System Shock

Nightdive did a fantastic job keeping the core of SS while adding polish and accessibility for modern audiences, but unfortunately that holds SSR back in some ways due to preserving 30-year old design. The levels are mazes, and no, explaining that away in a one-off audio log doesn't help. Environments are extremely square, like something out of Minecraft, with terrible readability due to the flashing lights, shiny materials, and bright colors coating every single surface. Citadel feels much less like a real place than the Von Braun. The 2D-3D transition was unkind to enemies, leaving them more goofy than horrifying. Cyberspace is floaty and unsatisfying, and issues with input and momentum made it frustrating. There are no choices (even in upgrades) or other RP elements, inconsistent consequences for death, wonky physics and jittery ragdolls, multiple reused bosses, no real replayability, and the final boss uses completely different mechanics from the rest of the game. Like I said, warts and all. There's a lot of it I loved though: No objectives, markers, or NPC ordering you around, at least for the 1st 2 acts: explore, gather info, and decide for yourself what to do next. Thankfully the map and marker system is great, and there's not so much vertical overlap it becomes useless. I never had to use the wiki to progress. Most weapons are useful, and each has unique mechanics that give them different utility in combat, which is good because your weapon choice is the only RP you get. The animations are fantastic, and the opening sequence in your apartment was a great addition. SSR is colorful and weird, and that's great. The OG was great for its time and has its moments, the remaster is expertly done, but I don't think SSR holds up as well overall compared to SS2. 3/5 game with an extra star for the quality of the remaster. Still worth a play to experience history with a fresh coat of paint. Some stutter on transitions, runs great otherwise on Linux w/ Proton 6.3-8.

I love it so far! Will update the review later. I just hope I will not stay up playing whole night.

Excellent remake of a classic. Faithful to the original, but enhanced and recreated for the better in many ways. Probably one of the best games of the year. The long wait was worth it. It's a highly recommended game.

Delay after delay after delay it's finally here. And it's great. Not that much to say about it honestly. It's System Shock Remake. And exactly that. A remake of System Shock. If you don't like the original, you probably won't like this one. On the other hand, if you're like me and want to play System Shock but in new looking then yeah, that's the game to get. A lot of people already wrote about the positives and changes, like the new descent-like cyberspace sections, so I will limit myself to the thing that doesn't work for me at the moment. And that's the gamepad controls. What doesn't work for me on controller: -Leaning -LB and RB don't work ingame (they work in mfd) -setting anything to any interaction with the sticks Don't know if that's a me problem, but that's currently not working. Also the display settings sometimes didn't seem to stick after applying them. Which is weird but managable. All in all a great product. If it's a case of me being weird with my controller setup that causes it to not work, I'll change my rating.

gameplay +great shooting that blends in well with the exploration and item scavenging +maps are in a nice spot where they still feel clear to navigate, but sprawl out enough to give a nice sense of exploration -enemy respawning feels uneven, early in the game felt sometimes drowning in mobs, but especially towards the end I found myself sometimes running around an empty space station -limited inventory space and resource mechanics encourage hoarding, which leads to backtracking between levels just to move or access your main stash aesthetics +great sense of style that most of the time strikes a perfect balance between campy, stylized retro cyberpunk vibe and scifi horror -late levels can look exhaustingly busy and repetitive writing +great dialogue, especially from a memorable villain +good sense of worldbuilding -plot is bit too much of foiling the villain's plans in a straightforward fashion, causing the villain feel somewhat of a pushover in juxtaposition to otherwise intimidating presentation -some of the kickstarter audio logs can break your immersion, however, there are gems too noticable bugs/weirdness: >saw sunlight bleed from the skybox into places where it shouldn't >the exploration music doesn't always seem to play much or at all on some levels >augment buffs don't always work when they should in context of changing level or reloading a save, have to switch it off and back on to make the effect apply