System Shock® 2 (1999)

There we go, System Shock 2. This one was apparently mostly made by Irrational Games instead of Looking Glass Studios, as the latter was busy with Thief 2, I believe. And rereleased by Night Dive Studios, rather excellent. Mix of RPG and FPS. And I've heard sooooooooooo much praising to the heavens over this title... Frankly, from my experience, you should never trust anybody praising art as something more than art, for example. Like "this is not a game, it's a classic and experience" or something. Mostly because it means that they have lost the overall picture. But you get it. And right after playing Shock 1, in all honesty, I can sum it up as "dissapointing". Mostly due to crazy expectations, but I don't think it follows same ideology as Shock 1 at all. Shock 1 used RPG elements for immersion, Shock 2 uses them for some numbers and management crunching. For example, Shock 1 with HUD management tries to simulate the vision of a person with cyber-implants. And you get to do lame cyberspace stuff and even hacking as puzzles. In Shock 2 in meanwhile your character will have no idea how to use a freaking shotgun unless he has 3 Standard Weapons points and all the hacking is a semi-minigame RNG. The latter one was the most dissapointing thing. I wouldn't have minded it if it was done in a good way. Sadly, it's as unbalanced as it gets. There are very certain skills that are useful. And there are some upgrades and stats so useless, it's just UNGF. I am also still annoyed that hacking one turret when you've disabled the whole system suddenly activates them into infighting. I am sneeky haxXxman, stop RUINING it! And don't know. The levels aren't as open. Puzzles are more mundane. SHODAN, having the avatar of who equals to wearing fedora hat, is unthreatening here. Overall, it's still a nice fine FPS RPG crawley thing, albeit with combat more lame than Shock 1, mostly melee part. 7 out of 10. Let's go for 3 stars due to being a dissapointment compared to Shock 1.

Yep

One of the more bizarre phenomena of the "gamesphere". A game that feels like a spiritual sequel to its own spiritual sequel.

Play this instead

Character movement is slidey and clumsy. Combat is clunky and unintuitive. Objectives are tedious, reciprocating before being completed. Player choice of approach is encouraged, yet punished heavuly if not the preferred course the game intends. Enemies are infinitely spawning. Resources are significantly limited. Guns degrade at a pathetically quick rate. Inventory Management is Grid System, but certain items lack proper profiles (Pistol same space as Shotgun). For as great as this game is preached to be, it ultimately isn't. It isn't a "Bad" game, but it is definitely Old, and not in the charming, fun way. I still enjoy it somewhat, but it is a farcry from what I was led to believe. The Rose-tinted glasses have Thick Lenses on this one.