izigame.me

Though I will attempt it, it's tough to put into words how deeply ingrained the legacy of classic Looking Glass titles like System Shock and Thief are to both my taste in games and my mental models of what makes them great. I remember playing the original as a teenager and being blown away by the immersion mechanics like sneaking, climbing, hacking, and evasion, the audio logs with their unforgettable Aeon Flux-esque portraits, and iconic SFX / BGM (produced by the amazing Terri Brosius) so good it drove me to learn how to pilfer the game files in order to incorporate samples into trance albums (who remembers eJay?) that I would sell to classmates as burnt CDs in my HS cafeteria. My 18+ year career in design has roots in experimentations in Photoshop 6.0 chopping up the menu's UI and using sprites of the neon in-game computer panels into PHPBB forum signatures. The game, along with the remnants of my early creative output, have become like tears in rain. But that rain nourished something that has taken root, and what made System Shock 2 such a worthwhile title back then is present in plenty of titles that have been released since then.
But what makes a game worth buying again? Or, if you weren't lucky enough to experience the original when it first came out, why play a classic game knowing it will have dated mechanics or graphics compared to modern titles?
The answer to the first question will depend on how long ago you last played SS2. If you haven't played it in many years, you owe it to yourself to take a trip back in time - the original is preserved here in a fashion Nightdive Studios is well-known for. They make it playable on modern machines and upgrade the graphics from potato mode, sometimes sprinkling in nuances for the savants, but otherwise not messing with the source material. To witness the game with a level of consistent improvement to the visual fidelity, it will light up that part of the brain that says "whoa, this is just how I remembered it" without reminding you how clunky and ugly that actually is today. If you have played multiple versions of SS2, including the original when it became available on Steam, which already has visual fidelity mods (nowhere near as consistent, but higher-poly perhaps for some models), and have revisited the title a few times? Depends on how big a fan you are. The Vault should have been called the Time Capsule, because flipping through the old booklets and Prima strategy guide feels like a trip back to the early noughts. I'm taking this as an opportunity to roll the OSA melee build I've always shied away from, but otherwise, I have some doubts I'll want to play all the way through to completion in lieu of waiting for the full remake.
The answer to the second question, whether you should start here if you've never played, or just wait for the remake? I would highly recommend you start here! The game is in it's best and most presentable state here, faithful to the original, with core mechanics that age more like fine wine than many games of this age, and with a story that is still so worth playing through to the end. Going toe-to-toe with The Many and SHODAN, unraveling the story, and experiencing the perils of the VonBraun are not to be missed for any fans of immersive sims, sci-fi RPGs, and classic PC games. Play it this way first so that the remake can (hopefully) electrify it the way the System Shock remake did to its original.