System Shock II (page 2)

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step…Two Steps…Three…No, wait

The original System Shock gave you objectives that had you foiling SHODAN's (the evil computer A.I. villain) latest plans at every turn. SHODAN powers up a laser to destroy earth, you rush to stop it. She prepares to drop biological weapons from orbit, you rush to jettison them into space. She tries to transmit herself into earth computers, you blow the goddamn transmitter up. The goals made you feel like you were DOING something.

In System Shock 2, 90% of the objectives you receive involve some object obstructing your progress to the next deck, usually in the form of a broken elevator or structural damage to the ship: reroute the power to open this door, get this elevator working, make your way around this hull breech, unblock the elevator, fix this broken machinery to get something working. Instead of foiling devious plots in order to save the world, your character plays a futuristic maintenance man. They seriously should have included a psychotic plumber class; all you do is go around fixing stuff and beating things with a wrench. Not until the late game do you start getting objectives that don't involve wondering around fixing broken parts of the ship like some kind of high school janitor. Don't be mistaken that the objectives will start becoming more fun though. Once you make it to the second haunted spaceship (tethered to the one you start off in) is where the retardation truly begins. Right off the bat they hit you with an easter egg hunt, literally. Your objective is to find a bunch of eggs scattered around in the most remote places of the ship. Later you have to make your way through reverse gravity levels. Why is the gravity reversed on this one level? Who knows. On from there it's hunting switches to extend bridges (didn't I already do this in Half Life?), then comes the most dreaded of features in a FPS, jumping puzzles. Those are something that should stay in the 2D sidescroller genre; they occasionally work in 3rd person games, but never in a FPS. If you look down you'll see that your character's feet and legs are invisible. How the hell am I supposed to gauge jumps when I can't even see my feet? An end sequence that involves you jumping through crushing pillars and leaping platform to platform suspended above a bottomless abyss is straight out of something like Super Mario Brothers. Most people thought the end of Half Life on Xeen was the most retarded part of the game, here the designers deemed it worthy enough to do all over again.

These guys carrying pipes aren't monsters, they're rival plumbers trying to move in on my lucrative ship-fixing business. My wrench, your face. Let's rumble!

As if the goals themselves weren't mundane or ludicrous enough, the pace at which you complete them is beyond slow to the point where you progress backwards. For every step forward you take, the game pushes you two steps back. For example the very first objective in the game is to take the elevator from the first deck up to the fourth. So you make your way to the elevator, oops it's out of power, better head down to engineering to reroute the circuits. Oops the door leading to engineering is locked, better go to the crew quarters and find the guy who had the code. Oops the circuit to the crew quarters door is out of power, better find a recharger station. Ok I've restored power to the door and made it to the crew quarters. Oops the guy with the code isn't here, better look for him at sickbay. Okay got the code and heading to engineering to reroute the power to the elevator WHICH WAS THE VERY FIRST OBJECTIVE IN THE GAME. Oops the corridor leading to the power station is flooded with radiation, better go to the controls to purge it. Oops the door to the purge controls is locked, have to go get the key in the command center, which is also locked so let's head on down to find the person with the key in cargo bay 2. Oops cargo bay 2 is locked, better go find the key in cargo bay 1. Okay got the key to cargo bay 2 where I found the key to the command station where I found the key to the purge controls, let's purge that radiation! Huh? The computer locked out the purge command? Oh for the love of fuck, guess I'll go find some circuit boards to override the lockout. Okay overrode the lockout, purged the radiation, went to the power station and turned the power back on to the elevator so now I can finally go ride it up to deck 4 WHICH WAS THE VERY FIRST OBJECTIVE IN THE GAME. Oh great the elevator is blocked on deck 3 better get out and clear an entire deck to unblock it. Now that that's done with you can finally get to deck 4 WHICH WAS THE VERY FIRST OBJECTIVE IN THE GAME. That's 5 hours spent fixing an elevator to move up two floors. ARE WE SHITTING OUR PANTS IN TERROR YET?!!!

Bad and Ugly, but Also Some Good

This game does manage to do some things right, which is quite frustrating because you can see how this really could have been a classic hallmark game. For starters the atmosphere is quite well done; it really does feel like a haunted spaceship: bodies lay strewn about, words are written out on the walls in blood, the ship's haywire computer makes routine announcements over the intercom for crewmembers to report to designated areas in an attempt to draw out any survivors, and as previously mentioned you come across several audio logs left behind by the crew. The audio logs deserve special mention as they do a fantastic job of fleshing out events and story. Early logs you find will have crewmembers going about everyday routines. Later on reports of ship wide glitches and missing crewmembers illustrate how the takeover came to be until finally you start listening to final will and testaments as the last few survivors are overrun with some resorting to suicide in order to escape the horror (funny how all the logs just happen to be in chronological order from earliest to latest along the route the player travels). The plight of the now dead crew is further brought to life by the sudden appearances of their ghosts playing out the last moments of their lives. I actually jumped and shot at them when I first saw one.

There are also a few good points to be said about the enemies. Early on it's truly a fright to have a roaming enemy spot you (chanting "I seeeeee yoooooooou") and give chase. You can duck into a room and hide behind a bulkhead thinking you're safe, only to hear the door open and footsteps come to within a few feet of your hiding place ("come oooooout"). One of the enemies, the cyborg, also deserves a special mention as by far the most disturbing and just plain wrong creature ever to grace a PC game; you'll feel glad about bashing its head in due to its horribly evil nature and origin.

However both these highlights are brought down over the course of the game. The enemies spout the same four scripted lines every time you see them, and you'll be hearing those a lot because the variety of enemies is very much lacking. Sure there are around 10 different types of enemies, but 80% of them are the same basic zombie you've seen since the very beginning. The enemy AI never goes beyond "run straight at player and attack", with the robotic assassin being the sole exception (though you only run into about 4 of them total throughout the entire game). Respawned enemies teleporting in right next to you eliminates any sort of ambiance and makes the whole thing feel like you're playing Quake.

Even the narrative, brought through by the audio logs and ghosts, comes crashing down when the end game setting is revealed to be the single most retarded concept imaginable. Not to give it away (although you seriously should stop playing long before then anyways) but it draws from the most unpopular and criticized elements of the original system shock, a game which was made 5 years prior so there's really no excuse for not learning from those mistakes.

The ghosts are frightening at first, but after awhile you can't help but get the feeling that they're nothing more than built in player hints like that talking paperclip in Microsoft word. You'll come across a locked door and a ghost will appear saying, "Gee, I need a key to open this door! Where could the key be?" or run into a high radiation area and have a ghost inform you that yes, you DO need anti-radiation items for this part.

"Hi! We're ghosts! Did you know that you can hit F1 at any time to bring up the help menu?"

The end movie (which is available as a video avi file in the movie directory so you can watch it without even playing the game) is also a letdown and features one of the lamest attempts ever at leaving an opening for a sequel, no matter how illogical it is.

Durr so do you Recommend it?

You've probably heard from every other review out there that this is the scariest game ever made and will figure that I'm wrong since my opinion is outnumbered by about 5,000 to 1. Keep in mind though that most reviewers are busy, impulsive creatures struggling under a deadline so that they can whore themselves out to another publisher as quickly as possible and most likely only played this game for a few hours before reviewing it. I can entirely understand thinking this is the greatest horror game ever if all you've experienced is the first couple hours, but don't be fooled. This WILL turn into a major disappointment and frustration. You'll probably go ahead and play it anyways out of curiosity and the fact that the price is down to about ten bucks by now. So go ahead and try it, but stop once you encounter your first cyborg about 5 hours into the game. At that point you've experienced all that System Shock 2 has to offer. It's all downhill from there as the initial "wow" factor wears off and frustration sets in. You WILL be tempted to play past that point. As a word of warning against this though, think of playing this game as having unprotected sex and the 5 hour mark being the point of orgasm. The experience so far has been thrilling and dangerous and you really feel like continuing to plug away, but for your own good you need to just pull out and walk away. Your life is going to made miserable down the road if you don't.

Here's a cyborg, now uninstall the game already.

To satisfy your need for good horror games, pick up the Silent Hill games and "Fatal Frame" for the Playstation, both of which are the best the genre has to offer. If you like to keep things PC and it HAS to be a first person shooter, then pick up the original "Aliens vs. Predator" and play as the marine, or try "Thief" (which coincidently uses the same engine as SS2, with much better results) and "Clive Barker's Undying". Any of these is a lot better (not to mention scarier) than playing a tiring FPS/RPG that doesn't let you pick your nose without the proper upgrades.

THE FINAL MOMENTS OF FABIO'S SYSTEM SHOCK 2 EXPERIENCE AUDIO LOG

 

Fabio- Holy crap I'm in a heap of trouble, better find a weapon and quick.

Game- YOU HAVE FOUND A PISTOL!

Fabio- Great! Let's whip that sucker out!

Game- FUCK YOU STANDARD WEAPON SKILL 1 NEEDED!

Fabio- I thought I was a soldier? Well, here are some upgrade modules I guess. Now I can use it.

Game- OH NO, MONSTERS!

Fabio- Ahhhh!!! *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *click* huh?

Game- FUCK YOU YOUR PISTOL IS BROKEN! SPEND UPGRADES ON REPAIR SKILL PLEASE!

Fabio- Nah I'm good, I have this backup pistol.

Game- HERE ARE SOME SPAWNED ENEMIES TO MUNCH ON!

Fabio- *BLAM* *BLAM* Well great, now that's broken too.

Game- YES BUT AT LEAST THAT WAS THE LAST OF THEM, SPEND UPGRADES ON REPAIR SKILL PLEASE!

Fabio- Oops my mistake it still works.

Game- HERE ARE SOME MORE SPAWNED ENEMIES TO MUNCH ON!

Fabio- Ok now it's definitely broken.

Game- DECK IS CLEAR NOW FOR SURE, SPEND UPGRADES ON REPAIR SKILL PLEASE!

Fabio- Geez fine, but you've only given me one repair kit so far.

Game- THAT IS GOOD FOR FIVE MORE SHOTS WHICH YOU WILL NOW SPEND ON THESE SPAWNED ENEMIES

Fabio- Christ is there ANY weapon that doesn't degrade?

Game- I CAN SELL YOU A SHINY NEW LIGHTSABER LASER RAPIER FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF 12,480 UPGRADE MODULES!

(ten hours later)

Fabio- Ok I've saved up enough modules, now gimme the energy sword.

Game- YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE LATE GAME WITH ENEMIES NEARLY IMMUNE TO ENERGY WEAPONS! NOW PLEASE GO PICK UP SOME EGGS FROM THE STORE

Fabio- Oh for the love of fuck, screw this. Just have my character shoot himself.

Game- YOUR PISTOL IS BROKEN

Fabio- Arrrggggg!

Fabio

page 1 2