System Shock 2 Review by Gggmanlives

[673f7b0215444unn_atropos]

°review
Reviewer: Gggmanlives
Title: System Shock 2
Duration: 00:10:13
Language: English
Year: 2014
Topics: general gameplay, claustrophobic design, quests convoluted  at times (Hexen), character building, Assault rifle feels underpowered (pffft yeah...right), psionic abilities, sound design
Named Modifications: none

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_8nc-OQs7I

See his System Shock 1 review here.

See the full list of reviews here.

[673f7b0215670redrain85]

Somehow I missed this post.  This guy did a terrible review of Tron 2.0, so I'm not surprised you think his System Shock 2 review is also less than stellar (based on the pffft comment).

I watched it myself, and actually thought he wasn't doing too bad this time.  Until I reached the 7 minute mark, that is.  Then it basically devolved into how SS2 should be more like the BioShock series, and that it's simply too hard for the current generation of gamers.

[673f7b02157eaunn_atropos]

I posted his review because I thinkt that it is generally, that is technically, well done. (You should see the review I decided NOT to post *shiver*). But I don't agree with some stuff he said; Assault rifle, turning off the music etc. . I dont consider the stuff he lists as negatives, or at least as not that tragic. But I posted it anyway, because it would be boring to always hear the same opinion, wouldn't it?

I just watched his Tron 2.0 review and I don't get it: he criticizes how you can upgrade the download speed, and later complaints that you have to wait too long until download is finished?! Contradiction much? Besides who would'nt want faster downloads? I know noone who is like "Yez, me interwebs is too fast, dude"

[673f7b02159dcredrain85]

In terms of technical competency: yes, the video was good at that.  I agree.  I also agree that a fan site like this should hear opinions from someone like him, even if they're not going to be popular.  Nobody should have to - or want to - preach to the choir.  I hate that type of fanboyism, where a community simply can't handle any criticism of their favorite game (or insert property/product, here).

However . . . while I don't have an issue with a reviewer's subjective opinions, I do have a problem when he/she gets objective facts wrong.

And that's why I didn't like his Tron 2.0 review.  Because it had several factual errors.  He didn't do his homework. Which completely undermines his position as a reviewer.  If he can't get simple facts straight, then what other aspects of the review did he get wrong?

For his System Shock 2 review, I didn't notice any factual errors.  (Then again, I'm not quite as knowledgeable about System Shock as some of you guys are.)  So I can't automatically dismiss him, like I did with the other review.  But, again, I find myself disagreeing with his conclusion about another game.

Am I biased toward both games?  Probably.   Still doesn't change the fact that at least one of his reviews was demonstrably bad.

[673f7b0215ce3RocketMan]

I just finished replaying Tron 2.0.  Damn it's sooo good   Good to see you again Red.

[673f7b0215f74redrain85]

Good to see you again Red.

Thanks.   I'm always lurking here (and on TTLG), but the release of the SCP got me to do some posting again.

I'm also looking forward to checking out your mods, and many of the other ones, that have been released since I last played SS2.  (Need to get away from my own mod, for a bit.)

[673f7b02160e0BenNM]

Nice to see some familiar names... (I lurk here once or twice a year, it seems).
The internet is full of misinformation, opinions, and 'first-tries' at GoogleTube vids.
One has to pick through a lot of ...stuff... to find the really interesting bits.

Now... if Zylon Bane is still around, I could use his caustic wit to scrub some of the gunk off a few of my remaining neurons.  A fond "season's greetings" to you-all. =)

[673f7b02163b7Join2]

Now... if Zylon Bane is still around, I could use his caustic wit to scrub some of the gunk off a few of my remaining neurons. 

Don't put the pussy on the pedestal, man.

[673f7b0216500Kolya]

I don't think you're using that idiom correctly, man.

[673f7b02165d5Join2]

 

[673f7b021675cFelixP]

I just finished System Shock 2 for the first time, and to be honest, I agree with most of the opinions of the reviewer. (save for the music one, and I didn't use the assault rifle so I don't have an opinion there)

While the game wasn't "oh this game is too clunky and old to enjoy", I found myself playing the game for chunks of an hour or two at a time, then after getting to a frustrating spot or dying under particular circumstances just saying "ok, I'm done." and leaving to do something else and come back to it later. Usually games that I enjoy I will binge for hours, but for this game I wasn't having a blast.

I think part of it was that I've played other sci fi horror games that have taken inspiration from SS2, and when returning to "the original" finding it subdued. Kind of like how Rocky began the underdog competitor trope, but since it's been picked up and polished by other movies, going back and watching the original, the theme seems very subdued.

[673f7b0216861Join2]

No, System Shock 2 still holds the crown. It does everything the others do not, and then some. All it's major problems are primarily of the times, engine-bound. Everything else is design genius.

[673f7b0216acfSystem Shocked]

No, System Shock 2 still holds the crown. It does everything the others do not, and then some. All it's major problems are primarily of the times, engine-bound. Everything else is design genius.

Ditto    Ditto    Ditto 

[673f7b02170a3FelixP]

No, System Shock 2 still holds the crown. It does everything the others do not, and then some. All it's major problems are primarily of the times, engine-bound. Everything else is design genius.

Ignoring Bioshock, since it's a direct spiritual successor, here's some games that have done aspects of System Shock 2 better:

The Mass Effect series uses hacking, with varying different minigames (depending on which game). Quite frankly, it's hacking mechanic is more fun, with actual minigames, unlike SS2 which had "click random checkboxes and hope it works".

Dead Space refined a lot of the lighting and sound effects work, providing atmospheric tension that was way more frightening. Admittedly better technology in this case, but it's something that SS2 did that another game is doing.

Fallout 3 used a repair/maintenance system, and unlike SS2 it actually made some amount of sense: Fallout 3 is a post apocalypse where every gun you find is 200+ years old, and proper cleaning and maintenance materials are probably very scarce. Requiring a repair skill to keep the guns from falling apart at least fits the theme. Conversely SS2 is set aboard the most advanced star ship mankind has ever created, and yet the guns fall apart after 20 rounds are fired through them! I'd swallow the idea a little more easily if it were explained that they were made out of futuristic ceramics or plastics to save weight on the Von Braun, but we get no such explanation.

The Deus Ex series has handled the themes of humanity vs. cybernetics way more thoughtfully than SS2's annelids vs. SHODAN. It even gave the player 3 different endings, as opposed to SS2's "naah".

When it comes to the faulterings of the design genius:

1. skills are absolutely not balanced. The repair skill is utterly useless, as auto repair items will take care of any broken guns you find that you really want. The exotic weapons skill is pointless, because you have to wait forever to get access to them. by the time you get access to the crystal shard, you don't want to be using melee weapons, and by the time you get any of the worm weapons, the game is practically over. And yes, I know you can collect puddles of worms off the floor if you have a beaker, but the game doesn't explain that to you, and you would probably throw the worms out even if you did collect them, because they are a waste of inventory space. I could get nitpicky about how some skills are better than others, but my point stands that the game's "design genius" wasn't in the RPG system.

2. SHODAN is a weak antagonist. From what I've read about SS1, SHODAN was playing Xanatos speed chess with the Hacker, always two steps ahead of the player up until the very end of the game. SHODAN in SS2 is annoying, and shows very little intelligence. While I was playing, the game seemed to convey that she was broken. She was helpless without Polito, by the time she unveils herself to the player, she only has Goggles to lean on to do her bidding, she has a really annoying stutter that is difficult to understand, and she can't put up a facade very well. It's like the only part of SHODAN that survived the crash was the crazy ego. The weakest part of SHODAN aside from the seriously annoying speech effects was her monologing. She flipped back and forth between "you're and icky insect, eeww" and "you're going to be my avatar soon" within the span of the same email. SHODAN had one, one single creepy line in the entire game, and that was when she was talking about your transformation, and she almost affectionately whispers "here's some more cyber modules." at the end of it. Then she dumped 10 emails afterward on me that completely killed the tension.

3. The body of the Many is stupid. All of it. When I saw it, I said to myself "oh no, not another Xending!" (Xending is a portmanteau of Xen and Ending, referring to the last level of Half Life) . The body of the Many makes no sense, as the annelids had a pretty sturdy hive mind way before making a giant flesh blob womb cave, the giant structures would be inefficient, and thematically it retards the annelids from a single mind with many bodies, to a single mind with a single body.

Anyway, I've probably been trolled, but there you are.

[673f7b021731eKolya]

I don't think you were trolled, just differing opinions. And I agree with everything you said about the weapon/repair/maintenance system, it is thoroughly unbalanced. Well observed. And yes, the hacking is Tic-Tac-Triop, it depends too much on luck. Just like Thief 4 did lock picking better than the original series, this could easily be done better too.

However I don't agree about Shodan. She certainly is weak, apparently having no one to rely on, but yourself (not quite true as you learn later), but she isn't your enemy throughout most of the game. She's an unlikely ally, a strange bedfellow, because she wants the Many dead, just like you do. Of course she has her own plans and is so different from you in nature that she cannot help but despise you. Give the girl some credit, man. It's hard for her too! She hates her own weakness, probably more than she hates you.

The theme of SS2 isn't a dialectic humanity vs. cybernetics as it is in SS1 or in Deus Ex. It's about finding humanity between the extremes of egotistical hyper-individuality, helped by technology and represented by Shodan on the one side and on the other side the complete loss of individuality and free will in a communal ideology with gratuitous helpings of body horror, represented by the Many. Or between capitalism and communism if you want to go very highbrow.

And yeah, towards the end the game falls apart a bit, both thematically as well as technically. Boss fights are always stupid. SS2 has two of them and they both suck. But they do make sense since your way is to overcome both extremes and defend humanity in between.

[673f7b0217481Yankee Clipper]

That parallels with Asimov's dueling visions of the future in his Foundation series: Gaia (the Many), where all becomes one and the self fades away into meaninglessness, or Solaria (SHODAN) where the individual became so powerful a "man" really could become an island, assuming enough technology at his disposal. So powerful that each person would need an entire planet for his domain and anyone less powerful was in imminent danger of being immediately killed as a potential threat or nuisance. Both visions were anathema to the idea of free individuals living cooperatively in a society while retaining their self identities.

[673f7b02176b0FelixP]

While I see what you are getting at Kolya and Yankee Clipper, I think the game would have kept to those themes better if instead of the Body of the Many being a physical place, it was a psychic manifestation (possibly created with the warp drive if you wanted to justify it making more sense than just overpowering the many with sheer will), then when fighting SHODAN you have to essentially fight the ship, hacking or blowing up computer terminals across the ship, trying to break all the communications equipment before SHODAN can transmit herself to earth. The last segment of the game would take place in cyber space, but instead of it being a reality made with the warp drive, it was your consciousness being digitized and put into SHODAN's primary data loop. Maybe SHODAN hints at "another way out" or that "biological conciousness and digital conciousness is a two way street" before the last fight and cinematic, to help make the cheesy "lover" ending make a little more sense.

To keep those changes within the budget, the last section before the cyberspace area would essentially be returning to sections you played through before, but this time with some robots spawned in to replace the various annelid creatures that would normally spawn in those areas.

Also, was TriOptimum evil in SS1? I get the sensation that they were, but then they seriously got put in the back seat for SS2.

[673f7b0217855voodoo47]

all corporations are evil.

[673f7b021797aKolya]

You can find out a lot more about Triop by reading the manual and the bridging story between SS1 and SS2. MOTHER has all the links.

[673f7b0217ef6unn_atropos]

Also, was TriOptimum evil in SS1? I get the sensation that they were, but then they seriously got put in the back seat for SS2.

First I have to say that I'm not a very political person. So I would not take side for neither capitalism nor socialism/communism. (Not implying that this is the conflict going on in Sys2)
All the years I played System Shock 2, I considered TriOp to be the "bad guys" and the UNN the "good guys". I thought of the the UNN to be some kind of €U or, duh!, UN. Then there was some talk here on sbf..sma about how the UNN is a military organisation. Playing the game you have to agree to this, but considering the game universe there is more to it. According to shodan.wikia

the United Nations Nominate (UNN) was created by the ineffectual governments of Earth's nations to stop the influence of mega governmental corporations abuse and enforce strict corporate laws and shut down corporations that are non-compliant to the new law.

So basically the idea (and you can go and call me naive) was to get "power" back to goverments representing the "people". Assuming that this works (yeah, I am naive) and is a way to get rid of opression in favour of democracy and peace, I'm all for it.
But there are catches:
- The UNN's slogan is "Unity secured by force", indicating they are willing to use violence in order to protect its matters. That is not the way to go; compare it to the UN forces: United Nations peacekeeping (seems to be the official slogan). Don't get me wrong, I know that there is also violence involved. They are not coming with only flowers in there riffles. But there is a fundamental difference between the two premises in my opinion
- UNN seems to be taking over function of a religion, as Diego says

God save the UNN*

That's to "american"** for me. "In god we trust, god bless..." isn't the premise I expect from a modern society open for everyone.


*her weapons sure won't^^
** no offence meant

[673f7b021805dvoodoo47]

the thing about good and bad is that they are just an angle of view. when you boil everything down, it's always about the same thing - trying to f*ck everyone else while not getting f*cked yourself. that's how mankind has been rolling for the last couple of ten thousands years.

[673f7b0218165Kolya]

In the manual the UNN gets away a lot worse than anyone else. They are described as a bureaucratic monstrosity, stifling innovation. Also they apparently hold elections while at the same they haven't been able to win the hearts and minds of the masses. Which is a bit of a contradiction if you ask me.

[673f7b0218923unn_atropos]

I had a look at the manual, interesting stuff.

In the manual the UNN gets away a lot worse than anyone else. They are described as a bureaucratic monstrosity, stifling innovation. Also they apparently hold elections while at the same they haven't been able to win the hearts and minds of the masses. Which is a bit of a contradiction if you ask me.

You're right. But we only can make assumptions about these elections. What figures? 99.9%? We should get Levine on the phone^^

In 2072, Earth and the colonies elsewhere in the solar system are governed by vast megaconglomerates, the largest of which is the TriOptimum Corporation. Most people have little to complain about, though there are rumors of strange research projects on mutated humans locked away in corporate labs.

A huge cooperation is controlling daily life, because they provide everything you need. Talk up and risk loosing your job? Tell people about these experiments? Corporal Task force can get you to shut up forever. Very easily.

The previously-ineffectual governments of Earth’s nations were now banding together to form the Unified National Nominate (UNN) and stand up to the suddenly defensive corporations. Governmental controls over business were stepped up, and national governments instituted severe political controls, using newly built-up military forces and secret police to force control over society and business.

This indeed sound violent. Not gonna defend this, but I want to ask the question: In our world today, companies are getting stronger and stronger. How could goverments and/or societies react? Do we want some company to have global monopolistic control about resources like water? Can we let the Datenkraken continue as they like?

The events on Citadel station have led to a general unrest and rebellion against megacorporate government.

The events on Citadel Station give detonation for public resistance. Interpretation: every dictatorial (or at least suppressive) system can only get along until a certain point sooner or later.

Now, thirty-five years later, with technological advances considerably slowed, the world has devolved further into a group of heavily armed rival regions.

Technological stagnation=(civil) war. A bold and questionable statement. I will make one too: I would'nt have minded to let the human society stay on trees. I can live without new iphones and achievements in cloning. I wouldn't go for war for that. Though I admit that discovery is a great thing on its own.

The UNN maintains strategic control, but has failed to win the hearts and minds of the lower classes.

I get the impression of a technocraty. Can be as cruel as a dictatorship sometimes. But when have the "lower classes" (and the generall) ever loved a goverment? The day that happens, something bad is going on.

However, Delacroix herself has serious concerns about the reliability of the device and its unexplored side effects. Once the rumors of the device are leaked out, the UNN is unable to control public enthusiasm. The UNN allows TriOptimum to develop a prototype, which tests successfully. TriOptimum begins production of an FTL starship, the Von Braun, but the UNN refuses to let it out of the naval yards, citing various regulations about tests that must be done before approval can be given. Popular opinion is that the UNN simply doesn’t want to let TriOptimum gain the amount of power that the only working FTL ship would grant it. By 2111, it is clear the device performs as advertised. However, the potential side effects of its extended use remain unknown. The device has caught the imagination of the public. With the conditions on Earth worsening and the disappointing results of the in-system colonization, hopes are high for brighter pastures outside the confines of our solar system.

I smell coorporate propaganda. Bild Zeitung screams: "THEY DON'T WANT US TO GO INTO SPACE". Staganation isn't good, but taking risk just for the sake of it is, isn't good, too. Like goverments saying "Yeah, we will take all the nuclear waste and dump it...somewhere. Cheap energy is good. Don't you want the people to live in comfort? Well, you can just go over *points drastically into the east*"

However, the UNN is loath to allow TriOptimum to be the principal beneficiary. Months of debate, negotiation and threat-making ensue, culminating in the mysterious death of one of the most vocally anti-TriOptimum UNN officials. Before the government/corporate split comes to open war, however, a compromise is reached between the UNN and TriOptimum, brokered by William Bedford Diego, a UNN Navy captain, husband of a TriOptimum board member, and the son of the infamous Edward Diego.

So both sides have their killing units (contract killers and OSA*)

*OSA is the most shocking part of the game. I never played OSA, but just listen to the mission descriptions they offer you. Shady. Very shady

[673f7b0218a45Kolya]

The OSA's description in the game is built on Scientology, some new age/esoteric stuff, neuro-linguistic programming... Shady indeed.