System Shock 2 Review type thing

Well, Since Blue decided to make a short review-type thing of Bioshock 2, and I found it neat, Ima steal his idea and make my own, except Im going to make it long enough so that nobody reads it all the way through because they get bored. Mainly because System Shock 2 is my favourite game of all time, but also to show Blue where his beloved Bioshock series came from.... And Im just bored.

So lets get on with this overly detailed bullshit.



Released at the end of July in 1999 by Looking Glass Studios, System Shock 2 was the sequel (derp) to the critically acclaimed DOS game System Shock. A game where you ran around with a lead pipe bashing in the heads of zombies Mutants and The Borg Cyber Mutants, Shooting lasers from your Pingas Off-screen Blaster, and collecting Skulls, Decapitated heads and pop cans for no apparent reason other than to clutter up your inventory.



(Gameplay from the Original System Shock)

If you werent doing this, you were flying around in some sort of Tron cyberspace thing with slippery controls and wireframe walls, making going down Tunnels a vomit inducing roller-coaster ride. You also need to shoot Star-type things at Andross from Starfox on the SNES Norton antivirus in the form of a giant polygonal 3 Dimensional head, however you cant see it in most of the battles because most of the time you would be spinning around in circles not knowing where the fuck you are in this huge wireframe maze


(Gameplay from one of System Shock's confusing-ass cyberspace levels)

The general premise of the System Shock series is that you are trapped on a ship with the super-intellegent AI "SHODAN", I would go to Wikipedia to find out what it stands for but nobody really cares anyways. SHODAN basically goes fucking nuts and thinks that she is the new god or something, she then proceeds to mutate people so that they blindly follow her orders. What happens in the first game basically boils down to you pwning SHODAN in her weird cone-ish form in Cyberspace while she reveals her true form in a fuzzy picture that slowly covers the screen. Yes, the last battle takes place in fucking cyberspace, oh joy.

In System Shock 2, SHODAN is back, and once again attempting to play god and failing miserably. The way the game begins is basically you wake up from cryostasis and everything is suddenly going to shit, some random lady is screaming into your ear to get moving before your sucked out by a space vacuum that kindly waits for you to run around in circles wondering what to do, then after you learn that lightly tapping on a broken vent with a wrench makes it explode you climb up a ladder, and so, your adventure through many corridors of mutants with overpowered shotguns and annoying suicide bomber robots begins.

I think you also have amnesia, but that plot point is so overused that we're just going to ignore it and move on.


(SHODAN in her full form from System Shock 2)

I wont go into full detail about the features, you could just go to Wikipedia for that, but I will touch on the major aspects.

One feature that doesnt need to be used, but can be useful in many situation is your Psi Implants, which are Plasmids. Seriously, their attached to your arm and can do crazy shit to people. Since I havent ever used them because I like bashing in heads with a wrench alot more, I dont know much about how many powers there are, but there are quite a slew of them, The tutorial level shows you can use Telekinesis on objects so I imagine theres alot more Psi powers to be found. The only true difference between these and Plasmids is that Plasmids are a bit easier to comprehend and use.



Now for how you level up things, The things you can level up are pretty basic, Psi abilities, Strength, Firearms, Hacking and a couple others that I cant really think of off the top of my head, and you level these up with ADAM Cybernetic Modules, which you are given for completing objectives. Pretty basic, but it works.

Fortunately, Looking Glass Studios realized how ridiculously stupid Cyberspace was, so they basically replaced it with the ability to hack things such as keypads and Cameras with a little connect the dots type thing. Which admittedly is confusing but its better than sliding around cyberspace and smashing your virtual face into invisible walls.

The weapons are the standard FPS loadout, Pistol, Shotgun, Assault rifle, Etc. and, in a sort of Deus Ex-esque way, they all take up a fuckload of space in your inventory. Theres different Ammunition type for each weapon too, Armor Peircing rounds, Anti Personnel Rounds and the like. However, these guns also have a sort of Durability meter, which is the most fucking annoying game feature since Quicktime events, but it works here, as it keeps you from just whoring ammo and going through the game guns ablaze. all guns that enemies drop will also mysteriously Jam instantly, but you can just unload them for their ammo and move on.

Now for the enemies. The enemies consist mainly of regular mutants with wrenches or Shotguns, Service robots that walk up to you and explode, Sentry guns, security bots with overpowered lasers, and then moar sentry guns. The Mutants are probably the scariest enemy in the game, mainly because they yell out calls for help in satanic voices while their bashing your skull in with a wrench.


(A Wrench-wielding Mutant, Stuck in low-res Rape Face)

Oh, and there are also Evil Science Monkeys that shoot blue exploding fireballs at you.

Seriously.



The worst enemy in the game, though, is far worse than any of these things.

The worst enemy in the game, is the Midwife



Seriously... What the fuck.

Anyways, Overall, the game had intense atmosphere, with brilliant sound design that keeps you on the edge of your seat, coupled along with some amazing writing and crazy-fun gameplay. This game is an absolute pant-wetting thrill.

Unfortunately, It is extremely hard to find and even harder to get running on todays machines, It cant even be played on XP. Although I have managed to get it running on Vista, it still has its fair share of bugs. EA, being the dickheads that they are, decided to also keep it at "Shareware" status as of now, despite the fact that they cant earn any money off of it. Its not that hard to patch to get running, but it takes a while to get it to run properly.

But, if you do get the chance to play it, take that chance, because System Shock 2 is fucking epic.

/Longpost

I've totally forgotten how fun System Shock 2 was, i miss the old days!

man, those graphics remind me of duke nukem. My first M rated game... ahh the days...

First M-rated game i ever played was Halo CE, after that i started playing the good ol M-rated games of the past

Definitely Duke Nukem : Land of the Babes... Static-X did the soundtrack too.... totally sick review man nice job made me wanna go load up the emulators...

l-look at you,hacker, a pathetic creature of meat and bones, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. Do you really think you can fight me, a perfect,immortal machine?
PS:fuck those psychic monkeys!

wat

This is weird.