System Shock 2 (and maybe System Shock 1)

[Lord Sinister]

Anyone else played System Shock 2? I first played it a year or so ago from less legitimate sources owing to the fact that the game could not be purchased....anywhere. It was brilliant, and I eventually got myself a copy off Ebay very recently (although sadly the copy is not in that good a condition which was not what the description led me to believe sadly).

 

For anyone who has never heard of it, yes it is related to the Bioshock franchise in that Bioshock was the spiritual successor to System Shock 2. And whilst Bioshock was great, I believe that System Shock 2 is a superior game.

 

 

The game is set in the future aboard the Von Braun, where you wake up in the cryo-recovery-suite with most of your memory missing and the entire place about to decompress. And everyone appears to be dead, apart from one person who is communicating with you to try and help you stay alive and hopefully fix things.

Also (and this is why System Shock 1 is in the topic title), I also got hold of a copy of System Shock 1 from Ebay at roughly the same time. This game I have never played, has anyone else? Got any advice, etc?

[The Hamburglar]

oh god yes. I love System Shock with all my heart. It's one of the few games to terrify me to near tears.

 

System Shock 1 is really dizzying to play, but my eyesight is pretty horrid, so you might not have any troubles. It's really really fun too.

[Lord Sinister]

I'm aware that the graphics on System Shock 1 are pretty dated (owing to it coming out in 1994) but I wasn't going to let that put me off.

[Bugthing]

Yup, played them both. SS1 has been a while, but a couple years ago I replayed SS2 because someone made a texture and model replacer. Gotta love Shodan.

[Bjossi]

SS1 was a revolutionary game in 1994, SS2. . . not so much, but I greatly prefer the sequel in terms of gameplay and aesthetics.

For SS1 your main troubles may be getting it to run and the atrocious controls that need trickery to remap. You'll find all the info you need on the TTLG community forums.

 

It is Von Braun by the way. If you had made this mistake on the TTLG forums you'd have been shot even before submitting the post.

[Lord Sinister]

SS1 was a revolutionary game in 1994, SS2. . . not so much, but I greatly prefer the sequel in terms of gameplay and aesthetics.

For SS1 your main troubles may be getting it to run and the atrocious controls that need trickery to remap. You'll find all the info you need on the TTLG community forums.

 

http://www.systemshock.org/

This is the site I've been looking at, however if memory serves when I last got System Shock 2 to work on this PC, I had to do various different things and get solutions from different sites and forums to ultimately have it working fine (and in 1680x1050). That was on Windows Vista though, and I'm now on Windows 7...

 

It is Von Braun by the way. If you had made this mistake on the TTLG forums you'd have been shot even before submitting the post.

 

Gah, a silly mistake! Fixed.

[Bugthing]

Last few times I tried to run it, it ran too fast in areas with low poly count.

 

Unrelated, but 'A Hacker's Mind' could work. There's lots of weird crap in the System Shock games. Brownie points if it gets to be the first game.

[Bjossi]

I think all you really need today is the DDfix patch. It runs wonderfully on my Win7 machine, only cutscenes fail to work and it is easy enough to either rename the cutscenes folder or get rid of LGVID.AX.

[Ross Scott]

I'm vetoing these as being obscure, Bioshock was practically a recreation of SS2 as it is.

[Lord Sinister]

I'm vetoing these as being obscure, Bioshock was practically a recreation of SS2 as it is.

 

Bioshock was a spiritual sequel and is well known, but the original two System Shock games less so. In fact I really don't know much about the original at all (despite getting my hands on a boxed copy I've yet to play it just yet). System Shock 2 on the other hand I know a bit about. I believe the way things happened is that despite getting good reviews it didn't sell well. As a result it became a forgotten classic. I've spoken to people on my Steam friends list who're fans of Bioshock who've never heard of this game. It's a classic but it's quite forgotten. It's not even resold as a budget game, the only way to get genuine copies any more is off auction sites such as Ebay.

[Bugthing]

I seem to recall that SS2's release was, at the time, overshadowed by some other games. Probably Half Life.

 

I don't remember much about SS1's release, I was like 13 when it was released. But I did got to play it eventually. I much prefered the FPS combat to other FPS's of the time. The mouse wouldn't turn or move the screen, but you could still take aim with it from any angle. Sort of like playing duck hunt.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I'm vetoing these as being obscure, Bioshock was practically a recreation of SS2 as it is.

Agreed and moved to the Obscure PC Games section.

[Lord Sinister]

I'm vetoing these as being obscure, Bioshock was practically a recreation of SS2 as it is.

Agreed and moved to the Obscure PC Games section.

 

You've misunderstood the word vetoing. He was saying that this thread shouldn't be in the Obscure PC Games section (where I originally posted it) and it was moved to the General Gaming section by Ross. I still dispute this as I consider both the original and the sequel to be quite obscure.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Oh darn. FIXED!

[Kyon]

Oops Alyxx

[Bjossi]

I still dispute this as I consider both the original and the sequel to be quite obscure.

 

These games have been growing in popularity over the years if anything, though. Last time I checked they were at the top of the GOG wishlist.