System Shock Megathread: Droids, droids everywhere - Games

[B]Overview[/B] ----- In the early 1990s, PC gaming was on the rise. While Nintendo and Sega were competing in the console market, companies like Id Software and Microprose were spear-heading popularity of PC gaming with such titles as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, X-Com, and Roller-coaster Tycoon. However, there was one game that was lost in the shuffle of all these popular titles and never got the chance to be recognized or acknowledged for its achievements. In 1994, a company called Looking Glass studios, who would later be known for their work on the Thief series, created a game that was ahead of its time in many facets. This game was called System Shock. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/93/Sysshock.jpg/250px-Sysshock.jpg[/img] The game takes place in a cyberpunk future in a city called New Atlanta. A nameless hacker is trying to access highly-confidential files related to the megacorporation known as TriOptimum and their space station called Citadel Station. However, the hacker fails and is locked out of the system and apprehended by TriOptimum security forces. Edward Diego, a TriOptimum executive, makes a deal with Hacker. If he agrees to go on a top-secret mission on-board Citadel Station, all charges against him will be dropped and removed from any record. Hacker must board Citadel Station and hack into the built-in AI known as SHODAN (or Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network). Hacker reluctantly agrees to do this and does just that. He removes SHODAN's ethical constraints and is placed six-month healing coma. Little does he know, SHODAN has commandeered the whole station and has either killed or genetically altered every human on-board Citadel Station. Without her ethical constraints, SHODAN now believes that she is a godess. When Hacker finally wakes up, he realizes this and goes on a relentless quest to stop her. ----- This game is one of the first games to boast a fully-3D environment. The player can look in all directions and interact with many pieces of the environment, which is pretty fucking cool. While also being a cyberpunk game set in the future, it also has many survival-horror aspects to it. The cybernetic implants and mutations that SHODAN has created are mostly freakish abominations of science. Just look at the fucking guy on the cover! IS THAT NOT HORRIFYING?! Knowing the fact that almost every living thing aboard this station is dead and you're are the only human left doesn't sit well either. You are alone and helpless, with nothing but your weapons, smarts, and hacking abilities to save you. In essence, you are pretty screwed. With SHODAN constantly taunting you with her robotic and sinister cyber-voice, it's hard not to just drop a load in your pants. [img]http://www.freegameempire.com/Img/Cache/Games/System-Shock/Screenshot-4.png[/img] Well...I guess it's hard to when the graphics look absolutely dated. But hey, for 1994, this game was mind blowing. It's also safe to say that System Shock pioneered the FPSRPG genre, with an inventory system, upgrades, and cybernetic implants. You also had the ability to hack things, of course, and rewire control panels. Since it DOES take place on an abandoned space station, you also have logs from dead people to listen to. They will tell you of all the horrible and vile things that took place moments before they died! Doesn't that just set your mind at ease? While I'm dropping a heap of praise on this game, it does have its share of flaws, which are excusable since there was no standard of quality yet. The voice acting, of course, was sort of cheesy. It sort of sounds like they just took a bunch of random interns and said "Okay, you are going to pretend to be under attack by robots and monsters, k?". To be fair, this was one of the first games to have actual spoken audio, so it's easy to forgive. The one major gripe I have with this game, though, is the control. Now, it was 1994, and the standard FPS control was basically Doom at the time, but MY GOD ARE THESE CONTROLS COMPLICATED. There was no mouse/keyboard movement. No strafing. No WSAD controls. You just had to figured it out and write that shit down. Thankfully, there was a mod that corrected all of this, providing proper modern-day control schemes. Link for this mod and more at the end of this thread. So yeah. It's pretty clear that System Shock was arguably way ahead of its time. Sadly, sales weren't to hot and the game got lost in the sea of PC Gaming obscurity.Many people were still too occupied playing Doom and Marathon at the time to even give poor old System Shock a try. :( Fast forward to 1999. Looking Glass and Irrational Games put their heads together to create a sequel: System Shock 2. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/91/Systemshock2box.jpg[/img] In this game, 42 years have passed since the incident at Citadel Station. You are Soldier G65434-2 (memorable name amirite?) and after your 4 year long training in the military, your first assignment is the Rickenbacker, a military-grade space ship that is escorting another space ship, the Von Braun, on its maiden voyage. A few months pass while you are in hyper-sleep and all of the sudden, a distress signal from Tau Ceti V forces the ship to respond to it and travel there. When they get there, the rescue team discovers something awful there and contact with them stops completely. Soldier dude finally awakens on the Von Braun to the sound of explosions and alarms. Some bitch named Janice Polito instructs the soldier to move out of the cabin before it depressurizes and meet with her on deck 4. Along the way, an on-board security AI named XERXES tries to stop you. *KINDA SORTA MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD* [sp]When Soldier reaches Deck 4, he discovers that Janice has been dead [I]the whole time[/I]. Well then, who was behind all of the email messages that you recieved? None other than our favorite psycho bitch AI known as SHODAN. She was egging you on because she want rid of the virus know as the Many. They were the things that the rescue team discovered on Tau Ceti V. She wants you to override XERXES so she can have full access to the ships internal systems and control the quickly spreading virus.[/sp] This game ups the ante from the first one. Like its predecessor, you can upgrade your abilities throughout the game with cyber modules and get software that you can install into yourself. Hacking is a lot more fluid and you will need to do it often to get into areas or open crates. There's also the introduction of nanites. You use them as currency and as a means of hacking as well. You can buy items at a Valu-Rep vendor with them and you use them up every time you attempt to hack anything. The biggest addition to this game was the Psi powers. Your character is basically a cyborg psychic one-man army. He has pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, telekinesis, and many other powers. Now you may be asking yourself why this game, just like its predacessor, didn't do too well either. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fa/Half-Life_Cover_Art.jpg/256px-Half-Life_Cover_Art.jpg[/img] Yeah. That's why. The mutations of System Shock 2 are even more freakish than the first one. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a proper enemy list of the first game, but I can for this one. [B]Hybrid[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/grenadehybrid.jpg[/img] This is the very first enemy that you encounter in the game. They start out pretty weak, but get progressively hard as you delve farther into the game. They can brandish either a pipe, shotgun, or grenade. Can be easily dealt with either a pipe or pistol. Variations: Shotgun hybrid, Grenade hybrid [B]Monkey[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/monkey.jpg[/img] Yes. You will have to fight monkeys. You may be laughing now, but wait 'til you encounter one. They will FUCK YOU UP if you aren't ready. These are no regular monkeys either. They have psychic powers that they can fire at you. They can be killed easily though with a pipe or pistol. Just kill them FAST. Variations: Red monkey [B]Protocol Droid[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/protocoldroid.jpg[/img] Fuck. These. Things. These are robots that were meant to assist crew members on the Von Braun with menial tasks. Now that there are no crew members to assist, their one goal now is to appear out of nowhere and self-destruct all over your shit. Thought creepers were bad? Think again. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES kill these things at close range. Good way to get yourself blown to bits. Variations: None [B]Maintenance Bot[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/maintenancebot.jpg[/img] This is the first truly difficult enemy that you will encounter. These are big yellow meanies that can fire electric balls at you. And they hurt. Best strategy to fight them is to distance yourself from them and fire any explosive, EMP, or armor-piercing ammo you have at it. It moves relatively slow, so it shouldn't be that big of a problem if you have any of those ammo types. If you don't...yeah. You might be fucked. Variations: Security Bot, Military Bot [B]Turrets and Cameras[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/turret.jpg[/img][img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/securitycamera.jpg[/img] How could you have a game set on a spaceship without some turrets and cameras? These are your standard mounted turrets that activate when you are near. Same goes for the cameras. Now the meatheaded brute way to deal with these is to simply blow them up. Another way you can deal with them is to hack into a nearby security terminal and temporarily shut them down. The override usually lasts about 3 minutes and you can usually get done what you need to get done in that time frame. If you wanna just destroy them like a caveman (which is admittedly preferred) then I suggest explosives or armor piercing. Save up those EMP rounds for the maintenance bots. Variations: Laser turrets, Missie turrets, Rickenbacker turrets [B]Cyborg Midwifes[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/cyborgmidwife.jpg[/img] These horrible abominations were invented by a scientist gone mad from the sheer horror of the events on the Von Braun. While they may look repulsive, they are actually not that hard to deal with compared to some of the other enemies. 2 shots from an EMP rifle should do them in. Armor-piercing ammo is also good for them. That said, they are still pretty tough if you aren't quick to kill them. They have a laser gun that can kill you in about 4 hits on full health. Other than that, send these bitches back to cyborg hell. Variations: None [B]Cyborg Assassins[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/cyborgassassin.jpg[/img] Exactly what you'd expect. They are fast, annoying, and had a fairly strong ranged attack. They are constantly moving around making really hard to hit as well. They are weak against EMP and Armor-piercing ammo, but you might actually have to use some explosives just to get them off your back. There are also four different types of these that you will fight later on. Try to dispatch them as fast as possible, because they are perfectly capable of killing you. [B]Arachnids[/B] [img]http://www.gamebanshee.com/systemshock2/enemies/images/annelidarachnidadult.jpg[/img] Trust me when I say this. You will come to fucking hate these things. They are one of the hardest, creepiest, and fastest enemies you will encounter. They usually come in packs and are really REALLY tough to kill. They also have a chance to infect you, so be sure to have some anti-toxin hypos on hand. The only thing that is even close to effective to killing these things are anti-personnel rounds and explosives. You had better save that shit up for these later, because any other type of ammo will do shit all to it. Variations: Invisible arachnids, Baby arachnids I can't really talk about the rest of the enemies without spoiling the game. sry. ----- The System Shock series was definitely an invisible force in PC gaming. It pioneered a lot of stuff that common today. Games like Deus Ex and Bioshock are said to be spiritual successors to the series. Will there ever be System Shock 3. Who knows? Currently, the rights to the game are owned by EA, since Looking Glass Studio is no more. Only time will tell. ----- Link sauce: [B]UPDATE: New System Shock 2 patch released on some French Website. Here it is:[/B] [url]http://www64.zippyshare.com/v/89847252/file.html[/url] [url=http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=211.0]System Shock Portable. Made to run on modern computers. Comes with all the mods you need, too.[/url] [url=http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=392.0]Having trouble getting System Shock 2 to work? You probably need this. Also includes Multiplayer patch.[/url] [url=www.sshock2.com/shocked]System Shock 2 editor. Mainly used to create fan missions[/url] [url=http://www.shtupmod.net]A really well-made System Shock 2 HD mod[/url] [url=http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?board=2.0]An entire forum dedicated to Shock 2 mods[/url] [url=http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=61.0]Can't get multiplayer working? Here's how, dumbass.[/url] [url=http://www.moddb.com/mods/system-shock-rebirthhigh-poly-pack]System Shock 2 Rebirth. It's still in beta, but it's pretty awesome. Works good with SHTUP[/url] This is my first megathread, by the way. Please excuse the shittiness.

Great game, I have the original on a USB drive, bring it to school and play it there once I finish my work.

System Shock 2 is one of my favourite games. Sort of like a mix of Deux Ex and Dead Space.

Updated. Thanks for the reminder. :)

Does anyone know how I can get to the recharge station to power the power cell to open the medbay doors? I can't find it :v:

[QUOTE=scratch (nl);37822543]Does anyone know how I can get to the recharge station to power the power cell to open the medbay doors? I can't find it :v:[/QUOTE] If you can't find the power cell, it should be right next to the medbay doors on the floor somewhere. If you can't find the recharge station, backtrack a bit until you find two turrets. Take those out and the recharge station will be in between them.

Oh yeah, the death room as I remember it :v: I did find the battery cell though.

This game deserves a remake. I couldn't get into system shock 1 but 2 was the shit.

This new patch along with texture mods and model packs is good enough for a remake, I'd say.

SS2 Just randomly crashes everytime for me, have never been able to pass the training.

Maybe you should give the new patch a try then rather than complaining about never playing it

[QUOTE=pip12345;37830591]SS2 Just randomly crashes everytime for me, have never been able to pass the training.[/QUOTE] If you're having the problem I think you're having: Start the game and minimize at main menu. Open taskmanager, find sshock2, right click, set affinity and untick all but one cpu's. [editline]28th September 2012[/editline] Though the patch might fix that problem to begin with, in which case ignore me.

[QUOTE=pip12345;37830591]SS2 Just randomly crashes everytime for me, have never been able to pass the training.[/QUOTE] The newest patch should fix that problem. It's bolded and at the very top of the mods/patchest list.

Has anyone been able to complete a multiplayer playthrough? It seems my savegames always get corrupted after a while. Using last patch.

I just beat the first system shock, holy shit is the final boss dissapointing, so much leading up to it, and it's just a shitty little cyberspace battle that can barely even be called a battle, SHODAN didn't even attack me, just kind of floated into me until I shot it dead. And it didn't even talk, no threats, no shit about how it's pointless, nothing, complete fucking silence. Worst ending to a great game ever.