About an hour in to System Shock 2, so far, not impressed

[spectre]

First time I played System Shock 2 it was at night with no lights and headphones. Helped my immershun a lot.

 

[Infinitron]

Relevant: http://www.edge-online.com/features/inside-irrational-from-system-shock-2-to-bioshock-infinite/

But immediately the studio, an outfit far from the distinguished name of today and taking its first baby steps into full-time independent development, was faced with a momentous challenge. And not simply because of the obvious pressure that came with making the follow-up to such an influential and critically acclaimed shooter. “We sat back and looked at what we had, which was this engine, the Dark Engine, which Thief was made on,” Levine explains. “We looked at System Shock, which was a shooter, and said ‘Oh man, these things don’t really go together. This engine is not designed for high-action sequences, it’s designed for a stealth game.’”

The answer? Strip the game of its shooter core and turn it into a narrative-led action-RPG – a far more viable project for Irrational given the technology available. “We knew our shooting wasn’t going to be as good as System Shock,” admits Levine. “We looked at our budget and our resources and had this idea of combining shooting with RPG [elements] as a way to sweep under the rug the failings of the shooting.”

 

[felipepepe]

Limitations drive creativity.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Problem 1: the enemies. They are really, really boring to fight. They animate the exact same way, scream out the same unintelligible nonsense, and I just have to keep whacking at them with the wrench until they fall down.

Combat is not the focus of SS2. It's like calling Deus Ex a shooter.
But I rather enjoy 'clunky' combat in those games.

Problem 2: the music. The same heavy techno track blasts out whenever enemies run at me. Bad design decision there.

Stop running around the same square meter and start playing the game. Music changes with your location, not the situation.

Perhaps you should play more than one hour ... just saying.

If he didn't like the Sci Deck, he won't like the rest.

Wrong. SS2 is easy to misunderstand at first.

 

[evdk]

Wrong. SS2 is easy to misunderstand at first.

Not my experience, I fell in love with the demo at first sight.

 

[Metro]

OP is same dude who called New Vegas the best RPG of all time.

 

[Cassidy]

Obviously it's not AWESOME enough for the OP who has long demonstrated his preference over Day-1 purchased popamole shit rather than good First Person Shooters or Survival Horror games with a strong stealth element, to the point hiding is almost a necessity, like System Shock 2.

What's next? Saying Thief is a shitty FPS?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Wrong. SS2 is easy to misunderstand at first.

Not my experience, I fell in love with the demo at first sight.

Depends on one's expectations, I presume. I fell in love right after I got used to controls and mechanics. While CD case told shit about 'Epic Sci-fi Shooter', it was a surprise to get something different, yet even better.

 

[sea]

I really don't get the MedSci music. Fast-paced, hyper-active techno? Really? The rest of the game's soundtrack is very moody and atmospheric, not quite ambient but great at setting the sci-fi tone. I never got why they opened the game with that song, it feels like something they should have played during the end credits instead.

I do agree with the suggestion to turn off music though, at least for MedSci deck. Really ratchets up the tension when you start getting harder enemies in the mid-game sections; you'll find yourself getting startled and jumping at sounds, and if you have arachnophobia... yeah, good luck. The first time I played System Shock 2 the music never played due to buggy engine/codecs/etc. and I found it much more atmospheric as a result. It's amazing how much music, or lack of it will change the way you play a game - see Dark Souls for a much more recent example.

 

[RK47]

System Schlock 2 was never a good shooter.
http://www.caltrops.com/review0010.php

"Wahhh weapons are not REALISTIC! I'm doing banal things like fixing elevators instead of saving the world by pressing awesome buttons! Atmospheric terror-like game doesn't pause or do cutscenes to let me hear the audio logs! It also breaks my resources, so I don't feel like a badass marine with 10 weapons!"

That's some review...

It's a shit game I never tried. No reason to change now after playing its spiritual successors.

 

[felipepepe]

NO, U!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

System Schlock 2 was never a good shooter.
http://www.caltrops.com/review0010.php

"Wahhh weapons are not REALISTIC! I'm doing banal things like fixing elevators instead of saving the world by pressing awesome buttons! Atmospheric terror-like game doesn't pause or do cutscenes to let me hear the audio logs! It also breaks my resources, so I don't feel like a badass marine with 10 weapons!"

That's some review...

It's a shit game I never tried. No reason to change now after playing its spiritual successors.

But Mass Effect is a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. Why praise this shit?

 

[xemous]

the bioshock rapture games while great are nothing like system shock 2 which is the best game ever made.

 

[RK47]

No way. I played Deus Ex Invisible War too, that game is so much shittier than DXHR, you expect me to believe DX 1 is better? FFS. Everyone knows sequels are always better than the original game and DXHR is proof of that.

 

[agentorange]

I didn't like SS2 either. Way too actioney. It was all hyped up as some masterpiece of atmosphere and survival horror, and yet minutes after I start the game I'm being attacked by like 5 screaming mutants and I blast them all with psychic powers from my fingers, just like in some anime. Then I'm running around at full sprint, there's cameras that make tons of noise and machine guns turrets all over the place (yeah, putting a bunch of easily malfunctioning machine gun turrets onto a research vessel, great idea bozos) all the while shitty electronic music that you'd hear in a German dance club blasts at the drop of a hat. Oh but no, it's a masterpiece because you have to manage an inventory, which involves buying guns and candy bars out of vending machines; I don't think I ever once ran out of psychic magic and I blasted like every mutant I ran into. This game is shit. If I want survival horror I'll stick to Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

No way. I played Deus Ex Invisible War too, that game is so much shittier than DXHR, you expect me to believe DX 1 is better? FFS. Everyone knows sequels are always better than the original game and DXHR is proof of that.

So TOR is better than KOTOR?

 

[Lorica]

And BiA is the best of all the Jagged Alliance games, what aren't you grasping here, zz?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

And BiA is the best of all the Jagged Alliance games, what aren't you grasping here, zz?

How could I forget that Dragon Age 2 is the best Bioware game ever.

 

[Borelli]

I agree about "that one track" which is fast paced actiony and does not fit with the science fiction horror atmosphere, but then you are a psionic military cyborg which also does not fit with the horror atmosphere.

Wrong. SS2 is easy to misunderstand at first.

People need to understand that SS2 is not an FPS. Now it IS a first person game where you shoot things, but it still is not an FPS. It's main genre is ... wait for it ... DUNGEON CRAWLER. Think about it, multi floor labyrinthine levels with map that gets uncovered as you explore it, respawning enemies with loot, resource and inventory management. This should be no surprise anyone seeing as Ultima Underworld had such an influence on SS1.

Late game has some flaws though, namely the massive amount of xp you recieve.

System Schlock 2 was never a good shooter.

http://www.caltrops.com/review0010.php

The part about seeing health above monsters breaking the horror is interesting. On one hand it's usual in SF that cyborgs and the like have view filled with various computer stuff so seeing a box with health on an enemy is not that surprising, on the other hand it's true that true horror would work better without that.

 

[evdk]

Late game has some flaws though, namely the massive amount of xp you recieve.

The late game has some flaws though, namely the dreadful level design of the Rickenbacker and The Many pulling an absurd amount of biomass out of its telepathic ass to construct one of the shittiest levels in existence present in a game that's not inherently horrible.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Late game has some flaws though, namely the massive amount of xp you recieve.

The late game has some flaws though, namely the dreadful level design of the Rickenbacker and The Many pulling an absurd amount of biomass out of its telepathic ass to construct one of the shittiest levels in existence present in a game that's not inherently horrible.

What, you mean you didn't like the platforming sequence near the end of the Body?

 

[evdk]

The late game has some flaws though, namely the dreadful level design of the Rickenbacker and The Many pulling an absurd amount of biomass out of its telepathic ass to construct one of the shittiest levels in existence present in a game that's not inherently horrible.

What, you mean you didn't like the platforming sequence near the end of the Body?

The moment you use the umbilical to leave the Von Braun the games goes to the dogs. The story kind of breaks down, there's that stupid Easter Bunny quest, the level design is a significant step down from the previous areas and linear to boot and then comes Xen the Body with its bugged bossfight and its absolute impossibility of existance (seriously, at one point you even fall to a body of water with the volume of an Olympic swimming pool - where the hell did it come from?!).
So in the immortal words of Goggles: "Nah!"

 

[Borelli]

The Body creeped the hell out of me, and the logs you find there are voiced by Daniel Thron.So overall i don't remember it being a bad level.
Rickenbacker ... yeah, could have been better, i remember at least 2 decks in a row there being linear tunnels, after 6th deck on Von Braun entering another spaceship was very anticlimactic.

 

[Surf Solar]

I played the game back then when it came out, was creeped out a lot and eventually stopped. I remember I really liked it. Nowadays I am too much of a graphics whore to keep playing it

 

[evdk]

The Body creeped the hell out of me, and the logs you find there are voiced by Daniel Thron.So overall i don't remember it being a bad level.
Rickenbacker ... yeah, could have been better, i remember at least 2 decks in a row there being linear tunnels, after 6th deck on Von Braun entering another spaceship was very anticlimactic.

The "National Geographic's Guide to Many" series of datalogs were indeed the highlight of the level (barring my usual problem with them that it makes no sense for you to find most of them).

I played the game back then when it came out, was creeped out a lot and eventually stopped. I remember I really liked it. Nowadays I am too much of a graphics whore to keep playing it

There are pretty good meds mods for that, ask Infinitron