SSR The System Shock demo is OUT!

[6741fd4133e13Jasper]

Go nuts, guys!

[6741fd41340bfNameless Voice]

It's really short - basically just what was shown in the demo.

Looks pretty cool overall, though of course I still hate the completely changed Rebecca storyline, and how even the "Welcome back to Citadel Station" message is cropped short.

I like that you can still choose to not pick up the bio monitor hardware so it doesn't clutter up your screen.


Apologies to the people who complained about the pickup animations and ladders in the video - I thought they were being silly - but once I'm actually playing it, those both feel really awkward.  The pickup animation would be cool if it didn't lock you out from picking up any more objects and force you to move at a crawl until it finished.  A short animation is cool, but one that completely stops you from being able to play isn't.
As for ladders, they just feel really awkward and clunky.  You can't even jump into them to start climbing higher up.

I'm sure the animation of climbing into the medbed will get very old very fast, too.

It's also really strange that the inventory blurs out your entire view, but doesn't pause the game.

[6741fd4134247voodoo47]

runs on my Athlon64 X2/HD6850/6GB ram - barely. the demo is fine for what it is - confirming everything that has been said when analyzing the video. definitely could use less flashiness, and an UI overlay for the puzzles. ladders feel unintuitive and clunky. also crashed on me once. but yes, it was an interesting trip back, and I would play more if I could, despite the poor performance.

also yeah, leaning and invert mouse.

[6741fd413433cSchuler]

And I'm still downloading. I'll just say, I hope it doesn't look too generic like in some of the images I've seen, like they got carried away with the 201X effects and forgot what made the 1992 (I think) textures striking.

[6741fd413443aNameless Voice]

I just noticed that you can smash the lights.

The settings on the Sparq are really hard to see (and I only figured out you could change the setting because someone told me, the key (F) is not even listed in the keybindings.)

[6741fd41345bcSchuler]

Pausing a few minutes in for first impressions:

- Running a laptop (GT 840M), so bad performance - that's okay, I don't expect it from a demo.
+ Emphasising the cyber part of cyberpunk, like the pixellating display and the UI "coming online" as the hardware is installed, and the Hacker's hand and gloves being visible in equipping animations.
+ Existing.
+ Keeping the mouseover text labels. Can see storytelling potential there.
+ The environment, with the bodies and such feels great, however;
- I think, as I feared, that the lighting effects are a tad overdone, and would prefer a less shiny look for a horror game set on a utilitarian station, especially the spark effects in healing and charging. Maybe show the Hacker grabbing a charging cable? Really shiny storage room, for example.
- The oversized switch looks weird, would have preferred them scaled down to compensate for the much better resolution.

[6741fd4134909voodoo47]

+ Existing.

well yes, I'll admit that after years of failed remake attempts, having something that can actually be played was rather nice.

[6741fd4134bc0JosiahJack]

well yes, I'll admit that after years of failed remake attempts, having something that can actually be played was rather nice.

Ouch

[6741fd4134caaSchuler]

Even if I have hangups about this, I think I'll still pledge on Kickstarter when I have the money. I love SS1 too much not to.

[6741fd4134e0aHikari]

I'm not sure if I'll be able to actually play or not, which normal people would go 'well save up for a year get a new computer.'

Something i cannot do. So I'm torn here given it's for something i won't be able to enjoy unless i put in for a soundtrack. However i'm probably going to back anyway because it exists and early access information.

[6741fd4134edaSchuler]

FWIW, the game looks decent at very low resolutions.

[6741fd41351b6ThiefsieFool]

I'm really not feeling the tiny interaction objects. What I would much prefer is:
- you can use the whole Surgical Bed to heal, not just a tiny button
- for keypads and puzzles you don't necessarily have to create an interface that "takes you out of the game" or whatever, just move the camera really close to the widget so that rightclicking the individual buttons is not so finnicky

[6741fd41354dcSchuler]

I'm really not feeling the tiny interaction objects. What I would much prefer is:
- you can use the whole Surgical Bed to heal, not just a tiny button
- for keypads and puzzles you don't necessarily have to create an interface that "takes you out of the game" or whatever, just move the camera really close to the widget so that rightclicking the individual buttons is not so finnicky

Same for both. What I was thinking of was a zoomed-in portion of the screen with a free mouse, but ours works better. Oh, and letting me use my numpad as an input for the keypads, like Deus Ex: HR would be nice.

[6741fd41357bfLearonys]

Well, I played the demo and these are notable things worth mentioning:

- I broke the game by changing the FOV to the minimum. The screen basically got cropped and i could no longer press the apply button to put it back to normal.

- I decided to smash the screen of a computer to see what happens and a nice surface effect was shown! It might need some work because the shattered glass effect partially went over to the metal part of the computer but it's nice to see attention to detail is put in the game.

- I decided to examine the..... Cryogenic incubator?, and I just loved the text bars that popped up. Not a single, boring line of text, but different and personalised responses every time you clicked on it. I see good storyline potential, but i'm still sticking to my opinion that the efforts to portray the Hacker as a badass does not suit his surroundings a bit. The surrounding atmosphere needs a change if they want to make this work.

- The monsters in-game did not really scare me generally, but i did managed to get jumpscared once! I heard a serve-bot but did not see him, so I ignored him and went to the Energy charge station. It must have been perfect timing but at the exact moment I charged my energy, my character started screaming and i got pushed forward, on top of the charge station! I thought the charge station malfunctioned and was going to get me killed! ...Just to find out the Serve-bot that I heard chased me and pushed me forward.
You know, if you could make enemies do these kinds of things on purpose... The potential is unreal!

- I thought the Sparq beam had only two settings, until i pressed F once and my energy drain was a lot lower than expected! Further expection showed me there were not two, but four settings, but i simply wasn't able to see them. This should be made a bit more obvious. So i shot the Sparq beam at the lowest setting, and the beam was a lot less vibrant. I liked this, it wasn't as much as a fireworks show as the Polygon gameplay video showed, it just doesn't fit the weapon.

- I liked the look and the functionality of the grid puzzle! But at first it was a bit confusing to me which button was enabled and which one disabled, It seems like you can't turn these buttons on the grid puzzle off again, so I kept pressing the already turned on buttons in frustration because nothing happened. But off course this isn't going to be an issue the second time you do this.

[6741fd41359f9voodoo47]

Ouch

what, are you aware of something fully playable (and public) at this moment?

[6741fd4135dcbSchuler]

what, are you aware of something fully playable (and public) at this moment?

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=6977.0

[6741fd413700dMarvin]

The demo is way too short and the game is in a very unfinished state, so it's hard to say if Night Dive has what it takes, but based solely on what's in the demo, I'd never in a million years back this game.

- My eyes are constantly assaulted by a shitton of different effects, none of which I can disable right now. Not only do I find excessive bloom, DOF, oversaturation, or other fullscreen effects hideous, they distract from the game and make it difficult to notice details. The overabundance of environmental effects and animated textures clutter up the screen and I have a hard time discerning decals from actual switches and items. I don't care about "spooky" smoke or flashy sparks. If I can't see what's happening in the game, then the art department messed up royally. Truly bizarre when you think about how much better SS1 and SS2 are in this regard while still perveying the feeling of being alone on a derelict space station infested by horrible things in the dark that want to kill you. Sometimes, less is more. I do like the general asthetic, but they're unfit for a game of this type at the moment.

- Movement and hit detection give me the sense of fighting sloths with a slingshot in a water tank filled with honey. The player is laughably slow (don't want to frighten the console audience?), enemies are even slower. Sometimes I miss the enemy when a swing should clearly connect, sometimes the zombies' attacks seem to cover an impossible range.

- Did I miss all of the hotkeys or is there really no way to quicly move an item from a container to the inventory, switch weapons, play the last email, that sort of thing? Feels clunky/finnicky and slow at the moment. Same goes for the in-game interfaces with the tiny buttons everywhere. Wasn't one of the main complaints about SS1 how its interface is so difficult to operate? Well, this one's worse.

- Performance is pretty bad fora game of this graphical quality, but sine my PC is ancient, I'll let it slide.

Bottom line: Demo failed to draw me into the game in any meaningful way, they should probably not have released it in this state. All of the major problems I noticed can definitely be fixed, but all in all, I currently don't see any reason why I should invest into this game when I already have the original and Citadel's on the way.

[6741fd413717eKolya]

Well that's a word. I can't say I disagree, I'm just a bit more happy/excited to see a playable SS1 remake than you are apparently. Fair enough.

[6741fd41373e5voodoo47]

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=6977.0

no public release at this point, or did I miss something?

[6741fd41374d5Kolya]

Not a failed remake either. Here's to hope and chaos.

[6741fd413779fJoin2]

I'm really not feeling the tiny interaction objects.

I like the fine interactivity when using small objects. General use of doors could get annoying because there's so many though, but I'm fine with the current setup for keypads, puzzles and medbays.

[6741fd4137a05Schuler]

no public release at this point, or did I miss something?

I posted it to explain why JJ "ouch"'d.

[6741fd4137c74Schuler]

Well that's a word. I can't say I disagree, I'm just a bit more happy/excited to see a playable SS1 remake than you are apparently. Fair enough.

Hey this was a million-to-one shot so I'm amazed (see me giving a point just for existing) but bad modern sequels have come out before (Invisible War). I can be glad something's here, and point out how it can get better at the same time.

[6741fd41380a3Olfred]

no public release at this point, or did I miss something?

Well, you could download the git and play whatever is ready so far.