Hah, I was curious what the "systemshock.org" source of traffic in my YouTube analytics was and I ended up here. I must say, I'm pretty impressed by the fact that you seem to be updating all those let's plays manually - that speaks to me, in a way, because I myself can be a little obsessive about things. xD

Anyway, I'm thankful to be featured, and while I know that the videos themselves aren't that great in quality (I'm just figuring stuff out as I go as far as recording goes), I thought you may be interested in reading the newcomers thoughts about the game as a whole, so...


Hello!  I did play System Shock: Enhanced Edition for the first time blind recently.

And I must say… if it really is a cult classic and if people really enjoy it that much still – I don’t quite understand why.

For me, it was… a chore more than it was fun, really. I wouldn’t say I had that much fun. After the first half of the game I just kept playing because I’m a little OCD about leaving games unfinished once I sink a bit of time into them, but…

well.

Maybe let me start with the things I DID enjoy:

- SHODAN was great as an antagonist, although I guess it’s mostly the appeal of the voiceover, because as personality goes she was a standard „A GOD AM I” AI. Although one has to take into account that the game is 25 years old, so I guess she could be one of the pioneers of this trope. In any case, it was done well.

- the minimal amount of handholding made you feel like an adult when you completed objectives – you had to pay attention to the data logs and all that to even be aware WHAT you were supposed to be doing, not to mention how to do it. I myself count it as a plusin the end, despite how confused it made me sometimes

- I did enjoy the exploration, but only for the first few hours or so – it quickly became tedious to me, and it’s not like you could find anything particularly gamechanging. To be honest, I was pretty annoyed at the amount of times I found obsolete cyberware which didn’t give me anything

- the story was… ok, although nothing to write home about. I didn’t have any OMG moments, apart maybe from realizing how much Diego has screwed us all – he was behind the WHOLE plot, and even BEFORE calling us in to hack SHODAN which sent everything to shit – after all, he did the former only beacuse he was trying to COVER UP what he’s ALREADY DONE BEFORE

- the rocket boots were fun. The idea of cyberware implants was cool in theory, but in practice I found it under-utilized. Like, seriouosly – a COMPASS was a freaking implant? A lamp? Don’t even get me started on the „camera in the back of your head thing”. Never used it. Not even once.

- I don’t mind the graphics at all. I know it’s an old game at this point and it was probably good at the time. They get a pass.

- The music I found to be pretty bland and forgettable, but okay. If anything, I’ll probably remember the ELEVATOR music the most, just because of the contrast. It was so calm and happy, unbefitting the crazy place we were in, which I guess was the point.

Now onto the downsides:

- the control scheme. Man, it was terrible. I DID have the mouselook mod and thanks heavens for that, because without it it would’ve been unplayable for me, but even with it it was annoying. The constant switching between mouselook and manipulating items was jarring as hell to me. And even the simplest things were needlessly complicated – reloading manually by CLICKING on the magazine clip? C’mon. And crouching required clicking on a character icon? That’s a little too annoying for me

- the general level and quest design was annoying. Namely, the amount of backtracking was nearly insuferable to me. Like, seriously – at the part with the reactor code digits I just said „screw it” and looked up the locations on the maps from the net, because the alternative would be to go back through ALL THE LEVELS OF THE GAME UP UNTIL THAT POINT until I find the screens with the digits. And don’t tell me you remembered where you distroyed the computer nodes and could „just return to there at once” without problem. I won’t  believe you anyway.

- In general I dislike respawn of the enemies – and there seemed to be some enemies that respawned, most notably the invisible mutants at level 3 (maintenance). Their constant respawn made traversing that level an annoyance, especially since they were pretty difficult to kill. In general I feel like respawn robs you of a feeling of progression, of accomplishment. You kill enemies, but if they respawn – killing them changes nothing (especially in the game like System Shock that does not have any kind of an XP system)

- I found the puzzles confusing and not well explained enough. I eventually figured out the rules behind the +/x puzzle where you had to close the circuit, so maybe I’m just an idiot, but the wires puzzle was a total mystery for me up until the end of the game. I just did random things until it worked.

- the cyberspace, too, was not really well explained. I got the general gist – fly into items, shoot at the enemies, avoid projectiles. But the various pickups were a mystery too me, I had no idea what their function was (I mean the recalls and all that). I really think there should be like an explaination log, or a terminal near the first cyberspace terminal that lets you know what the different things do and how to utilize them


Well… let’s say… I hope the sequel will be better, and playing the first one will give me a better appreciation of it’s progress.

Spoiler alert: I did start the second game already and I can confirm that I do, in fact, think it's GREAT and and a MASSIVE improvement over the first in every respect. And as I assume the let's play will eventually find it's way here when it's posted on my channel, I will post a similar run-down of my thoughts on it under it in case you'd be interested.


Anyway, thanks again for featuring me and keep on hacking, Hackers. Or... err... does the SS community have any cool custom greetings/farewells? xD