System Shock: Enhanced Edition
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System Shock: Enhanced Edition
20 hours playtime
no achievements
The original BioShock is one of my all time favorite games and since System Shock is it’s spiritual predecessor I had always wanted to play them (System Shock 1 & 2). I also knew they were pretty old games, which is fine with me since my all time favorite game is Strife from 1996 (which is also where my avatar comes from for anyone wondering). I played the enhanced version first since it only changes some small things and increases the resolution. I heard a lot about these games being really great but I have to say they were really disappointing to me.
The story of System Shock is extremely basic, without any plot twists whatsoever. Visually the game looks like the original Doom, but your progress is actually driven by completing meaningful tasks instead of just trying to find the end of the level. Unlike Doom you also need to revisit levels to complete certain goals. You need to really pay a lot of attention to the story and the logs since there’s no other way of knowing what your objectives or clues are (as far as I could tell) and it would be very easy to get stuck if you didn’t. The logs (and emails) are spoken out and at the same time you can read the text, but the text and the words spoken don’t match up, even though they basically say the same thing, which was very annoying. Due to the low quality graphics it’s also difficult sometimes to ascertain whether something is an important object to interact with or just part of the background.
The absolutely worst part about this game however is it’s extremely clunky control system. It’s kind of difficult to explain, but you have to switch between one mode where you can use the mouse to freely look around and aim at enemies and another mode which you have to use to pick up items and interact with your inventory and special abilities. So you constantly need to switch between the two modes, you can learn the keyboard shortcuts to make it a little easier. There’s also no easy way of changing key bindings, you need to manually change a configuration file for that. It took me a really long time to somewhat enjoy the game because of this terrible control scheme. The game has a regeneration device on every level (except for the last ones) which you have to find first and activate to respawn as much as you want, but if you die before activating it the game just ends and you have to load a save game. The game gives you very few healing items, except near the end (because there aren’t any regeneration devices), on a few levels you can find one healing station but they are pretty rare, ammo is pretty scarce as well. Levels are never fully cleared as enemies keep respawning indefinitely (though in much lower numbers), this combined with the low supplies you can find makes exploring or revisiting levels really horrible. The game also has too many items which you don’t know whether they are important or completely meaningless, until the game tells you much later in the game that you need them and you have to backtrack to find them again. Then there are also moments where you have to go into cyberspace, which I have to admit was a really novel idea at the time, but due to the very low graphics it’s really hard to navigate since it’s very hard to see where you can and can’t go. The final thing that annoyed me is in order to move on to another level you have to ride the elevator to the next level, but the game won’t let you unless the elevator door is closed. There isn’t a button for closing it though, so you have to either wait for it to close automatically or click on the door (which is pretty hard to do sometimes) for it to close. Which was just so pointless.
One of the few things I really liked in this game is the customizability of how you want to play the game. For example you can disable all enemies from attacking you and have them die from one hit, you can disable the story so you can just reach the end of each level to progress (and even skip some levels all together), you can disable puzzles (which are really only two kinds of mini games) so they are instantly solved, and finally you can change the amount of time you have in cyberspace which is a pretty useless setting. I played on default settings which was 2 for everything, but I would recommend these settings to anyone who wants to go through the game for it’s story:
- Combat on 0 or 1: because the control scheme is so bad and you won’t be bothered with respawning enemies.
- Puzzle on 0: there are only two mini games and both of them were easier to solve with random clicking than actually trying to find the solution (they aren’t any fun to solve either). Save yourself some time and have them automatically solved.
- Story on 2: this gives you the full amount of story, 3 only imposes a time limit on you finishing the game.
- Cyber on 0: it’s a pretty meaningless setting, I noticed little difference between 0 and 2.
If you put all the settings on 0 you can just walk up to the final battle without killing anyone and finish the game in less than an hour (though you still have to activate the bridge and unlock the door to the final area), which is what I did to complete the original version. Despite it’s many flaws I learned to somewhat enjoy the game near the end.
TL;DR The game might have been revolutionary in it’s day, but it’s mediocre story and horrible control scheme, along with it’s many other flaws really make this a game I can’t recommend to anyone.
Rating ★☆☆☆☆
Luckily System Shock 2 improves a lot on the game. I watched a live stream with some of the original devs playing the first System Shock, and even they struggled with the controls, and pointed out that this was one of the games major weak points.
The story of System Shock is extremely basic, without any plot twists whatsoever. Visually the game looks like the original Doom, but your progress is actually driven by completing meaningful tasks instead of just trying to find the end of the level. Unlike Doom you also need to revisit levels to complete certain goals. You need to really pay a lot of attention to the story and the logs since there’s no other way of knowing what your objectives or clues are (as far as I could tell) and it would be very easy to get stuck if you didn’t. The logs (and emails) are spoken out and at the same time you can read the text, but the text and the words spoken don’t match up, even though they basically say the same thing, which was very annoying. Due to the low quality graphics it’s also difficult sometimes to ascertain whether something is an important object to interact with or just part of the background.
If I’m not mistaken, System Shock uses a modified Ultima Underworld engine, so it’s sub-DOOM level in terms of graphical fidelity. The map is incredibly useful in this game. It’s worth noting that the game world was actually built first, before it was populated, and paths were blocked off, because the developers wanted a believable layout for the space station. it’s not immediately noticeable when playing, but when you look at the map, you can see how interconnected everything is, and how you often loop around, opening a previously locked door and thus giving you a shortcut to a previous section.
System Shock 2 improves some of it, but I’m still not a big fan of that one either (but I’ll do another review about that game soon). The problem, in my opinion, is that they tried to put too much into one game, it’s clear to see that they had a lot of interesting ideas but I think the game would have been a lot better if they simplified the UI and removed some useless weapons and items.
That would make sense, I think I also read something about this being the follow up game from Ultima. I just used DOOM as an example because it’s so widely known. The map is useful for navigating the levels for sure, but it doesn’t tell you where your objectives are, like finding certain switches or items. I got to know the levels pretty intimately because I had to spend so much time searching for them (the clues in the logs are still pretty vague sometimes and the limited graphics don’t make them easy to see). The level design in itself is pretty decent, the shortcuts are there but I think it’s only natural to have those. I think because of the limits of the technology they had to use, I never really got that feeling of a real space station.
System Shock 2 improves some of it, but I’m still not a big fan of that one either (but I’ll do another review about that game soon). The problem, in my opinion, is that they tried to put too much into one game, it’s clear to see that they had a lot of interesting ideas but I think the game would have been a lot better if they simplified the UI and removed some useless weapons and items.
Hm, all the things & options the game gave you was actually one of the things I loved about SS2, and why I hold it in higher regard than say BioShock, which I found more polished, but far less interesting.
I think because of the limits of the technology they had to use, I never really got that feeling of a real space station.
Yeah, the engine they have actually pre-dates the release of Wolfenstein 3D, so it had a lot of limitations. (The Wolf3D engine was made after John Carmack had seen a demonstration of the Ultima Underworld engine. He figured he could do better, and in many ways he did (the Wolf3D engine is for an example far faster), but in some regards the Ultima Underworld engine is better, as it can handle sloped surfaces and height differences)
Hm, all the things & options the game gave you was actually one of the things I loved about SS2, and why I hold it in higher regard than say BioShock, which I found more polished, but far less interesting.
Well my comment is only related to the first System Shock, which had a lot of useless weapons (of which I only used about a third regularly), useless explosives (I only used them once to try them out, they were very clumsy to use), useless ability boosters (I never touched them), useless special abilities hardware (about half are useful, but I don’t both need a light and night vision for example) and many miscellaneous items that seemed to have no purpose at all (until the game all of the sudden expects you to remember where you came across item x or y).
I focus more on the story, the atmosphere, and the characters and in that regard I find BioShock far superior to System Shock 2. But it’s interesting to come across someone who’s focus is elsewhere, and I agree the weapon diversity is bigger in System Shock 2, though I only tried out the normal guns and wrench so I can’t really say whether the other weapons or psi powers are interesting.
Yeah, the engine they have actually pre-dates the release of Wolfenstein 3D, so it had a lot of limitations. (The Wolf3D engine was made after John Carmack had seen a demonstration of the Ultima Underworld engine. He figured he could do better, and in many ways he did (the Wolf3D engine is for an example far faster), but in some regards the Ultima Underworld engine is better, as it can handle sloped surfaces and height differences)
Yeah this engine actually feels more advanced than the Wolf3D engine because that one doesn’t have the z-axis.
Interesting read, thanks!