System Shock 2 Review

Fun Fact: System Shock coincidentally released around the same time millions of nerd boys had their "step on me mommy" sexual awakening.

Coincidence? Or correlation? The world may never know.

(We know you filthy animals.)

Honestly playing system shock 2 without knowing anything about 1 made the shodan reveal so much better lmao

name of the jungle at the beginning ? <3

It baffles me how anyone would suggest to turn the music off

This game was the father of Prey!?? (Arkane/Bethesda)

After playing System shock remake. I wanted more so much that i ended playing this. Have to say i rly likes it. Like 0.5 euros at steam lol

the ausssie many had me dying

Loved the game. In no other game it felt as good to find a few humble shotgun shells.
That said, the graphics were dated even back then, and I never felt like I was on a ship - you wouldn't have that much empty space and extraneous mass on something that was supposed to move. It even had a tramway.
Could have just set it on a diffetent space station and no one would've cared I think.
Rather minor things that hardly hurt an extraordinary game.

I'm using "Under the Skin" OST as an alternative. Blends nicely. :)

I would love if in system shock 3 we get Shodan buddy companion in a hot robot body, so that she can be mean to us in a physical form and whip us around

I think TriOptimum's gravest crime was those fucking unbreakable windows.

Consider revieweing the latest System Shock remake

Did anybody else accidentally get to the main antagonists chambers quicker than they wanted to?

sIleNcE tHe DisCorD
[ba-doop]

I apparently own System Shock 2 on GoG I should try it with the mods you recommended. I have never actually played it even though it came out while I was a teen / young adult.

System shock 2 is a masterpiece

I can't with the music. The St anger snare kills me.

"Silence the discord" "Blip" had me looking in all my discord for some time.. well played man, well played

I don't know if it was in the original, but I loved how the System Shock remake had a few mentions of detecting a nearby wormhole - giving them a solid reason why the garden grove made it to Tau Setti.

"A lot of people weren't mentally prepared for the rave" are words to live by

I finished this game without mods, it was great! The gameplay feels really good.

I keep thinking that "Wow! System shock 2 was the basically the first Bioshock!" Then I keep remember that Bioshock is literally spiritual successor to System Shock

Now that Mandalore has brought greater attention to Marathon and Durandal, I feel safe saying Durandal > Shodan.

Shodan's lines and VA work are top notch, but Durandal's motives and methods are better. Why threaten or bribe compliance when you can engineer a situation where people willing work for you? Why bother trying to reshape humanity or the universe when you can just escape it and make your own.

That being said, really wish the new Marathon was somewhere between a boomer shooter and an ImmersiveSim and not just the latest way Bungie plans on bleeding the player's wallet.

SiLeNcE the DiScOrD!

bloop

Damn you that's funny

That ending is absolute trash for me. It's like, I was playing a completely different game for all these hours, with an awesome scifi horror atmosphere and now what ? WTF is this ? Eh, it is what it is. The game is still awesome overall even if I prefer the first one.

There was a retrospective I believe GameTrailers did once. They gave the twist away but one description always stuck with me that really makes me cherish the dynamic of you, SHODAN and Xerxes in SS2. It's the idea that your greatest ally is also simultaneously your worst enemy. You're in an Enemy-of-my-Enemy situation in the story and that's what makes it engaging; you have to work together to get rid of one problem even though you know the entire run you gotta deal with SHODAN eventually. While she mocks you, she's in a powerless position compared to her prime back on Citadel station and is forced to rely on you which is why she'll go out of her way to help you and not hinder you, so that you can take out Xerxes, the Many, and remove a thorn in her side.

What tops it all off is just how blunt honest she is about it. She does not care about you. She hates you but she needs you. She's using you as a tool and trying to upgrade that tool so it can take down the Many and that's all she sees you as, and once the tool's been used she doesn't care about discarding it. She's not going to pretend she'll be your friend at the end of it, she's not going to act like she won't be nice by the end of it, she's so full of herself that her solution is correct and continues to be correct as proven by your success throughout the journey.

Now System Shock 2 throws in a masterpiece idea by throwing an existential threat that's an exact opposite and antithesis of what she wants and her desires, which I'm glad you allude to. The Many and SHODAN are in direct opposition to each other and trusting either of them is bad for you so of course you're gonna fight both of them, SHODAN knows this. She thinks it's part of your natural flaws and an inevitability that you don't see her way. It's a cool tug-of-war where they pull at both ends but you're the rope.

That's at least my take on the story, and why I don't think SHODAN getting in your way or doing anything to make your job of killing Xerxes harder would be productive to her. It's not efficient, it's not beneficial, it only delays her goals, which to SHODAN, is not behavior a god befitting her should do.

Thanks for the vid though! Happy to go down memory lane while playing the SS1 Remake. <3

Can't wait what NightDive does with the remake of System Shock 2

Loved this game on the PC. My favourite PC games were H&D1 and 2 , half life all, system shock 2 , stalker games, soldier of fortune command and conquer, kingpin, WOW when I think back all those great games from that area! Anybody else got any from that era ?

Its so sad that System shock 3 is once again in the dark and missing.

The cyborg voice lines in this game were fucked and then the remake of the first game came out and listening to the elite guard die and say shit like "thank you" or "I forgot what this felt like" just makes me wanna cry and feel awful for them. Now that I've played the og in at least some capacity I gotta give 2 a try. Just really wish the night dive enhanced edition would come out sooner.

i never interpreted the cameras turning off to be a kind of "challenge" but as a rather visual indication that THESE CAMERAS WONT SPRING OFF THE ALARM

the many sound pretty communist ngl

I love this video, but every time. EVERY FUCKING TIME! "Silence the Discord. *bwoop*" It gets me. every single time, every time I watch the video...

It's so strange to me how video games force specialization in leveling.

If you don't want all the pitfalls of useless repair and other shenanigans associated with the old, broken design of SS2's gameplay, I would recommend the Rebalanced Skills and Disciplines gameplay mod, which fixes basically all of it and polishes and rebalances the game to be extremely well balanced. All the bad builds are now viable (including Exotic!). Make sure to check it out for a first-playthrough or a replay, otherwise your nostalgia of how balanced you remember the game being might not hold up.

Can someone please explain to me how a game from 1994 has more (and better) difficulty customization options than almost every game after 2010?

Such a truly awesome game.

I love the basketball easter egg. At the beginning of the game when youre walking through the "city streets", you can find a hidden basketball. If you carry it alllllll the way to the recreational area of the ship, you can toss it into a basketball hoop to get a funny audio log as an easter egg.

This has inspired me to go back to SS2...full PSI build this time. It hasn't disappointed so far, perhaps one of the greatest games of all time.

Если будет римейк, не делайте пауков пожалуйста)

Coming back to both System Shock reviews after the remakes release (and me currently playing it), theres a lot that they touched on. One of the audio logs from Research (or maybe reactor) is talking about radiation and wormholes, that it was highly unlikely anything would survive, but recomends sending a probe through.

System Shock 2 remake was announced last year, but wasnt put into developement. Now that SS1 is out, it might be being worked on now.

This game genuinely scares me, im literally too scared to play it, no other 90s game has ever done this to me

If I recall, SHODAN was a last-minute addition to the story. Cause someone higher up thought it was a good idea. (or something to that effect.)