Instantly after I beat the game the first time, I started a second playthrough with the story, combat, and puzzle difficulties maxed-out. Determining your objectives and piecing the story together from scattered logs is engaging, exploration is fun and rewarding, and the aesthetics have been perfectly transplanted from the original. While the wait was long, the game is a polished and complete product. I never encountered any serious bugs, and the game ran fine.
The gunplay is basic, hacking is boring (do yourself a favor and turn the hacking difficulty down to 1), and the showdown with SHODAN is disappointing, but I still wholeheartedly recommend this game.
I'd say this is the definitive version if you want to play the original System Shock, it just makes the whole game so much more enjoyable to people that might not like the original as much/are able to handle the DOS-era gameplay.
If you feel you want a fun romp through the guts of a claustrophobic space station filled with horrible creatures of bio-mechanical horrors, I highly recommend this game, the last seven years was worth the wait!
*reviewing version 1.1.17082 of game*
The System Shock 1 Remake is almost perfect as far as remakes go. It captures everything we loved about the original game and added some tweaks and improvements. I recommend it for fans of the original or any sci-fi FPS fans that enjoyed games like Alien Isolation or Prey (2017).
Here are my praises and nitpicks:
+ fantastic audio quality: the voice acting (some people didn't like it, but i did!), weapon sfx and ambient tracks are top-notch and really well done!
+ Fancy Retro Visuals: The visual fidelity is great despite it emulating the aesthetic of a super old game. There's a couple spots where the game stuttered and dropped to ~45-50 FPS (executive level and grove mini levels). Otherwise this is a well optimized game with numerous graphics settings to ensure it will look incredible on new machines and run just fine on old setups.
+ Tons of fun weapons!: I tried 75% of the weapons and they all had great animations with fantastic sound quality. The remake kept all the weapons (i think?) with the various ammo types and I really appreciate having such a wide variety of guns to choose from.
+ Cyberspace/Cybercombat isn't perfect, but a billion times better than the original: The original game had some gameplay mechanics that aged horribly. In my opinion, the Cyberspace combat was one of them. The remake's Cyberspace was much much better, but nothing to go nuts over.
- Lame Boring Final Boss: I won't spoil anything, but basically, you can't die and the mechanics in defeating the final boss aren't obvious. I personally hated the original game's final boss, so this wasn't anything to complain too much over.
- Enemies only react a little to being hit: No obvious stagger or pain state. Kinda annoying, but nothing game-breaking.
Keep in mind this replicates the old game pretty well, so the levels are still quite a maze to navigate through (a FUN maze, however!). All in all, a fun remake and easy recommendation!
This is an atmospheric and visually arresting remake of a highly influential classic, which leaves the core gameplay largely unchanged. For fans of immersive sims it's a no-brainer, but those accustomed to modern gaming may be in for a different kind of "shock."
The remake focuses mainly on updating the most dated aspects of the original, namely the graphics, audio, interface and controls. The game has a unique cyberpunk horror aesthetic which is both colorful and dark, combined with a graphical style that looks simultaneously high resolution and pixelated. The upbeat 90s soundtrack is replaced with a cerebral and creepy score similar to Prey in some respects, with a touch of industrial and metal during combat. The end result is fantastic, and I really could not get enough of the atmosphere it creates.
Gameplay wise, I would describe their approach as very conservative. They have brought in a few elements from System Shock 2, namely a grid-based inventory and currency that you can spend at vending machines. But in terms of level layout, puzzles and direction, this is essentially the same 1994 game, for better or worse.
This means that the levels are often similar to Doom levels, being somewhat abstract and maze-like. They've touched up some things here and there, but the core layout is the same, to the point that guides for the original game also work with the remake. You'll have to learn the ins and outs of each floor to be successful.
This approach also means that there is no list of objectives like modern games would have. You'll have to pay close attention to your surroundings to find and listen to audio logs to give you hints at what to do next. If you miss something, you'll probably end up having to do some backtracking. I think this is unfortunate as it will turn away some modern gamers who don't have the patience for that sort of thing.
If you can deal with this old-school approach however, chances are you will highly enjoy this remake, as I did.
