KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

[Beowulf]

Is there a way to distinguish between real game audio logs and KS fanfiction before listening to them?

They have 'KS' in their label I belive, but I already uninstalled the game.

 

[Spukrian]

I'm playing this and I'm enjoying it so far, despite my earlier misgivings about the game. It certainly isn't as good as the original and has lots of flaws. Will I still like it when I finish it? I don't know...

 

[Trithne]

I'm interested in seeing how this remake handled some of the more character-driven moments in SS1.

The stories of Abe Ghiran and Biancha Schuler.

Being contacted by Anna Parovski's group of survivors.

Consulting with SHODAN's original programmer near the end of the game.

Meh.
You get some logs that you can sense are there to provide more meaningful story, than other logs; but you are not interested really in who is who or who made how far by investigating their bodies because of the retarded KS id tags.
There is also at least one KS log that mentions cat "Whiskers" and I really stopped caring after that.
The only meaningful bit is the Flight Deck resistance.

Is there a way to distinguish between real game audio logs and KS fanfiction before listening to them?

Not from the audio log model or the "NAME: Press F to play" message, but in the log list they'll be prepended with "KS", as Beowulf mentions.

 

[Israfael]

My playthrough seems to be borked - i can't find relay 428, I've run several times through all four maintenance bays, no luck and no visible damage (I even clicked through all the panels, no mention of 428 or any broken modulators). Also, cyberspace on maintenance level is really bugged, in the last room it starts to freeze heavily and it will eventually crash to desktop. Lots of fixes still needed, I guess.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

My playthrough seems to be borked - i can't find relay 428, I've run several times through all four maintenance bays, no luck and no visible damage (I even clicked through all the panels, no mention of 428 or any broken modulators). Also, cyberspace on maintenance level is really bugged, in the last room it starts to freeze heavily and it will eventually crash to desktop. Lots of fixes still needed, I guess.

Unless the location is randomized, you can find it here:

Spoiler

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Oh, so the grenade launcher takes the place of the explode on impact mechanic.....BUT Y THO?!!! Why add yet another item to clutter up limited inventory space to do what grenades already did originally? WHY WHY WHY?!

Hand-held grenades have a timer, can be cooked and bounce off surfaces - useful for clearing out small rooms and making trickier throws
The grenade launcher chucks grenades faster, farther, allows for quick grenade swap and like you said, explodes on impact - better suited for combat, specially in more open enviroments and long corridors

Two distinct mechanical purposes

 

[Israfael]

Unless the location is randomized, you can find it here:

It seems to be randomized, judging from various videos on YT. In any case, I haven't seen any panel with ERROR written on it, fml

PS . Disregard that, I am blind (run near it 50 times and haven't noticed it because there were two sets of cards on both sides of the wall

 

[Child of Malkav]

I can't find it either. I think it's randomized or just bugged as all fuck. Also something about the groves: wasn't it in the original SS1 you only had to go in the beta grove and not the others? In this one you have to go in all 3.

 

[Tweed]

I can't find it either. I think it's randomized or just bugged as all fuck. Also something about the groves: wasn't it in the original SS1 you only had to go in the beta grove and not the others? In this one you have to go in all 3.

No, you always had to go to all three groves, but the relay was a static position.

 

[Child of Malkav]

No, you always had to go to all three groves

That's weird. I played SS1 in 2022 for the first time and I distinctly remember that at some point you find out that all the other groves were already jettisoned and only beta remained. And I thought "Thank God." that I don't have to go to all of them. Anyway, whatever.

 

[Average Manatee]

That's weird. I played SS1 in 2022 for the first time and I distinctly remember that at some point you find out that all the other groves were already jettisoned and only beta remained. And I thought "Thank God." that I don't have to go to all of them. Anyway, whatever.

It's possible lower plot difficulty settings may have need less/no visits to the pods? I know it cuts a lot of stuff out and level 0 lets you go almost linearly to the end of the game but I've only ever played on 2.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I played on default.

 

[Infinitron]

No, you always had to go to all three groves

That's weird. I played SS1 in 2022 for the first time and I distinctly remember that at some point you find out that all the other groves were already jettisoned and only beta remained. And I thought "Thank God." that I don't have to go to all of them. Anyway, whatever.

You might be remembering it backwards. There's one grove out of four that was jettisoned (TriOp executives tried to use it as an escape pod, SHODAN remotely disabled life support and they died horribly)

 

[Child of Malkav]

IDk anymore. BTW, I think the interface demodulator thingy is bugged as fuck. I can't find relay 428 anywhere. All are green and unchangeable. Can I go blow the 4 antennae or proceed at all at this point?
Edit 1: Ok nevermind, apparently it's been switched while I was dying and it's also a visual bug. If you go back to Diego to activate the master control thingy it works. Fucking remake.

 

[anvi]

This sucks compared to the original -.-

 

[Child of Malkav]

This sucks compared to the original -.-

Ehhh, out of all the remakes this is probably the most faithful. Even to the point where this is presented as being negative, somehow. But yeah, the original is still my go to.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Spent a "few" hours today playing this, finished Medical.

The video part of the intro was nice. The Hacker's apartment was not. Absolutely pointless section. Also, TriOptimum security are no longer Silencers, so there goes the Crusader-reference. :/

Then the Hacker is moved to Citadel Station, and the cutscene with Diego is retadred squared. So many questions, yet I fear the answers will be silly.

For settings I picked the default on all four gameplay-selections.

Then the game begins for real - and in about three minutes I'm lost in the magic. All over again.

For those who don't know - I played the demo of the original System Shock to death when it was released. I played and beat the game quickly upon release. Then I went and did it again right after the CD-ROM version was released. I bought (and still own) System Shock in the big box, with the nine floppies, and I have the "I.C.E. Breaker" Cluebook, meaning the big box-copy is kinda cramped on the inside. I also own the game on CD-ROM, though for that I settled for the double-sized jewel case budget release.

There was a period in my life when I lived and breathed this game. But it's been many many years since I last played it, so it's an interesting set of emotions I'm feeling when I'm back aboard Citadel station, ~29 years later. It's the same place... and yet it isn't. The closest description is like I fought in a war back in the day to take a notable building from the enemy. I lost many friends that day, and part of me is still in that building... and then I'm re-visiting that building decades later and it's been turned into a tourist attraction, with big fancy lights and overexaggerated visuals.

Due to the fact that I'm on Windows 7 and not with an up-to-snuff machine, I'm currently playing with sub-optimal settings. Mostly it's the lighting and the (lack of) shadows that's getting to me, but I still need to fine-tune the visuals, to the point that I purposefully broke every light that I could, so that I could see things better. Still, this game looks amazing, especially once you realize that the pixelated high-res textures are intended. It's really weird to look at, but at the same time it's just the right approach for this game.

Music-wise the remake is not delivering... that said, I'm not the one to judge, as I played System Shock with a musical CD in my CD-ROM drive, as I felt that the in-game music was lacking something. In hindsight that was a mistake, but as a result I cannot connect System Shock-music wise, with one exception... the elevator tune. I had a mini-breakdown when I (finally) stepped into the elevator in the remake. You all can probably understand why.

I decided to go the "recycling path" to see what it's like, and HOLY HELL does it look like they screwed this up. It's WAY too tedious, the 3x3-inventory for the recycler is laughably bad, and it easily doubles the overall playtime of the game. I don't mind having a recycler that benefits me - but this presentation is BAD. Unless recyclers on other levels are larger than the one on Medical, this is gonna be a slog and a half - and I'm not sure whether it's gonna be worth it.

But by far the biggest change is the UI. System Shock was tough to get a handle on due to them trying to get a proper FPS-UI going, while still trying to get an immersive sim-thingie in there. To name an example, in the original the Hacker had nine different postures - six more than most generic FPS-games nowadays, and three more than all modern immersive sims. The remake goes for six different postures - as a result movement feels very Thief-like, and that's perfect for me.

But the second-biggest change is inventory management. Instead of having a finite list of slots for single items, the remake went for a squarespace-themed inventory, meaning the half-infinite pockets of the original are swapped out for Tetris-esque levels of inventory management. IIRC System Shock 2 had a 'sort items'-command to clear up inventory space, yet this remake cannot do that? :/

One of the weirder changes of the remake are the logic-puzzles. In the original they were contained to one of the two status-windows in the bottom corners. Not so here, they come off like an interactive electric board, and are considerably harder to figure out. Nothing wrong with that, except I had trouble with solving some of them due to the lighting - the panel has a light on that can't be interacted with, and some panels are located near lights that can be interacted with (read: smashed) to alter the perspective. Another change is that instead of trying to push the power level past the post, a certain acceptable power-level must be reached. This will be a problem with the puzzle-board over in Gamma-quadrant in Medical to get the bridge going, where obvious win-paths must be shut off to reach the correct level of power.

The only remaining topic to mention is the combat - which feels off. Melee-combat is just weird, and ranged combat is somewhat better, but still a little off. Another change in ranged combat is the Mag-Pulse - this used to be a literal cannon against those enemies vulnerable to EMP. Now it's been nerfed to oblivion, but it's still somewhat useful.

But still - at the end of it all the remake literally consumed hours of my day. I completely lost track of time... just like back then, when System Shock was a fresh release. This remake is not an improvement on the original - but it also can't be dismissed.

More on this later.

EDIT: Typo.

 

[SharkClub]

Also, TriOptimum security are no longer Enforcers, so there goes the Crusader-reference.

Yep, I forgot to mention that one as well when I said they dropped the Terra Nova reference from the end cutscene. It's a little sad but what can you do.

I decided to go the "recycling path" to see what it's like, and HOLY HELL does it look like they screwed this up. It's WAY too tedious, the 3x3-inventory for the recycler is laughably bad, and it easily doubles the overall playtime of the game. I don't mind having a recycler that benefits me - but this presentation is BAD. Unless recyclers on other levels are larger than the one on Medical, this is gonna be a slog and a half - and I'm not sure whether it's gonna be worth it.

I mostly agree, but there are actually already mods that fix multiple facets of this system. Obviously that doesn't excuse Nightdive for their clunky implementation especially with a 8 year dev cycle but it's hardly an unfixable problem from a player point of view.

But the second-biggest change is inventory management. Instead of having a finite list of slots for single items, the remake went for a squarespace-themed inventory, meaning the half-infinite pockets of the original are swapped out for Tetris-esque levels of inventory management. IIRC System Shock 2 had a 'sort items'-command to clear up inventory space, yet this remake cannot do that? :/

The inventory management I'm not that hung up on personally, I like inventory tetris in immersive sims quite a bit and taking reference from the large amount of these games that do it for the remake was a good idea imo, though I do agree that the vaporizing/recycling system needs polish because it is fairly clunky and quite time consuming as it is. That said, if you are unhappy with the how Nightdive balanced this it is fairly easy to tweak it to your pleasure thanks to mods.

Some relevant mods for inventory/recycling that already exist:
Advanced Stackable Items
More Cargo Lift Slots
Item Grid Size
Weapons Grid Size
More Recycler Slots

I don't want to come off as an apologist for the game's problems here. Nightdive had plenty of time to iron them out of the product and they seem to have failed to do so on a few (I believe relatively minor) things, but I do think the problems with the remake are minor enough that modding it to taste neither destroys "their vision" for the remake or unbalances the way they designed it enough to warrant vanilla purism.

Due to the fact that I'm on Windows 7 and not with an up-to-snuff machine, I'm currently playing with sub-optimal settings. Mostly it's the lighting and the (lack of) shadows that's getting to me, but I still need to fine-tune the visuals, to the point that I purposefully broke every light that I could, so that I could see things better. Still, this game looks amazing, especially once you realize that the pixelated high-res textures are intended. It's really weird to look at, but at the same time it's just the right approach for this game.

I think the DigitalFoundry review for the game mentions that one of the options on Low disables all shadows but just putting it on Medium keeps them enabled with only a relatively minor performance drop. Unless you're playing literally at like 20fps on a toaster with the absolute minimum settings there's probably a few settings you could swap around to get some semblance of shadow back into your game, but you would know better than I what you're dealing with.

 

[Israfael]

Finished the game in 28 hours (1.5 of which were spent on aimless wandering through the maintenance corridors without seeing the obvious broken panel), I guess it's good overall, much better than anything this current day of age is capable of producing anyway (I doubt Rogue Trader would be released this year or even if it is released that it'd be finishable before NY)

 

[Tweed]

This sucks compared to the original -.-

Ehhh, out of all the remakes this is probably the most faithful. Even to the point where this is presented as being negative, somehow. But yeah, the original is still my go to.

It's not though. The original didn't make you play inventory tetris, or slow you down with uncanny valley animations. It didn't look like a gay discotheque in space or make you move at a snail's pace. It also didn't force you to play in cyberspace if you didn't want to except at the very end. It also didn't have hilariously bad dialogue or voice acting which is impressive for a game in 1994 where most VA was done in studio.

 

[anvi]

This is total trash! It feels like a dumb action game, running around blasting zombies in the face with ease. With the mouse mod the original was not this easy or dumb. It gets worse when you discover the AI is terrible. They get stuck on everything, are slow, and stupid. And worse... they have leaning in the game which the AI doesn't understand. So you lean into a room full of enemies, and they all stand still shooting at you. Only you are behind the wall so they are shooting the wall, and you are leaning out shooting them one by one with ease... Taking no damage. Retarded. But even if you don't use lean, the AI is still total shit. There are several enemies I've seen so far and only 1 them can even hit me.

Also I never run out of lazer gun power. You get a lot of shots before needing to recharge and the recharger thing comes back fast.

The music sucks. Why can't it have the original soundtrack? This background music is annoying and also pansyish and zoomerish sounding. Imagine getting someone from the worst possible generation to do the music.

Worst of all is the graphics. I just don't get it. The original looked good at the time and still looks ok today. It only makes sense to redo it if you could make it look all slick and modern and immersive. I remember looking at the wall panels in Crysis (2007) and feeling glad that photo realism had finally arrived to interior textures. Yet 16 years later this masterpiece of a game gets remade with ugly Minecraft graphics. Even if you used the mod to remove the pixel filter, the textures are still shit, environment, lighting, all shit. There are not enough polygons used on important things, and too many used on walls and shit. It looks bad... Wtf. The character models look ok but the environments are so bad, and it's a game that involves an awful lot of looking closely and carefully at things... searching for data sticks and whatever. And constantly you see objects with crappy models and textures.

p.s. Didn't the original have bullets that went off course a bit? Or was that SS2? In this game every shot is right on the crosshair. Also there are no damage models or hp bars on the enemies so you have no idea if you are doing any damage. You shoot the thing 5 times and it looks exactly the same, then on the 6th hit it drops dead.
p.s. What's with the shitty dialogue too? ZOMG TEH LAZER IS POINTED AT EARTH!
p.s. Fuck this remake

 

[Tweed]

What's with the shitty dialogue too? ZOMG TEH LAZER IS POINTED AT EARTH!

That really bugged me. It's like scientists on space stations have gotten stupider since the 90s.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

That really bugged me. It's like scientists on space stations have gotten stupider since the 90s.

It's in-line with writers getting stupider since the 90s.

I couldn't tell the difference between most of the KS logs and the ones made by the devs - when your writing is of the same quality as a random backer who is probably not a writer, you fucked up somewhere.

Overall though, inventory tetris is actually based compared to uninteresting item lists. I'm glad they implemented it.

My biggest annoyance is that they were willing to implement new features like this, but at the same time wanted to remain overly faithful in other areas, even when those areas were pretty bad in the original. In the original game, the endless free medbed healing and resurrection chambers completely undermined the resource management aspect, because unlimited free energy and health were available with little effort, and tougher enemies could be taken on without using a lot of resources by dying repeatedly and defeating them through attrition. The combat revolves heavily around cheesing the AI by abusing the lean mechanic, since the enemies are generally very tough and taking them on head-on will get you killed often, but they are also dumb enough to leave themselves exposed and become easy targets, making the combat largely rote and uninteresting. None of these issues were addressed. All of them were left largely intact as a way to "remain faithful" even though these aspects of the original game absolutely sucked. In some instances they were made even worse (like allowing you to respawn on other decks), exacerbating the problem.

At the same time, they were willing to make sweeping changes in other areas. Putting in a new economy system was potentially very based, as it could have allowed much more nuanced and fine-grained control over resource distribution, which the original game sorely needed. They could have charged a fee to use the medbeds and regeneration bays (ala SS2) which would have mostly fixed the lack of resource management in the original game, as the player would no longer be able to cheese free health/energy in perpetuity, and attrition tactics would no longer be viable. Instead, they seem to have had an attitude of "if it was in the original, leave it how it was no matter what" (unless it's the inventory or UI, which they arbitrarily decided was fair game), so their new economy system has to work around the existing mechanics, making the issues even worse - now we still have the resource overabundance of the original game and the lack of resource management, AND you can also buy more resources on top of that, giving you even more access to obscene wealth with little effort. All it does is increase the player's power level in the most boring way possible while not fixing anything about the original experience.

A lot of this remake seems like nobody actually thought about what was good or bad about the original - instead it was considered largely gospel with what they should implement. At the same time, they seem to have shoehorned in a bunch of stuff (recycling, weapon upgrades, vending machines, grid inventory) with no consideration of the original mechanics, to "modernise" it. While I actually like some of the new additions (grid inventory, weapon upgrades) It seems like their design approach was fundamentally wrong.

What they should have done was implement the new mechanics in a way which complemented the originals, or modified the originals to work in-tandem with the new mechanics to improve the overall experience. One of the benefits of remakes is hindsight, and they could have examined the original games failings in order to improve them, and they could have used the new economy system to do so. Maybe they felt that if they made radical changes, the purists would lambast them and complain. But purists already hated this remake on principle without even playing it, so I don't know why they would bother appealing to them.

The common rebuttal to this will be "it's a remake, it should respect the original gameplay", but that doesn't work when the original gameplay is bad and when they have already made major changes in other areas.

I'm still having a lot of fun, but SS1 was never a particularly great game when it comes to combat or resource management because of it's fundamental design, and I wish they had fixed some of that. It's an exploration-based dungeon crawler first and foremost, but they could have added good combat and good resource management on top of that, they just chose not to.

 

[randir14]

I beat it earlier today. The final section was definitely the weakest part of the game. Even the ending felt rushed, they could of at least had some story text or an after credits scene foreshadowing SS2.

 

[Naraya]

This thread is a proof that you can't please everyone (and that's good I guess).