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I heard you don't like hand-holding. Well, you're in luck, because this game doesn't have any.
I always wanted to play the first System Shock, having played (and loved) some of its spiritual successors. I also love the immersive sim genre, Deus Ex being among my favorite games of all time. I always heard great things about System Shock but the issue was, unlike many other old school games, this one really hasn't aged well. I'm not talking about the graphics, which are a non-issue for me. The problem was the really clunky and dated control scheme and interface, requiring tons of bindings, swapping all the time between various menus, swapping between mouse movement and camera look, and so on. That’s basically why up until now I tried playing the game a couple of times but ultimately abandoned it really quickly.
But thankfully Nightdive came to the rescue and gave us this little gem of a remake.
Unfortunately this game didn't receive a massive coverage when it was released, but in my eyes it's still one of the best titles of 2023.
If you don't know the story, it's very simple. You play as a hacker, who gets caught while trying to hack into the Citadel, a private space station owned by TriOptimum Corporation. You then get brought onto the station and asked to hack Shodan, the AI controlling the station, in order to remove her ethical restraints. In return, the CEO of TriOptimum, Edward Diego, promises you freedom and a very expensive neural interface implant. After the hack is successfully completed though, you are put into cryogenic sleep and wake up 6 months later, in the aftermath of the disaster which unfolded on Citadel after Shodan went rogue.
This is what is explained in the first few minutes of the game, then you're left basically on your own dealing with the Citadel and Shodan or dying trying.
The gameplay style is similar to a dungeon crawler with sci-fi setting. The levels are big mazes, with lots and lots of rooms, corridors, secret passages, doors and bridges to unlock, puzzles to solve and loot to find. There is also a lot of shooting, and although we won't gain XP and level up, we will be able to upgrade weapons and acquire new items which will grant us perks, such as a biohazard / radiation suit or thrusted boots. Enemies are plenty and some of them will respawn after a while, so we need to pay attention all the time and try not to waste too many resources or we’ll risk running out.
The objective of the game is to proceed, unlocking every level / floor of the Citadel, and slowly sabotaging Shodan’s cores, preventing her from destroying Earth and turning humankind into biomechanical abominations.
Shodan reminded me of characters like HAL9000 but much much crazier. She considers herself a goddess and her plans are totally insane. The more we will damage her, the more she will go ballistic trying to stop us. Shodan has tons of character, also thanks to some amazing voice acting, which will perfectly convey how crazy she is.
If Shodan is the mind, and Citadel her body, we will be a virus, slowly infecting and killing her.
Completing every floor feels like slowly putting together a puzzle, everything clicks in its place perfectly. It won't be easy though because we'll need a lot of patience and we'll be required to pay attention to audio logs scattered around the levels. Those won't just help us understand the lore, but they'll contain important information on what to do next, how to unlock certain things, and so on. After a while, I found myself taking notes of everything I deemed important, and I still had to check a guide a couple of times because I wasn't sure on what to do next. This might seem like a flaw but I actually loved it! It forced me to think and actively use my brain instead of just following a marker to the next objective. It was stimulating and it kept me thinking about the game even when I was doing other stuff during my daily life. I think too many games nowadays are extremely concerned with not scaring away players, while in fact the satisfaction of solving a hard puzzle is totally worth some frustration, in my opinion.
There are some sections of the game requiring you to hack into cyberspace. Those are probably the less entertaining ones, even though from what I've seen they are pretty faithful to the original. Basically it consists of shooting sections with 6 degrees of freedom movement style and a digital sci-fi vibe, with very colorful textures and polygonal enemies. Those sections let you unlock doors or other stuff in the levels and sometimes they can be fairly challenging. I didn't find them particularly annoying, albeit during the first few times I felt a bit nauseous, a similar experience to trying VR for the first time (not as intense, of course).
Puzzles on the other hand are really cool and relaxing. They are a great way to vary the pace of the game and I loved them. There is even a full chess board at some point, which gives you the opportunity to play some chess against a competent AI, and although it’s completely optional it gives the opportunity, if completed, to earn a nice upgrade.
Graphically the game in my opinion is an absolute masterpiece. It managed to perfectly grasp the atmosphere it wants to convey, giving some really cool cyberpunk sci-fi vibes and really helping the immersion. I also loved the fact that many textures have been purposefully pixelated, in order to convey the origins of the game. In my opinion they blend perfectly with the rest of the more modern textures and contribute to a really cool 90’s sci-fi aesthetic.
I also really love how colors are used, giving each level some unique identity and making them really pop. Items are wuite recognizable and it's hard to miss important stuff.
Sound is also pretty good, the soundtrack was remade for this title, bringing a more subtle, ambient-like music, which explodes during important events or combats. The style is different from the midi electronic and kinda upbeat music of the original game, but I can't tell which is the better one. In my opinion they are both great soundtracks.
On the negative side I had a few performance issues, even though the frame rate was well above 90 fps all the time, in some sections it felt like the latency had some spikes, and a couple of times the game crashed, like if there was some kind of memory leak (unfortunately I couldn't check if that was actually the case).
Another small issue I encountered was in the log menu, when after opening a message I couldn't control anymore the scrolling in the menu and I had to switch menus to get control back.
Overall though those were minor issues for me and they didn't ruin my experience, although I hope they’ll get fixed eventually.
In conclusion my experience was really awesome, I'm super happy I finally completed this classic title (looking forward to System Shock 2 as well!) and I recommend it to everyone who is at least slightly interested in the genre. This remake is a real labor of love and you can feel the care and attention to detail the devs put into it. I think you won't get disappointed!
A few tips for new players:
- Remember to quicksave often!!! The game has few autosaves so quicksaving will be really important.
- Take notes of everything which seems useful, such as codes, numbers, locations… I used the steam overlay notes function and it really helped out
- The previous point also can apply to seemingly useful items such as, for example, circuit boards, explosives, heads (?)…..
- If you can't wrap your head around some stuff, don't feel embarrassed to check some guides / tips online. There are also plenty of options to customize the various aspects of the game, if you are so inclined.
Have fun!
I noticed that some of my reviews were enjoyed by the community, I wouldn't have expected that, so if you read up to this point I just wanted to say thank you, I appreciate it a lot! Have a nice day!