System Shock 2 Review by The Joys of 2D

[6746a8b6e878eunn_atropos]

°review
Reviewer: The Joys of 2D
Title: System Shock 2
Duration: 00:15:24
Language: English
Year: 2020
Topics: Comparing Half-Life, Deus Ex and System Shock 2,
boring tutorials, three ways of story telling: direct messages, audiologs and ghost encounters, cargo bay punishment and bracktracking confusion, System Shock= Metroidvania, von Braun is a character: comfortable living space vs functional and linear Rickenbacker, problematic skill upgrade, what happened to the female crew, three branches: weapons (boring), psi (complicated), tech (nearly impossible), main flaw: graphics are like kindergarten crayon drawings, good ambient and environmental sound design, clunky inventory system, weapon degregation, Dead Space and Bioshock
Named Modifications: Doesn’t seem to be aware of the available graphical and gameplay mods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Rnn_DQYyE

See the full list of reviews here.

[6746a8b6e891fvoodoo47]

he's also unaware that rumblers are girls, apparently.

[6746a8b6e8b05Kolya]

I'm also unaware of that. Where does that come from?

[6746a8b6e8c42voodoo47]

the (vanilla model) face remnant on the side of the creature, while certainly not hipoly by any stretch of the imagination, has enough detail to be recognizable as female, especially when compared side-by-side to the female corpse models in the editor.

so, next time you'll see a rumbler running towards you, remember, maybe she just wants a hug.


//this basically means the game has zombies, monkeys, ninjas, AND naked women running around. talk about perfection.

[6746a8b6e8d3aKolya]

I know the remnant face of course but never thought about it as female. Haven't seen the comparison you mention though.

[6746a8b6e8e65voodoo47]

while you can't be 100% sure, the face definitely resembles the female corpse faces more (rounder, smoother, smaller mouth, no sharp facial features, no 5 o'clock shadow). to make it short, it looks more akin to the two female models to its left rather than the two male models behind it.

[6746a8b6e8fe3ZylonBane]

Ehhhhhhh...

[6746a8b6e9104voodoo47]

yeah, as I've said, can't be sure. but it would also conveniently answer the where did all the female hybrids go question - they evolved faster, and evolved into rumblers.

[6746a8b6e91fbKolya]

Well at least some of the women, particularly the nurses were transformed into midwifes. But some definitely also got infected (Turnbull).

[6746a8b6e9356voodoo47]

yeah, and I dislike her using a male hybrid model greatly - even the vanilla model is not lowpoly enough to be mistaken for female. would surely be nice to have a custom model for her.

looks like we don't have a resource request for this, will remedy soon.

[6746a8b6e9478ZylonBane]

Creating a custom female hybrid model for Turnbull would:
a) Require a very talented modeler and texture artist to not look like crap, and,
b) Draw even more attention to the absence of female enemy hybrids.

[6746a8b6e9586voodoo47]

a) yes, but never hurts to post the request - having the model available certainly wouldn't be a bad thing. b) can either be ignored, or a bunch of pre-placed hybrids can be turned female. I personally have no problem with Turnbull being the last female hybrid that has not yet evolved into a rumbler.

[6746a8b6e988fsarge945]

I wonder if something like NVScript would allow hybrids to be randomly dynamically replaced with female versions...

[6746a8b6e998bZylonBane]

Well, you could keep on wondering, or you could ask around and maybe find out.

[6746a8b6e9de7RoSoDude]

yeah, as I've said, can't be sure. but it would also conveniently answer the where did all the female hybrids go question - they evolved faster, and evolved into rumblers.

I always took Turnbull's presence as an indication that some of the seemingly male hybrids were in fact female hybrids.

Moreover, it doesn't seem likely to me that Rumblers are supposed to be categorically female, because the game's research descriptions indicate that the stages of hybrid evolution go Grunt -> Rumbler -> Psi Reaver, and Korenchkin evidently completed the cycle. Instead, I always interpreted the Rumbler as being composed of biomaterial from other human bodies -- the woman's face is just the remains of one such unlucky subject who had been assimilated.

[6746a8b6e9f33voodoo47]

nope, it's either a rumbler or a reaver - Korenchkin definitely didn't have a brainless rumbler stage. and while the game does hint that the final stage may be a rumbler merged with a reaver brain, nothing indicates the rumbler itself is composed of multiple bodies (Rebirth giving it an extra arm and a male face is non-canon).

Turnbull is a bit of an anomaly - I'd guess they just didn't want to bother creating unique character meshes (all unique characters use standard meshes, something I'd also like to see fixed in the very, very long run).