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System Shock does everything right in this remake!

761 View2023-06-04

System Shock

10.0

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System Shock (Reviewed)

Developer: Nightdive Studios

Publisher: Prime Matter

Released: May 30th, 2023

Price: $40 USD

When it comes to classic video games that eventually get a much-needed remake, System Shock is a breath of fresh air. This is for all you need to know the original game that has been rebuilt in the image that it and all games deserve to be in.

Survival Horror, combined with a cyberpunk atmosphere and excellent exploration and discovery will keep you entertained no matter how many times you run in circles.

It delivers on its promises and fully immerses you the player in it's magnificent universe that is under assault from an artificial being threatening all of humanity while also making sure that you understand it's primarily all of your fault in the first place, really pushing the immersion to the next level.

The game bears striking similarities to classic exploration games such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil, finding keys and revealing new locations while piecing together a story as you uncover more disturbing truths.

Story

SHODAN

The game takes place eventually aboard Citadel station orbiting Saturn in a cyberpunk vision of 2072. Assuming the role of an anonymous security Hacker, the player strives to thwart the goals of SHODAN, a hostile artificial intelligence.

The Hacker (player) gains access to the computer systems and files pertaining to Citadel Station on Earth. He is promptly apprehended by soldiers and hauled off to that very station, he is brought before Edward Diego, a corrupt official.

Diego offers to waive all charges against the Hacker in exchange for a simple and discreet hacking of the Station's artificial intelligence without a choice.

Diego offers the Hacker a military grade cyber implant that he was looking for prior in exchange for cooperation to entice him to do what he wants him to do.

The Hacker complies erasing the AI's ethical limitations, and passing control over to Diego. The Hacker is placed in a six-month healing coma following the operation in which the promised cyber implant was installed.

When the Hacker awakens he discovers that the Citadel Station is under the full control of SHODAN, who has gone rogue and believes herself to be a kind of god without her ethical limitations going so far as to aiming the stations mining laser directly at your home planet Earth to purge it of all major cities.

Amazing Storytelling

Every time I walk around, I search through every nook and cranny for a new voice recording or email log so I could sit back and read or listen to anguished voices of SHODAN's soon-to-be mutilated and mutated human victims.

The story is precisely as it was in the original 1994 game, right down to recruiting the original voice actor Terri Brosius to play one of video game history's most memorable villains SHODAN. Everything has been done right to bring it to life.

Gameplay

Fantastic

There are many different aspects intertwined with the core gameplay while also catering to various types of gamers without pressuring you into doing things.

The difficulty settings allow you to customize your gameplay, so if you want to appreciate some relatively difficult and interesting puzzles, you can set this to the highest level but for those who don't want to do puzzles you can set this to a lower value and use puzzle skip devices to ignore them completely to save time.

If you hate being swarmed by mutants and cyborgs every time you return to a area or enter a new one then you can set combat to the lowest, allowing you to have more narrative. Though, in my opinion, this removes you from the never-ending fear of death while being constantly on a low amount of resources.

Power Stations

Aside from the weapons that require ammunition, you can spend energy to power one or perhaps more weapons later in the game. The downside of having these weapons is that they have an extremely long cooldown, but when used correctly, they may save you a lot of time and effort with resource management.

Power Stations will recharge after a short time, though I'm not sure if this is also affected by difficulty settings. It's not like energy has a lot of power; in fact, it's quite lacklustre, making you want to use your main weapons more, even if it means losing all of your ammo.

Navigation

You'll definitely have trouble finding your way around the station, especially if you forget a specialized healing resource like radiation resistance and have to make a beeline for the nearest radiation cleansing chamber before you perish.

It's done well. The ship is winding and hard to navigate an definitely can confuse you, but that's where you begin to plan out your exploration giving you more reason to fully immerse yourself in that part of the games focus.

While the ability to adjust the map is limited, you can do things like ping locked doors or a location that can't be accessed so you don't get confused going back to the location later since you couldn't remember. Though that would make it a little too easy to traverse, removing the sense of exploration and discovery.

Tense

The game features an excellent sense of dread lurking over the player, as well as a healthy dosage of atmosphere to make you feel nervous and frightened to turn the next corner for the big robotic security measure ready to pounce the second you enter the room, especially while you're out of primary ammunition.

The game doesn't pull any punches, increasing the amount of "this is seriously messed up!" with each audio tape you listen to including S

Brutal

You can die in the most cruel ways. You have to keep an eye on your back, check over your shoulders, and peek around corners because you never know when you're going to be jumped by a giant cyborg or suicide bombing cyborg.

Though I did choose one of the harder difficulty when it came to the combat, so that's on me, it should be a lot more easier if you did choose a lower difficulty.

Presentation

Satisfying

What comes to mind when you hear the word Cyberpunk? Cybernetics for me.

This game excellently displays immersive augmentation in which you can disable and enable your cybernetic implants whenever you choose where everything you do and interact with is done as if you were adjusting a computer. Heartrate monitors, mini-map and compass navigation and much more.

Picking up voice recordings? You got a cyber glove device to play those and record them, scanning devices? The same cyber device can also do that as well. I'm continuously impressed by what the game keeps introducing over time.

Creatures

Aside from the basic mutant, the cyborgs, robots, and other such enemies you may encounter on the station are all beautifully done. They all have differing threat levels, but it never feels repetitive while also maintaining the aspect of sci-fi and cyberpunk with a mixture of horror.

Problems

A few fun bugs

You can't be furious at such a fantastic game while loving all of the minor faults and errors that just serve to elevate it. These bugs honestly highlight why so many classic games were so memorable; I even encountered an incident where an enemy I had never seen before was hanging from the ceiling of a room as I walked in. It was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time like the game was intentionally doing it to make me feel even more immersed than I already was.

Aside from these amusing situations, the game is fine; nothing is broken, and everything works as it should which is a great thing to see in remakes.

Conclusion

Worth every minute of your time

I plan on playing from beginning to end, which is something I rarely have time or want to accomplish because of how little effort most developers put in to keep players engaged for a long duration and instead use cheap gimmicks to keep them around like adding a feline or other cute animal here and there.

I don't think this is a game you should skip or overlook. If you like classic games or even Bioshock, Deux Ex & Prey and haven't played the game that started it all, I highly recommend you do so. It does everything it needs to do without fail.

The story, ambiance, and other features all work nicely together to produce an experience that you will be able to appreciate regardless of what style of gamer you are, Puzzle solver, FPS, Story and so on. I really don't want to spoil too much of this game, just go in with an open mind and willingness to explore and soak up all of what the game has to offer you and pray we get more fantastic remakes!

This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them.

If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.

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- Pawkt