To be blunt, I was not enthused when I heard of a System Shock 1 remake. It was game that stood strong on its own merits, and the craze of remaking everything prior to the year 2000 is becoming old. This review is from the perspective of someone who has played the _floppy disk_ version of System Shock 1 from cover to cover. Let's get a modern technical quibble out of the way: You can't modify the graphics beyond resolution. Yes, I know -- "alpha demo." That's nice; I could barely get the game to hold 20 frames per second at best after chopping the resolution down to 1280x720. Fancy remastered graphics don't mean much if it's all a slideshow. The game crashed about half way through the demo. The best way to describe the gameplay is that of it being over streamlined. The MicroSoft Word interface is gone in favor of a "slick" new hud that can't be modified in the slightest, and some how manages to be less accessible than the old MFD (Multi Functional Display) of the original DOS title. Instead of being able to click a button and pull up any element of your inventory, you now have to dig around in a fullscreen interface that is surprisingly clunky and unresponsive. In the DOS original, items, walls, and game objects could be examined with a very quick left click. Now you must stare at the object and wait several seconds for the game to slowly print a hard to read description to the screen. In other words, the tactile yet functional nature of the original game is completely gone. The subtleties of the original are no longer present. The analog stealth mechanic has been completely scrapped and the movement feels stiff and clunky like a modern title. With little room left in this review, I'll leave it at this: If you've loved and played the floppy disk or CD original, this will feel like nothing more than a clumsy modern shooter with a System Shock 1 theme slapped on it. This was my original fear right from the word go.
