System Shock

Nightdive really knocked it out of the park. The first system shock is infamously rough to play so having this version that still stays true to the concept and feel was an absolute joy to experience.

It just feels good, a great remake of the original. Has a lot of game design choices that are just really excellent and it shows in the tight gameplay. Not super sophisticated, either, tight controls and tight gameplay loop. So far not the most challenging on normal with puzzles on hard difficulty. Still feels very 90's despite how modern it plays. All around a joy.

Now THIS is how a remake should be made. It's the best of both worlds, keeping many aspects that made the original Shock iconic while updating the graphics and adding quality of life stuff. Game really does look amazing, and they managed to keep the feel of the original. Even enhance it in some places. All the weapons feel and sound great. The enemies are challenging but fair. SHODAN is amazing and what every main big bad should strive to be. Only complaint I have is how the game is sort of confusing at time, esspicially if you don't pay attention to audio logs too often (like me). I honestly suggest putting the story on diffculity 1 on first playthrough so you get some help. Other than that, take your time and explore throughly. There are secrets all over the station. Have fun insect.

Yeah this is a good remake, given I never got a chance to really have nostalgia for the first one given I haven't played it and didn't have any emotional attachments to the franchise. This is my first immersive sim game and so far I am having a blast running around in circles figuring out where I should go. I need to actually plan out and pay attention to what I need and want to do. Playing it on normal difficulty, but things like puzzles, the combat against opponents, and even the urgency in beating the game before the Antagonist multiple plans are completed and you loss the run. As of right now, I have been running 14 running around the areas solving puzzles/getting lost and it feels good that things progress when you do, and depending on you play style, can play as a gun nut, future soilder with pew pew laser sword, or speed demon crackhead with a pvc pipe. the greatest feature I love is the items that you wish you bring with you but can't carry with you and decide to throw it in a level... it will still be there if you back track. I feel like it is a good experience trying something that can be played at a slow pace at however direction you want, and if you wish to test yourself, speed run the game so fast that A.I. dommy mommy starts virtually sweating at how fast you crushed every plan to get to her. As for achievments... well I have played 14 hours, and I haven't gotten an achievement thus far by progressing th story, so you really have to look for the achievments for the dopamine rush. Recommend if you wish for a single player, slow paced game that will test your ability to deal with puzzles, paying attention to objectives, and understand your human and can still be overwhelmed easily if you let the enemy get the upper hand. Get it on sale as I did, and perhaps get it if you really want to try out this immersive sim.

The godfather that started it all has been brought into the 21st century with love and a stunning visual facelift. Everything about this remake is both faithful to the original and exactly what SS needed to get it past the clunk and discouraging vistiges of being an MS-DOS game. While it was torture for Kickstarter backers to wait years for this to be complete, goodness was it worth the wait. From beginning to end, I loved it, especially after the 1.2 update that improved certain quality of life features and revamped the SHODAN boss battle. The origina SS gave us some of the greatest gaming franchises of all time: Thief, Deus Ex, BioShock, Metro 2033, and Dishonored. Its own sequel, System Shock 2, took everything great about SS and expanded on it in what is still probably the most fine-grained inventory-management immersive sim of all time. And all of these games coalesced together into that epic love letter to SS, Prey (2017) and its dlc Mooncrash. If you love any of these games, you must play the original, and the remake is now the definitive way to play System Shock. While every other developer was racing to clone Doom, Warren Specter and his team dared to imagine all the ingenuity of RPG's but in the context of a Doom-like 3-D world. Unlike Doom, SS built a space-station aiming at realism, functionality, and exploration. The levels aren't just labyrinthine like Doom maps; they're onion-esque, slowly unpeeling as your avatar moves up and down the space station. It's slow and dangerous, but enormously satisfying once you figure out a set of tasks to work on, and then complete them. There is no hand-holding in SS; it's just pure immersion, story-telling, and matching wits with one of the greatest video game antagonists of all time -- SHODAN. Highest recommendation.