Puzzles and Brain Bogglers

What happens next?

The puzzles themselves are really not so hard, it's more like figuring out what you're supposed to do next that is the challenge. This is why I stopped playing the original, though it seems to be less of a problem in the demo of SS2, since the level is fairly small. While the goals are clearly defined, the way of getting there can be tedious. This is not a step1-step2-step3-you're done type of puzzle. You find yourself at the start of the map, a few cameras here, a few hybrids there, a droid there, and that's it. Some doors are locked, some are open. The game seems to lose focus, even though you do have a list of goals.

It almost looks like Tokyo

UNN HQ

This is, of course, open-endedness. Far more than you had in Half-Life, where even on the biggest levels, it was clear where you go next, and what you do. In Half-Life, once you finished the game, there was absolutely no point in going back, since it's so scripted and there always seems to be one, maybe two ways of doing things. The difficulty was in finding how to do it, instead of what to do (as it is in SS2.)

It takes 4 years to get through this

Lots of menus

SS2 now has the much-vaunted psionic powers, which are a lot like Force powers in Jedi Knight. The difference being that in Jedi Knight, you chose between light and dark skills. In SS2, you choose between psionics, technical and combat skills. Even in the demo, this is slightly implemented. You get little modules, and if you go to the proper station, it gives you a list of skills that you may upgrade.

Thank God there are no 'Alien' Aliens

Uh...smokey.

The full game promises a character generator, where you decide what s/he looks like and what the starting abilities are. Now that is something new in a first-person shooter, no? Maybe I'm using the wrong term here. First-person shooter doesn't quite apply to SS2, just like it didn't to Thief : The Dark Project. Perhaps action-RPG is a more appropriate classification.