The Nightdive Studios remaster of System Shock 2 is currently on sale on Steam for 60 percent off (US$11.99). This game is a long-time favorite of mine and, if the interface feels a little clunky today, it must be remembered that it was a dang warp-speed streamliner compared to the original System Shock's.

I played the original version of System Shock 2 during long, boring night shifts in the CO Space NOC, and let me tell you, nothing enhances the creepiness of sneaking around a derelict starship that is deserted except for things that want to kill you like playing it in the middle of the night in an otherwise empty office building. One night I was playing the cargo bay sequence when the janitors banged a door in the adjacent suite of the office building and I damn near had a heart attack.

I'm not far into the remaster, but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. It's not a remake, or even a major graphical update like the Oblivion remaster or Metal Gear Solid Δ; it looks like all they did was rework it so that it would work on modern PCs and support 16:9 screen resolutions. But for this game, that is quite enough for me, especially for 12 bucks.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I'm now playing Nightdive's remake of the original game, which is far more of a modernization than their port of SS2. I had forgotten a couple of things about this game in the literal decades since I last played it, to wit:

- constant ammunition drought is real;
- cyberspace is a massive pain in the ass;
- level design is BALLS.

I found an email in which one TriOptimum employee reports to another that they discovered an archived file in Citadel Station's library explaining that the station's internal layout is deliberately designed to instill anxiety and stress in the people who live and work there, as part of a massive, VaultTec-style psychological experiment. The goal is to improve future space habitat designs by studying what happens to people when you don't make anything about their environment logical or intuitive. The floors are incomprehensible mazes on purpose.

I don't remember seeing that in the original version of the game. I wonder if I missed it, or if Nightdive added it as a deliberate lampshade. Either way, well bowled.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I can’t believe I missed that SALE!

System Shock 2 is good, but even remastered, it’s not 30 bucks (Canadian) good if you’ve already played the crap out of it.