors as long as you're not in said corridors. This is somewhat frustrating but it's part of the game - it makes you plan and minimize your travel. But sometimes it just goes into overdrive and becomes rather ridiculous.

I would preface this with that I have never played System Shock before. I had heard of it, thought it looked super interesting, but was afraid the 90s control scheme would put a sour taste in my mouth. Well after watching Mandalore's video on this, and taking some of his recommendations on how to approach it, the game is absolutely brilliant. Once you get used to the controls everything starts to make sense, and feels fairly fluid. The story so far is pretty cool. primarily told through logs, and journal entries. You get a sense of how Shodan took over Citadel, and how she plans to enact her extermination of humanity. You play as a hacker working your way through Citadel base trying to stop Shodan. However you won't get any objective markers, so you really need to pay attention to the data logs, as those provide key insights into what to do, and how to stop the rogue AI. Gameplay wise, it's pretty good for the time I would say. Not perfect by modern standards, but if you are willing to look past that, it's pretty good. Combat consists of hitting them before they hit you, and trying not to get hit, at least for now. I believe there are some cybernetics down the line that I can get that will change that dramatically. Presentation is actually very good. I think it looks really vibrant, and not as grim as a lot of games in the future would look. Areas are very distinguishable, so everywhere has a bit of a different feel. The sprites are good looking, and overall I can't complain. The game goes on sale quite a bit I think so you can grab it for a couple bucks, if you're patient for a sale.. Otherwise go ahead and give it a go, even if you have never played it before. In 2021 it still holds up, and is good fun.

I've heard stories of System Shock from my earliest days as a gamer but never got around to trying it. I finally decided to give it a go, since I got it free from Twitch a while back. I'm glad I did because I enjoyed it enough that I decided to buy it here on GOG just to support Night Dive's work in restoring this gem and bringing it to a more modern audience. System Shock is often described as a cyberpunk game but I always thought it looked more like classic sci-fi. This is because unlike most cyberpunk fiction, this game takes place outside of earth. You're a hacker who got caught, was offered a deal and eventually ends up being abandoned on a space station after an AI goes rogue leading to a disaster. This sense of abandonment carries throughout the entire game: you're a heavily augmented hacker just trying to survive a nightmare scenario in a completely foreign environment while the environment is LITERALLY opposing you at every turn. Talk about being ahead of its time. This game's gameplay very clearly inspired some of my favorite games. Every object on the station feels like it has a purpose, even if that purpose isn't related to you. Every piece of dialogue feels like a real person has left behind their final words (that also help tell the story in subtle ways). Every room you enter feels like it has a story to tell, even if that story is full of terror. System Shock isn't a horror game but it truly succeeds at creating some truly horrifying moments. A huge part of this is due to the game's impeccable atmosphere. Its combination of glorious 90s early 3D, a vibrant color palette and stellar level design creates such a dense, immersive atmosphere to it that is equally creepy and intriguing. Altogether, I see now why everyone praises this game so much. It's a must-play for people who love sci-fi/cyberpunk and detailed, immersive worlds full of exploration and mystery. If you've ever enjoyed an immersive sim, you have to play this game!

All the QLF improvements are here. Completely playable and enjoyable for the modern gamer. The problem with most of these old games is that they are so difficult to play now on modern systems and for the modern gamer. This EE version of the original System Shock makes enjoying this classic a breeze. There are so many other older classics like this that could use this type of update (Ultima Underworld games come to mind).