I played about 40 minutes this morning. It will take me some time to get used to how “busy” the environments are. There’s so much stuff and it’s so colorful. And there’s so much stuff to pick up, it’s like a Bethesda RPG. Though I appreciate that they tell you what is junk and what isn’t.
At first I thought the game had no music, but I think it’s there, it’s just so soft, you can’t hear it unless you really concentrate.
Hopefully it will do well enough to get a PS5 version; I’ll get it day 1 if that happens.
I am planning on getting it again on Xbox to show my support. Hopefully if it’s a big enough success Tencent might greenlight a System Shock 3 one day.
Steam has over 750 user reviews and it’s at 93%, don’t see too many reports of bugs, looking pretty good right now, at least early impressions from the user base.
I’ve gotten much farther in the remake than I ever did with the original SS1 and haven’t run into any huge bugs on PC. I had a bit of trouble with remapping controls (mouse side buttons don’t work, remapping certain keys causes conflicts) but it was easy to fix.
This is great! This is the System Shock 2 experience I wanted when I first tried to play the original.
SS1 is one of my all time favorite games. I played and finished the original floppy disks version when it came out, and then got the CD version later.
The remake is pretty good, but I miss the original soundtrack a lot. I wish they had an option to enable it. I am about an hour into the game and have explored quite a bit but haven’t found a weapon other than the pipe. I wish they had some ways to quickly highlight comms-logs or make them stand out a little more. The hotkeys for med, stamina and other boost items wor fine. Map icons are also a bit more useful so there are some QOL improvements but there could be just a little more.
One question. Is there a way to have object names show right near the object/pointer? The names show up at a bar at the top of the screen and on a 32" monitor it’s a bit annoying to keep looking up just to see whether an object is junk or not.
I haven’t seen one, no.
Non-junk items have a “sheen” animation every couple of seconds, and also tend to have some sort of light on them. Junk items are mostly dark and static. You can also find an augment that marks nearby non-junk items on the minimap. It costs a small amount of energy, but you can set a hotkey to turn it on and off.
I got stuck in the first cyberspace sequence. After destroying the glowing green energy and moving into the next area, enemies starting spawning so I backed up but managed to get out of that room before the shields went up. So I was trapped out of the room, and couldn’t progress. Very odd.
Did they copy the sound effect the cameras makes when spotted in SS2? Because every time I hear that tone, I get anxiety and want to hide, even though the cameras aren’t the threat they were in SS2.
I’d say the sound effects have a spiritual similarity at best.
Those obnoxious “I see you” beeps were actually one of the criticisms I had from way back in the first post-Unity demo, because they lead players to quite reasonably conclude that being spotted by cameras has some sort of in-game effect, as it does in most games with security cameras.
But it doesn’t. Being spotted by cameras in SS1 does nothing. So not only is this high-pitched beep annoying, it’s also essentially lying to you. A rather shitty bit of design on Night Dive’s part.
Well reducing the security level of the deck you’re on is a key element of the game, so I’m sure that’s why the sound effect is there. Otherwise you’re going to have players baffled as to how to progress because they can’t find the security cameras.
Exactly. The OG game just showed a red dot on the minimap. Having the cameras chirp at you is a big QoL improvement.
Somehow I just had 7 mutants spawn out of nowhere and start attacking me - I even saw one coming up from something in the floor that then retracted! Exciting times.
That would have been satisfied just as well (better, actually) by giving cameras an ambient sound. SS2 had this feature, and it made it very easy to tell when cameras were around just by listening.
The cameras in the remake, go figure, are dead silent other than their beeping noises.
As with so many other design decisions in this remake, it’s like they’re this close to understanding what they’re doing, but as a wise man once said, they keep. missing. the target.
Gotta disagree. I like how the chirp gives me “SHODAN is watching” anxiety (it is almost exactly the same sound effect as the one in SS2), and also tells me that I’ve found a camera I need to destroy. I’d never find them otherwise with all the ambient neon lights.
I don’t know what we’d gain by making the cameras harder to find with a subtler noise. The cameras are basically a “required collectable hunt”, a trope most modern games have thrown out. Making the cameras really obvious is a good adaptation decision.
Oh man, SS2 is my hands down all time favorite and I never played SS1.
Diablo 4 comes out on Monday. I’m in game-lock nirvana and now probably won’t play anything.
Unless. How long is this game?
But SHODAN isn’t watching. Nobody is watching. That sound is a tell for a system that doesn’t exist.
Since immersive sims are fundamentally about their systems, it should be a cardinal design sin for any system in one to provide deceptive player feedback about their state. Players should be able to intuit the workings of a system from the feedback they receive.
Imagine if the guards in Thief randomly shouted “I see you there!” even when the AI hasn’t seen anything. Some short-sighted players might enjoy that. It might give them “Guards are watching” anxiety. But it would be bullshit. The system would be feeding players false information.
As for finding the cameras, their positions are plotted directly on the map, so you don’t need any sounds to find them.
I’m finding comments that state anywhere between 10 to 25 hours depending on how thorough you are. Steam says I have 6.4 hours so far and I just completed the Research Lab level.
They’re security cameras. Of course the implication is that they are watching, even if that was not implemented as a Game System in the original or the remake. The beeping doesn’t add or detract from that.
Got the first level down to 0%! This is now officially the furthest I’ve ever been in System Shock. Back in the days of yore I had trouble getting past the interface - which is surprising as I finished both Ultimate Underworlds.