And by “handholding” I mean no mission objectives (markers or lists), no tutorials or reminders for critical gameplay elements, and none of those many quality-of-life features that respect the reality that gamers shouldn’t be expected to play with a notepad next to them.īecause that’s basically what you need to get through System Shock. Such is System Shock’s slavish devotion to the 1994 game that there is no handholding on normal mission difficulty. By default, it’s toggled to the middle for all four options (normal), which is what I went with. System Shock lets you tinker between four difficulty options: combat, mission, cyber and puzzles. But if you’re not a fan of the original game, you’re likely going to struggle with System Shock. If you’re a fan of System Shock from 1994, the chances are good that you’re going to love the infinitely prettier version from 2023. Remakes, on the other hand, offer the pretty but also make gameplay changes and/or additions (just look at the 2023 remake of Dead Space). Like the controversy with the PS5’s The Last of Us Part I, System Shock is technically a remake-in the very literal definition of “technically”: it’s being remade in a new engine-but, more importantly for the everyday understanding of the terms, it plays like a remaster.įor those unaware, remasters tend to only offer boosted eye candy for modern gaming platforms. Originally announced as System Shock Remastered, the System Shock Kickstarter page (from 2016) calls it “a complete remake of the genre defining classic from 1994”. And the last word of that sentence is where the disclaimers already begin. So I jumped at the opportunity to right that wrong with the long-gestation-but-finally-here System Shock remake. But I also regretted having never played BioShock developer’s precursor, System Shock 2 and, by extension, the original System Shock. Later on in the game, when I had the choice to kill or spare a villainous character, I created an all-caps ‘BIG CHOICE HERE’ manual save, then played the game from the two possible choices, like some sort of fracturing of the multiverse. Confronted with a simple locked door, I was blown away by my options: steal a keycard to open it, hack it with one of my abilities, or use an explosive to permanently open it albeit in a very loud way. Long before I was enraptured by Rapture, I discovered I wasn’t just a first-person shooter fan when Deus Ex broke my brain. It’s really just the definitive version of a classic game, and it deftly demonstrates why Nightdive is the master of preservation.I’m shocked to admit that my first “Shock” game was BioShock. You do have to go in with the understanding that its old bones are still there, but if you bounced off the convoluted interface of the original, you’ll have a better chance of acclimating here. Their reverence for the source material pays off, as while the System Shock remake is better tailored to modern tastes, it still has everything that made it special in its 1994 release. Nightdive has proven once again that they fully understand what made the classics so indispensable. System Shock is the perfect nexus between design and narrative choices. It creates a flow and atmosphere that are difficult to achieve. Or rather, she’s constantly a physical threat as you are in her very being. SHODAN is simply an omnipresent antagonist rather than a physical threat. System Shock is an experience that doesn’t lean on artificial set-piece moments to try and control its pacing.
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