Updating mechanics, graphics, and enemy A. Fight, hack, and save humanity from a fate worse than death itself. Poisoning their DNA, she mutated their flesh. How you strategy the Reactor will determine your destiny. Will you race to it instantly to get there first? Will you try to predict its subsequent location and arrange camp? Will you attempt to intercept oblivious on their approach to ship cost?
Starting off four years before the game begins proper, System Shock 2 features 'in-game character generation', which basically means that you get to go through a series of training missions within the context of the game itself, rather than selecting how much facial hair you want from a pre-defined selection of portraits.
You start off wandering the city streets, end up inside a military recruitment office with a choice of careers. Joining the Marines puts you through an intensive course in weapons training, while plumbing for the Navy results in heavy-duty technical schooling.
If you're the kind of person who likes to dabble with 'magic' in these kinds of games, then joining the OSA secret service will be the right career choice, as the OSA specialise in the use of psionic mind-based abilities - as seen in Stephen King's Carrie.
Each of the three disciplines has its own set of training criteria and, once completed, furnishes your character with a full complement of special abilities and fully prepares them for the monumentally huge task ahead.
In terms of gameplay, the idea behind System Shock 2 is fundamentally the same as in the first game. You're cybemetically enhanced soldier of the future, trapped inside a vast, deep space-bound vessel overrun by a powerful central computer system with deadly delusions grandeur. It's an idea that harks back to and Stanley Kubrick's classic A Space Odyssey - the story of a powerful computer gone haywire -although Levine cites other influences as being more significant.
It was serious sci-fi - not fantasy sci-fi - and we embraced the technological aspects of this scenario wholeheartedly. That's what we wanted to do with System Shock 2. Of course, there are references to movies, but then most science fiction games have that sort of thing. Like the Borg from Star Trek?
These wormlike creatures use humans as hosts, turning them into hybrid zombies. Over time, they can morph into a number of different states, some of which are truly disgusting. Was Ken going for big scares in System Shock 2? We're going more for a feeling of suspense and terror than actual gross-out gore horror.
There are currently 25 people working on System Shock 2, which is not surprising when you have a look 'under the bonnet'. The game is already packed with detail - hacking of course , weapons modification, maintenance, research, reams of statistics As in any good RPG, System Shock 2 will inundate you with useful items and objects, and half the fun will be working out what goes where and what can be done to what to increase your chances of survival. As any RPG fan knows, the developers will have to spend time making sure the interface is unobtrusive for this kind of approach to work properly and -happily - we can report that System Shock 2 already feels more than well catered for in this particular area.
Rather than have you leave the action to check your stats or inventory, Ken and his team have gone for the 'head up display approach with regard to the presentation of information, with pop-up windows overlaying the main view area while you continue to move around freely. Delving into these menus reveals a wealth of information - such as stats, tech skills, combat skills, psionic abilities, maps, research updates, logs, notes and emails - so you may be forced occasionally to find a quiet corner and pore over them.
This detail also extends into the game's weapons system. Looking Glass claim that System Shock 2 will have "the most detailed weapons simulation in any first-person game". We asked Ken Levine how much more sophisticated these weapons systems could get. Each of them has two different settings - except for the wrench, which is simply used to hit people over the head - and between two and five different types of ammunition, all of which are effective against different targets.
Armour piercing is more effective against robots, EMP rounds are only effective against robots and not at all effective against organic targets. Playing the beta version of System Shock 2 confirms this - you really have to think about what you're aiming at before opening up. And it does seem to add a whopping great dollop of tension to the atmosphere. For instance, you can modify the assault rifle to hold more rounds of ammunition, or fire at a faster rate, or do more damage.
It's a technical skill you acquire in the game. Balancing technical skills I will play a significant part in the proceedings, and the process of upgrading and refining them is not only fairly logical, it also contributes greatly to the game's role-playing sensibilities. Being a living cybernetic human, you have a hole in the side of your head that you can plug stuff into. And plug stuff into it you do -particularly hardware upgrades that enable you to hack or research things.
Once this hardware is in place, your skills can be developed by trading 'cyber upgrade units' That's experience points to you and me - Ed in return for a boost.
So as you get better at the game, you get better at performing particular tasks, and the make-up of your character is formed as a result. But these cyber upgrade units will be quite hard to come by and some soul-searching may be needed before 'spending' them. Such is the nature of the role-playing game.
One original feature of System Shock 2, unheard of in a role-playing game until now, will be in the use of its multiplayer facilities. Rather than tack on a few deathmatch levels at the end of development, the designers decided a multiplayer co-op version of the single-player game would be more interesting. So that's what they set to work on. What we want to do with System Shock 2 is expand and adapt the single-player experience to a multiplayer environment.
We're supporting four-person multiplayer team play, which takes you through a modified version of the single-player storyline. This way you can really develop a party of differently styled characters and let them support each other's skills. It's an idea that has been bandied around by a number of developers recently - playing your way through a singleplayer game with a party of human cohorts - and Looking Glass could be the first to get it right. How the logistics of putting together a multiplayer experience of this kind are handled, we don't know.
Hopefully they'll get it right. From what we've seen so far, Ken Levine and his team seem to be getting pretty much everything else right. There was something about the original System Shock - the fact that although it was quite obviously all a work of fantasy, you were drawn into this pseudo-realistic high-tech world of gadgets and computers, and bought the lot of it. It felt intense and realistic, even though the game dealt with the kind of subject matter AD would have been proud of.
The same eerie silence that permeated Alien, as well as the classic horror adventure Resident Evil 2, also casts a shroud of dread over System Shock 2, and this mixture of realism and atmosphere should certainly conspire to give us all heart attacks.
Luckily, as with Thief: Dark Project, you can lean around comers to see what's out there, and hear monsters scratching away in the distance before they get to you. However, neither of those abilities are any guarantee that you'll make it out of System Shock 2 alive.
Confused yet? For their first outing, Irrational were approached by Looking Glass with a view to producing a game using their proprietary 3D engine. Looking Glass came to us and said: 'How would you like to work on a game for us using the Thief engine?
Looking Glass agreed and the project was green-lighted. Irrational then took up residence In a comer of Looking Glass' Cambridge, Massachusetts, office -effectively returning to their previous place of employment to work on their first game.
Says Ken: "The idea to do a sequel had been around for such a long time that it seemed crazy not to do it now. It's a scenario that's not as far-fetched as you may thipk. Had it not been for ground-breaking System Shock2-agame that helped reinvent the RPG genre and led it confidently down the revolutionary first-person perspective path first pioneered by Ultima Underworld and later by System Shock - then perhaps we'd never have had a chance to experience these more recent RPG gems.
System Shock 2 was a revelation, its perfectly-crafted plot submerging you into a dark and sinister science-fiction world in which you had to uncover the truth behind the mass murderof your ship's crew members - and your true identity. From the breadth of its character creation options and the unique way in which your abilities shaped how you played the game, to its deeply compelling, mature and intelligently crafted plot that explored the struggle between humanity and machines.
System Shock 2's influence still resonates like a crashingbell throughout the entire genre. It was also the game that was to forge the foundation for irrational Games to build upon, a titanic debut title thatk jfculd not only enable the developer to blossom into one of the most sought after games development teams in the world, but also stamp its influence op RPG gaming history forever.
The pair then quickly set about collaborating with their previous employer on an all new project. When we started Irrational. Paul Neurath of Looking Glass, who we knew from working there, came to us and said, so, wetve got this Thief engine which you guys have worked on.
We'd like to use it for another game. Have you guys got any ideas'? We all shouted, System Shock 2! System Shock 2! And so work began on a game called Shock see what they did there? Can you guess what happened next? Being handed the System Shock licence on an EA-branded platter brought with it not only a unique opportunity for the newly-formed Irrational team to make a name for itself, but also crushing pressure to create a game worthy of its legendary predecessor.
This is something the two men were acutely aware of as they set about their task. But as Ken explains, System Shock's legacy also brought with it its own inimitable benefits. System Shock: Enhanced Edition - one of the first immersive sims in the world, which became the progenitor of many cult games such as Deus Ex, Bioshock, Thief, etc. With the Enhanced Edition, you will experience a familiar game in a new way. More than twenty years after the release of the game, enjoy the classics, where textures are available in 4K resolution and compatibility with all modern systems.
Also added various improvements and additions. You play as a professional hacker and cyberspace thief. The gameplay remains intact. The game combines Survival horror, action, first-person shooter, role-playing, immersive simulation. The title is set in a setting that combines science fiction and cyberpunk.
The action takes place on board the spaceship. An unnamed soldier wakes up from a cryosleep and realizes that many crew members are dead.
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