is system shock 3 out yet?

[673f90f7310cfGawain]

What I mean is that it is too dark and and we mostly only get specular highlights.
The volume lighting is way too bright for scene that dark too.
I don't believe making game look black makes it more scary.

I think they have pumped up the light intensity to unrealistic values to get exaggerated subsurface scattering in organic materials.
They are using "realistic" materials with unrealistic settings...

[673f90f731949RocketMan]

What I mean is that it is too dark and and we mostly only get specular highlights.
The volume lighting is way too bright for scene that dark too.
I don't believe making game look black makes it more scary.

I think they have pumped up the light intensity to unrealistic values to get exaggerated subsurface scattering in organic materials.
They are using "realistic" materials with unrealistic settings...

Yeah that touches on another point.  Remember when ND was releasing videos where half of it was spent shooting frozen zombies to show us how their limbs would shatter?  Like, who gives a fuck about that!  I really hope Otherside doesn't fall into that trap.  I don't care if they are able to give flesh a translucent quality with penetrating light and fancy materials.  Does it make the game play better?  Give me flat boring old textures any day as long as the game doesn't suck.  Technology improves but it's still a tool and tools are meant to serve US.  We shouldn't be serving the tools but when we start implementing useless fluff because it's there and it's new, we ARE serving the tools, and usually at the expense of what matters most.

There's been a lot of talk about implementing game mechanics that (let me try to get this right) allow players to create their own gaming experience with freedom and flexibility.  Well that sounds great... except that I hope it doesn't just mean a bunch of technical mechanics like severable limbs or using physics to solve puzzles more than 1 way.  There's nothing wrong with either of those things when they are used appropriately but it should merely be a feature of the game to serve the plot and I am finding that instead, more emphasis goes into perfecting these features without the proper foundational substance being prioritized.  SS3 has big shoes to fill story-wise and in terms of maintaining a familiar mood and atmosphere.  This can best be served by giving a sensible plot an appropriate tempo/flow, by making good use of level space, lighting, ambient and positional sounds, all things that can be accomplished with old technology just as easily.

Perhaps it would be good to put oneself in the frame of mind where one had to use an old engine to make SS3 and see how that goes.  When the moment comes where the designer thinks to himself, "Geez, I wish I could do this game mechanic or effect.  It would be so much easier to achieve my goals for this segment of the game", then he can remind himself, "Ahh but I can!".  That's when the tools serve the designer as they should.

[673f90f731c22icemann]

Having been watching the streams for the past year, I'd say that lessons were learned. How the reboot turns out so far from the streams looks good. Once we see some proper proper gameplay that will be the true test.

As for Otherside and the changing of Shodan's face. It kinda reminds me of Assassin's Creed there with what happened to Desmond. He used to look pretty bad ass, and then from Revolutions onward they changed his face.

Image: http://i46.tinypic.com/iqhtmt.png

I think he lost some of the more bad ass look along the way. You be the judge, but to me that's how he looks in his more recent incarnations.

I'll await my final judgement on Shodan when we see the actual trailer and not just the teaser.

[673f90f7321b7Gawain]

The architecture and decorations looks cool and seems to be much like the released concept art. I just wish we would get to see more of it instead of it being black or hidden by overbright volume lightning.

Of course this doesn't represent the real game, because in that state I don't think it would be playable.
Not really concerned yet.

Yeah that touches on another point.  Remember when ND was releasing videos where half of it was spent shooting frozen zombies to show us how their limbs would shatter?  Like, who gives a fuck about that!

Yeah, that was bad. They were showing what the game will be like and really had nothing to show. And that was supposed to be one of the "big things" . If I remember correctly that feature was new builtin feature of Unreal. They just had to shove that shit in because it existed.

Same is indeed with the "new" materials and lighting features in Unity. I just hope that video was made in co-operation with unity (for money hopefully) and doesn't really represent the end result. It shouldn't because it was pre-alpha, whatever that means

[673f90f732432unn_atropos]

hm

[673f90f73266dMarvin]

Shodan could look like the greatest piece of digital art to ever appear on a computer screen, after that Underword disaster, I have zero hopes for this to turn out even half decent.

[673f90f7327f2voodoo47]

I'm thinking more along the Thief trilogy* - people forever arguing whether the second game is better than the first, with the third staying in their shadow despite being ok, and wrapping things up nicely.


*yeah, the 2014 thing doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

[673f90f732911Marvin]

You wish. This will be Thiaf all over again.

[673f90f732a20voodoo47]

pretty sure you just can't fail more than Thiaf. it's statistically impossible.

[673f90f732b66ZylonBane]

I'm hanging on to the hope that this will be Ion Storm all over again. We got our Daikatana, now just waiting for the Deus Ex.

[673f90f732d52JosiahJack]

What?  That looks bland.  I see very little in the environment that tells a story.  Lighting is terrible.  Over the top volumetrics, no well lit areas to you know, maybe see things!  I can't tell what that hallway's walls are. The cortex reaver is the only thing that is actually ok, but why is it white....where are all the colors going in video games! Desaturation is NOT REALISM!  Everything being wet and shiny is NOT REALISM!  We need locations with sense of place, oodles of details, objects used by the people who live and work there and a story told with knocked over cans and upturned boxes and squashed toothpaste (or food paste?) tubes etc. etc.  Realism is details.  Realism is subtlety.  Realism is slight imperfections.

Is that SHODAN?  Face looks overly masculine/boxy, not nearly enough wires.  Why has Rebecca's head grown into a giant animatronics display?

[673f90f733546redrain85]

1) Reminds me of some ID game or Deadspace or something like that (screaming zombie attack)

That was my first thought, as well. This teaser video, and screenshots I've seen, immediately reminded me of Dead Space. The delicious irony, of course, being that Dead Space 1 originally was going to be System Shock 3.

I don't know if that's supposed to be a mutant or someone infected by The Many in this first shot, or even something else. But it looks like a Necromorph lifted straight out of Dead Space, to me.

Then the tentacles in this second shot. Same thing. Right out of Dead Space.

Obviously, it's early days and a lot could change. But first impressions tend to have a lasting impact. In my case, what I'm seeing has somewhat dampened my enthusiasm. Not that I had that much, to begin with. I'm very skeptical of SS3 living up to the expectations of fans who have been playing, and following, the series from the beginning.

Too much contrast???  I felt it was precisely the opposite.  Unless I'm confusing contrast and saturation.  The whole thing seemed washed out and bland compared to the crisp, colourful scenes we're used to from the last 2 games.  That's why I described it as photo-realistic because it has that aesthetic but that's now what System Shock has felt like.  You could say that was a limitation of the old technology, fine, but that doesn't mean the new stuff has to look different just because it can.  Tron 2.0 didn't have to look the way it did - the tech could have achieves more realism, but I'm glad they didn't try to do that because the aesthetic they went for instead was perfectly appropriate. 

Here it seems like something has been lost, with all the fancy Unity realism they've layered on top.

Yes! I feel the same way. With so many games continually striving for greater realism, they increasingly become hard to tell apart. They're all the same, bland morass of generic-looking AAA mediocrity. There's something to be said for still utilizing a simpler, stylized aesthetic.

SS2 remains my all-time favorite game. It has an atmosphere that, to me, is unmatched by any other game(s) except Looking Glass' own SS1 and Thief titles. And I don't know what it is, but the Dark engine has some of the most moody and atmospheric lighting I've ever seen. Whether that's down to a unique quality of the engine itself, or simply superb use of lighting by the level designers, I can't say. Probably neither. But that's how I feel.

[673f90f73384fRocketMan]

I may have mentioned it before but remember Derelict?  It was in fact a game that I only knew about because somebody mentioned it here. 

It's an indie game.  AI meshes are crap.  All the 3d is kind of crap actually.  Voices suck too.  Same 3 looping tracks throughout the game.   Level geometry is simple, textures low res, basically only 1 enemy and a couple of boss types... and yet I found (and still find) it has a strange magnetism that keeps me wanting to play it.  I spent some time thinking about why I liked it and I think the answer comes down to

1) sensory deprivation - the game has a minimalist approach and empties your mind of distractions so that you can focus on the times when it scares the shit out of you,
2) vulnerability - because it's not easy to manage 5 dudes in hostile zones without losing 1 and the enemies move fast and you can't maneuver well at all.  This works synergistically with 1
3) Darkness and confinement.  Not that I say you are tripping over yourself but the atmosphere is foreboding and the whole ship is on life support.  Corridors are either narrow and low or you're in some big room that you can't see the walls of because visibility drops off 10 feet in front of you.  It augments 2.
4) Attention to detail - sometimes the only thing you notice is the calm and re-assuring whir of an air vent or the Lays potato chips in the vending machine.  It's the little things that bring you back to moments of normal life, which serve as contrast to the fucked up situation you're in.

That game was pretty bare bones and is a perfect template for how little you actually need to convincingly evoke emotions and immerse a player in a game.  No UE3/Unity required.  No volumetric lighting or fancy ragdoll effects or any of that.  No ugly shrieking monsters (they were in fact bland and simplistic but quite lethal).  In fact the more you try to make something scary it seems, the less scary it actually is.  I think we're all burnt out with seeing ugly un-human things and being taught, "this is scary!".

[673f90f733a31icemann]

We may see Otherside get themselves into the situation that id software found itself in (and to its major detriment ).

Up until John Romero left they made fantastic games due to Romero and Carmack balancing each other out. So you'd get good coding and good game design. Without one the entire suffers. So when Romero left id's games started to dip (Quake 2 onward) and eventually led to id being better known for making good game engines (due to Carmack's excellent coding skills) and nothing else.

Now Otherside has Warren Spector but no Ken Levine. Each sucks at making good games on their own (without a good counterbalance). So perhaps we're seeing what happens when Spector is left to run a games developement on his own, just as we got with Levine with Bioshock Infinite or Romero with Daikitana. With the right counterbalance however, brilliant things happen. Without it we get major disasters or disapointments. And yep I know that Levine and Spector never worked together. But if this is to be a melding of SS1 and SS2, then you need the main people behind the two. Otherwise you end up with more of one than the other.

[673f90f733d89bim]

The teaser looks good actually. I just hope they can keep the creepyness and atmosphere from SS2.. I have yet to play any game that comes close to SS2 in that regard really (and i miss it)

I'm not sure they'll be able to. It's hard to top the creepy dissonance within the hybrids and cyborg midwives especially. The former wrestling for control of their own body, mind and individuality, pleading with you to kill them or for you to run away while they hunt you down; The latter being a human fused with and over-ridden by machinery to serve a maternal role to alien creatures. The protocol droids asking you if everything's alright and telling you to have a nice day as they menacingly march towards you with the intent of destroying you. Xerxes calmly and soothingly asking why you would side with the machine mother over the splendor of flesh.
On the bigger scale, the struggle between an all-consuming biological hivemind against an autocratic individual machine, and all the horror that is the game's setting and premise as a consequence.

 System Shock 2's design choices in this regard were lightning in a bottle - its horror operates expertly on cognitive dissonance which serves to deepen the confusion and oppression of the situation -  it'll be interesting to see how they try to even come close without just straight up imitating it.

[673f90f733ebeicemann]

About the only other game you could get with a similar "battle of the flesh" going on, would be if a good game based on the movie "The Thing" ever got made. Only been average games so far based on that however.

[673f90f733fadlastonearound]

You take that back! The Thing game was a masterpiece for its time. They did a few bad choices with its design, but it was brilliant all the same.

[673f90f7342d4ZylonBane]

System Shock 2's design choices in this regard were lightning in a bottle - its horror operates expertly on cognitive dissonance which serves to deepen the confusion and oppression of the situation

Explain what cognitive dissonance you think is happening in SS2.

[673f90f7346b2bim]

Explain what cognitive dissonance you think is happening in SS2.

within the hybrids and cyborg midwives especially. The former wrestling for control of their own body, mind and individuality, pleading with you to kill them or for you to run away while they hunt you down; The latter being a human fused with and over-ridden by machinery to serve a maternal role to alien creatures. The protocol droids asking you if everything's alright and telling you to have a nice day as they menacingly march towards you with the intent of destroying you. Xerxes calmly and soothingly asking why you would side with the machine mother over the splendor of flesh.

hold[ing] two or more contradictory beliefs

If we want to split hairs about it, sure, "cognitive" dissonance probably isn't quite the technically correct term, I used it for lack of one more appropriate - Maybe moreso the themes of co-option, corruption and subversion. However, elements of it certainly pervade the entire game. Within its most common enemy, the hybrids - "I want to kill goggles", "I don't want to kill goggles, it's just the brain parasite telling me to" - as well as the protocol droids, whose original programming to make people feel safe, welcomed and that they're there to help remains, despite the imperative of their actions being to kill said people. Yeah, I know, technically they don't think, but it's the "dissonance" part that's the most operative.

[673f90f734881unn_atropos]

Cortex Reaver design by Rafael Amarante
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aROw2L

[673f90f7349c7ZylonBane]

On the one hand, cool.

On the other hand, it has so many arms and legs and little exposed detailed bits that I can barely tell what I'm looking at from most angles. It all just turns into a visual mishmash. Compare/contrast with the original Cortex Reaver, which was a much more focused design:

[673f90f734aceicemann]

Completely agree with Zylon. If you'd not labelled it as a Cortex Reaver I'd have had no idea what I was looking at.

[673f90f734c73JosiahJack]

Someone forgot about:
https://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/game_environments_design/silhouette-design-game-environments.php

Keys to a silhouette design are:

Strong Shapes
Memorable
Recognizable
Quick read from a distance
Pops out from the rest
Appealing
Original
Unique

[673f90f734df6fox]

The new design reminds of Human Revolution/Mankind Divided-era Deus Ex. I like it. Might be easier to recognize in motion. Maybe a bit too delicate/polished looking.