System Shock review

System Shock review I went back a little while downloading the game to write the article. In the years when I was just starting to follow the written game media, I was going to my house with the magazine with Shodan on the cover, “What the hell is System Shock 2?” I was thinking to myself.

System Shock review / PC

When the first game came out, I was playing with Atari 2600 clones, but after reading the review about the 2nd game, I decided to try both games later (when I learned English). I got lost among the great games that came in the following years, and although I played the second game a little, I did not have the chance to play the Remastered version of the first game for more than 3 hours. With System Shock, I will have the chance to correct this deficiency. Let’s start the System Shock review.

System Shock review

System Shock begins by putting the cutscene of the original game under our control. We are in a cool hacker room in the world of the future, at least that was the room that came to mind when we thought of the cool hacker room in those years. While we were walking around briefly and waiting for our computer to finish its operation, the flying vehicle that came in front of the window and then the armed soldiers that burst into the room show us that we did not do a very good job.

We don’t know where we were taken, but the obviously boss is making a nice offer to us, if we hack Shodan, the artificial intelligence that controls the space station, and remove their ethical values, we will have the right to get the improvements we are trying to steal for free. Considering that we are not in a position to refuse anyway, we don’t have much choice, we get the job done. Then they hit us on the head and knock us unconscious, and when we wake up, we see that the operation has been completed. Unfortunately, we are not the only thing that has changed, the people of the station have also changed a lot.

System Shock review

Shodan, who controls the space station called Citadel, decides to return to a logical path in his own way and turn all humans into more advanced beings after erasing his ethical values ​​with our hands. They have to die a little for this, but fine, small details for artificial intelligence. This movement, which started with the Station, will later spread to the whole world and eventually they will accept Shodan as their god. Ethical values ​​were important. Anyway, our mission is to stop this Shodan and get out of the station safe.

Storytelling is mostly done with audio recordings you find around. We have seen this system in games such as Bioshock – Prey, it is quite logical to make a presentation in this way since there will not be many people around. It is highly likely that the first game to do this is System Shock. The audio recordings are well voiced and besides the story, we can learn daily information about the former inhabitants of the station and hidden places.

Shodan Housekeeping

The storytelling of the game may not please everyone, after all, it has been used many times and does not offer great visual content. However, I think it would not be possible to present this game in a different way. I am pleased.

System Shock review

Are you ready for an old-school adventure in the space station under the control of artificial intelligence that has broken its strings? System Shock brought the original game to the next generation in the best possible way, but in doing so, it didn’t care about the guidance systems that the new generation players were used to. That’s why you need to pay attention to everything while playing.

When you start the game, it is clear what you need to do, and you have a little idea about the main structure of the station. What happens next is entirely up to you. You have to go around and listen to the recordings, find a way to get to the other side of the closed doors. How you do this is up to you. Also, don’t think that the passwords mentioned in the audio recordings will be automatically noted down somewhere, there was a reason why we used to have pen and paper with us while playing games, thanks to this game, it happened again.

The game does not guide you through the interface, but you can easily understand what you need to do by looking at the audio recordings or the information on the screen. You feel like you are trying to find your way in a station that you don’t really know. It would be a less dangerous adventure if it weren’t for the enemies, traps and artificial intelligence around to kill you and make you stronger but non-human.

System Shock review

Throughout the game, there are various dangers such as cleaning robots, improved cyborgs, turrets that turn the character into a colander. Of course, there are weapons that you can defend yourself with, and it is also very pleasant to use these weapons, which use different types of ammunition.

However, the fact that the ammunition of the weapons is not too much and that some enemies are too strong can cause problems. You start to search for ways to pass without struggling, especially at high difficulty levels. Because there is also a problem that the enemy who died hard could not miss his throw.

Shodan, who accompanies us while we tour the station, does not hesitate to make various arrangements to stir things up if he thinks that our adventure will be easy. While navigating comfortably, it is possible to encounter stronger enemies at once. In order to reduce the effect of Shodan on the floor you are on, you can break the security cameras around and restrict the field of view.

System Shock review

Considering you’re going to be doing a lot of backtracking and some crossings are only possible at low security, don’t forget to break any cameras you see. Of course, you are not completely safe, but you may encounter enemies that suddenly appear, and you may have to fight to save your life. I mean suddenly, seriously, sometimes I’ve seen the enemy spawn out of nowhere.

Dying in the game does not give you a big penalty, if you have opened the health room of the sector you are in, you will be revived there and you can continue without losing your clothes. But there is a situation here, if you are running through the levels and playing in a hurry, you have a chance to start far behind when you die. Keep in mind that careful walking around will help you find ammunition and not have to run back again.

It’s time to talk about the hardest part of the game, inventory management! I explained Resident Evil 4’s original inventory system and how it became easier in the new game, in the Resident Evil 4 Remake review. The real Inventory Tetris game is now in our hands!

System Shock review

There are loads of different sizes of items to collect in the game and our inventory is small! You turn things around and try to squeeze the scraps that you will sell later between the bullets and usable items. There’s also the “vaporize” option, which halves their value but resizes them to 1 square cubes. We use the money we get when we sell it to buy the things we will need in our struggle.

Our main character is a hacker and there are hacking sequences in the game. These are not simple “press the right places”, they work like a completely different game. Shodan, of course, does not leave you behind when you are looking for hacking ways in Cyberspace. The controls are a little different here and take time to get used to. Fortunately, the game offers the option to change the difficulty for different parts in the difficulty options. You have a chance to play the normal game hard and the hacking part easy.

Image and Sound

System Shock review

After the rights of System Shock, which was released in 1994, were taken over by Nightdrive, I had the chance to look at System Shock Remastered, which they released in 2015. When I was talking about high resolution, Direct3D and OpenGL support, choosing between Mac – DOS versions and stuff, I thought “this is still playable”. With these thoughts in mind, when I look at the new version of System Shock, we are faced with a tremendous development.

There is no job that I can compare with AAA games visually, I accept that from the beginning. I think everyone is aware of that already. When you take into account the old version of the game (or you can buy and play if you want), you see how big a change the renewed version has gone. Most of the locations inside the station are different, the enemy designs are fine, and the lighting is pretty good too. At a time when retro game graphics, especially indie games abound, System Shock pleased me visually.

System Shock review

I mentioned that the sound recordings were prepared very well, this is a very important part as they form an important part of the game and it would be sad if it were bad. Making the first two games memorable, Shodan’s voice actor Terri Brosius is back in the studio and bringing the character to the next generation in a wonderful way.

System Shock, which takes up about 9GB of space on my computer, is also fine with the system requirements it needs. We see GTX 970/Radeon R9 290 cards with 8GB RAm and 4GB memory in the recommended system requirements of the game, which also has 4GB RAM and 2GB memory graphics cards at its minimum requirements. I did not have any technical problems with the game, there is nothing to complain about.

Conclusion

System Shock review

The System Shock series made a lot of noise when it was released, and later inspired many games (Bioshock – Deus Ex – Prey etc.). It was a nice experience for me to experience a game of this level for yourself and to see that it still hasn’t lost its effect. The game, which is faithful to the original and strengthened with new generation developments, has managed to be a remake that will please the fans of the series.

After games that take you by the hand and take you to the target, allow you to put the rocket launcher and the automatic rifle in the same bag, and save every important information you find for you, this game may be difficult for most players. But after seeing the ridiculous games that have been presented to us with the “immersive” tag for a long time, you can enjoy this game more than you expect. It just takes some getting used to and being patient. It’s also important that you take notes.

I am the game on the GOG platform I played the DRM Free version and I am very satisfied. The game’s $40 price tag seems quite affordable when we compare it with the content it offers. It was very nice to find such a game among the very bad games offered with a price tag of 60 – 70 dollars.