System Shock® 2 (1999)

It's a bit too hard for my taste, but with a couple of weapon cheats it was a hell of a lot of fun! It's too bad this didn't get the attention it deserved. The environments are scary, the monsters are nightmare fuel, and the main villain is one of the best ever. I love Shodan, her legendary entrance, the story, this is a masterpiece told by a rejected scriptwriter. My only issue is that it isn't casual gamer friendly; normal mode feels like impossible mode! LOL

A big jump forward, SS2 is the protoype of the sandbox FPS RPG. Intelligent, dynamic and challenging. It's still a disturbing and haunting game with tailored RPG gameplay. Great story, cracking music and stellar sound design elevate the eerieness of a mood drawn straight from the best sci-fi.

My fondest memories of this game were literally... learning all the cheats for it, hacking the gamepig, then sitting around in high places playing Overworld Zero while the Von Braun falls apart around me. Good times. This game does have infinite replayability though. So many different ways to build your dude - you can mix and match between combat skills, tech skills, and even psi skills if you're feeling spicy. You don't always have to be strictly the one career path you chose [marine, navy, OSA]. Also, there are enough weapon types, ammo types, armor types, and implant types in the game to keep things fresh too. Maybe your second run you'll put in the perks to be a heavy weapons guy. Maybe on your third run you'll be a psionic who also hacks things. The fact that there are so many places in-game where you can farm resources [like money, healing, and ammo] is a big part of what makes this game replayable. If you're good, you can rack up dozens of shotgun shells and frag grenades to either "sell" or stock up with. Just keep one camera intact on each floor and keep tripping alarms for [relatively] free resources. The story itself is legendary and needs no exposition. It's Shodan being megalomaniacal as usual. But this time with a reality-warping faster than light starship in her sights. You can't beat that. Play this game. You won't regret it. There are even high definition texture packs to bring it kind of up to modern snuff.

PLayed this back when it came out and it is still just as fun and one of the best gaems I ever played. I have named my AI Shodan after her

one of of my favorite games ever