Balketh

pleased that i am on the one social media website that has a dense concentration of System Shock appreciators. that in mind, random thoughts on the remake (with moderate spoilers) follow.

before i get to the nitpicking: most video game remakes / remasters come out bad / worse than OG, this one's very good and an excellent companion to OG SS. the original is still its own, special experience that i like more overall but the remake makes the story and general vibe of the first SS much more accessible to newcomers, and i found it engrossing to crawl through, too.

i think of the first SS as the game that establishes SHODAN as one of the all-time great game villains (one reason it's so unfortunate many players over the last two decades skipped right to SS2 over fears of the first game being too archaic). however i felt she didn't hit quite as hard in the remake.

Love these thoughts, echoing many. Below is a share-response to different sections, so that I don't clutter up the comments with chains of overlong, quickly unreadable replies, and so that I can willingly read-more to save others scrolling past my response! (It's long! Be ready to scroll if you wanna close it again!)

It is... Extremely 'System Shock 1'. Those that have seen the ending of the original will know what I mean. Despite changes, I felt basically the same result about the last level/ending as I did of the original, just less frustrated.

Great game, which I know only because I feel I miss playing it already - potentially because it felt like it needed one or two more floors so I could actually get the most out of my finalised arsenal - I was barely keeping my inventory from overflowing with ammo all game, and this was on Normal. But the experience was great. Focused, maze-like, but also respectful of your progression - lots of shortcuts back, either cutting down return time or creating a new path for later backtracking (which I had to do b/c I forgot about the fucking reactor codes.) By late game it was just fun to zip around in my Lv3 Turbo Boots with my Lv 3 Shield up, mowing down all but the Cortex Reavers in single clips of just about any weapon. I'd still get rekt, but it was tense and enjoyable. I even found all the Skully busts.

Great fun, would definitely play more, but I'm also typically not a big 'play a game again for the same content' kinda guy, so it's definitely left me wanting more.

Thoughts on the ending below. Not as cut and dry as 'it's short and unsatisfying', but that's the gist barring The Change.

A bit crashy, lots of bugs with keybinds, but hopefully that'll get patched up.

As a general fan of the originals, I didn't know what a 'good' update of System Shock 1 would look like, honestly. It's so retro in so many ways that it's a hard thing to translate, even in the same medium. Just the control scheme update alone would be something else.

Nightdive have done an incredible job bringing forward what makes the game FEEL like System Shock 1, while updating just about everything else.

It feels like (said with the highest intended praise possible) what System Shock 1, completely modded up in the most ideal, true-to-the-original-but-updated sense would be. Vanilla+ Overhaul type shit.

To me, System Shock 1 was a sci-fi FPS dungeon crawler proto-imsim - proto in that it has some hallmarks of imsims, but there's still really only one way to approach most things: blow them the fuck up. Sometimes you sneak around them, sometimes you use the environment to defeat them, but it's mostly find a room, find a log, find a number/keycard, unlock a door, kill kill kill. A boomershooter half-way out of its imsim chrysalis.

The remake/remaster is... Exactly that. They even put in a difficulty option that allows for waypoints! Which is GREAT for overcoming some old level design, but they have also put a LOT of effort into making the game feel navigable and explorable as a modern game, which is huge. SHODAN, as always, a delightful trainwreck in motion to thwart at every turn.

Scant few criticisms below the cut, but it's really not much. Worth the time, even if you've never played System Shock 1 before - only really worth playing the original to... Gain an appreciation of why it warranted a remake/remaster.

A bit crashy, lots of bugs with keybinds, but hopefully that'll get patched up.

As a general fan of the originals, I didn't know what a 'good' update of System Shock 1 would look like, honestly. It's so retro in so many ways that it's a hard thing to translate, even in the same medium. Just the control scheme update alone would be something else.

Nightdive have done an incredible job bringing forward what makes the game FEEL like System Shock 1, while updating just about everything else.

It feels like (said with the highest intended praise possible) what System Shock 1, completely modded up in the most ideal, true-to-the-original-but-updated sense would be. Vanilla+ Overhaul type shit.

To me, System Shock 1 was a sci-fi FPS dungeon crawler proto-imsim - proto in that it has some hallmarks of imsims, but there's still really only one way to approach most things: blow them the fuck up. Sometimes you sneak around them, sometimes you use the environment to defeat them, but it's mostly find a room, find a log, find a number/keycard, unlock a door, kill kill kill. A boomershooter half-way out of its imsim chrysalis.

The remake/remaster is... Exactly that. They even put in a difficulty option that allows for waypoints! Which is GREAT for overcoming some old level design, but they have also put a LOT of effort into making the game feel navigable and explorable as a modern game, which is huge. SHODAN, as always, a delightful trainwreck in motion to thwart at every turn.

Scant few criticisms below the cut, but it's really not much. Worth the time, even if you've never played System Shock 1 before - only really worth playing the original to... Gain an appreciation of why it warranted a remake/remaster.