Hey, want to play Doom 3 meets Dead Space meets Bioshock? No, wait, that's not right. Yep, this reimagining brings fond memories of those games for various reasons. An imperfect one, but one that packs all kinds of cerebral and memorable moments.
The original game that inspired the FPS Sim anew, with this anachronistic mix of 2D in 3D assets. That sick artwork of SHODAN that literally looks like something about 10,000 Tool album. The deep-rooted mechanics that made the likes of Prey exist to this day, fully realized in modern graphics, and best of all, is the atmosphere. Evoking fear and paranoia of the evil that lurks in corners.
Yeah, it's an amazing rendition of a great classic. But maybe too faithful to a fault. I just wish some of the decisions they made were changed, the contemporary kind would have been welcomed. I get servicing the fans, but yeah, that wasn't it for me, chief. The rest of the game, tho, chef's kiss.
To put it this way, getting the first clue of how faithful it is to the original is by looking at the intro that plays like an old Nvidia visual demo, of the city through the eyes of a drone. As that drone finally reaches the hacker's house, I finally get control of him in his humble abode.
Right after an attempt at Trioptimum, they caught up to the fearless crusader before taking him to Citadel Station near Saturn's Belt. He made a deal with the executive of the station to turn off the ship's A.I. safety measures off. It's a typical setup for what's to come, and didn't waste much of my time before the real thing begins.
Btw, the game's difficulty is very adjustable with 4 settings. I put combat at 3, while everything like puzzle, mission, and cyberspace at 1 to 2. And the game's combat was no joke, enemies do some decent damage, but they can be pretty aggressive. Especially if I do get surrounded.
I have died more times I could count. Yet the game's A.I. is easy to exploit, because they don't have highly advanced coding placed in them. Which sucks, considering the kind of sim this is. But regarding encounters, as enemies, their design works in creating this sense of fear and tension.
In melee, it's like playing gotcha or wack'a mole, except timing it right might reduce the damage I get in total. If not, then it gets tricky. But ammo conservation is very important as well. There's plenty of stuff to turn to scrap, and get currency, provided with the backtracking done, which helps to purchase various stimulants, weapon upgrades, ammo, snacks, and so on.
Gameplay is just rudimentary, I don't get any intuitive respond on whether I hit the enemy or not, the only way to know is if they're dead. The visual information provided with the death animation kind of provides this relief, but it gets hectic when dealing with them in the dark, multi-leveled areas, or just dealing with all of them from multiple angles.
And the enemy type from cyborgs, hacked robots, to mutated crew members, their attacks are difficult to avoid. Especially the range ones, they have near perfect aim as long as am in sight. Even compounded is when returned to the same area I've cleared, more of them would return there.
I would die from being pathetically slaughtered, to coming prepared resurrected and just absolutely shredding them to pieces. It has these surprising moments that break the flow of exploration and combat. The weapons I find out later in the game pull some serious firepower, but my inventory management is absolute, since I don't get to increase capacity till I've reached certain areas. That's the other thing, it's scary to explore, but there are stuff to find that makes it rewarding.
And there are stuff littered to find, puzzles boxes to solve, most expensive junk I could scrap for cash, gizmos that could help light a dark room or provide enhancements, I've encountered 3 or 4 enemies same time, putting serious damage because I turned out to be a glutton for punishment. But throw a grenade or some gas, they're dispatched pretty well.
It's a lot to deal with regarding finding and using these, I also have to backtrack a lot if I wanted to have access to these things. The same goes for areas locked out, and oh ho, there are the surprising moments to count for again. Thankfully, I don't "die" anymore after unlocking resurrection pods.
I guess SHODAN's ancestor would be Microsoft's Tai, because man is she a one mean mommy. I mean, yes, that kind of mommy. She is really putting herself to be a good rule 34 material out there. Outside that, yeah, stone-cold A.I. that just wants to mutilate human beings and recreate them in her own image.
SHODAN has ways of gaslighting me to the point of exercising her verbal usage of driving me paranoid. As the game progresses, she draws a clear picture of how she'll proceed me to destroy me, on and on. I mean, considering the type of mutated curses I've been dealing with, I got the gist.
System Shock is a fun game, I get to explore this huge ship with so much to find out about. It is filled to the brim with stuff to find, the level design with the non-linear exploration puts me really in the shoes of this guy who got seriously unlucky.
There are security cameras that have to be taken down, it's never explained first, but as I've progressed and seen the enemy presence, it was a priority to me. I am not a fan of the weapons slotting and inventory management, constantly changing things. But that is part of its core design.
It's never a moment where I get to go Gung-ho, and just ignore everything else because nothing's important. Except everything is. The ship has so much environmental storytelling involved, including the audio logs I find, where survivors are really having traumatic experiences with the whole situation in the Citadel. Their bodies and way it's laid out in grueling detail, with literal intestines on the floor.
I have a few grips, one is the basic cheese-able A.I., I mean, they are already a menace as they are, but it seems less fun when I've seen how they work and easy to dispatch afterward. Also, the combat, it's kind of anemic. Like, basic to put it. Which is 60% of shooting for me, rest is melee.
Also, the part where I enter digital cyberspace, in order to progress to the next level. That one is rundown too, and this "phew, phew" concept of killing sprites before destroying the mainframe inside to progress, man, this one could have been better designed. Even at the lowest difficult I've played it.
Lastly, I wish they could add an inventory sort function. I mean, how outdated are you trying to be if you don't have that? But moving along, putting the rest together, it's a pretty cool package. No game does what System Shock does, and it boldly embraces that. They already announced a remake for 2, while still working on the sequel, so fingers crossed on how they get there.
SHODAN is scary, and that turns me on for some reason. I like blowing these mindless drone's head off, which is silly and fun. The puzzles are smart, and intriguing which makes me feel pretty smart. Yeah, this is a System Shock game alright. It has a lot to give.
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