System Shock

This is not the remake I wanted it to be. The original System Shock is in my top five games of all time. I got the demo from one of those shareware discs, installed it on our 486DX4-100 and fell immediately in love. The game had an atmosphere like nothing else at the time. System Shock is one of those games that was so far ahead of its time that I'm not sure people knew what to make of it, but its influence in games of the next three decades is undeniable. Without System Shock there would not have been Deus Ex, Bioshock, Doom 3, Prey, Thief, Dishonored, and more. SS1 tends to get overshadowed by its sequel. System Shock 2 leaned harder into the survival elements and for that reason was, in my opinion, the lesser game. I have no doubt this claim will upset fans of SS2 because if I've learned one thing about people who like survival games, they REALLY like survival games. Having played the remake I suspect quite a few devs at Nightdive are in this camp. Because this isn't a straight remake of System Shock 1. This is a quasi-remake that tries to remould System Shock 1 into something more like System Shock 2. It injects new and unwelcome elements like a grid-based inventory that needs constant management, or scavenging for junk to feed vending machines, that were not present in the original game. System Shock 1 was its own game with its own style. It didn't need to steal some its younger brother's clothes. Even with mods you can't revert these changes entirely. What you end up with is a game that just doesn't play like the original. Which is a real shame because Nightdive have done a fantastic job elsewhere with the visuals and sound design. If they had simply not chosen to add these new elements to the game it would have been an amazing remake. Instead the game suffers from a kind of identity crisis. I wanted System Shock 1 but what I got was System Shock 1.5.

As I haven't played the first version of the game I will state what was the overall feeling of the game for me. For the pros: 1. Very nice graphics and if you play it with graphics in ultra it really adds to the atmosphere of the game. For me I went for medium because the game was jumping some frames in higher quality. 2. Really nice atmosphere, you really feel the isolation in space and when the next enemy will appear in the corner. What adds to the atmosphere is the lack of ammunition and and medikits. 3. There are not cutscenes like videos, like half-life, in my opinion this adds to the immersion since you aren't cut from action or graphics. 4. Really nice mechanics for a game of 1996. 5. Nice puzzles not too hard on normal difficulty. You have to keep track of the media recordings for some of them. 6. The game in my opinion is not mainly FPS but a blend of Adventure + FPS. 7. Story is decent too. A with SHODAN adding to the clastrophobic feelling every now and then by talking on com. 8 The cyberspace was a nice touch. Reminded me a bit like Descent the game. Cons: 1. I felt inventory was a bit small or the items big maybe. The Cargo lift too could hold very few stuff. This makes you very conscious of what to carry and when since from the start of the game till the end the weapons you need to use differ. 2. Cyberspace felt nice at the start but got a little tired later on when I had to pass the stage in order to progress. It wasn't a filler for stuff. 3. It has an add marker on the map. It could be useful if you added a message because after a while you forget why you placed it. Bugs: 1.The game crashed 5 times.2 Random and 3 in cyberspace of maintenance I think before exiting. The music stopped and after a minute the game crashed. I bypassed this by running for the exit the last time. 2.When hovering over a weapon to see the total ammunition the bullets are behind a ware on the right and can't be seen. 3.And please. Add a skip button on the death screen!!!!

I played the original System Shock in 1994 and have finished it quite some times over the years in every difficulty level. The game set standards in so many ways and I was absolutely blown away by the 2023 remake because the devs did an AMAZING job of recreating the original game. The only thing that got quite some overhaul are the cyberspace fights, and tbh they did a great job of re-imagining that part. Everything else is basically back to 1994, the fights are tough, the puzzles not a joke and ammunition is always low. Also very refreshing that they did not add any helpers to the game (like "now go there" or "follow the arrows on the screen") so the game rewards you for paying attention and punishes you for leaving important things behind (yes, it's possible to fish the head of the lead engineer from level 3 out ot the recycling bin). I can see people struggling with this game a lot, but just pay attention to your surroundings especially the sounds. This isn't Doom so ammuniton is always a problem, but the game gives you lots of grenades to balance the fights. EMP grenades are the most underrated item in this game, and if you want to set fight difficulty to 2 or 3 you basically can't do head-to-head shootings with enemies anyway. For me, the game kicked in really hard, and it just sucked me back into my childhood in 1994. Leave a like this review after you surived the final room on the bridge on difficulty 3. I was almost tearing my eyes out because of how hard it was, but it felt so very satisfying. If you played the original, you MUST have this game. Thanks to everyone who worked on the remake and thanks to everybody who pledged support on Kickstarter.

I've been playing the remake for a few days now. I have to say, I'm really impressed by quite a lot of things: * Enemies don't magically know where you are * The textures in this game, while low-res, really give a nostalgic feel while looking good, like playing a high-res original system shock * They remembered the elevator muzak * Level loads are seamless - really, this impresses the heck out of me how well this was done compared to most modern games * Shodan is her expected egomaniacal self * The game files are small! This is so welcome in today's era of 50GB+ installs. Honestly, I have to say WELL DONE to Nightdive. This is how remakes should be done. I'd love to see their take on a Deus Ex remake. I'm running the game using Lutris (Proton 8.7) on Devuan Linux 'daedalus', on a Radeon 6700XT GPU and AMD 5600 CPU. No real issues found here. Haven't tried it on my Steam Deck but I anticipate no issues there either.

Nightdive Studios did an excellent job in faithfully recreating the 1994 classic into a magnificent game. However, like the original, System Shock Remake doesn't do a good job of telling you where to go and what to do. I found myself using a walkthrough on my first playthrough because I was completely lost. I suppose that's the appeal of the game; to make you feel like a rat in the maze. For newcomers who have never played a System Shock game, may I suggest the following steps: 1. Majority of the in-game codes are random. No 2 playthroughs use the same codes. Be sure to jot them down manually. 2. Every level of the Citadel requires you to lower the security level (destroying the security cameras and CPU nodes) by 0% 3. After destroying the CPU nodes, jot down the number that appears on the screen. Do this for the other 6 levels. This will save you a lot of time. 4. Spend a good amount of time recycling every junk you see lying around for in-game currency to upgrade your weapons 5. Stick to only one melee weapon, which is the laser rapier 6. Tempting as it is, do not hoard every single weapon in your inventory, Have at least 1 melee, 2 handguns, and 1-2 SMGs 7. I recommend starting with the lowest difficulty settings for each criteria (enemies, mission, cyberspace, puzzles) because the game be unforgiving 8. Save often! F5 (autosave) is your friend Besides the lack of an Objective tab, System Shock Remake is a beautiful game and it's highly recommended to Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk fans and shooter fans who want a good challenge.