Adventure - System Shock 2

That Took Guts to Finish

Some games are just so scary, you have a hard time finishing them. Take Thief as an example. It made you go slowly and think about what you were doing, to find the best way to sneak by your foes. This thinking, this constant awareness of your vulnerability is what added so much atmosphere and made the game work.

It also made it a pain to finish. Not only was the game difficult in and of itself, but the fear of dying, of making a mistake kept a lot of people from going on. Talk about using simple images and sounds to their fullest and thus manipulating gamer's emotions greatly.

Moody lighting

Alright - armor!

System Shock - In More Ways than One!

At times, consumers will inexplicably ignore a fantastic game. Battlezone was one example, but perhaps the most egregious instance of this phenomenon was System Shock 1. The original System Shock got amazing reviews and anyone who played it fell in love with the game. However, its sales were abysmal and it got relegated to the status of a cult classic, hardly what it deserved. Now we have the sequel to it, System Shock 2, the most involved first person shooter ever, with its elaborate plot, puzzles and RPG elements.

So its graphics aren't the best, right? It has blocky characters and the design is kind of bland for a spaceship - nothing special. But just the atmosphere in the game is utterly terrifying. This simple design seems to make it all the more real and that realism lends itself to believability - and if you believe, you're going to be scared. In the demo review we said Half-Life was a campfire ghost story compared to System Shock 2, and trust us, that's not an exaggeration.

The critters in System Shock 2 use 'smart respawning', which basically means that you'll never run out of something to kill. Of course, it's not excessive in the least - in fact, the only time you'll find yourself in trouble because of a spawn is when you are foolish enough to let security cameras (or something else) start an alarm. These alarms spawn critters nearby who home in on your location.

The respawning adds so much tension to the game, since it always keeps you on your toes. In Quake 2, Unreal or Half-Life when you cleared a room, it stayed cleared. In SS2, you never know if something might be there...

The music in System Shock 2 is hardly what you'd expect. It's a fast-paced techno-rock style (at least that's what we managed to notice those few times we pulled ourselves back into reality) that comes on suddenly and sets your heart pumping because you just know you're in trouble when music comes on.

Throw in the raw animal sound of monkeys and their calls permeating areas of the ship, ready to zap you with their psionic freeze or flame, then some cyborgs and giant guard robots moving around, you'll be so on edge it's beyond description.

The Features

So why exactly is SS2 in the Adventure game section? Well, we didn't really have anywhere else to put it. There's action in the game, there's roleplaying, there's strategy, and there are actual adventure-game elements. The puzzle solving is great. Unlike most FPS games, there aren't levels to SS2. There are just sections of the two interconnected ships that you cross. So to solve a mid game puzzle you might have to go back to a 'beginning' part of the game. These sections remember what you did too. Hack a turret so it's on your side? It'll stay hacked when you come back.

Also, thanks to the hard working people at Irrational, now you can play System Shock 2 in multiplayer with the patch. If we had more time to devote to leisure gaming, SS2 multiplayer would certainly be high on the list. The internet play is smooth and still retains the balance that kept the singleplayer game thrilling. Don't bother deathmatching though - that's not what the game is about.

System Shock 2: 4.5/5, Editor's Choice