Sorry, should have said the door was two-way. It's not immediately obvious because you have to press a button on the far side to unlock it, which also opens it, giving the impression that it's opened via that button.
What the fuck is wrong with the fonts in the remake? Why was it released in this state? Some text is already difficult to read in the English version, but when i switch to the German version, it becomes illegible in places.
That's my only bad impression about the game.
Agreed - had to install this mod to make the game more tolerable.Originally Posted by sk2k
It's actually not that difficult if you just go to the level's central hub. That's one of the first things I do on Engineering, and the access to the central hub is right next to the elevator. I go and get the V3 boots, then go to the central hub and get to the upper level, where you can solve the puzzles that will open the doors and give you a relatively quick access to all sections of the level.
Oh sure, once you know how to find it, it's relatively easy, but finding it in the first place is something of a nightmare. Most people aren't going to jetboot up to a higher level, they're going to explore their immediate surroundings first, and the level opens out initially in the opposite direction. I'm willing to bet most people who play SS1 for the first time will find the resurrection bay towards the end of exploring engineering.
Engineering is a hard level to remember. I saved at the beginning just in case. I've played SS1 a couple of times before, albeit not recently, and I didn't remember where the resurrection bay or the surgery bed was. I was actually looking for the latter first.
Well, it was inconsistent. In most cutscene images he had none, yes, but these sure look like gloves to me...
Even if he just has weird hands there and it's not gloves, my point remains that the addition of lit up gloves is such a bizarre thing to get hung up upon. We also technically do NOT know that their glowing circuits, etc. don't do anything. That's just an assumption.
Regarding his "cringey" new personality, also, the dude had a ponytail and wore a "smiley face shot in the head" T-Shirt. Night Dive clearly just expanded upon the very little that was there to make his views towards authority, etc. more palpable with one quick flip of his middle finger, something a cyber-criminal with an ironic T-Shirt (who is heavily implied to be a punk) would, in my opinion, totally do. As soon as you wake up on Citadel, he essentially becomes the blank slate character for you to inhabit again.
Perhaps you did earlier in the thread and I missed it, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the remake's gameplay and design, or any changes that aren't so superficial. Those things, to me, are much more interesting to discuss or see discussed than such nitpicks. You're entitled to them, of course, but I'm just hoping they're not your main complaints. If I let small aesthetic peeves of mine tarnish a game, I'd have very few games to enjoy, because I'm picky about art style, characterization, etc. too. I just feel what's present here is pretty darn true to the original in that regard.
Just my opinion, though.
YouTube recommended this to me, should be a fun watch!
Watched the first 30min. Glad to see Mark being as baffled by the pipe dream puzzle as I was, at least it's not just me being a dummy.
And not knowing what to shoot to complete the first cyberspace level, since what you're supposed to shoot doesn't look shootable.
Here's a fair but vulgar review of system shock remake. It highlights a lot of the more frustrating elements of the game but more of a positive light then a negative. Most of these I'd see as a negative since I'm one of the people that would have liked a few QOL gameplay elements like being told that those numbers that stop when you destroy the nodes are important to write down or hell, have the game take a note of it automatically. My own frustrations for the game mainly come down to missing doors (The door to the node area on maintenance wasn't yellow so I had a hard time finding it until I looked at a map) and not knowing where to look for the code that unlocks the door on the executive level until after I watched a playthrough. Luckly enough they got through that point before having to stop because the game started playing choppy.
Also haven't beat it yet but I'm looking forward to increasing that percentage of completion.
Played it. Finished it. Enjoyed it.
Perfect? Nope. Would sub over the original? Nope.
I'll just play both. Nyah.
My thoughts, exactly. The original is still king, but I'm really glad we have this remake. Two ways to play.
Last edited by F. J. Rothchild III; 19th Jun 2023 at 21:57.
I decided to play SS1 again after finishing the remake, just to compare and contrast. But after a couple of hours of it, I went straight back to Night Dive's version for a second go. And I doubt I'll play the original game again. The remake is faithful to the original design in almost all the ways that are important to me. And where they did deviate from the original design, it was usually for the better. I still miss the original music, but now that I've gotten used to Night Dive's take on it, I think it works better to build the atmosphere.
Yahtzee/Zero Punctuation just covered this:
MAYBE SORT OUT YOUR STAMMER BEFORE YOU DECLARE YOURSELF GOD, SHODAN MATE
I agree with this. I bounced off of SS1 multiple times in the 90s. Each time, I'd get a level or two or three into it and my patience would run out because I was tired of controlling my character and lost my sense of immersion. I think it wasn't until System Shock Portable incorporated the mouse look mod that actually I finished and enjoyed the game. When I finally did, it felt long and complicated and challenging to manage at times. Not that immersive, but definitely satisfying, like finishing a large puzzle more than finishing a good book.
The remake is intuitive to play for any experienced PC gamer and far more immersive than the original. The levels are also a shitload easier to remember and navigate despite being similar in scale to the original and similarly maze-like. But the side effect is that the remake feels shallower. The old controls were a layer of complexity that required attention and a lot of time to master. I don't miss them. But those who are hoping to be challenged by this game might. The remake is super easy on default (2) difficulty everywhere but cyberspace.
Matt McMuscles has this series which looks into games with particularly arduous or interesting development histories, and wouldntyaknowit, his latest is on System Shock!
Even tho I'd been following the history of this game there were still one or two new tidbits in there I didn't know. Good vid!
I remember the criticism when the concept art started to look less and less like Citadel station, and losing interest as it became obvious they were after a big publisher with the intent of making a modern big budget SS-inspired game. By the time that fell through and Kick put the project on hold, I was sure the remake was dead.
I just played it for a couple more hours last night and I'm still impressed by how close the end result ended up to what I had imagined when I first saw the Kickstarter demo. Hats off to Night Dive for turning it around and delivering.
Finished the System Shock Remake. The threatened bug I encountered earlier and talked about in another thread can be circumvented by letting yourself die (by radiation or other means), after that I was able to access the cyberjack and med pod on Engineering. The other levels didn't pose much of a problem. I didn't use the restoration bays apart from that one time, I just quickloaded when I died. The game wasn't too hard on combat difficulty 2. I didn't like the cyberspace sections very much so I made the right decision by choosing cyber difficulty level 1 to spare myself the frustration. The pixelated textures were fine by me and I overall like how the game looks and sounds. I did think the music wasn't very good (I only liked the droning music on the Bridge level), but then again contrary to many others I don't really like the original System Shock's music either. Of course the terrible final section of the game has been talked about, but was the final FPS cyberspace section even before the patch weird in the sense that dying only caused an immediate respawn in the exact same place, so no consequence whatsoever, or was that added in the patch? Because I can't think of a reason, story-wise, for death to have no consequences, in the other cyberspace sections you're booted from cyberspace immediately. I'd have preferred it if were like the normal sections of the game, where you can quicksave but also have to quickload when you die, so the combat in the final section actually means something instead of the enemies just being a bothersome nuisance while you shoot at Shodan. Anyway, it was well worth the money, I got it at 30% off but if I'd paid full price I still would've been satisfied with the experience.
Same thing pre-patch. FYI apparently Night Dive is completely redoing the ending before the game is released for consoles. The ending felt like a placeholder to me, and I guess it was.
Hopefully they'll be redoing the intro as well, because what they came up with to replace the original intro cinematic is just as bad.
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