I know, I know, cliché title for the review, but you can understand the title for a couple of reasons. Mostly, it’s due to the shock upon playing the game in this day and age. The original System Shock was released in 1994 — one year after the renowned Doom came out. It was met with critical acclaim and considered the next step in the FPS genre and in many ways became known as the thinking man’s Doom. What System Shock did all those years ago and what it does today might be two different things, and its impact over the past twenty years might have lessened.
The player submerged into the role of an unnamed individual, who’s been arrested for devious hacking activities (it was all the rage back in the 90’s). He is, however, given a chance for freedom in exchange for a small task: to reprogram the station’s A.I, “SHODAN.” In return, all charges are dropped and our nameless protagonist is given a neural implant. Six months later in a healing chamber, you awaken to see things aren’t going so well with SHODAN’s new software update (I’m thinking it was Windows 10) as you discover the station is starting to look like something from Event Horizon. SHODAN has either killed, mutated, or has turned everyone on board into a cyborg. Now it is up to you, our nameless hacker, to go about and restore order.
A simple premise, much in favour of keeping the narrative down to a few lines, but the world itself is vastly deeper than that. By collecting audio logs and being pestered by the A.I itself, you learn that the world of System Shock has depth and a great deal of atmosphere, helping the player become immersed into the world. Night Dive has done a great job at tightening the visual presentation, and even 20 years later the game doesn’t look too bad. Visually, the game is bumped up with higher resolution, sharper designs, and a higher frame rate. But for those not used to older generations of gaming, it might make your eyes bleed a little. However, after a little while you’ll come appreciate the updated graphics and how the original development team made such a detailed and vibrant looking world with so little at their disposal.
System Shock is pretty much the embodiment of the 90s, where techno music, surreal visuals, and neo-punk aesthetics were all around you. Like the target audience of the PlayStation, this was aimed at ravers, computer geeks ,and teenagers alike; those who grew up on the Prodigy and Danny Boyle films. However, as I said before, System Shock is an experience for the smart gamer.
The design for System Shock is similar to that of Doom, but at a slower pace with more emphasis on tactics and planning. You’ll use a variety of melee weapons at first and soon move onto small firearms such as pistols. Eventually you’ll acquire larger, heavy duty plasma canons while taking on murderous androids, cleaning units, and humanoid mutants. It’s not just a case of running everywhere guns blazing, but rather you think through your situation and plan ahead. You’ll find yourself having to explore surrounding areas for much needed resources, but also for other means of traversing the environment and vital items to progress further. You never simply find a red key card; often you’ll finding important files with a pass code to an all-important locked door.
System Shock offers multiple paths and different solutions on the situations at hand. This was and still is a brilliant mixture of FPS action, RPG-like exploration, and some elements of survival horror, too. You can see where Ken Levine took a lot of inspiration from this and implemented it to System Shock 2 and his renowned Bioshock games. Even games like Deus Ex (also produced by Warren Spector) took inspiration from System Shock to develop and advance their designs and mechanics.
What was — and still is — strange about System Shock are the controls. Night Dive have done a great job at remapping them from before (the original version is way more complicated), but they’re still a handful to take in. It is, at best, a mixture between point and click and FPS. You can switch from moving the camera freely to using a cursor to interact with the environment and manage your inventory. It’s a little difficult to grasp and will indeed take some time to get used to, but overall, it’s worth the engaging experience you get in return if you give it the time it deserves.
These days, the majority of games painfully hold our hands through the whole experience. I, for one enjoyed the isolation and absence of any help within survival horror games such as Resident Evil. System Shock works by letting you lose and figure everything out on your own. Yet, it may be a bit too lenient; you’ll quickly feel like you’re lost in a labyrinth. You’re never told where to go exactly or what the main objective is, or even some of the basic mechanics for puzzles or weapons. It’s nice to know you can make your own way through the huge game world in any manner you please, but you’ll often get completely lost. This is, again, where taking your time and patience come into play; if you give the game enough time you’ll get through it.
There is a good variety of puzzles/mini games in System Shock, including the 3D computer jacking sequences that allow the player to fly through giant virtual mazes. These segments look a little outdated now, but for 1994 it was visually impressive and to this day is a fairly dynamic approach to puzzle design. What does become annoying is when the game decides to respawn enemies in certain locations depending on how long you’ve been in that area. Losing track of your objectives (or not even being told what they are) is also annoying.
Where Doom had an awesome, adrenaline pumping soundtrack to hype you up for the blood bath and demon slaying, System Shock’s soundtrack sounds more like what my older brother used to make in Music Maker on the PS1. But the outdated soundtrack is just a product of the times — a time when most teenagers where completely off their faces and listened to any hypnotic beat.
System Shock: Enhanced Edition is definitely for the more hard-core and the patient gamer, considering the complex controls and vast gameplay mechanics. Those who put in the time and effort will find an enriching and engaging experience that’s unlike anything we’ve seen in a while. Even with the outdated soundtrack and some annoying mechanics in the game, you’re still in for a rewarding treat with this brilliant cult classic.