quoting this before the system shock 2 namedropping kills me
.Odrion said:I can't believe only one person mentioned System Shock. That game was truly underrated, if not the most underrated and unappreciated game (or hell, most unappreciated creation of mankind) of all time. not this System Shock 2 bullcrap. Everyone says System Shock 2 was underrated and overlooked, but when you ask them about the original they were "Uuuuh what?" Yeah you poseurs, fuck you.
The first post mentioned that the old FPSers lacked precise aiming, logical puzzle-solving or level design. System Shock had those AND MORE! A deep story not involving a teleport as the reason why there are bad guys ruining your shit up, shifts of gameplay (like going into cyberspace, minigames you can collect and play on your little cyber PDA), and an advanced interactive environment and hud that allowed any sort of texture or object in the game to give you a name and indicate if you could use it or not. The developers worked really hard to create an immersing experience by making a logical world.
More shit System Shock had that was rare or didn't even exist back then:
-Clips and ammo! And not only could you reload, but you could also use ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF AMMO! You thought that shit was cool in Bioshock? That existed 13 years ago baby! You see that laser in the screenshot? That little bar on the bottom was an adjustable trigger that allowed you to set how powerful you want it to be, but the more powerful the laser was the more heat it would produce and the more power it would drain from you. See that "Overload" button? That's not a goddamn status sign, that's another switch on the laser you could press that would make your weapon instantly overheat and fire a supercharged pulse of death. How cool is that?!
-Voice Acting! And not just some random quotes spewed from time to time, but actual long strings of narrative brought to you by e-mails, logs, and cutscenes. There was an abundance of data logs that you could listen to, detailing the tragedy brought forth by Shodan. They also had hints buried in the dialog that could help you out on your missions, and some by Shodan herself that showed you the spiraling path of insanity that she went down (if you thought that "Look at you Hacker" was a creepy and memorable line, you should hear the data log labeled "humanity" where she daydreams about becoming a god (and just may be the point where it she realized it and made it her objective.)
-Crouching, Proning, and EVEN FUCKING LEANING! That's right, and not only you could only peak around corners to look for enemies or engage in a cover-based combat, but you could swing your whole body over! Fuck that sissy head leaning in other FPSers that made you constantly readjust your position, or that shitty context button stuff. In System Shock, you could lean far down enough where you swear you're lying on your side and it was AWESOME because you never had to worry too much if your too far away from a wall to lean.
-A HUD that wasn't just a health and ammo counter. The hud is a result from cybernetic implants, and in the future they're not going to just count how much bullets you have. The hud was like having another OS on your system, buttons and panels and features all for your clicking. Don't like the cludder? You could activate your full screen mode and minimize your item windows (this game also had a FUCKING MANAGEABLE INVENTORY! AAAAAH!). You could customize your hud by what sort of statistics you wanted. Your weapons, your targets, your health (and fatigue!), your minimap, your little data log. This HUD was fucking sophisticated!
Want to know the coolest part? This game was released in early 1994, just four months after the original Doom, nine months before Marathon, two YEARS before Duke Nukem 3D, and probably came out before all these other games mentioned. This game would of been held in high regards as monolithic and an evolution in game design if anyone had actually paid attention to it.
