yellowcake
Arcane
Many people commenting on original SS difficulty probably only played the mouselook version and it is a whole different game IMO.
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KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios
- Thread starter LESS T_T
- Start date
Child of Malkav
Erudite
Yes I did that as well. I will also play Ultima Underworld with mouselook because after playing Gothic 1 I'm not putting myself through that kind of hell ever again. KB + M >>>>>> KB. Simple fact of life.
yellowcake
Arcane
Gothic had perfectly serviceable mouselook controls on release, you only had to tweak the config AFAIR. That's how I played it.
I had a look at the instruction pdf and it even has "invert mouse Y axis" option in the ingame config menu ffs. People are making it harder than It needs to be.
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Finished it on the weekend and liked it. I did not play System Shock 1 when it came out - I was way too young - but I played a lot of System Shock 2 and it is one of my favorite games of all times. I did play the System Shock: Enhanced Edition when it came out (and finished it) but I wouldn't call myself an expert on part 1, so I can't say too much about the changes Nightdive did.
Anyway here are some of my thoughts:
Anyway here are some of my thoughts:
- The pixel texture / normal 3D graphics mix is a bit weird but works well and looks good once you get used it
- The levels seem very, very close to the originals, with the same cramped feeling and weird layout. To be honest, this seems like an area the remake could have gone its own way and try to make the levels more realistic but I assume Nightdive tried this and gave up on it
- Cyberspace seems better than in my memory, probably due the better graphics as the wire-frame look in the original wasn't great
- Combat still feels janky and melee weightless but it is still a lot of fun to destroy everything with the laser rapier
- The advanced animations of the Hacker - like playing with access cards when picking them up - look great
- Atmosphere is as fantastic as in the original and SHODAN is amazing as usual
- I think they actually improved the Bridge Level as it is a dark cathedral now rather than the organic looking stuff in the original
- Groves also look great
- It is still a lot of fun to use the boot upgrade even if it breaks game physics a bit
- The scrap / weapon upgrade thing is unnecessary but I didn't mind it
- The changes to the intro were unnecessary
- The final boss fight was extremly underwhelming
- Joined
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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/wh...uns-are-designed-to-be-like-campy-movie-props
(Yes, it's another victim of game development's most dangerous occupational hazard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjuXJhs2mN4)
Why the System Shock remake's guns are designed to be like "campy, movie props”
Lead art director Evelyn Mansell says in a game you want a gun "that does weird things.”
It’s been about an hour since Evelyn Mansell - one of the lead art directors on the System Shock remake - and I started talking about guns. Specifically the big, daft chunky guns that she worked on, but also about videogame guns in general - what makes them tick. What separates a good one from a bad one. Whether or not Doom 3’s shotgun is one of the good ones (it is).
If there’s one area where all of the remake’s ideas truly come together and shine, it’s in the weapons. There wasn’t much to see in the original - nothing beyond the tip of a barrel. Here, the weapons are very much the star of the show. Heavy, industrial things covered in thumb-print smeared LCD screens and superfluous greeblies. NERF guns that've been painted by a 12-year-old and covered in spaceship parts. These are the toy guns you would have wanted for Christmas, and I wanted to know more about them.
A game filled with as much tech and grimy atmosphere as the System Shock remake is a dream come true if you’re the sort of person who is really into practical, industrial sci-fi design. Mansell joined the project early on as a character rigger, from a background in modding, before ending up becoming integral in developing the game’s entire aesthetic after a shift in development saw Nightdive Studios’ pivot from the more grounded look of the pre-alpha build to something more stylised. “I really wanted to avoid that typical Unreal Engine Remake look of shiny metal surfaces and realistic materials,” she tells me. She focused more on evoking the key aspects of the original’s style - blocky, tiled walls and high-contrast patterns. Mansell goes into more detail, telling me that she encouraged the other artists to use unconventional values for materials: “I wanted the materials to look and feel realistic but to not be the materials you would use to build an actual space station. The idea was to make it look like a miniature, like something built for a movie.”
That idea of everything being cardboard that’s been painted to look like metal is something that extends to every aspect of the game’s visual design. Everything has an exaggerated physicality that makes System Shock’s tech feel more like a movie prop or a replica. Mansell tells me that she really wanted to bring the work of concept artist Robb Walters - someone who worked on the original game as well as on the BioShock games - to life. “All of Robb’s designs would make excellent toys. That really fed into the new aesthetic. There’s all this grunge as if everything has been covered in artificial weathering and oil washes,” she says.
It’s a concept that’s been executed perfectly, adding an almost camp quality to the weapons and environments without detracting anything from the original’s game’s atmosphere. Mansell explains that “there is a realism to the levels and the weapons, but it’s more like playing with a toy or a board game”. It ends up making the entire world feel a lot more like an actual physical space than more traditionally realistic approaches usually manage. The team mostly trusted in the player’s willing suspension of disbelief to do a lot of the leg work. Mansell feels that “it can actually be harder to accomplish that with realism - anything that falls short of that level of naturalistic perfection sticks out like a sore thumb. A consistent art style sticks with people much longer.”
Taking such a big creative swing with a game with this many expectations and dogmatic fans must have been a daunting prospect. I ask Mansell how you even set about trying to do something new with something old. “So, at this point I really just have to admit that I’d never actually played through the entirety of the original game,” says Mansell, though she points out that System Shock’s ideas trickled down into so many games over the years that you can see them almost anywhere. They set out to recreate the game as people remembered it, not updating it exactly as it was. “When people who played the original game play it, I want them to go, ‘Oh, this is exactly like I remember’, even though it’s not literally the same,” she says, describing the process as “a tricky balance”. “There was so much back and forth on what kinds of modernisation would feel appropriate and which kinds of modernisation would detract from the spirit of the original.”
The art design of the remake has an almost contemporary indie game sensibility to it, tapping into the current trend of trying to make new games look like they were made a long time ago. Mansell tells me there was a lot of inspiration from the current 3D pixel art movement, a style that “takes those PS1/PS2 technical restrictions and then works on top of that with modern techniques”. She tells me that she enjoys working with limitations and that “having them really helped us evoke the time period that the game belongs in”.
Speaking of time periods, I have to ask about all of the gloriously antiquated technology that’s littered throughout the station. Messages are stored on USB sticks. Readouts are shown on CRT monitors. There aren’t any touch-screens in sight, everything is interacted with via big chunky buttons and heavy leavers. “There was definitely a conscious decision to tap into the design of the kinds of science-fiction that inspired the original, like Alien or Silent Running,” Mansell explains. It definitely comes through in the game itself - everything is very industrial and lived in.
All of the physical, grimy tech helps sell the station as an active work-place. There’s been an obvious effort to avoid “sleek, clean sci-fi”, as Mansell puts it. “It’s the difference between an oil rig and corporate offices.” If you’ve ever worked in an industrial setting, you’ll understand what Mansell means when she says that “when you want something to be actually usable and dependable - something that can actually be fixed if it goes wrong - you use heavy, physical equipment, not touch-screens and voice commands.”
Its in the weapons where you can see these ideas come together. Mansell tells me that they’re all “real labours of love, iterated on throughout the whole process by the whole team”. Starting with the initial concepts from Robb Waters, a lot of work went into deciding how the guns should function. “We really wanted to give the feeling of campy, movie props,” she explains. “A lot of the guns are, at their core, the bones of real guns with a plastic facade glued over them.” I can’t help but think about the way they made the blasters for Star Wars, as Mansell tells me how much of it was a matter of “getting references from real guns, modifying parts of them and then building the prop gun over the top of it.”
It’s fascinating to hear just how much is involved in making a shooty thing for a videogame. It makes sense that so much thought should go into them, considering that they are, ultimately, the real main characters of any first-person shooter. Mansell feels that “the biggest part of getting these guns to feel like they’re part of the world is having them appear to function in a believable way”. She tells me that “as long as it looks like it’s doing something - I don’t even need to actually know what it’s doing, as long as it feels important.”
We talk for a long time about video game guns. It’s a subject that, being a medium where physical violence is de rigueur for most interactions, has had decades of thought and experimentation put into it. How do you determine a good videogame gun from a bad one? This is when Mansell tells me that she thinks real-life guns are “generally really boring, just artless tools made to kill people, engineered with only one consideration - make thing go fast, person dead.” Real guns aren’t interested in aesthetics and world-building, so I ask what sets videogame guns apart, and Mansell explains that “in a videogame, you want a gun that’s interesting - that does weird things.”
System Shock has no shortage of guns that do weird things, whether it’s throwing balls of plasma around or spewing electricity in hazardous arcs. Mansell tells me that she spends a great deal of time “thinking about Unreal’s Flak Cannon, which throws out superheated pieces of metal that bounce off the wall”. She already finds this mechanically and visually satisfying, but it also shoots a big grenade that bursts into pieces of metal, which she feels “makes some sort of sense - the gun has a sense of physicality to it. It makes me think about how to use it, the gameplay implications it offers.”
The mechanics are one thing, but System Shock’s weapons also perfectly fit the setting and help imbue it with character. As Mansell puts it, “the other aspect is aesthetics - how does it feel?” She explains that she has some of her projectiles accelerate after they leave the barrel, an effect which is “barely noticeable but it adds to that THUMP as they impact the walls”.
Despite their apparent simplicity, good videogame guns are the result of all of the collaborative work between various artists, sound designers, engineers and designers. Mansell feels that “all these little effects and touches all pour into making these things great. I think ultimately what makes a great videogame gun is the effort and imagination the people making them bring to it.”
“And whether or not it has cool little vents on the side?” I ask.
“And whether or not it has cool vents on the side, yeah.”
.jpg?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp "A bright white forcefield on a ship acting as a window to the outside of the ship, the endless vacuum of space in System Shock")
(Yes, it's another victim of game development's most dangerous occupational hazard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjuXJhs2mN4)
Oh yes, the famous three steps towards a great, grimy, industrial, hauting immersive sim:
1. Pixelated graphics (in 2023)
2. Cartoony art style with bloomy reds and krazy violets
3. Campy guns.
1. Pixelated graphics (in 2023)
2. Cartoony art style with bloomy reds and krazy violets
3. Campy guns.
I started this recently and just finished medical. First impressions weren't great but it's growing on me. Combat feels very janky as all the weapons have no impact. As a result, you can't tell if you're actually hitting the enemies. Also, the game feels very cluttered due to all the junk items and it is difficult to tell the important items apart from the junk.
HumanTotemPole
Augur
- Joined
- May 2, 2012
- Messages
- 407
Sure. Thing is SS1 is supposed to be an immersive horror sim not a wacky shooter. It needs the Dead Space art style not 1980s synthwave.
Blood Dragon would be boring af looking like Dead Space. To each its own.
Modern devs man...
HumanTotemPole
Augur
- Joined
- May 2, 2012
- Messages
- 407
Whereas this game looks like shit on a bisexually lit wall.
Melmoth
Educated
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2012
- Messages
- 77
the two things this remake understands is that shodan's menacing lines and voice effects are cool and that the original system shock's 3d elements read low poly today. This is very impressive in a certain respect. I remember seeing kickstarter videos of nightdive ceo meticulously handplacing elements according the original level layout and thinking that maybe they would come out with something worth playing.
I think enough of the core elements are intact that an invested modder could fix some of this game. Can the UI be made as cool as the original MFD? No, but at least the audio logs and plot elements can be saved from butchery and so can the music. How did they fuck up the music so goddamn bad. There's probably no fixing what they did to cyberspace or certain gameplay mechanics. really the only advancement was making ammo switching easier. most things underpinning progression and scarcity has been wholly removed or trivialized. credit them with making a frictionless experience (if you think this is worth something and strangely it seems some do), but not a sensible or appreciable one.
I think the remake is at its best when translating or reprojecting the visual sensibilities of the original. I remember when I played the original I felt a sense of exhilaration and relief on the ending, it really felt like you had challenged a god in their own self fabricated sanctum (like the moment in thief when you swap the eye). And the end scene was gratifying, sarcastic and cyberpunk. Of course, nightdive understands none of this except giving cops an impotent finger or empathizing with the little working joes they chiseled out of the original's bones. So what you watched Hardware you didn't get it and fuck you. It's I guess not surprising a bunch of MIT nerds in 1994 made a more challenging, engrossing and literate game than Stephen Kick did with his merry band of for hire content creators.
All I felt finishing nightdive's copy was a sense of cheap nausea. Looking forward to what they do next
I think enough of the core elements are intact that an invested modder could fix some of this game. Can the UI be made as cool as the original MFD? No, but at least the audio logs and plot elements can be saved from butchery and so can the music. How did they fuck up the music so goddamn bad. There's probably no fixing what they did to cyberspace or certain gameplay mechanics. really the only advancement was making ammo switching easier. most things underpinning progression and scarcity has been wholly removed or trivialized. credit them with making a frictionless experience (if you think this is worth something and strangely it seems some do), but not a sensible or appreciable one.
I think the remake is at its best when translating or reprojecting the visual sensibilities of the original. I remember when I played the original I felt a sense of exhilaration and relief on the ending, it really felt like you had challenged a god in their own self fabricated sanctum (like the moment in thief when you swap the eye). And the end scene was gratifying, sarcastic and cyberpunk. Of course, nightdive understands none of this except giving cops an impotent finger or empathizing with the little working joes they chiseled out of the original's bones. So what you watched Hardware you didn't get it and fuck you. It's I guess not surprising a bunch of MIT nerds in 1994 made a more challenging, engrossing and literate game than Stephen Kick did with his merry band of for hire content creators.
All I felt finishing nightdive's copy was a sense of cheap nausea. Looking forward to what they do next
731
Novice
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2015
- Messages
- 6
hi friends,
can this game be recommended? system shock is maybe my favorite game ever, but i haven't followed this game much because i have not played a remake that was ever good. i like the original so much that i recorded the soundtrack and some of the conversations to cassette tapes for easy enjoyment. i read some posts this thread, looks like maybe worth trying, is this the truth? no game other than system shock has given me a similiar ardenaline rush so i am hoping similar fun can be have here. thank you.
that is all
can this game be recommended? system shock is maybe my favorite game ever, but i haven't followed this game much because i have not played a remake that was ever good. i like the original so much that i recorded the soundtrack and some of the conversations to cassette tapes for easy enjoyment. i read some posts this thread, looks like maybe worth trying, is this the truth? no game other than system shock has given me a similiar ardenaline rush so i am hoping similar fun can be have here. thank you.
that is all
Spukrian
Savant
Cross
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2017
- Messages
- 3,000
Dead Space is Grey-Brown Corridors: The Game. Not only does its art style make the game very dull to look at, but it also ruins the atmosphere and impact of seeing monsters taking over a space station, since the place already looked like a hellhole to begin with.
The original System Shock 1 and 2 got it right. Unlike Dead Space, which might as well take place in some generic futuristic dungeon, in those games you're constantly reminded of the fact that lots of people worked and lived in the areas you're now going through.
Ash
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
- Messages
- 6,561
It's literally stripped down Far Cry 3 with a purple filter. Even the base game is better. The praise it gets from some is absurd. About the only thing I can give it credit for was having the balls to have fast movement speed and jump height of more than 1ft which was very reductionist in 2011. Otherwise I have a lot to shit on it for, but I don't hate it passionately enough to bother today.
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toughasnails
Guest
Now what is the ship from Dead Space meant to be, and what are the settings for SS1 and 2? Former is an mining vessel, one of the oldest ones still in use iirc, whereas in the Shocks we have a space station which is supposed be a high end facility and Von Braun which is a cutting edge scientific vessel. In Dead Space too, when you visit the ship's executive quarters, bridge or the labs they look more like something from SS2's Von Braun, especially the labs with their bright lighting and clean texturing. The rest looks pretty much like Heavy Industry In Spess, with all the expected stereotypes that are associated with mining or metallurgy, how the facilities look, how the workers are treated etc.
Exactly this.
The Dead Space ship is p. much an oil rig in space and it looks the part.
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