Yes, looking forward to see how this is shaping up.
Just an FYI, tomorrow we can play the System Shock remake demo on Steam, for 48 hours during E3.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/...r-steam-demos/
I'm planning to hop on and give it a whirl!
Yes, looking forward to see how this is shaping up.
Nice, I'll def be checking this out.
Seeing optimism from ZylonBane feels weird and wrong somehow.
Not a bad experience; I liked hearing those old voice messages. Just slightly annoyed that I'm unable to remap the controls - I'm too used to using RMB for firing and LMB for interacting with the world, so I keep attacking objects and trying to interact with mutants.
So you're not allowed to say "tomorrow" in a post that is date/time stamped?
What an awful, awful demo. You'd think after 5 years they have at least put out SOMETHING that didn't run like molasses. They also really, really ruined the aesthetic of the original game with this... whatever it is. The blur and neon is just egregious.
I feel bad for anyone that actually backed this.
Alrighty, played the demo.
First off, it looks great. The blocky low-res textures mixed with soft modern lighting is really doing it for me. The demo level is also huge, which gave it a classic LGS feel, and the whole demo probably took me close to 2 hours to get through. Good atmosphere as well.
That's about it for the good points.
It runs like shit. I hear this is caused by some ragdoll physics bug? Towards the end my framerate was hovering between 10-20fps, with v-sync off, 1080p res, and everything turned down to low. My specs are i7 3,5GHz, GeForce GTX 1070, 16GB RAM. The sounds are mostly good, but a lot of the voiceover are just just totally emotionless linereadings. I'm guessing (hoping) these are placeholders. The melee combat lacks impact and often swings that look like they should've connected miss. The shooting is... ok?
Questions:
Can you reload the Magnum? I found lots of extra ammo for it but I could not for the life of me figure out how to PUT THE BULLETS INTO THE GUN!?
What's the passcode to the door at the south end of the station? Couldn't find it!
Screenies:
Last edited by henke; 13th Dec 2019 at 09:25.
I have a high end machine (i9-9900K and RTX 2080 Ti) so I had no performance issues. I agree with the melee combat thing; it's not very convincing. No idea about the Magnum, as I never used the thing... the way I usually approach the Medical level meant that by the time I found it, there were practically no enemies left (I was expecting to find it in the computer nodes room and was surprised when it wasn't there). The audio logs (most of them) sounded like the original ones to me - considering that those weren't read by any professional voice actors, no wonder most of them sound like emotionless linereadings. Also, I liked the new puzzles.
I just think that the demo isn't challenging at all - it was slow paced and enemies weren't exactly a challenge. Add that to no respawning and it meant that I never really felt in constant danger, which is something I like in the original game.
i9-9900K and GTX 1080 here at 1440p, no performance issues at all. Game ran silky smooth the entire time. Some points I noticed:
- I'd prefer the classic slider for configuring power on the Sparq Beam.
- Tapping T to change ammo type and then R to reload for the gun seems silly, I'd rather use mouseover via Neural Interface.
- It would be nice to be able to move the minimap from either side of the screen.
- Puzzles seemed sloppy and silly. This used to be a neural interface item, now it's in the physical world.
- Graphics were way too dark, although the headlamp is secured later in the game, a light switch should actually turn on the lights. Gamma Brightness option in Settings needs to be implemented.
- Medi patch, Stimulant, Berzerk icons all looking the same is dumb, each of these should have distinct coloring so you can tell which is which just by looking at it.
- I'd prefer to be able to see the weapon configuration on the screen like in the original game.
- Cameras are absolutely gigantic and seem out of place for their giant size. Not practical. In 2072 we won't have cameras that massive on a Hospital Level on a huge space station.
- A checkbox in options to enable the classic music and sound effects and voices at any point should be possible.
- Sensaround and Turbo-Boost are both missing.
- Dartgun and Stungun are both missing.
- Gamma Garden area has turned into a shelved plant room (a la Hydroponics). I preferred it as an actual garden.
- Hopper and Cyborg Assassins and Maintenance Bot (Robo-Scorpions) are missing.
- Cyberjack is non-functional, no way to acquire SB-20 MagPulse.
- Door, explosion, and weapon sound effects aren't as good as the original which had awesome sound effects.
- Notes and Paper Logs are missing, even 2-4601's personal note to themselves is missing.
- Mira Stackhouse' severed head is missing. Althea Grossman's severed head is missing.
- Barrel explosions were non-existant, really funny how they just disappear.
- Ammo taking up main inventory space is a major no-no and I can already see inventory space issues being a problem after Level 1.
- HUD Scaling doesn't even work, the lower icons were pretty huge on this 27" screen, I'd prefer to be able to resize those.
The atmosphere seems to be fairly spot on, though a bit too overly dark. So far System Shock and System Shock 2 does all of this much better.
I like it that there was an option to remove or increase the HUD Interface curve, more games need that option.
A nice touch seeing a note on the top of the screen telling you what you're looking at (panelling types, computer consoles, keycards, etc) but way too much "Unknown". The original game had a description for everything.
I really like how the elevator door looks, it's exactly how I would expect Tri-Optimum to place it.
A minor note: System Status revealed Gamma Grove as normal, the problem is that we know Gamma Grove was already jettisoned before the start of the game, I wonder if that's on purpose?
All in all, tons of work to be done yet but I can see this having massive potential. They have to take their time and not rush something like this, though it's tough as we've been waiting a long time already.
So keep up the hard work, and thanks for letting us play this pre-Alpha Hospital Level!
Last edited by terrannova; 14th Dec 2019 at 03:01.
I played it now. So I liked it.
It pulled off some hybrid aesthetic between lo- and hi-res textures and architecture better than I would have expected. The sound and look and feel, the UI, all the QOL stuff were all really nice and got me into the flow. Gameplay and AI were clunky but that's ok at this stage. Oh yeah, I also liked the glitch aesthetic it has going. I'd have thought it'd be a gimmick, but it works better than I'd have thought.
It's smaller than even I think the original... I mean in the sense of grandeur and scale. It just throws you in the first level with a little backstory and away you go with a few halls and recordings strewn around. (Contrast with SS2 where it opened with full on emergency or Prey's magnificent opening.) Edit: I suppose this is an accurate remake of SS1 (which I think I only played the first level of and don't remember well) so take that with a grain of salt. But even that aside, there's something in its tone and flow that also keeps it smaller.
The thing is, though, I kind of don't mind. There are a lot of games that are so full of themselves they've lost touch with just jumping into a world and having fun. And this is fun for what it is. So it has me rooting for it. I do hope it still has some big and imaginative moments though, given its DNA.
Last edited by demagogue; 14th Dec 2019 at 08:56.
Regarding the HUD, there's no sane reason why the compass needs to extend the entire width of the screen. They should confine it to just the central area, then the other meters could be moved up.
After watching this video, I feel even more sorry that they didn't keep with Unity (or at least the style they were using there).
Last edited by D'Arcy; 14th Dec 2019 at 23:32.
Hmm... a somewhat polished demo vs an unpolished game.
The Unity demo was also pre-alpha. Not sure how much more polished it was; I think they have actually been working longer in the Unreal one.
Building a 5 minute proof of concept is quite different from building a whole game. Have you watched the dev streams? Daniel spent the longest time just blocking out the levels, for example. And it was considerably more polished, from what I remember. It had more decals, more animations, more sound effects, all the little things that bring a game alive.
Also, here's what Stephen Kick had to say about the differences:
https://www.reddit.com/r/systemshock...rison/faur9nr/
The Unity demo we created was much smaller in scope so we had time to polish many of the secondary features for weapons and animations as well as lighting and optimization. Many of those are missing from the Unreal demo as we've focused on completing all the levels, basic mechanics and puzzles first. We were given the opportunity to participate in the VGA/Steam promotion so we used a number of work in progress elements to make it playable. Thanks for taking the time to put this together and share your feedback, the final version will include many of the things you've mentioned missing from the Unity demo.
Good to know.
They are still available on Youtube if you want to watch them, but yes, they are not making any new ones.
We are, after all, talking about developers who thought it would be non-nonsensical to have TriOp-logo-shaped monitors all over the station. In a game that's supposed to be an immersive sim. I mean, try to imagine the conversation at TriOp where that was decided...
"Okay, so we're going to install monitors all over our new space station that can display whatever we want."
"That's good."
"But the monitors will be shaped like our corporate logo."
"That's bad."
"It's okay, our logo is the only thing we'll ever display on them."
"That's good."
"But that means it would be cheaper to just install glowing TriOp logos instead."
"Can I go now?"
Thanks.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to try the new demo, so I can only go based on the videos. Visually, it's not really an improvement. It's definitely too dark. One of the things I didn't like about the Unity demo was the over-use of bloom and specular highlighting. Based on the video, it looks like the bloom has been turned down a bit, but there's still too many shiny highlights on things.
And somebody needs to work on the melee. It was at least serviceable in the Unity demo.