System Shock 2 on a modern PC?

[The Madman]

Hats off to you sir. You know your stuff. I read your review, and that is truly awesome. I don't agree with all of it, but you really know that game!

Why thank you! Personally I prefer SHODAN over Fontaine and Ryan, but that's more a matter of personal preference than anything else I expect. However if you've played System Shock 2 I also recommend reading this article as it's a fantastic piece. Might give you some new insight into SS2 you'd missed previously or never picked up on, and even if it doesn't it's a fun read.

Regardless System Shock 2 is a damn good game I figure most people oughta at least try. Not everyone will like it of course, but for the rest it's a solid experience you wont soon forget.

 

[octafish]

Lights off and headphones. There is no other way to play.

... oh if you have any kind of pet, lock them in another room. It... It isn't good when your cat leaps on your lap during a session of SS2.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

*cracks knuckles*

Finally, someone making a topic about a game I specialize in. Yes, it's capable of running on newer computers although it takes a fair bit of fiddling with the game since its engine was never designed to run on such advanced computers. However there's actually a fan made patch for the game which in most cases is all you need though to get the game running on new computers, available here. Install the game, run the SS2Tool, enjoy!

And no, it's not just fanboy talk (Although I do suspect most of the 'system shock' was better crowd when the game was released hadn't even played SS!), System Shock 2 really is absolutely incredible and superior in a number of ways over the much-simplified Bioshock.

Awesomely enough, googling 'System Shock 2 Retrospective' brings up my old topic on the first page. HERE YOU GO! I wont bother repeating how much I love System Shock 2 here when I can just link there and save both time and effort!

Good luck, the game's worth it!

ok quick question sir.

I do own the game, and my friend has sent me a patch, which he used and he got it working, but it doesn't work on mine. I have a windows 7, newer laptop and I can get Deus Ex working just perfectly. Everytime I try to play this, it gets me to the title screen,but when I click 'play' i get a black screen and a error message comes up. I realllllly wanna play this game, and was wondering if you could help.

Thank you!

 

[ShiningOmega]

Hats off to you sir. You know your stuff. I read your review, and that is truly awesome. I don't agree with all of it, but you really know that game!

Why thank you! Personally I prefer SHODAN over Fontaine and Ryan, but that's more a matter of personal preference than anything else I expect. However if you've played System Shock 2 I also recommend reading this article as it's a fantastic piece. Might give you some new insight into SS2 you'd missed previously or never picked up on, and even if it doesn't it's a fun read.

Regardless System Shock 2 is a damn good game I figure most people oughta at least try. Not everyone will like it of course, but for the rest it's a solid experience you wont soon forget.

Yes, I have read that article. And yes, it is fantastic and eye-opening. I never got the chance to play the original System Shock, so a lot of it was new to me. Is the original good, in your opinion? How good, compared to SS2?

 

[The Madman]

ok quick question sir.

I do own the game, and my friend has sent me a patch, which he used and he got it working, but it doesn't work on mine. I have a windows 7, newer laptop and I can get Deus Ex working just perfectly. Everytime I try to play this, it gets me to the title screen,but when I click 'play' i get a black screen and a error message comes up. I realllllly wanna play this game, and was wondering if you could help.

Thank you!

You're in luck, I'm pretty sure I know what your problem is: The videos. System Shock 2 uses an extremely outdated codec for its few cinematic which hasn't been used in years. The result is that in most cases they simply refuse to play and in other situation will even crash the game when it tries to load the video and fails.

Did the intro cinematic play? Can you play it? If not, then that's your problem right there. Two ways to solve it: Easiest is just to delete the video from the SS2 directory and watch em on youtube or something. If the game can't find em it'll just move onto the game itself, don't worry, there's only 3 cinematic that count in the game including the intro. The more difficult way to get em running is to download the Indio codec and force it into working through a series of work-arounds. A guide for that can be found HERE.

Good luck, hope that was the problem. If not can you tell me what the error says?

Yes, I have read that article. And yes, it is fantastic and eye-opening. I never got the chance to play the original System Shock, so a lot of it was new to me. Is the original good, in your opinion? How good, compared to SS2?

The original is much more difficult to get into since it was one of the forefathers of mouse-look gameplay in fps, meaning frankly it doesn't play that well compared to modern games. That said if you've got a tolerance for old visuals, perhaps you've played the old Marathon series or original Doom, then it's certainly worth looking into. Make sure you play the CD rom version however as it's the one with voices, the original DOS version was silent but for music and sound effects which kinda kills the ambiance I found.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I Wish I could get hold of SS or SS2 on Mac which would work with my bookpro cos I loved bioshock and found the atmosphere and story the highlights which seems like a good reason to check out SS & SS2

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

ok quick question sir.

I do own the game, and my friend has sent me a patch, which he used and he got it working, but it doesn't work on mine. I have a windows 7, newer laptop and I can get Deus Ex working just perfectly. Everytime I try to play this, it gets me to the title screen,but when I click 'play' i get a black screen and a error message comes up. I realllllly wanna play this game, and was wondering if you could help.

Thank you!

You're in luck, I'm pretty sure I know what your problem is: The videos. System Shock 2 uses an extremely outdated codec for its few cinematic which hasn't been used in years. The result is that in most cases they simply refuse to play and in other situation will even crash the game when it tries to load the video and fails.

Did the intro cinematic play? Can you play it? If not, then that's your problem right there. Two ways to solve it: Easiest is just to delete the video from the SS2 directory and watch em on youtube or something. If the game can't find em it'll just move onto the game itself, don't worry, there's only 3 cinematic that count in the game including the intro. The more difficult way to get em running is to download the Indio codec and force it into working through a series of work-arounds. A guide for that can be found HERE.

Good luck, hope that was the problem. If not can you tell me what the error says?

Yes, I have read that article. And yes, it is fantastic and eye-opening. I never got the chance to play the original System Shock, so a lot of it was new to me. Is the original good, in your opinion? How good, compared to SS2?

The original is much more difficult to get into since it was one of the forefathers of mouse-look gameplay in fps, meaning frankly it doesn't play that well compared to modern games. That said if you've got a tolerance for old visuals, perhaps you've played the old Marathon series or original Doom, then it's certainly worth looking into. Make sure you play the CD rom version however as it's the one with voices, the original DOS version was silent but for music and sound effects which kinda kills the ambiance I found.

I do believe the error says something about the game has crashed?

And could you tell me why Deus Ex works like a charm but system shock 2 doesn't?

 

[Delusibeta]

I do believe the error says something about the game has crashed?

And could you tell me why Deus Ex works like a charm but system shock 2 doesn't?

As he said, the videos are yer problem. System Shock 2 used an old and abandoned video codec, Deus Ex didn't. That, and the fact that Deus Ex was an Unreal Engine 1 game.