Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13751 in Computer & Video Games
• Model: 7969
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95

Customer Reviews

One of the best games ever made
I'll open with this: if you're running XP, you *can* run this game - not straight out of the box, but with the (easy to find) resources online, getting it running is no problem. Okay. System Shock 2 is - and for the last six years, has been in my opinion - the greatest game ever made. It's a combination of first person shooter and roleplayer (about 70/30 lean to fps), with strong horror elements in a science fiction setting.

You'll build a character through buying skills with an experience point-style system, as well as improve - in a very limited way - your items, and you'll also have an inventory to manage. While the game clearly has roleplaying elements, it can't be called a roleplaying game. It's a first person shooter - a linear corridor shooter (in a persistent world you can revisit, not that there's much point) with roleplaying elements.

The story begins with that oldest chestnut of gaming, amnesia! You wake up on board the corporate-owned starship Von Braun, making its maiden voyage. And, oh yes, something has gone terribly wrong. While it may sound a little cliché at this stage - and it does because it is - the story quickly turns into something amazing and fascinating.

We quickly find that the ship is populated by bizarre humanoid monsters - wielding pipes and shotguns - who appear to be the ship's crew, as well as malfunctioning serving robots - and much more. But not everyone is out to get you - you're immediately contacted by another surviving member of the crew, who will guide you through the game with radio messages, and it's through these - and audio logs made by the crew - that the story is driven. There are no cutscenes, no interactive dialogue. Through these logs and messages, we learn of characters we never see, and hear of events the aftermath of which we must witness.

And the game is full of tiny, personal stories that don't amount to much, and don't go anywhere. But add something indescribable to the game. They may be about two lovers separated and wanting nothing more than to be together, or something as simple as a corpse laying surrounded by bottles of liquor, gun in hand, blood splatter on the wall behind. These little touches really develop atmosphere in a way so rarely seen in games. And, while I won't go into details due to possible plot spoilers, I will say this: System Shock 2 features the single greatest character I have ever experienced in a game.

The sound as a whole is astounding - and that's really a major part of the game's quality - the individual sound effects are great, and there's a fantastic soundtrack that alternates between pulse-pounding techno and slow and ominous atmospheric ambiance, both of which always suit their respective environments perfectly. But the real star of the show is the voice acting. Headed up by the guy who did Garrett in the Thief games, the standard is astounding. Most of the voices have a genuinely `spoken' feel to them that so many games just utterly fail to manage.

But it's not just the quality - the content is astounding too. The audio logs are always perfectly placed, giving exactly the information you need, offering advice on where to go, information on what has happened, or possibly warnings on what to expect, and you'll slowly piece together the events that befell the starship, and come to understand the terrors the crew faced. And all of the enemy sounds have a perfect *wrongness* to them that can be quite disturbing to listen to - the enemies are simply scary to hear.

The most common enemy is the pipe wielding hybrid, who retains some of his humanity despite his current monstrous situation, and will yell at you to run away even as he closes in to kill you. This can be particularly disturbing as you'll find you aren't simply killing `monsters' or `enemies' who exist simply to block your passage, you're killing people. People who are victims of something terrible. And this is an intelligence and maturity we so rarely see in computer games.

The fear effect is maintained at a high level through other means, too - the game doesn't simply rely on `boo' moments, with enemies jumping out from the darkness. As well as the horrible wrongness of the enemies, you're also stuck with fairly low supplies, and (due to something silly and science fictiony that isn't explained in the game), weapon quality degrades quickly and they break. Watching your weapons slowly degrade, your ammo slowly drain away, it feels like watching your blood pump out through an open wound. You'll feel vulnerable and afraid. And to make matters worse, many enemies respawn randomly as you move back and forth through the areas. You'll often turn just in time to find a pipe flying at your face. A mad animal panic will overwhelm your brain as you run wildly through the ship. It's amazing stuff.

If the game has a flaw, though, it's that it's too short - like all the best games out there, they just end too soon. System Shock 2 weighs in at about 12-15 hours long (though it can be finished much faster if you know your stuff), and the last few hours really do dip in quality a little, feeling rushed and more than a little like filler content here and there. But that minor point aside, System Shock 2 has many qualities - some utterly unique - that make it an amazing experience that everyone should have.

Very good title and game
I have to say its one of the best games that was ever made using the Dark Engine, aside from Thief 1 and 2 which used the same engine. The point of the game is to find out what happened aboard the UNN Von Braun, one of the first experimental FTL ships ever created, you play as "The Hacker" a man who undergoes surgery for cybernetic implants.

During the time after the surgery and recouperation in the cryo tube a catastrophic event happened to the ship, as its computer Xerxes looses control of the ship. Meanwhile the "the hacker", the protagonist (or you) has been set free from a cryostasis tube and immediatly coughs up a pile of blood and finds a wrech nearby, while in the event, you get a transmission through your implants from a crewman who is apparently alive to which begins a long journey through the bowls of the ship encountering the first mutant lifeform who is chasing a female crewman. along the way you will encounter numerous puzzles and hazards while trying to find a way of getting the ship in operation, to the point of finding the crewman however the main antagonist is revealed where your then asked to transport aboard another ship, the UNN Rickenbacker to defeat a large space born organism by destroying its brain, eventually you find the antagonist where then battle commences.

The game is based on sci-fi and horror aspect, by todays standards the graphics are quiet terrible and there are mods to combat this (with limited success). the game play is solid and provides good enjoyment when going through the ship to complete your objectives while encountering other life forms, or typical lifeforms which have mutated. a good selection of weapons, which some are specifically designed for certain enemies or certain manipulation of objects and electronics and other abilities.

there is no one way to defeat your enemies and some missions require you to rethink your ability to see objects hiding in plain sight, or different ways of dealing with an unusual situation as there are quite a few. some times its not always the gun that has the best effect or any at all. so in all it requires you to think on your feet rather then point and shoot everytime. credits are hard to come by like cyber nodes which are used to upgrade your abilities (or sandbox style), which means you need to choose wisely and find every crate in existance, or other secret areas to get ammo or hidden armour piece that otherwise might never be found or used. some enemies are insidious and are very well placed on the game, the AI the enemies are assigned to are also very accurate and are no easy targets when quick selecting a weapon.. even at long range you need to be careful.

its a brilliant game even by today, because its from a time where LG and Eidos really did an excellent job. In its own right, its one of the best shooting or sci-fi games because of its unique design.

4.8/5 is my rating.

A somewhat detailed quick campaign pointers, the audio logs provide fascinating glimpses into whats going on onboard the Von Braun and Rickenbacker from the crews prespecitve, the most promenent of these are Dr. Polito, Profantane, Chief Engineer Delacroix, Captain Diego, Siddons and Suarez.

Buy it, get it, play it, and again and again...
I have owned this game for about 5 years and keep coming back to it. It is so deeply involving that you feel a part of the environment. The sounds enahnce the realism and the way you 'earn' your way through the game is just great. The atmosphere keeps you away from reality and after a while you end up having to get up from the PC as your limbs/muscles have locked up! Shame there never was a System Shock 3.

Best game I have EVER bought and after the Carmageddon series that is saying something!