System Shock® 2 (1999)

You wake up on a spaceship with cybernetic implants and something has gone wrong... The plot is ok with some twists, but where this game really shines is the atmosphere. Even after many, many playthroughs I'm still scared of going to some areas and hearing the whirring of cyborg midwives makes me want to run away. And you're always out of bullets. The game is outdated by now, but after 20 years there's active mod community going, with graphics patches, new campaigns (fanmissions) and balancing improvements. Despite the small flaws, SS2 is one of my favorite games, also today. Good: * Replayabilility with different styles/classes * Atmosphere, genuinely scary * Mod content Bad * Some of the weapons and skills are useless * A bit outdated graphics by now * FPS mechanics are a bit cumbersome (the Dark engine wasn't designed for shooting)

It's clearly an old game, and I highly recommend installing some mods to make it look less painful, but it is definitely worth playing even today. I suggest not going for a hard difficulty to better enjoy the story and the game loops without highlighting the part of the game that haven't aged too well ;)

This game predated half-life, theif, or any other rpg shooter and was just plain amazing from start to finish. Does a good job at keeping you feeling lonely and isolated, and at the mercy of things you dont understand. When every shot counts, every upgrade critical, and wondering if you didnt take the wrong skill tree. This game made today with graphics of today would blow you away.

I love this game, but it's jank as f***.

I went through 4 different character builds before I managed to finish the game. I got to the next to the last level with 3 of them. To be fair, I wouldn't have put so much time into it if I hadn't enjoyed it. I ended up going heavy on psi with moderate emphasis on conventional weapons. Invisibility, the wall, and the health drain thing were what enabled me to finish. I enjoyed the idea that different opponents had different strengths and weaknesses forcing you to diversify your abilities. I went with psi emphasis because my temperament and reflexes favor range weapons and stealth. The cons for me were that opponents frequently appeared from nowhere and some had the ability effectively to shoot around corners. The controls using mouse and keyboard aren't very precise, sometimes leading to the inability to use the hide and pop out to shoot tactic. I gave up on the resurrection feature early in my first character. I just seemed like a waste. I saved very often. If you repeat a segment you can often get through it with no damage. The other thing I discovered was that hacking security stations is only useful to disable turrets. A thing I learned from other games was to save before hacking and reload if the first hack try fails. Saves nanites. The graphics look a little dated but I kind of like the feet. All in all, I'd happily buy it again.