System Shock is a remake of the original System Shock released in 1994, close to 30 years after its initial release it takes the more popular route of other developers to keep the same name and confuse us all.
The remake was one of several ideas the developers, Nightdive Studios, had for the remake. Initial plans of doing an HD remaster, or even a reboot, were dashed at the beginning in favour of a full rebuild and faithful recreation of the original game with newer technologies. But was it the best decision?
I am SHODAN!
System Shock follows the original story to a T. Starting the game as a hacker delving too deep into the systems of the wealthy, we are soon picked up, and forced to hack a super AI with hopes of great rewards to then be put into cryogenic recovery for 6 months. Waking up on a space station, we find that not all is well, and that AI we hacked, it’s in control.
The next 16-20 hours of gameplay are then situated entirely on the 9 floors, reactor level, and cyberspace of Citadel Station. While some are connected via the use of items needed to progress, the beginning two levels are more insular in their design.
We aim to initially leave the station we’re trapped on, but how could we leave the trash we put on the floor? SHODAN wishes to halt our escape, so that’s one more barrier to break through.
Your first run will be longer than any further, mostly due to the labyrinthine designs of the station getting you all turned around. The story and design of System Shock also do not let you miss any part of it, forced to experience all corners before you can progress. I had three sections where I had missed a single item or doorway which meant I had an extra hour of running around like a headless hacker to find them.
There isn’t much of a draw to do another playthrough of System Shock, with two endings, one of which you can reload to avoid, you won’t have many choices to make differently in run number two. There are also no conversations to engage in, so no new dialogue to witness. You’d only be doing another run to get 100% for the items you missed.
God: The Title Suits Me
System Shock is the mother of immersive sims, and as such will share many similarities for people who have only played its spiritual successors of Bioshock and Prey (2017) which was originally named something closer to Psychoshock. There have been many more than those two, but they are the most popular to my mind.
As such, System Shock is a first-person shooter RPG immersive sim. While you do get to use a few melee weapons here or there, your main arsenal will be in the form of a multitude of guns. You have normal attacks and charged or alt attacks. Alt attacks on guns range from a double shot to infusing them with electricity.
As an immersive sim, the game emphasizes player choice, however, as the mother of all of them, System Shock was rather constrained in this aspect in ‘94. There’s little in the way of stealth attacks, nor any hacking to turn the station or robots on themselves. You can choose between melee, ranged, or explosives, but then most shooters allow for that. You can close doors or lock off certain areas, but this feels too far and few between at times.
For the majority of the game, you can choose where you go, though. Picking from around 5 floors at the beginning before you unlock more. You can choose one floor to hoard your items since your inventory is so limited and the story system only holds a fraction of your inventory space. I opted for the reactor floor, as it had a surgery station, energy station, lift, and elevator to leave all close to each other.
On the flip side, your choice of floor can heavily impact your ability to explore said floor. Some areas need upgraded boots to get all their secrets, while others are bathed in radiation that makes running through a drain on your resources if you don’t have a radiation shield or its upgrades.
You will also need to find keycards to unlock certain doors, requiring you to visit most floors a good two or three times to fully clear them of loot and key items. Audio logs and e-mails reveal codes for doors, while some are scrawled on the wall or displayed on monitors. With a lack of notepad in the game, or an ability to draw on your map, a handy real-life notepad will do wonders for your sanity where notes are not made in-game.
A certain system in System Shock is the security level of each floor. While this is tied to the story and some other mechanics, it felt rather underdeveloped for our age. A security camera looking at you seemingly had no effect, even in rooms with foes in them they did not react to my hacker being spotted on the monitors. It only affected me when I destroyed them, and SHODAN plotted an ambush ahead of time.
We can’t really use the cameras in other ways to help us, either destroy them now or later. The security monitors we find later are affixed to cameras that aren’t under SHODAN’s control, or not attributed to the security level, so it’s not as if we hinder ourselves by destroying them.
As for being an RPG, you’ll most be moving your inventory around in a box, which Deus Ex and Resident Evil 4 have similar mechanics from. You’ll have to keep track of your health and energy levels, as well as make use of drugs to buff you for tough fights. There’s a linear progression to your cybernetics that you’ll find in the levels too. Weapons also have around three upgrades to buy, and you only really have space to carry up to five in your inventory. But outside of there, you don’t have much else choice in your build.
How Can You Challenge a Perfect, Immortal Machine?
The soundtrack of System Shock is great, the introduction track and aesthetic are delightfully plucked from Prey (2017) and the general ambience sets the scene of a horrific and desolate space station. However, I felt like I hardly got to hear the music that the game had to offer. Battles are accented with guitars, elevators have joyous tunes, and story beats hit with songs to accompany them. But for most of your walking, you will just hear the hum of the ship’s systems.
The difficulty has a steady uptick throughout, with a massive jump around the executive floor and above with robots that are heavily armoured or shielded. Like any introduction, you start weak but quickly pick up armaments to not be so. There is also a slew of options for changing the difficulty of the game’s parts, from enemies and security to cyberspace invasions and puzzles.
One of my major gripes with the game is the cyberspace sections. The floaty flight gives off a feel of not being in full control, and your outside character build has no impact on it whatsoever. It’s a bullet hell combined with a spaceship simulator as you try to shoot down viruses and hit nodes. Sadly, many of these are required to progress, so either turn this to a 1 on the difficulty or suffer through a segment you might not enjoy. Sims past this game typically add in skills to make these segments easier, but age shows its head when you put your own into a jacking station.
As the game is centred around puzzles and figuring out how to progress, you’ll be melting your brain having to remember everything at once while also fiddling with panels. There’s a handful of puzzle types, from rotating pipes to energy level flow to typical “find the key” style puzzles. We have seen many of these since ‘94, the pipes especially are a mainstay of Bioshock. With a lack of tutorials too, newcomers to the genre may feel overwhelmed at the beginning.
I generally had fun whilst playing this remake of a cult classic, and it’s a wonderful insight into how such a relic of our gaming time can be remade today. I am thankful it is a faithful remake, as we already have an HD treatment release some years prior, and a reimagining such has found with FF7: “Remake” would have been a disservice to the original.
However, being a game from ‘94 with little changes also accentuates the flaws of the time. With a seemingly dropping attention span of younger players, I feel that newcomers may be off-put by the backtracking, note-taking, and mazelike designs of the world. Even I found the labyrinth of Citadel Station a chore to get through with its minimalistic map. On the other hand, I relished the opportunity to bring out my notepad to make notes, I just wish there was one in-game to use or the ability to draw on the map.
Overall, I give System Shock (2023) a 7/10. It is a wonderful experience but is held back in too many areas for me. The maze of a map makes traversal annoying and noticing three elevations on each floor is a pain. Doors and locks aren’t noted well enough, leading to hours of head scratching, while a lack of proper in-game notes causes frustration. The gameplay loop and general story flow are great, with some amazing voice and synthesising work. The minute inventory and storage also mean you won’t get to experiment too much with all the weapons on offer.
System Shock Review
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