The System Shock remake is a faithful recreation of one of gaming history’s most influential shooters, and developer Nightdive Studios has updated it beautifully for modern audiences. The original 1994 PC game’s design, story, and gameplay created a blueprint for titles like Dead Space and BioShock that wouldn’t exist without it. Although the remake was hit with several delays, the end product was worth the wait, making System Shock (2023) the ultimate way to enjoy a gaming classic.
Nightdive Studios’ original plans to remaster System Shock were put aside in order to completely remake the title on the Unreal 4 engine. The series spawned a 1999 sequel, but System Shock 3’s been in development hell for years. However, thanks to Nightdive Studios, players can now explore a massive space station filled with killer cyborgs, mutated crew members, and the evil AI SHODAN with modern graphics and gameplay. Still, System Shock feels like a great PC shooter of the 90s, for better or worse.
System Shock’s story starts a little differently than the original. The unnamed hacker begins in their small apartment, which can now be explored, providing a little more personality to the game’s silent protagonist. After having their door broken down and being taken by armed soldiers, the Hacker is sent to the Citadel Space Station and forced to erase the station’s advanced AI’s ethical restraints as part of a corporate takeover. The Hacker is then put in cryo sleep for six months, and when they awaken, it’s clear that things did not go as planned. Players must make their way through the space station and stop the AI SHODAN’s plans of wiping out the human race.
Like the original, System Shock provides three separate difficulties for Combat, Story, Puzzles, and Hacking that are chosen in the beginning and can’t be changed once the game is started. For example, the easiest difficulty in Story will have door codes that will be easier to open rather than randomized and require extensive backtracking to discover. Like many games of the 1990s, System Shock does not hold the player’s hand, and can be quite challenging even on normal difficulty. Players must use strategy, resource management, and consumables if they hope to stand a chance against the remake’s updated enemy AI.
Certain enemies are weaker to particular ammo types, which plays a significant part in System Shock combat. Some weapons drain the Hacker’s blue battery meter, while others can use multiple ammo types. Patches found throughout the game are used to temporarily improve stats, like the Berserk patch that boosts melee attacks which can be devastating to enemies if used with a Laser Rapier. However, side effects from patches and limited inventory space will force players to choose carefully what items they use and carry.
2023-05-29 20:00:05
Article from screenrant.com