By Michael Martin Leaño, hackenslash Contributor
INQUIRER.net
Editor’s note: The Xbox 360 and PC game Bioshock is the spiritual successor to System Shock 2. Let’s wax nostalgic and take a look at this classic.
A LOT has happened to video games since the new millennium: photorealistic visuals, emergent gameplay, and more complex game worlds, among other things. But even before all these changes to the medium came to the fore, there was System Shock 2.
SS2 is a strange mix of first-person shooting, role-playing, and sci-fi horror. Think of it as ”Event Horizon” meets Doom. The game was developed by the now-defunct Looking Glass Studios, and Irrational Games, the creators of Freedom Force. SS2 is the sequel to System Shock, another hybrid that came out in 1994.
This follow-up takes place 42 years after the events of System Shock. The Von Braun, a spaceship owned by Trioptimum Corp., is SS2′s main setting. Like the ship in ”Event Horizon,” the Von Braun is using a new kind of travel technology that lets it travel faster than light. The Von Braun’s mission is to journey into the unexplored areas of space, and it’s being escorted by the Rickenbacker, a military craft.
Where do you fit in? You’re an unnamed soldier who awakens when things get a little hairy aboard the Von Braun. You’re contacted by another survivor trapped in the upper deck, and you’re supposed to meet up and survive in the process. It’s not that simple though, because survival would prove to be SS2’s biggest challenge.
Like other games of this sort, you’ll be hard-pressed to find the necessary items to stay alive. Ammunition is scarce, and guns are even scarcer. If you do find ranged weapons, you’re always pressed for inventory space so you’re going to decide which item gets left behind. Dropping weapons become necessary when they’re broken unless you can fix them. Items for restoring precious health is also in short supply so each step taken must always be a cautious one.
The role-playing elements of SS2 make each experience almost unique. You’ll have to choose between three military branches, and each changes your attributes and skills. Choosing to be a Marine makes you proficient in weapons and physically able, but not much else. If you want to be part of the Navy, you get crucial technical skills like hacking, but you’re no expert with standard guns. Signing up as one of the OSA gives you useful psionic powers, but you’re a weakling physically. The career choice would determine how you handle various situations.
SS2 is frightening not only because of the limited supply of weapons and items, but also because of the moody atmosphere and the grotesque creatures that you’ll face. There are no generic scares here — imagine a formerly human foe that will scream at you, ask you to kill him, and bitterly apologize while you drive a wrench into his gut.
This excellence in psychological scares can be attributed to the brilliant sound design of SS2. The ship’s steady hum, the echoes of your steps, the random anguished shrieks, and the clang of metal provide an atmosphere that’s ripe for scares. There’s some dynamic music in between that shows up from time to time, but it’s never distracting from the immersion that one gets while playing. The only sore point that dampens the aural feast is the wooden voice work in a few audio logs. However, the poorly-delivered lines won’t diminish the fear evoked by SS2’s audio. Never has a game made monkey sounds so chilling.
After almost eight years of release, you’ll notice that SS2 hasn’t aged well in the graphics department. The enhanced Dark Engine shows its true age when you play SS2 today. The most noticeable proof would be the humanoid models that look bad even by 1999 standards. Playing the game in current machines is mostly a cinch because the game performs very well even if you crank the resolution all the way to 1024×768.
If you purchased SS2 today and you’re using Windows XP, you may encounter some technical issues while running it. You’ll have to download a patch for an updated version of SS2’s executable and fiddle with a configuration file somewhere in the installation directory. The good news is fans have made updated textures for SS2 to ”modernize” the game. When applied, the visuals do look better. Caveat: our copy was not tested for Vista.
SS2 remains relevant because despite its aging visuals, it’s still one hell of a game. SS2 is a piece of Looking Glass’ legacy, and a part of Irrational Games’ impressive credentials. When you’ve finished the game, it continues to disturb like a timeless horror film for the ages. SS2 deserves a place on your shelf.
System Shock 2
Genre: FPS/RPG
Developers: Looking Glass Studios, Irrational Games
Publishers: Electronic Arts
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
September 24th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
[...] Shock 2. Granted that SS2 is the sequel to the ancient System Shock, but I’m here to promote my retro review on the [...]
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
I agree with your review 100%. It’s quite a coincidence as I’ve just recently finished playing SS2 on my box. What’s compelling for me is that the story is intrinsically a war between two forces of evil–the alien hive-minded Many and the delusional AI-mastermind Shodan. The player becomes a pawn in their game for supremacy, an unheard-of premise in a genre where the hero is usually a rebel fighting for his own cause.
On a technical note, I was able to run SS2 on Windows Vista. However, I’ve found that the video cutscenes don’t play , and you have to set the app’s affinity to use only one CPU core immediately after launching, otherwise the game hangs.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:08 am
[...] hackenslash : Revisiting Von Braun: A System Shock 2 retrospective review [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
system shock 1 was better.