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[bender]

Played a bunch today and yesterday and made it to Storage. I missed this game when it initially released and have only dabbled with it through the years. The labyrinthian map design is a product of the time as are the key and switch hunts. Some levels lack a real sense of place. It's pretty neat to see the concepts that would evolve into the immersive sim genre and it does take a while to unlearn modern waypoint design. It's a game that is comfortable with you being lost which is certainly refreshing. There is obviously a ton of love and care put into this remake, though I kind of dislike how shiny everything is and sometimes it feels like it has some readability problems. I could complain about the enemy AI or how annoying the enemy respawn system is or how inelegant the respawn/health restore stations are implemented or how god awful the cyberspace sections are, but I keep pressing on so it has something going for it.

 

[bender]

Finished it. I've got some complicated feelings on it. Playing with a controller is less than ideal for the last few levels as the difficulty ramps up and you are forced to switch between all your goodies to stay alive while dispatching foe after foe after foe after foe after... I really didn't enjoy the ending of Bioshock, but this is much worse. Flipping switches in a radioactive room while wave after wave of the hardest enemies in the game are spawned in just becomes an exercise in tedium. Thank God for the plasma sword, berserk combat booster and the ability to save scum. And your reward for that tedium is another cyberspace section that is awful, but slightly less awful than the other cyberspace Descent like levels. The maze like structure of the levels is a product of the time with the key and switch hunts and the elevator design is nonsensical at best...and boy does it love to have you backtrack. I'd probably rate it a 3/5 overall, but one can easily see why it is beloved and playing it in 94 would have been mind blowing. Immersive sims have come a long way since, but I'd recommend this to anyone so that they can see the first baby steps that helped create the genre. Just be prepared to unlearn modern game design, which is both a good and bad thing.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

The maze like structure of the levels is a product of the time with the key and switch hunts and the elevator design is nonsensical at best...and boy does it love to have you backtrack.

More like an art lost in time

I was thrilled by level design and non guided nature.

Only thing I feel they could do better is one of the side quests, where I recieved a phone call. It doesn't become obvious what was the fate of the caller. And I spent some couple of hours trying to find any hidden door near the location.

 

[bender]

More like an art lost in time

I was thrilled by level design and non guided nature.

Only thing I feel they could do better is one of the side quests, where I recieved a phone call. It doesn't become obvious what was the fate of the caller. And I spent some couple of hours trying to find any hidden door near the location.

I appreciate the non-guided nature, but the levels felt more like hedge mazes and a lot of the floors lacked a sense of place. Most of the floors felt like Doom II levels.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

I appreciate the non-guided nature, but the levels felt more like hedge mazes and a lot of the floors lacked a sense of place. Most of the floors felt like Doom II levels.

It ran on 4 mb ram without much loading, I believe that could be the reason.

I did fine the game to have great atmosphere.

 

[bender]

It ran on 4 mb ram without much loading, I believe that could be the reason.

I did fine the game to have great atmosphere.

Nah, that was just common for level designers back in the day. Flight Deck, Executive (even if that tunnel crawl is brutal if you miss the warp in Diego's office), Security, and parts of Reactor have a decent-to-good sense of place and for the most part don't make you feel like a rat in a maze. I wish I'd have played it back in the day as all the design concepts would have mind blowing. Then again, it might have detracted from Deus Ex which did blow my mind.

 

[Roni]

This is the only game in recent memory where I tried playing on hard and actually got stuck. Security kicked my ass when I tried playing with the time limit and I had to give up. Made me respect the game a lot...

 

[ZehDon]

I wasn't ready for its old school design philosophy when I jumped in a year or so ago. Was absolutely humbled. Need to revisit once I'm mentally ready.

 

[duck_sauce]

System Shock may be a great game, but for me, it always fails because of the art style. Too many dark corners and far too many bright, high-contrast colors.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work so well for me.

 

[bender]

This is the only game in recent memory where I tried playing on hard and actually got stuck. Security kicked my ass when I tried playing with the time limit and I had to give up. Made me respect the game a lot...

I can't imagine the final gauntlet on hard. Normal kicked my ass.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Personally I liked feeling lost and having to check the older logs (or to find them) to figure out what I need to do next (I missed that in SS2 where you have a normal journal), but some backtracking combined with (elite) enemy respawns was nasty. I found it much more managable in System Shock 2 Remastered and I didn't feel like I was going through the same area again and again and again (Executive floor in SS1 was the worst offender).