System Shock – Shodan What You Got



System Shock is a brand new remake of the hugely influential 1994 original, so let’s dive into this reborn sci-fi horror classic, and see how well it holds up in 2023…

System Shock on Steam – https://store.steampowered.com/app/482400/System_Shock/

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Monkeys Spinning Monkeys, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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40 thoughts on “System Shock – Shodan What You Got”

  1. I owned four copies of the original System Shock. (For various reasons that I won't get into.) Until I played "Horizon: Zero Dawn" last year, it was my choice for the best game (of its time) ever created.
    I honestly thought this would be a scam, but so far it's looking pretty good. I hope it is. I'd absolutely love to revisit this game. I do give Jon credit for not dying about twenty times to the first Hopper. Either that, or the Hoppers are WAY less troll than they were in the original game…

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  2. I just so happened to have played the original a couple years ago for the first time. I understand the inspiration, but it was kinda boring.I’m glad it got the remaster treatment.

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  3. I remember playing System Shock back in the day. System Shock 2 was a much better game gameplay-wise (and it was possible to play co-op) in my humble opinion, but the first game is what set up the genre.

    edit: that said, I notice this version has much better mechanics than the original did.

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  4. I played the original back in the 90's, loved it back then! Also played the sequel which was quite a lot better (the first had really terrible controls, it was a very early game before FPS games had features like mouse look.

    I still feel like SHODAN is one of the best video game villians created. The only one that comes close is GLaDOS. Funny that they're both AIs.

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  5. I just went through a box of old software on a whim while watching this. And I found my copy of system shock from 1994.

    I want to get this running. Play it. And then compare.

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  6. I played the original. So I'm one of the nobodies who played it. So old, that my first impression was that it had angled walls, which was a huge advance over things like Doom and it's ilk. Also it was real 3D. And a plot that unfolded. The original may look clunky but it really was state of the art in many ways.

    Also, I avoided Bioshock for quite some time since I was mistakenly convinced it was trying to be a knockoff.

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  7. I completed this back in the day. The controls were very different, there was no mouse look, you moved around with wsad and moved the cursor to aim a crosshairs on the screen. There was also a little image of yourself with clickable grids so you could lean around corners and shoot out of cover.

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  8. One of the things that i really love about this game is that how it differs from it's sequel when it comes to upgrading your character. System Shock 2 has your standard RPG immersive sim mechanics with skill points and perks which would kinda set the standard for the genre however the first game takes a metroidvania kinda approach to the whole thing where if you wanna upgrade your character (Get a better flashlight, get better weapons, health kits that heal more etc.) you need to actively search and find them on the station and that is such a cool thing to do to encourage exploration

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  9. This game is impressive !
    I love the vibes, it reminds me of other early 2000's horror shooters like F.E.A.R or DOOM3, that I think were clearly influenced by this game (or by Half Life, which was also influenced by it).
    I'd love to see more of that, would have been great if you had time for a short series but a livestream will be great too ! looking forward to that !

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  10. I never played System Shock. But i played System Shock 2 (long ago) and i did not remember having to pick up 500 things per room just to "scrap" them. Maybe i forgot. But Thief (same guys i think) and Deus Ex and any game of that period i remember, didin't.i wondered about that crafting system. It felt too modern (and that is NOT a compliment).
    I have come to absolutely hate the micro looting/crafting in modern games. Some, like Dying Light 2 are completely unplayable without mods (yay PC gaming!) because of the insane and repetive grind. RDR2, Metro Exodus, ACO and ACV….you stare at stupid looting animations for 50 to 80(DL2!)% of the time…

    I get it from a publisher pov. Hence Ubisoft and Techland selling Booster packs and DLC that lower the grind. What a convenient coincidence…. It is completely beyond me, why players would want that. Not just for upgrades, like Atomic Heart but because you have insane ressource costs every level up (Assassin's Creed) or your weapons break after 3 hits (DL2). There is no challenge in looting a place for 10 minutes. There is no gameplay, There is no surprises. It's just busywork.
    And i refuse to believe, that SS2 started that.

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  11. I only played the original on demo, as while the game was amazing, the control system sucked… No WASD, no mouse look. You could crouch and look up/down but to do so you had on-screen controls to do it. The game was also resource heavy. Great graphically (it was release at the same time as Doom 2 but had a superior graphics engine) but you needed a monster PC to run it. Still one of the creepiest pieces of audio I've ever heard to this day is the one they used for the sound driver check!
    had a laugh at the "infinite ammo" energy weapons. This is a big part of the game as you have unpowered mods (like mapping and health status) and powered mods that draw energy on use or slowly drain constantly. Useful but you have to balance the draw with your weapons

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  12. As a side note. This game was kickstarted, I was really annoyed I missed it, but after a stellar demo Noghtdive had trouble getting it working and decided to move to unreal engine. Due to how that worked, it lost all of it's personality. There was also a move to re-work the levels to be more realistic (it can be a bit of a maze). It ended up splitting the team and annoying the kickstarter's as they wanted an update rather than a total remake. After a hiatus, back was the original lever, back was the retro style (with updated textures from the original).
    It's impressive work and they did keep the promise to be faithful to the original. A little too close as it may exclude some modern gamers, but I love it

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  13. I think I was the one person who bought it on release i remember its box art looked terrible and everyone based their purchases on the box as we didn't have gaming websites or YouTube to see gameplay, it was a great game I have fond memories of shodan insulting my rotting fleshy meat sack

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