LGR - System Shock - DOS PC Game Review
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Dave
What an awesome game! Never got through it, though. Atmosphere was too good. Got the enhanced CD edition when it was originaly released back then, together with my best friend. We were like 15 back then and huge fans of the Ultima Underworld games. With the sci fi setting also appealing to us, this one was a must have! We met up in the evening and gave it a go, both having our own pair of headphones on. Which was the worst idea ever, as it later turned out. Aptly named -WORF- (upper case, of course, we boldly climbed out of the cryo tube on Citadel Stations medical ward. The game and atmosphere were stunning, the controls not to bad, when you were used to Underworld. But the thing turned out to be creepy as hell. The ambient sounds, defective doors opening and closing by themselves, the weird noises of the mutants and cyborgs. And Shodan. Always watching and taunting, while constantly seeming a step ahead of us. The story slowly unfolding around us becoming more tense and horrifying with every audio log discovered. I think it was in Level 3, when Shodan reprograms the regeneration chambers to turn you into a cyborg when you die, that it finally got the best of us. I swear, I never felt so scared, paranoid and alone in my life before, and after! Running low on life and ammo, neither of us had the guts to open the next door, through which suspicious noises could be heard. We decided to save and continue another time. I didn't sleep that night and we never continued the game beyond this point. WORF had crapped his pants that night, in epic fashion! Later I played though SysShock 2 and a lot of other scary games without ill effect. But whenever I try to get back to the original System Shock, I find that I simply. can't. That game has scared me for life! I still got the game disc and never regretted buying it, though. It was a great game, anyway! :D
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What an awesome game! Never got through it, though. Atmosphere was too good. Got the enhanced CD edition when it was originaly released back then, together with my best friend. We were like 15 back then and huge fans of the Ultima Underworld games. With the sci fi setting also appealing to us, this one was a must have! We met up in the evening and gave it a go, both having our own pair of headphones on. Which was the worst idea ever, as it later turned out. Aptly named -WORF- (upper case, of course, we boldly climbed out of the cryo tube on Citadel Stations medical ward. The game and atmosphere were stunning, the controls not to bad, when you were used to Underworld. But the thing turned out to be creepy as hell. The ambient sounds, defective doors opening and closing by themselves, the weird noises of the mutants and cyborgs. And Shodan. Always watching and taunting, while constantly seeming a step ahead of us. The story slowly unfolding around us becoming more tense and horrifying with every audio log discovered. I think it was in Level 3, when Shodan reprograms the regeneration chambers to turn you into a cyborg when you die, that it finally got the best of us. I swear, I never felt so scared, paranoid and alone in my life before, and after! Running low on life and ammo, neither of us had the guts to open the next door, through which suspicious noises could be heard. We decided to save and continue another time. I didn't sleep that night and we never continued the game beyond this point. WORF had crapped his pants that night, in epic fashion! Later I played though SysShock 2 and a lot of other scary games without ill effect. But whenever I try to get back to the original System Shock, I find that I simply. can't. That game has scared me for life! I still got the game disc and never regretted buying it, though. It was a great game, anyway! :D
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Crescendo
Just been playing this after watching this video and have a shortage of present day games I like.
After having a go I'm sorry the people who made these games weren't more successful. They were contemporaries of Id software releasing Doom and Quake. They even got there before Doom and with somewhat better technology: Ultima Underworld I was released before Doom and allowed the player to look up and down. It was more properly 3D. What they had that Doom didn't though is it was more cerebral. The pacing was slower and it played more like a graphical adventure game. You'd puzzle and search your way through and much less of it was purely kill or be killed. Ultima Underworld even had friendlies in it who you needed to talk to to help solve the game. The popularity of Doom decided the direction of most of the video games industry and we've all but entirely lost this alternative universe which was replete with the thrill of just being there.
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Just been playing this after watching this video and have a shortage of present day games I like.
After having a go I'm sorry the people who made these games weren't more successful. They were contemporaries of Id software releasing Doom and Quake. They even got there before Doom and with somewhat better technology: Ultima Underworld I was released before Doom and allowed the player to look up and down. It was more properly 3D. What they had that Doom didn't though is it was more cerebral. The pacing was slower and it played more like a graphical adventure game. You'd puzzle and search your way through and much less of it was purely kill or be killed. Ultima Underworld even had friendlies in it who you needed to talk to to help solve the game. The popularity of Doom decided the direction of most of the video games industry and we've all but entirely lost this alternative universe which was replete with the thrill of just being there.
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Riccardo
I love System Shock, including the mazelike structure. It's actually by design, in order to increase immersion: Citadel Station was explicitly designed as an actual functional structure rather than easily remembered game levels. Places like research centres and offices do have a repetitive structure that can get you lost. Early Doom games have the opposite approach, again by design: id designed Doom to be easy to navigate, meaning that every section of a level is different, which also leads to completely abstract environments that would not function as anything. Play through Doom or Doom II and ignore the level names. Ask yourself: what is this room that I'm in supposed to be for?
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I love System Shock, including the mazelike structure. It's actually by design, in order to increase immersion: Citadel Station was explicitly designed as an actual functional structure rather than easily remembered game levels. Places like research centres and offices do have a repetitive structure that can get you lost. Early Doom games have the opposite approach, again by design: id designed Doom to be easy to navigate, meaning that every section of a level is different, which also leads to completely abstract environments that would not function as anything. Play through Doom or Doom II and ignore the level names. Ask yourself: what is this room that I'm in supposed to be for?
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Zacharian
Me as a kid in 1990's: -So I can get a small discount for System Shock CD if I'll buy it without the box? Sure! I don't even like its cover art. -
This decision still bugs me. :D
Also got to love it how our Pentium 1 of the time was unable to run the game smoothly with high-resolution SVGA. When I got a new computer in mid 2000's, I really looked forward to finally be able to run System Shock nicely on it. Alas, Windows XP would no longer run natively this old DOS games. But hey, no problem: DOSBox was already a thing! Alas, emulation is so hard work that my year 2005 computer's performance with DOS games was pretty comparable to the 1990's Pentium 1 again.
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Me as a kid in 1990's: -So I can get a small discount for System Shock CD if I'll buy it without the box? Sure! I don't even like its cover art. -
This decision still bugs me. :D
Also got to love it how our Pentium 1 of the time was unable to run the game smoothly with high-resolution SVGA. When I got a new computer in mid 2000's, I really looked forward to finally be able to run System Shock nicely on it. Alas, Windows XP would no longer run natively this old DOS games. But hey, no problem: DOSBox was already a thing! Alas, emulation is so hard work that my year 2005 computer's performance with DOS games was pretty comparable to the 1990's Pentium 1 again.
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phillippi2
I know this video is a bit old but, still; On the game 20th anniversary, many of the games devs participated in a Twitch stream of the game. During which, it was confirmed that the ceilings and floors in Cyberspace are playing -The Game of Life- by John Conway. (yes, it is game-ception; While you're playing System Shock, for the time that you're in Cyber Space, System Shock itself is playing 'The Game of Life') It's also a bit ironic that this is happening as, SHODAN is trying to create life in her own image. I remember that they spent about 10 minutes trying to make a glider in that stream.
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I know this video is a bit old but, still; On the game 20th anniversary, many of the games devs participated in a Twitch stream of the game. During which, it was confirmed that the ceilings and floors in Cyberspace are playing -The Game of Life- by John Conway. (yes, it is game-ception; While you're playing System Shock, for the time that you're in Cyber Space, System Shock itself is playing 'The Game of Life') It's also a bit ironic that this is happening as, SHODAN is trying to create life in her own image. I remember that they spent about 10 minutes trying to make a glider in that stream.
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Jacob
There's just something about the teal blue lighting in some areas of this game that really makes me nostalgic. Of course, the graphics and art remind me of Doom but it also reminds me a bit of the original Starsiege: Tribes, which I consider to be the best multiplayer shooter of all time.
In general, I'm glad I finally gave this game a shot. I had known of it for years, I even had it thanks to Twitch Prime, but I just recently decided to buy it on GOG (for the sake of the goodies and to support DRM-free gaming) and I'm so glad that I did. It's tough, it's clunky, but MAN, it's good.
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There's just something about the teal blue lighting in some areas of this game that really makes me nostalgic. Of course, the graphics and art remind me of Doom but it also reminds me a bit of the original Starsiege: Tribes, which I consider to be the best multiplayer shooter of all time.
In general, I'm glad I finally gave this game a shot. I had known of it for years, I even had it thanks to Twitch Prime, but I just recently decided to buy it on GOG (for the sake of the goodies and to support DRM-free gaming) and I'm so glad that I did. It's tough, it's clunky, but MAN, it's good.
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Mad_Scientist
can we talk about the shield upgrade for a minute? it's probably one of the most epic things i've ever seen in a videogame. early on the actual protection doesn't really do justice to the visual effect, but later when you get the level 4 shield, you turn it on with that badass effect and start killing everything like a goddamn terminator. it's kinda genius how until then you can still switch the tiers when you find better ones for efficiency, very nice and in tone with the modularity and technical/realistic theme of the game.
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can we talk about the shield upgrade for a minute? it's probably one of the most epic things i've ever seen in a videogame. early on the actual protection doesn't really do justice to the visual effect, but later when you get the level 4 shield, you turn it on with that badass effect and start killing everything like a goddamn terminator. it's kinda genius how until then you can still switch the tiers when you find better ones for efficiency, very nice and in tone with the modularity and technical/realistic theme of the game.
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terry
I was 36 when I got this game on CD. So I'm watching a 7 year old video about a 26 year old game. One thing I'll add is the station one is on: You start at the bottom which doesn't have much area. Then you make your way up to the next level of the station, where it continues to widen, making each level much bigger than the previous. At around 3/4 from the top they don't make the station any wider, but add 4 domed areas connected which now must also be explored. Exponential growth kept exploration from being stagnant.
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I was 36 when I got this game on CD. So I'm watching a 7 year old video about a 26 year old game. One thing I'll add is the station one is on: You start at the bottom which doesn't have much area. Then you make your way up to the next level of the station, where it continues to widen, making each level much bigger than the previous. At around 3/4 from the top they don't make the station any wider, but add 4 domed areas connected which now must also be explored. Exponential growth kept exploration from being stagnant.
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Janus
I absolutely love System Shock. I saw my step-dad's copy growing up and found the artwork inspiring, but didn't install and play until my 20's.
Picked up a Thinkpad 380XD to replay it, and I'm still amazed at how modern it feels.
I did recently find that it's possible to proceed to Reactor without getting the SCI key, which then prevents you from activating the laser, after setting up the shields.
Fortunately, Debug Mode works like a charm and I find myself once again in the Darkened East Corridor.
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I absolutely love System Shock. I saw my step-dad's copy growing up and found the artwork inspiring, but didn't install and play until my 20's.
Picked up a Thinkpad 380XD to replay it, and I'm still amazed at how modern it feels.
I did recently find that it's possible to proceed to Reactor without getting the SCI key, which then prevents you from activating the laser, after setting up the shields.
Fortunately, Debug Mode works like a charm and I find myself once again in the Darkened East Corridor.
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GraveUypo
the kind of game that was unplayable to me back then. one because i was a kid and this seems to be too complex. two because i couldn't speak english at all at the time. heck i had just learned how to read in my own language then. i bet it would take me like 5 minutes to read each letter you find even if it was in my language using very simple words.
so yeah, i missed it. and i don't think i can just go back now. it's lost forever.
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the kind of game that was unplayable to me back then. one because i was a kid and this seems to be too complex. two because i couldn't speak english at all at the time. heck i had just learned how to read in my own language then. i bet it would take me like 5 minutes to read each letter you find even if it was in my language using very simple words.
so yeah, i missed it. and i don't think i can just go back now. it's lost forever.
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