System Shock Remake - Reviews, Impressions & Hot Takes

[Aja]

That intro looks to me like a VR game that got forced into flatscreen. It's a little janky but sort of charming, like how he cracks his knuckles cartoonishly and, yeah, the on/off switch for SHODAN's ethics controller.

In any case, I'll probably get this when it comes to consoles if only to indirectly voice my support for NightDive doing an eventual Thief remake.

[Sulphur]

Yes, the intro is half-assed. A nice idea, but when I played the last demo, I remember feeling a bit underwhelmed by it all - it felt pretty rushed and perfunctory.

I haven't gotten the game yet, because I have issues with a few things, like how much junk there is to sift through, and it's really difficult to tell what's useful and what isn't, a problem I did not have with the original. But also, a much bigger bugbear I have is that the combat just felt off - did they fix the weird lack of feedback with the pipe connecting with enemies? Other weapons had an odd lack of physicality, too.

[henke]

I'm 8 hours in now, on the Storage level. Time for a HOT TAKE ROUND UP.

INTRO: I like the intro because it gives you a taste of what normal life is like in this world/time, before throwing you into the weird space cubes of Citadel station. I did not mind the pace of it at all.

RECYCLER STATION: it's kinda like Prey's Recycling station except slower and jankier. What I do like about it is that it gives some purpose to all the clutter lying around. Systems like this make the whole place feel more real.

MELEE COMBAT: yeah, Sulph, it's still weak. I think it needed some split-second frame-freezes on the moment of impact, like all the proper fighting games do it. The way enemies slump over after getting knocked out or shot is satisfying tho.

Hey, uhh, are there no more secret rooms after the first floor? Found a bunch of em in Medical, but none on other floors. Or are they just really well hidden?

[D'Arcy]

Well, there is at least one secret room in every single level where you'll find 'Skully', the Nightdive mascot.

If you're referring to hidden panels on the wall, there's at least one right outside the elevator on the Reactor level, down in that pit.

I absolutely hated the insane amount of flying bots respawning in the storage level. Maybe it's because I'm playing with enemies set to 3, but that was way too much, to the point of just becoming annoying. I'm expecting respawning, but when you clear a room, go into another room, and then return to the previous room only to see that more bots have respawned there it's too much. I even had situations where enemies respawned right behind my back.

[Shadowcat]

Adding an economy is so contrary to what I feel are the values of System Shock 1 (and to what makes it my favorite game of all time™ over SS2 and any subsequent immersive sim) that I refuse to play the remake for this reason alone.

I'm pondering buying it, but I was also sad when I read that they were shoe-horning this kind of thing into the remake. I don't think that benefits the game.

Admittedly, I think my original impression was that they were intending to add SS2-style ways of "leveling up" your abilities that weren't a consequence of plugging new technology into your brain, and from what I'm currently reading that's not the case. I always liked the fact that all improvements in SS1 were either hardware or chemical enhancements, rather than the human player character just magically "getting better" in the way that happens in most RPGs (despite the fact that the whole game takes place over a very short span of time).

SS1's enhancements facilitated the suspension of disbelief. Hopefully that hasn't been lost.

[heywood]

RPG elements were on the table during the original Kickstarter. There was a fan backlash and they walked away from that idea.

I liked Prey overall, but I haven't replayed it because the recycling was too grindy. After D'Arcy's post on the last page, I've stopped recycling in the remake. It think it fits in SS2, but not here.

[ZylonBane]

It think it fits in SS2, but not here.

It also doesn't suck in SS2. Recycling in SS2 is quick and convenient, and spending your cash at replicators is simple as could be.

Everything about the remake's recycle/credit systems is weird and clunky and awkward. I don't think it even bothers explaining how you can magically transform any item into a generic scrap cube.

[Sulphur]

MELEE COMBAT: yeah, Sulph, it's still weak. I think it needed some split-second frame-freezes on the moment of impact, like all the proper fighting games do it. The way enemies slump over after getting knocked out or shot is satisfying tho.

Hmm! Odd that they didn't fix it given I thought there was a fair amount of people griping about it. Oh well, it's not like I haven't got other things to play first. Think I'll let this get out of the post-release patch period, I'm not buying anything at launch these days anyway.

[ZylonBane]

I think it needed some split-second frame-freezes on the moment of impact, like all the proper fighting games do it.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? You want fighting game mechanics in an FPS? Even if they did something that stupid, the entire game momentarily freezing every time you hit someone would be perceived as a bug, not a feature.

[Aja]

They do it in Zelda games and it feels great, lends a sense of impact. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it in first person, though.

Also, is there some way to add an extra “Zylonbane” to your profile? I think you could use a couple more.

[henke]

Ok calm down ZylonBane, take a deep breath, it's just a video game.

I thought Dying Light 2 had frame frames on impact, but looking at it now it looks more like the pauses are in the animation. The weapon-swing briefly pauses on the moment of impact, while the rest of the game moves at normal speed. And of course some slow-mo on big finishers.



Anyway, that. Nightdive should've done that.

[henke]

Uhhh so is it possible to get a radiation protection upgrade before going into Beta Grove?

Been running around looking for it, eventually gave up and just googled it. Apparently v2 of the upgrade is in maintenance, locked behind a door that only opens when security is down to 45%, but for that to happen it seems I first need to finish the objective in Beta Grove. At which point... uh, I won't need to upgrade any more. It's a real catch 22.

[D'Arcy]

In Beta Grove you suffer from biohazard contamination, not radiation. So V1 is all you need to go there. V2 doesn't add any extra protection against biohazard.

[catbarf]

Yeah, you only need the V1 for Beta; the V2 with radiation protection is so you can survive the reactor.

Though in Beta, even with it enabled I was sitting at 23 points of bio-contamination and scarfing healing/detox and batteries constantly. Definitely still an in-and-out operation.

[henke]

Thanks! Ok yeah I ended up just pinching my nose and running through. After that I'm supposed to find the jettison master control somewhere in Gamma quadrant, so I run around forever in the place the map calls "Delta and Gamma quadrant" before realizing there's a locked door just called Gamma, so it's somewhere in there, right? Man, this fuckin game.

[driver]

Replaying it now since the beta backer version, mostly seems the same but with more polish, which... is to be expected. The recycling mechanic really doesn't work with the limited inventory space. After the first level you're carrying so much gear you can't take more than one or two small items so it's just a hassle. I suppose a quick 'fix' would be that the game automatically vaporises any junk you pick up, then you can jut drop the scrap in the recycler and tweak up the amount of tokens you get for it. As it is, it's just not worth while to keep enough space clear to pick up the larger items that are more valuable. Not to mention that the recycler inv is so small that if you have more than one 2x2 junk items you have to do them separately. This is daft.

Seems rather telling that the worst parts of the remake are the ones ND put in, (ie the new intro and ending). Everything else that's just been brought up to date works great. Still, it's certainly far from a bad game, I just wish they hadn't messed around with it so much. The tile-based inv system would have worked fine without the recycling mechanic.

[Nameless Voice]

Thanks! Ok yeah I ended up just pinching my nose and running through. After that I'm supposed to find the jettison master control somewhere in Gamma quadrant, so I run around forever in the place the map calls "Delta and Gamma quadrant" before realizing there's a locked door just called Gamma, so it's somewhere in there, right? Man, this fuckin game.

That part of the map always confused me in the original as well.

You start off on the "northern" half of the map, which has the three groves in it.
There's an easily-missed corner that leads to the central hub for the level, which is an odd room with a big pit in the middle, and doors leading to each of the four quadrants. Two of them are broken, but you need to go through this room to get to the other half of the map.

I believe the door to this room is locked, so you'll need to get the keycard, and it's at the end of a corridor that slopes upwards slightly.

Once you get in there, you also can't actually reach Gamma Quadrant directly, you have to go through the Delta section and crawl through some tunnels.

[D'Arcy]

Recycling isn't that bad. I think I got pretty good at selecting which are the absolutely necessary items to carry around and leave enough empty space to use for carrying items to recycle. I'll admit that I can get somewhat obsessed and that my slow and thorough playing style would probably be extremely boring for most people, but I'm currently halfway through the Executive level and I have 770 credits. And that's after having already bought every single upgrade, ammo, and medpatch available in the previous levels, so I'm fairly sure that I must have already collected well over 1000 credits. I won't dedicate so much time and effort to recycling on my next playthrough, but for this first one I want to have a good idea of how much is there to collect, which are the most valuable and easily recyclable object, and how much in total will be necessary to buy everything possible. By now I'm getting fairly sure that even if you don't recycle any item directly for credits, just by vaporising everything and then recycling the resulting junk will be more than enough to buy whatever you want. Here's my current inventory:

[dylan barry]

This games really making me appreciate what Doom 3 was going for tbh. (hot take ? )

One thing I wish is that the security cameras alerted enemies like the other games in the series; I mean, this is NOT 1:1 in design as people would have you believe. And i'd say closer to that reimagining; what with the more fleshed out Diego moments, shops ect.

Enjoying how much more polished it is than the demo, they really did hit it out the park with production values.

[henke]

Oh! I was thinking about Doom 3 as well, playing this, tho I couldn't exactly say why.

D'Arcy, that's an incredibly well-organized inventory. I've been vaporizing and recycling haphazardly and have been able to buy all the weapon mods and health patches I've needed. Honestly, the only patches I've had use for is health, detox and reflex.

Update:
I jettisoned Beta Grove. Apparently next I'm supposed to blow something up with all that damn plastique I've been lugging around for most of the game. Fiiiinally. Also, I left a few BIG GUNS I couldn't carry laying in elevators (because I heard that's what the real SS pros do) but now I can't find em! Dammit.

Y'know, playing this makes me really curious how all this stuff was represented in the original game, which I only ever played the first floor of. Maybe I'll fire up the Enhanced Edition and give it a play once I'm done with this.

[dylan barry]

I also think cyberpunk would have benefitted more if it was a bullethell kinda affair with more defined projectiles and stylistic barrages of them to navigate around (NIER auto style). As it is its hard to know if you're getting hit or not.

[D'Arcy]

Henke: are you leaving them inside the elevators? In SS2 I do leave stuff inside the elevator, but here (and in the original) I leave them outside the elevator, just near the door. Then I select which weapons are the best ones for that particular level. And you'll only need four plastique explosives, one for each antenna array.

I like to use the Berserk patches. For bigger robotic enemies, the combination of an emp grenade followed by an attack with the laser rapier and a berserk patch applied is unstoppable.

[Starker]

One more exceedingly positive review focusing more on the technical aspects:

[ZylonBane]

Jesus, that guy was gushing about the remake like it had granted him immortality and he just wanted to return the favor.

[Starker]

One of the most negative reviews I've come across so far, and it's from a Prey fan no less. Didn't like combat, puzzles, cyberspace, recycling restrictions, reviving at cyborg conversion chambers, lack of handholding, level design, lack of immersive sim solutions to problems, game not being Prey (the new one from Arkane):