Caltrops - System Shlock 2 - Re: i was serious

Forum Overview :: System Shlock 2

by FABIO 04/03/2003, 12:28pm PST

Armisael wrote:

I can't deny that most of what you said about SS2 was valid, but they're mostly points that could apply to just about any game. I mean, the original System Shock had respawning, with cyborgs and mutants and things appearing out of thin air, and it was ofen far more proliferent than it is in SS2. The same could be said about working backwards through the levels and having to repair stuff. I just didn't find half the things you pointed out as exasporating as you did. I didn't have any problems with the RPG aspect of it, it didn't detract from the game for me. The only thing you pointed out that really irritated me in Shock 2 was the fine china guns. Guns wearing down is an all right idea, but the wear-down rate was way too high. Your introductory paragraphs were pretty harsh. I must admit that the rest of it made me laugh, though, and I am glad you saw some good in the game, even if I thought the review was a bit unbalanced overall.

Cheers

The 1.01 patch should correct any play balance issues, thank you for your support!

The most common disagreement I get with the review seems to be my comments on the whole RPG thing. I guess I could have been more clear. RPG elements can work in a FPS, Deus Ex does a wonderful job of it, but they just didn't in SS2. I can't even use a pistol? wtf? In my eyes the only thing the skill system did was make it so you couldn't use at least half of the stuff you picked up. That plus the sheer lameness of the O/S station upgrades (3 extra inventory slots? I can swing my wrench OVERHAND now? yee haw!) made me wish they just scrapped the whole skill system all together.

Respawning wasn't much of an issue in SS1 with me I guess because unlike SS2, it didn't rely solely on total immersion. You could still have fun blowing apart attacking cyborg hordes with your awesome array of weapons (all of which you can use as soon as you got them and never had to worry about them falling apart) and Robocop-like abilities (roller skates, laser targetting. Again, unlike the crap upgrades in SS2). I can count the number of times I faced more than two enemies at once in SS2 on less than one hand (hybrid ambush in the shuttle bay after you destroy the shuttles, the corridor leading to The Many brain,....am I missing any others?). Atmosphere and being immersed to feel like you were on a haunted space ship was the only thing the game had going for it, and once that wore off due to cheap respawning (didn't SS1's respawning occur at logical points? like cyborg manufacturing stations or something? SS2 gets cheap respawning props for having monsters pop through doors to rooms you just cleared), facing the same old hybrid model with his same scripted line for the 50th time, and becoming an invincible god with the wrench once you figured out hand to hand combat, there just wasn't much left to hold interest in the game. Other horror games like Silent Hill also have lame combat models, but manage to hold you in suspense with plenty atmosphere and freaky events. Pretty much the only hook to scare you in SS2 was the enemies (which got old quick); the designers seemed to give up on anything else after the hanging suicide victim and "remember citadel" written in blood then went ahead and made ghosts merely Microsoft paperclip troubleshooting avatars.

Now for some minor nitpicking, was I the only one that found SS2's back story to be pretty darn ridiculous? The Many evolved from the lifeforms in the biolab section of citadel station that the hAxOr explosively jettisoned back in SS1. Then 60 years later in SS2, it turns out that section of the space station crashed into a planet/satellite in a star system 60 light years away from Earth. So the chunk of space station was travelling at the speed of light? That's some fucking explosion! And the space station chunk just happened to crash into a planet 60 light years away? Anyone want to calculate the odds on that one? And since this thing was travelling at the speed of light, how in the hell did The Many even come close to surviving the impact? The planet they crashed on just happened to support them?

And let's not forget the retarded virtual reality end game. Hey guys, people complained about the virtual reality being the worst part of SS1, why did you go and stick in for the end of the sequel? Did somebody say low gravity jumping puzzles? HOORAY!

I wanted this game to be great, it wasn't. I would so totally murder any number of people to see a game like this done right.