0°

System Shock 2 – Why it must be played

Many old school gamers hold a candle to System Shock 2 and it’s often cited as being one of the greatest and most influential games of all time. Never having had the opportunity to play it myself I naturally wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I got hold of an original copy. Seven installs and many hours later I just couldn’t get the game to run on XP and with no current support offered by EA it went back onto my shelf, forgotten.

Recently when discussing the game with a friend, they linked me to a repackaged version of the game created by someone calling himself Yoda! It worked! Finally the game was running, and most importantly I could play it at modern resolutions. There were some annoyances however which I will discuss down the page but like a classic car these quirks can be forgiven, adding to its mythic status even. Just trying to figure out how to play the game was an adventure in itself!

I’ve now completed it and I decided to write a review of the game as it stands today. Why? Well when it was released in 1999 it rightfully deserved high praise. It’s definitely the forefather of the modern shooter and survival horror. Games like Resident Evil, Doom 3, Stalker, Fallout 3, Dead Space, and of course Bioshock are all heavily influenced by SS2. I’m not going to tell you why it was good back-in-the-day though; I’m going to tell you why it must be played here and now, especially if you are a fan of any of the aforementioned games.

System Shock 2 was designed by Ken Levine (of Bioshock fame) and despite critical acclaim upon its release in August 1999 it struggled to sell. It had a strong hardcore following however and many mods have been released over the years which attempt to make it look and run as smoothly as possible on XP and Vista. I played one of these repackaged versions which featured the Rebirth mod and details of how I got the game working can be found HERE.

The first thing I noticed when starting the game was that the cut scenes weren’t working correctly. A bit of googling revealed I needed the Indeo video codecs, but even after initialising these I still had trouble getting them to play in-game. All wasn’t lost because I could watch them in Windows Media Player, and considering only a couple really add to the game experience, I didn’t mind too much.

The next problem I encountered involved not being able to select items in my inventory. This is because I had changed the controls, and the repackage did explain in the readme that I should load the Standard FPS control configuration. Although they took a little getting used to, all was working perfectly.

From my screenshots you’ll see that visually this isn’t a looker. Even with the Rebirth mod, textures and effects are very sparse compared with modern games. In my view they are still enough to immerse you in the experience but if graphics are everything to you then you may be disappointed. The sound on the other hand is still utterly fantastic. The music has been chosen well and the voice acting is surprisingly good throughout. The job they did with SHODAN’s voice in particular is superb, eerie and downright terrifying at times.

You play the role of a soldier of the United National Nominate and after a short training session you can choose from three different careers and upgrade different abilities. I found this a little confusing at first; it was difficult to know what difference these abilities would actually make to the game play. So I just chose some options which sounded cool. Throughout the game as you accomplish objectives you are rewarded with Cyber Modules which you can spend at upgrade units so there is plenty of opportunity to tier your character to your own playing style anyway, so don’t worry too much about what career you choose. There are many items to collect, objects to research and weapons to find and train yourself to use, and this is the games reward for your exploration.

It’s a true survival horror experience; you are given little ammunition so it’s not always in your best interests to go in all guns blazing. I often sneaked past enemies to conserve ammo, and later you can even use Psyonic powers like Invisibility to completely mask yourself from detection. Your weapons also degrade very quickly, and you need to repair and maintain them to keep them in full working order. At times this provided for some tense moments, as my Pistol jammed while enemies bore down on me, quick thinking was the order of the day... legging it was my favourite tactic! It can get annoying at times if you’ve just repaired an item, for it to fail again after only a couple of shots though.

The main setting of the game is the Von Braun, a Starship which goes faster than light. Like the titanic, it’s on its maiden voyage, and like the Titanic something goes horribly wrong. You will traverse the 6 decks of the Von Braun to combat an alien calling itself The Many. The Many appear to have taken host of the Von Braun crew, and turned them into Hybrids, the most terrifying of which are the Cyborg Midwifes! There are a good array of enemies all with their own strengths and weaknesses and the combat system is as good as most modern FPS games, but the added depth here is that you’ll find yourself switching between different weapon and ammunition types more frequently. There is no “big gun” which is all powerful. This can mean some real tough decisions have to be made about what goes in your inventory, but since the world is persistent, you can leave items anywhere and go back for them later.

The story is mainly told through audio logs which you’ll find scattered around the ship, but sometimes characters like Dr Polito contact you directly by radio – but in the main you are on your own. Once your reach Dr Polito on Deck 4 everything changes and from here I was hopelessly hooked in the plot until the end. Yes it’s that good.

At times some of the levels are very difficult to navigate, you’ll be using your map frequently and there is no big arrow pointing you to your next objective. This lack of hand holding is refreshing, but it can also be detrimental to the game. On two occasions I had no idea what exactly I had to do next! I feel no shame in admitting I glanced at a walkthrough for these sections; I think my mind is too accustomed to the modern RPG which presumes nobody can orient themselves in the game world! And I do feel the game could have provided some additional hints.

Throughout my play through I encountered no game breaking bugs, but occasionally upon loading a game, textures wouldn’t load correctly (they would appear pink). This was easily fixed by restarting the game (which takes seconds on modern PCs). Occasionally when going through Bulkheads which load the next section of a level the game would crash, so I also got used to saving before going through these doors. A nuisance certainly and something I wouldn’t be able to forgive a modern game for.

SS2 is not perfect, it has many things I would change such as being able to pick up items that apparently do nothing, and although Rebirth does give SS2 some new life there are still problems and real annoyances such as having to configure my resolution every time I started the game.

Importantly these troubles are worth the pain. The story and game play are still up there with the best of them and the RPG system is fantastic. I spent about 15 hours of my time on my first play through, but there is so much replay potential if you want to try advancing your character in a different way, or to go back and research an object or weapon you discovered.

If you are a fan of survival horror, RPGs or shooters this game offers it all, SHODAN deserves to be heard again, and I hope EA decide to invest some money in remaking SS2...I think it would be a big success on Steam, Live or PSN.

If you have XP or Vista you should be able to run this game if you follow my instructions since most modern PCs in-built GFX chip should be able to handle the action. So take a deep breath, dive in, and tell me if you think this is a toxic hazard or the med hypo you needed.