Tschumi
Member
So, this is chewed meat. Mandalore Gaming did a cut on dis, and so, probably, did many others.
In fact, so too probably did many of you, as this 'demo' has been out a fair while now.
But I've done it now, and I've come here to talk to you about it. So stay a while, friend, and listen..
System Shock 1. NOT the classic. That'd be System Shock 2 lllllLLllLLlOOOK AT YOOUuuU, HAAaaCKERR, System Shock one is the no-less-influential but far-less accessible forerunner of that titanic achievement in atmosphere and storytelling, Was I of age to play System Shock 1? Yes, technically. Did I? Shit no. Why not? Because its interface was ridiculous, I was not very smart, and it wasn't all that popular anyway - at least, no sufficiently popular to get through to a youngin like me.
But that's all by the wayside now, because there's a modernization in the pipeline (yes, 23 hours ago a tweet was made confirming that it is 'still on') and you can play a Demo for free via steam. Do this. Do it. Do it. (I won't put up the Ben Stiller gif)
This game is a work of art. I am utterly entranced by it. It is faithful, stylistic - so very stylistic - it has pitch perfect exploration, medium-transcending soundtracking, a perfect balance of contemproary graphic techniques and low-res texture work.
Ths story? You've been caught hacking into a space station, so you've been picked up and sent to that space station to solve some problems that appear to have popped up. I could have that slightly wrong. It matters little because the actual story is the content of extensive voice acting audio files and text files that you will pick up as you explore the labrynthine space station.
Remakes like this always cut me deep because, like with great music, it stands to reason that the first decades hoovered up all the best gameplay ideas, leaving only iteration and slight variation to the developers of today. System Shock is a FPS, yes, but is it Half Life? No. Is it Deus Ex? No. What the hell is it? Is it System Shock 2? No. It's an older, more arcane, dark and glumthy piece of sci-fi horror. I feel like I discovered it in the gaming equivalent of an egyptian tomb.
Anyway, enough of this, I took some steamshots (yayF12) as I explored the station, and I'm going to try and talk through them, pointing out cool things. I apologise to any mobile phone users if the size of the images is out of whack with ur screen res, etc.
this is just the bootup splash, or whatever you'd call it, that you see when the game first gets going. I just love the visual style, reminiscent of Alien.
Thie main screen, no menu in this 'demo', you just 'press any key' and go into config.... The screen is great, that station orbits, the lens flares dance, and it all hiccups with distortion.
Here's the config screen, for this first attempt I had everything [that I could] set to middle-of-the-road diffuclty, I wanted to get enough time to have a comprehensive array of screens.
This is what I saw when I first entered the world. You're in a low-ceilinged, glittering medical bay.
Notice at the top of the screen a little descriptive readout - this is a wonderful feature, I always love the intrigue of systems like this, such as in the later Metroid Prime.
Also note that random, pointless objects litter the shelves. This is something that I haven't encountered much these days - there's always a use for every item - either as vendor trash, crafting fodder, cooking mats - but in this game you're really just taking up bag space if you decide to clear all the thermometers and pee trays off med-bay shelving... I love this. The sense that a lot of these objects are intended for use by someone OTHER THAN THE PLAYER heightens a sense of incursion for me, and brings the game closer to real world environments - so good for the horror aspect.
This is the interior of a 'surgery bed'. You encouter one early in the game, and you know why the hell not? Sit down in there and chill... It's an incredible, joyful experience - highly detailed, the sheathes of green laser light scan up and down you, steam hisses, and sci-fi consumes you.
I am just in love with this old school art. Tron style. This is what I'm talking about when I say that I feel like this game comes from an Egyptian Tomb... someone, 30ish years ago, carefully plinked out this image. I don't know who you were, mr. plinker, but I fucking appreciate this work, even if you yourself forgot doing it.
Yeah, you get a weapon pretty early on. That opening med bay has some nooks and this is in one of them. It is beautifully detailed and feels like it would do some serious damage - it doesn't really show out when you're hitting mofos, but it's still a fantastic looking weapon.
An aforementioned mofo, sorry I couldn't get a clearer view but I was stretching fingers like that android in Ghost in the Shell with the million fingers in his fingers and this is what we got. This was probably my first enocunter with these weird, moth-like mutant enemies. They've got the most striking, staring, foggy eyes, and the low-fi texturing gets lit up by lighting in incredible ways. These guys got a jump out of me twice.
This was a truly striking moment, I had not heard that these NPCs existed (or had forgotten about them) I opened a door on a medbay, quickly allowed it to close again and saved before striding in... but lo! the mofo ignores me and just went around looking at the dudes on the beds. What is his function? Is he helping them? Or is he overseeing their mutation? Their bodies are covered in rhythmically pulsing runes, this guy silently pads from bed to bed looking them over. I left it all alone, grateful for a moment of calm even if it had potentially horrible undertones.
One mothman down, another one emerging from the murk, shortly after this screen I sprinted at him and landed a charged blow on his head, while I kicked out with my leg and disturbed a rubbish bin.
Wow, this is amazing, it looks like I've only got one screenshot of this sequnce but, ladies and gents, for a moment I dove into an alternate universe, a retro shooter much like descent, when I plugged in to a cyberspace interfact. This was awesome fun, simple WASD controls, you shoot purple shiruken thingies at various cyber defence programs. If you can navigate the maze in the set time, I dunno, good things happen. Or not. I don't care if they don't because, you see, the whole cyberspace minigame is IN ITSELF A GOOD THING! Truly.
Here's a cyberspace interface viewed from the outside. Cyberpunk 2077 pissed a lot of people off with its seizure-inducing light blinks on release, well I have never had a seizure in my life but I obliged to look away and shield my eyes whilst my psyche was transported into the interwebs. Funny, I do the same when I log into NeoGAF...
This unfourtunate hammer-receptical is actually the face of a mutated Marine. These guys freak you out at first - they shoot often and quickly - but they don't seem to do heaps of damage. Take one more hit to kill than the bigeye mothman mutant things. Slightly dated character models here, I don't know why anyone thinks there's something scary about the dude having a half-jacket.
Got myself a goon. Goooonz. Only 10 shots and they ran out quick as I blew out any of Shodan's security cameras that weren't within hammer reach. This thing is really cool, sounds nice when it fires, sends off a nice little projectile which achieves its intended results with satsifying accuracy.
Yes, those are rotating yellow lights lighting up a slowly unlocking blast door. That is page one in the 'awesomesauce' recipe book.
Manually clicking keypad buttons, is there anything finer?
When I saw this touch of greenery, this hydroponics lab, I really knew that this was a special game that appealed to me on many levels.
Awesome, a scene of massacre, a long windowed hall full of dead employees with a pair of mothmen stalking around some bodies, shapeless messy masses dot the tableaux, and the whole thing gives a stark effect which pays off when you find a voice recording and learn something of the story of the corpses dotting the space.
Is gone, is good. Just wanted to let you guys have another look at these great models - you can't really tell, but the textures really are heavily pixellated in the most stylish way. Moments after this was taken he got squished by a sliding door and dissapointingly failed to shear in half.
Just wanted to show this Save Game page, it's really cool - easy to access, you manually click the little 'save' option under that file. Something about this stylistic choice, this placement of the save button, really hit a buzzer in me.
Okay guys, that's me done, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of a small slice of the experience you will have for yourself if you boot up this free-to-play demo from steam. Do it!
I think all of my thoughts are conveyed in stuff I've written throughout this post, so I'll just leave it there and wish you all good gaming.
THANK YOU, HACCKKEEEERRRRRRrrrrr*
*I know that's SS2 anyway sha'ap, jus' sha'ap
In fact, so too probably did many of you, as this 'demo' has been out a fair while now.
But I've done it now, and I've come here to talk to you about it. So stay a while, friend, and listen..
System Shock 1. NOT the classic. That'd be System Shock 2 lllllLLllLLlOOOK AT YOOUuuU, HAAaaCKERR, System Shock one is the no-less-influential but far-less accessible forerunner of that titanic achievement in atmosphere and storytelling, Was I of age to play System Shock 1? Yes, technically. Did I? Shit no. Why not? Because its interface was ridiculous, I was not very smart, and it wasn't all that popular anyway - at least, no sufficiently popular to get through to a youngin like me.
But that's all by the wayside now, because there's a modernization in the pipeline (yes, 23 hours ago a tweet was made confirming that it is 'still on') and you can play a Demo for free via steam. Do this. Do it. Do it. (I won't put up the Ben Stiller gif)
This game is a work of art. I am utterly entranced by it. It is faithful, stylistic - so very stylistic - it has pitch perfect exploration, medium-transcending soundtracking, a perfect balance of contemproary graphic techniques and low-res texture work.
Ths story? You've been caught hacking into a space station, so you've been picked up and sent to that space station to solve some problems that appear to have popped up. I could have that slightly wrong. It matters little because the actual story is the content of extensive voice acting audio files and text files that you will pick up as you explore the labrynthine space station.
Remakes like this always cut me deep because, like with great music, it stands to reason that the first decades hoovered up all the best gameplay ideas, leaving only iteration and slight variation to the developers of today. System Shock is a FPS, yes, but is it Half Life? No. Is it Deus Ex? No. What the hell is it? Is it System Shock 2? No. It's an older, more arcane, dark and glumthy piece of sci-fi horror. I feel like I discovered it in the gaming equivalent of an egyptian tomb.
Anyway, enough of this, I took some steamshots (yayF12) as I explored the station, and I'm going to try and talk through them, pointing out cool things. I apologise to any mobile phone users if the size of the images is out of whack with ur screen res, etc.
this is just the bootup splash, or whatever you'd call it, that you see when the game first gets going. I just love the visual style, reminiscent of Alien.
Thie main screen, no menu in this 'demo', you just 'press any key' and go into config.... The screen is great, that station orbits, the lens flares dance, and it all hiccups with distortion.
Here's the config screen, for this first attempt I had everything [that I could] set to middle-of-the-road diffuclty, I wanted to get enough time to have a comprehensive array of screens.
This is what I saw when I first entered the world. You're in a low-ceilinged, glittering medical bay.
Notice at the top of the screen a little descriptive readout - this is a wonderful feature, I always love the intrigue of systems like this, such as in the later Metroid Prime.
Also note that random, pointless objects litter the shelves. This is something that I haven't encountered much these days - there's always a use for every item - either as vendor trash, crafting fodder, cooking mats - but in this game you're really just taking up bag space if you decide to clear all the thermometers and pee trays off med-bay shelving... I love this. The sense that a lot of these objects are intended for use by someone OTHER THAN THE PLAYER heightens a sense of incursion for me, and brings the game closer to real world environments - so good for the horror aspect.
This is the interior of a 'surgery bed'. You encouter one early in the game, and you know why the hell not? Sit down in there and chill... It's an incredible, joyful experience - highly detailed, the sheathes of green laser light scan up and down you, steam hisses, and sci-fi consumes you.
I am just in love with this old school art. Tron style. This is what I'm talking about when I say that I feel like this game comes from an Egyptian Tomb... someone, 30ish years ago, carefully plinked out this image. I don't know who you were, mr. plinker, but I fucking appreciate this work, even if you yourself forgot doing it.
Yeah, you get a weapon pretty early on. That opening med bay has some nooks and this is in one of them. It is beautifully detailed and feels like it would do some serious damage - it doesn't really show out when you're hitting mofos, but it's still a fantastic looking weapon.
An aforementioned mofo, sorry I couldn't get a clearer view but I was stretching fingers like that android in Ghost in the Shell with the million fingers in his fingers and this is what we got. This was probably my first enocunter with these weird, moth-like mutant enemies. They've got the most striking, staring, foggy eyes, and the low-fi texturing gets lit up by lighting in incredible ways. These guys got a jump out of me twice.
This was a truly striking moment, I had not heard that these NPCs existed (or had forgotten about them) I opened a door on a medbay, quickly allowed it to close again and saved before striding in... but lo! the mofo ignores me and just went around looking at the dudes on the beds. What is his function? Is he helping them? Or is he overseeing their mutation? Their bodies are covered in rhythmically pulsing runes, this guy silently pads from bed to bed looking them over. I left it all alone, grateful for a moment of calm even if it had potentially horrible undertones.
One mothman down, another one emerging from the murk, shortly after this screen I sprinted at him and landed a charged blow on his head, while I kicked out with my leg and disturbed a rubbish bin.
Wow, this is amazing, it looks like I've only got one screenshot of this sequnce but, ladies and gents, for a moment I dove into an alternate universe, a retro shooter much like descent, when I plugged in to a cyberspace interfact. This was awesome fun, simple WASD controls, you shoot purple shiruken thingies at various cyber defence programs. If you can navigate the maze in the set time, I dunno, good things happen. Or not. I don't care if they don't because, you see, the whole cyberspace minigame is IN ITSELF A GOOD THING! Truly.
Here's a cyberspace interface viewed from the outside. Cyberpunk 2077 pissed a lot of people off with its seizure-inducing light blinks on release, well I have never had a seizure in my life but I obliged to look away and shield my eyes whilst my psyche was transported into the interwebs. Funny, I do the same when I log into NeoGAF...
This unfourtunate hammer-receptical is actually the face of a mutated Marine. These guys freak you out at first - they shoot often and quickly - but they don't seem to do heaps of damage. Take one more hit to kill than the bigeye mothman mutant things. Slightly dated character models here, I don't know why anyone thinks there's something scary about the dude having a half-jacket.
Got myself a goon. Goooonz. Only 10 shots and they ran out quick as I blew out any of Shodan's security cameras that weren't within hammer reach. This thing is really cool, sounds nice when it fires, sends off a nice little projectile which achieves its intended results with satsifying accuracy.
Yes, those are rotating yellow lights lighting up a slowly unlocking blast door. That is page one in the 'awesomesauce' recipe book.
Manually clicking keypad buttons, is there anything finer?
When I saw this touch of greenery, this hydroponics lab, I really knew that this was a special game that appealed to me on many levels.
Awesome, a scene of massacre, a long windowed hall full of dead employees with a pair of mothmen stalking around some bodies, shapeless messy masses dot the tableaux, and the whole thing gives a stark effect which pays off when you find a voice recording and learn something of the story of the corpses dotting the space.
Is gone, is good. Just wanted to let you guys have another look at these great models - you can't really tell, but the textures really are heavily pixellated in the most stylish way. Moments after this was taken he got squished by a sliding door and dissapointingly failed to shear in half.
Just wanted to show this Save Game page, it's really cool - easy to access, you manually click the little 'save' option under that file. Something about this stylistic choice, this placement of the save button, really hit a buzzer in me.
I think all of my thoughts are conveyed in stuff I've written throughout this post, so I'll just leave it there and wish you all good gaming.
THANK YOU, HACCKKEEEERRRRRRrrrrr*
*I know that's SS2 anyway sha'ap, jus' sha'ap
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