system shock 2 SUCKS... or does it???

Dracko · August 15, 2019, 9:56pm

System Shock is a DooM-clone.

toups · August 16, 2019, 6:04am

hmmm idk y’all I’m close to the end now and I still think it holds up very well in most regards ¯_(ツ)_/¯

maybe I’m just not very good at breaking it or something but I don’t feel as if it’s become less challenging or oppressive. and the level design is great!

GherkinForce · August 16, 2019, 9:50am

First Person Shooting is a Sometimes Verb

Poly · August 16, 2019, 8:06pm

this has been my favourite thread to lurk in a good long while. that said, if “immersive sim” means a game specifically like a deus ex shooter or whatever then that term is fucking meaningless. IMMERSIVE SIM guys

toups · August 16, 2019, 8:13pm

immersive sims:

toups · August 18, 2019, 6:56pm

just wanna say I beat the game yesterday and I even loved the ending which seems to be universally hated so maybe I’m just a big dumb idiot

SageGrimm · August 18, 2019, 9:04pm

Actual ending by the h-h-hacker or the cliffhanger that shows up after the credits?

toups · August 18, 2019, 9:22pm

both

they are both great

it is not a high brow game.

toups · August 19, 2019, 1:21am

like I specifically mean the part where the soldier guy is like “nah” and then blasts shodan in the face and she VHS warps to death.

it’s really the perfect ending to this game

do not @ me

toups · August 19, 2019, 2:24am

this kind of explains some of it I guess

“Due to miscommunications or differing ideas, a different cinematic video was created from the one that I originally scripted,” says Levine. “It had this elaborate sequence where Shodan would attempt to kill you in a double-cross, as this ‘cyber stinger’ that was in view provided tension of your impending doom.” Upon getting his hands on the video for the ending sequence, Levine didn’t see anything that he wrote in the script. “We didn’t have much to work with. It was like when you look in the cupboard and you’re trying to make soup, and you have a bag of salt and couple of pinto beans.” Working with fixed assets can be extremely challenging especially with limited time and resources as well as fighting the technology back then. Levine remembers, “We had to write to the assets we had at that point, and all we could do was edit it. We completely ran out of time and that cut scene wasn’t the right ending for the game.”

but I kind of feel like system shock 2 only works because ken levine had to struggle to implement any of his grand ideas

the alternative is bioshock I guess

daphaknee · August 19, 2019, 4:07am

oh yay we’ve reached the toups posting alone part

Alyx · August 19, 2019, 5:24am

It being released back in 1999 also helped. Story based FPSs were still something of a novelty. There was Half-Life and Thief, but System Shock 2 with it’s RPG traits felt quite distinct from both of those. How to tell a story in a FPS hadn’t really been explored in much depth, and it was a noble effort.

Bioshock using all the same techniques in 2007 having not learned anything in the meantime, probably lowered people’s opinions of those techniques and by extension lowered opinions of System Shock 2.

Dracko · August 19, 2019, 1:08pm

Strife is under-rated.

Sykel · August 19, 2019, 1:55pm

strife ownz

toups · August 19, 2019, 1:56pm

bioshock is also like a forced remake of system shock 2. system shock 2 is cool because all of its rpg mechanics fit fairly unobtrusively with its setting and theme. bioshock just sort of grafts concepts like hacking, biological research, and personal audio logs onto an ill-fitting steampunk setting. and the entire narrative premise is so silly. there are things I still like about bioshock, a lot of its incidental writing is pretty good, but you have to look past so many incredibly stupid things to enjoy any of that.

Tegiminis · August 20, 2019, 6:52pm

Dracko · August 20, 2019, 7:11pm

parker · August 20, 2019, 9:08pm

I just found out the ending where the lady on the radio ends up being the alien at the end, that I remembered all these years, is the bad ending, and there’s some other one where she’s real and the alien is it’s own thing. I’m annoyed by this

rasterradio · August 22, 2019, 4:33am

Immersive Sims are not Looking Glass-likes they are Ultima VII-likes

rasterradio · August 22, 2019, 4:45am

The problem is that because everything is an immersive sim, the only “true” ones are in the LGS lineage which has probably done more damage to gaming than anything else. Shock 1 and Thief are among my favourite games but while these games felt years ahead of everything else we’ve seen nothing but retreading of old ground. I’m sick of the audio logs, sick of space stations and 0451s and solving problems by crouching in a corner and cycling through powerups and then savescumming until I get my intended result. “Looking Glass Technology” in Prey didn’t make me feel acknowledged, it made me roll my eyes.