They haven't, but they're also the kind of games that don't get made very often. Especially not these days. inB4 Bioshock, the Bioshock games are *very* poor successors to System Shock. SS/SS2's RPG elements got completely gutted, I assume to "broaden" Bioshock's appeal or some such bullshit.A Gray Phantom said:
Zero Punctuation: System Shock 2
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
The part that really pissed me off when playing this with my friend, was that I'd find a really neat gun, shoot two shots and never find any more ammo for it.
As a longtime fan of ZP I realize that his mauling of SS2 is just Yahtzee being Yahtzee, and that's cool. But as an even longer-time fan of SS2 I feel somewhat obligated to stand up for it, so bear with me here--
"You're assigned to an experimental FTL ship exploring a distant galaxy..."
The Von Braun's destination is the Tau Ceti system, which is well within this galaxy (only 12 light-years away).
"You set off to piece together what happened and look for survivors, although you won't find any because there wasn't enough room on CDs to have friendly NPCs..."
This was a rather silly thing to say even by Yahtzee's standards, since we've had friendly NPCs in gaming since practically as long as computer gaming has existed. Rather, the lack of NPCs in SS2 was a deliberate design decision carried over from the original System Shock. I'll let Warren Spector explain--
"Then again you can't port System Shock 2 to a console until someone invents a game pad with mouse control and more buttons than a microwave at an arts and crafts shop."
There was in fact a port of SS2 to the Dreamcast in the works, sadly canceled when the console failed to take off. The number of buttons actually required to play SS2 is grossly exaggerated. The controls are for the most part bog-standard FPS-- move, run, jump, crouch, select weapons, reload, use. To that SS2 adds leaning, and a couple of binds for switching weapon mode and ammo type. There are a pile of other binds, yes, but you don't have to use them, they're just shortcuts for things that you can accomplish otherwise via clicking around in the cyber-interface. So yeah, SS2 would have ported to a console just fine. They didn't have any problem with Oblivion or Fallout 3, right?
"Oh no, it looks like you sunk all your points into scratching your bum!" etc...
It's a fair complaint that SS2 puts you in the position of having to make character upgrade decisions without full knowledge of how those decisions will play out, but that's an intrinsic problem with RPGs in general, and the only real "solution" to it is to allow respeccing, which is utterly lame. But what SS2 does do, via the career sequence, is start you out with a set of guided choices that are guaranteed not to gimp you no matter what you pick. This gives the player a sense of direction for their future upgrade choices, despite the game using a classless character system. Very cool.
Still, yes, it's possible to make bad choices, but hey, if there were only good choices, what's the point of choosing at all? True freedom includes the freedom to screw yourself.
"That fucking techno music."
Beg pardon? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UQLqqOVWb0]
"Another someone modded in co-op gameplay."
As already pointed out in this thread, that someone was Irrational Games. It was supposed to be in the game to begin with, and was even advertised on the box, but they couldn't get it working in time. They didn't even want to include it in the game in the first place (survival horror and co-op being about as compatible as peanut butter and spaghetti sauce), but EA forced them to.
But speaking of mods, there are a few excellent ones that improve the hell out of the original rather fuzzy textures and blocky models. You can find most of them here [http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?board=2.0].
"Those weird Dark Engine physics that feel like you're walking around with your feet trapped in bowling balls."
Another very odd complaint, given that the Dark Engine was created for Thief, a game which is all about precise player movement and control, and generally the recipient of high praise in this department.
"You're assigned to an experimental FTL ship exploring a distant galaxy..."
The Von Braun's destination is the Tau Ceti system, which is well within this galaxy (only 12 light-years away).
"You set off to piece together what happened and look for survivors, although you won't find any because there wasn't enough room on CDs to have friendly NPCs..."
This was a rather silly thing to say even by Yahtzee's standards, since we've had friendly NPCs in gaming since practically as long as computer gaming has existed. Rather, the lack of NPCs in SS2 was a deliberate design decision carried over from the original System Shock. I'll let Warren Spector explain--
Remodeling RPGs for the New Millennium [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131716/remodeling_rpgs_for_the_new_.php?page=3] (Gamasutra)Warren Spector said:
"Then again you can't port System Shock 2 to a console until someone invents a game pad with mouse control and more buttons than a microwave at an arts and crafts shop."
There was in fact a port of SS2 to the Dreamcast in the works, sadly canceled when the console failed to take off. The number of buttons actually required to play SS2 is grossly exaggerated. The controls are for the most part bog-standard FPS-- move, run, jump, crouch, select weapons, reload, use. To that SS2 adds leaning, and a couple of binds for switching weapon mode and ammo type. There are a pile of other binds, yes, but you don't have to use them, they're just shortcuts for things that you can accomplish otherwise via clicking around in the cyber-interface. So yeah, SS2 would have ported to a console just fine. They didn't have any problem with Oblivion or Fallout 3, right?
"Oh no, it looks like you sunk all your points into scratching your bum!" etc...
It's a fair complaint that SS2 puts you in the position of having to make character upgrade decisions without full knowledge of how those decisions will play out, but that's an intrinsic problem with RPGs in general, and the only real "solution" to it is to allow respeccing, which is utterly lame. But what SS2 does do, via the career sequence, is start you out with a set of guided choices that are guaranteed not to gimp you no matter what you pick. This gives the player a sense of direction for their future upgrade choices, despite the game using a classless character system. Very cool.
Still, yes, it's possible to make bad choices, but hey, if there were only good choices, what's the point of choosing at all? True freedom includes the freedom to screw yourself.
"That fucking techno music."
Beg pardon? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UQLqqOVWb0]
"Another someone modded in co-op gameplay."
As already pointed out in this thread, that someone was Irrational Games. It was supposed to be in the game to begin with, and was even advertised on the box, but they couldn't get it working in time. They didn't even want to include it in the game in the first place (survival horror and co-op being about as compatible as peanut butter and spaghetti sauce), but EA forced them to.
But speaking of mods, there are a few excellent ones that improve the hell out of the original rather fuzzy textures and blocky models. You can find most of them here [http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?board=2.0].
"Those weird Dark Engine physics that feel like you're walking around with your feet trapped in bowling balls."
Another very odd complaint, given that the Dark Engine was created for Thief, a game which is all about precise player movement and control, and generally the recipient of high praise in this department.
A) This was a 90's game, cut it some slack, Yahtzee.
B) The inventory was *not* complicated. You want buttons mapped to everything? Play MMOs or Elder Scrolls or whatnot. Even if the key bindings were there, I didn't use most of them. Look, if Oblivion can go to console, you can play System Shock 2 without getting confused.
C) Character creation was lenient as hell. You could make it through game provided you at least had *some* offensive capability. I got through as a psion; my friend got through on Impossible with just melee; hacker is the real hardcore way to do it, but you don't *have* to do that. (Fun fact: did you know you can get SHODAN to kill herself as long as you hack her consoles? No joke. Said friend on Impossible jumped on her platform and got her minion to shoot her in the face.)
D) Co-op was already there before a mod. It's buggy as hell and no one likes it. Ignore.
E) The game's motion capability was fine for its era. The physics doesn't suck any more than anyone else's physics, granted I played mostly console games around the time SS2 came out.
F) Why did you like the game? Because it was a nifty retread of a very workable trope, with a great horror setup, spooky audio log system (new at the time before Bioshock stole all SS2's thunder, dammit), and a gleefully over-the-top villain who did all the Super Evil tropes *just right.* Ignore the buggy game. It was a low-budget company trying to get back on its feet.
Also, you heretic for saying in the Bioshock Infinite review that Bioshock did SS2 better. Go back and look at your original Bioshock review; it's hella shallow (and IMO boring) compared to SS2. Shock as a series is also going far from its roots now; it should really just become another series.
...Dunno why this is a list; it just felt right.
B) The inventory was *not* complicated. You want buttons mapped to everything? Play MMOs or Elder Scrolls or whatnot. Even if the key bindings were there, I didn't use most of them. Look, if Oblivion can go to console, you can play System Shock 2 without getting confused.
C) Character creation was lenient as hell. You could make it through game provided you at least had *some* offensive capability. I got through as a psion; my friend got through on Impossible with just melee; hacker is the real hardcore way to do it, but you don't *have* to do that. (Fun fact: did you know you can get SHODAN to kill herself as long as you hack her consoles? No joke. Said friend on Impossible jumped on her platform and got her minion to shoot her in the face.)
D) Co-op was already there before a mod. It's buggy as hell and no one likes it. Ignore.
E) The game's motion capability was fine for its era. The physics doesn't suck any more than anyone else's physics, granted I played mostly console games around the time SS2 came out.
F) Why did you like the game? Because it was a nifty retread of a very workable trope, with a great horror setup, spooky audio log system (new at the time before Bioshock stole all SS2's thunder, dammit), and a gleefully over-the-top villain who did all the Super Evil tropes *just right.* Ignore the buggy game. It was a low-budget company trying to get back on its feet.
Also, you heretic for saying in the Bioshock Infinite review that Bioshock did SS2 better. Go back and look at your original Bioshock review; it's hella shallow (and IMO boring) compared to SS2. Shock as a series is also going far from its roots now; it should really just become another series.
...Dunno why this is a list; it just felt right.
Boo, Yahtzee. You mention retro-gaming but don't bring up Good Old Games and their work with the new license holder, which made the re-release of System Shock 2 possible? Yeah, plenty of people mentioned the fact that GOG released it first in this thread already, but, considering the full name of GOG and your reference to retro-gaming, this is particularly ironic.
When they give us nearly new games for 5 to 10 $, we will stop to complain too, I thinkMichaelPalin said:
One more review of this quality and I'm looking at the antipodean equivalent of Total Biscuit.
If having 17 year old graphics was a negative point worth mentioning in a review, then all of B'Y'C's games should have been aborted at birth. Unless you consider 'Booty' on the Spectrum to have been the graphical height of games where you can go up, down, left or right.
If having 17 year old graphics was a negative point worth mentioning in a review, then all of B'Y'C's games should have been aborted at birth. Unless you consider 'Booty' on the Spectrum to have been the graphical height of games where you can go up, down, left or right.
considering they gave her a pretty face too...Nouw said:
Its just the way they were with the flesh parts mostly skinless was rather horrific and made their point very well.
Oh, hi there, Stallman.RyQ_TMC said:
SS2 is literally just downloaded onto your harddrive by Steam. If you go to the SteamApps-folder, you can just doubleclick the .exe file and start the game, Steam not being the slightest bit involved. You're spewing shit over something you know nothing about, and that slightly infuriates me.
I bought the game shortly after this review was posted. Still haven't gotten around to playing it yet.