System Shock Remake Review "Buy, Wait for Sale, Never Touch?" 

will you be doing a review for Miasma Chronicles?

Thanks for the review. I’m excited to play this.

A bit disappointed that you didn't go through the options menu for this one like you often do, and what I came to look for. In demo, there was no ability to rebind number keys (I don't use WASD so I always change these before playing any game) so I was wondering if that was fixed for the release version. I've been interested in this game for years but if there's no rebind, then I sadly have to pass this one. :/

And they've had years to do the most basic of things for a PC game of which their company that specializes in I remember repeating myself but it's just like it it still blows my mind let like I get the whole dark souls thing.. that makes sense from that company, especially at that time.. fortunately they're technical incompetence allowed for modding and solutions to those problems to be basically playable in the first place.. and it garnered great reviews for some reason LOL despite actually not being playable out of the box for 8 years until they sold.. you know an update.. but from night dive? Given what they make their bread and butter doing and have for so many years? Given their entire experience with the first one? Like you get to a point where you're like hoping that things will come together at the very end.. and it's not a bad game it's great.. but it's great by default.. because it does things that others don't not because it seems like they actually tried to do anything other than a one to one almost except stripping out a massive chunk of the options and controls and abilities you had.. of which yes we're convoluted and poorly implemented in the original.. and of which they fixed in the remaster.. allowing you to do some really nifty stuff if you could go through the keybinds and pick and choose what you wanted.. shares more controls with arma i think, the original, then it does with remaster or most modern games... That's all fine but.. their solution apparently was to remove them.. but they would keep the same game.. with almost identical layout and objectives and design.. except now you get a filing cabinet that you can barely jump crowds on top of that launches you 20 feet in the air but still takes about 20 years to scooch 10 ft across the floor for some reason.. to jump crouch to grab something off a shelf.. when you could just grab it off the shelf in the original LOL.. You could also move the cabinet in the original.. and in this all the cabinets are too heavy.. and you wouldn't even know that you could move anything until you actually drop it out of your inventory.. and even then you still might not.. and then you're going to realize that you had a full-fledged manipulation system built in that they abandoned more or less.. and you still could have had it.. but there's a menu in front of you that's cursor sensitive so what was considered janky at the time to perform things has now become extraordinarily janky to perform things.. and the the I guess the idea is that you just don't.. and at the very least that's something they left in from all of the things that they have tried that they did not leave in over the years that have been kind of dusted around in the files.... It's like this took so long.. to come to the conclusion.. that they were going to do the exact same thing they were doing before.. and not touch it! Props though for leaving the stub arms in.. usually a game will try to gaslight you like you have functional arms until the weapons come out and then suddenly you're basically quatto.. and this one if you look down you really are quatto.. well unless you have enough rifle then you kind of have arms.. but they retract when you hold that phaser or that laser sword LOL. I don't know why they tried to hype up the laser sword at one point.. this it was amazing and that they'd spent so much work on it.. and it's like... On what? Like knowing what the melee was in the demo and subsequent demos and final release demos and the game's coming out in the month but we're going to delay it 2 months demo.. sword gameplay does not make.. unless there was a radical overhaul of the controls or something.. which I was always secretly hoping there was going to be.. just stuff that I hadn't gotten yet you know... How do you have this massive like dismemberment system but the one thing that can't dismember anything is the laser sword? how did you have that incredibly complicated and awesome Gore system that you can see the remnants of.. often as it's disappearing right in front of your eyes as it only splashes temporarily LOL before disappearing immediately.. unless you hit something pretty existing and then it you know does a thing that shows up permanently.. just so that you knew that they knew better.. and then they did all this work on this sword that you control from your hand wrists.. that I think are permanently attached to your shoulder or your PEC muscles or something.. if you look down.. clearly.. there might have been some surgical problems and complications over the 6 months.. they're not exactly proportioned. no that's all fine and dandy except that they got it right on so many different occasions and that they had it right in the original builds far more.. it it retracted as time went on I guess.. still like I said props for leaving that in.. I just left it like that so when you look down you you look at your stubby little arms and you're just like oh wow.. we're going to try to fight these people hopefully I don't have to push any buttons on the high shelf.. which that would be a real shame cuz you know getting a booster seat it's just going to launch you into the stratosphere and usually not in the direction you wanted to go. And that kind of attitude and the way that they regressed from the community and all these things.. just and just didn't talk to them instead of you know trying to explain something I doubt we're going to get the mod support in order to get basic key mapping to work... Or clean up the over convolution of systems to be functional.. like we did with cyberpunk in a lot of cases.. where there was a lot of really good work that wasn't able to make it into the whole game.. and it just needed somebody to release it and add it for fun.. see if maybe it did work.. in this case you have the original where clearly there was some design positives.. especially in that particular regard.. despite negatives and others naturally but the things that did right.. not saying you couldn't do them better but night I didn't do them at all or broke them in in like self-breaking ways. LOL so instead I have a hotkey script called fnight dive which rebinds the zero and the nine button to my thumb solving two problems.. that you can't rebind any of the inventory hotkeys, and that the side buttons on the mouse that had become standard to the point where even Japanese developers were allowing them to exist.. of which they wouldn't allow cap locks sometimes.. is literally a dedicated hotkey script. In a way that I've never had to do.. just play this.. and this is the release version.. this is the final version.. they finished it.. you can now change the resolution and I think it's sort of does work sort of.. sometimes you got to do it a few times though.. and you definitely have to keep refreshing those key maps every time you open the program but.. we're at the point where you can actually say you can accomplish the things.. don't get me wrong it put some still way ahead of from software.. for one it runs in a modern API.. and you can change resolution and there is almost native support for key mapping.. it's just able to do it it's just not what you would call acceptable or not broken.. but they did it at all sort of... Unfortunately it's on unreal so we're probably never going to see mods.. whereas from soft was just not good at locking up of all they're super secret special stuff.. so it was easy to Mod and also not good at basic other things because it was like day one when they figured out how to get it to run in a modern api? The night dive special award.. your interface and your stock unreal engine most commonly used options and functionality.. is better than dark souls on the PC.. enjoy you earned it.

@@jakedill1304 Congratulations on the longest RU-vid comment I’ve never read. I didn’t even know you could type in a whole novel in the comments section.

Still holds up.

That would be awesome

Revision is available for free and is basically a Remaster

the way Deus Ex has been treated in the recent past, like a middle child😢

I'd love a remake of Deus ex it's got alot of detail

Oh hey man, i love your SS remixes so much!

I really want no2

Got that right

Are there any more good ones coming I’m genuinely curious? Thanks (:

​@@Jaebird2 yeah, amnesia: the bunker

And sadly every great horror game this year is a remake, showing the utter decay that is the industry today.

Its....ok i guess. Badly produced and lack of inspiration.

It was a partialy 3D game, the items and enemies were fully 2D always having the sprite orientation aligned full surface towards the players view angle, which was very interesting in its way.

Yes! There was nothing like System Shock before System Shock (happily ignoring Ultima Underworld :) ) and it is still the blueprint for many later games.

@@knalltfix im a big fan of Void Bastards also

@@knalltfix Yeah, actually, Ultima Underworld was the first. I forgot...LOL I really liked UU and it helped to influence my buying System Shock. And though there were a lot of games set in space stations since System Shock was released, System Shock is still more complex than them. Superior writing and level design than those titles. And Shodan is still my favorite game villain. "Nice jump, Hacker!"

The geometry was 3D but all enemies and items were 2D sprites. Also, it was built on the Ultima Underworld engine, which was released two years prior in 1992. Oh, and there were fully polygonal 3D flight sims available on home computers in the 1980s, so there's that.

I was a backer,and hope many buy this.

I bought it and do not regret it for a second, great game.

It's definitely in my top 10 for PC

Played the demo yesterday, going to buy it next paycheck!

Dk ab a remaster but the enhanced edition looks promising. The turok3 remaster was sick

Same. This is one of those classics I didn't play back in the day. Will be fun to experience it like this 👍🏻

I just started black mesa today lol

Black Mesa is excellent and brought back so maby great memories (and frustrations in a good way). The original version of System Shock also skipped me by at the time, so this is a chance to experience now.

@@ZeroChance21 Black Mesa is so damn good, it takes the original and dials it to 11. If this remake of System Shock is even 80% as good, it'll be worth every penny.

Black Mesa is terrible as a remake, but fine as a stand alone game. This one looks like another "alternate take", the original is still plenty playable

It is a great blend of looking like the original pixelated look but also being 3D.

@@zenithquasar9623 It's very common these days

You mean you don't want YET another hyper realistic open world game???

@@tcg2717 Honestly, I don't really mind those either. As long as they are coherent I will take any style you give me. I for example think that part of why Metro is such a good game is because of the very realistic art-style and I wouldn't want a game like that stylised

@@Yoni123 I don't know about "common". Sure, there's been a few titles but not many. Valheim is probably among the ones to do it best, but even so... it doesn't quite look like this. There's something to the tilebased layout of the maps in this remake, combined with the neon and chunky pixels - it actually does pull of a unique look.

Always wanted a Condemned 3 after that cliffhanger ending.

Check out Trepang2 if you haven't already. :D

Civvie11 fan to eh?

Same here! I keep waiting for that email that says it's in my library LOL; backed this thing pretty much week 1 and am absolutely hyped. Also can't wait to see what SS2: EE is going to be like. Gotta love them free bonus upgrades!

Did y'all ever get a key?

I seem to vaguely remember that recycling things into credits was something you could do in System Shock 2 if you got the right item

nice pfp

@@sinisterdesign yep, SS 2 did have the "recycler" which could turn anything into nanites, currency in that game. The original System Shock had no vending machines (or crafting), and hence no currency to worry about.

I kinda expect this remake to be NightDive's last and greatest hurrah, tbh. Which is sad, but I'm glad System Shock at least didn't fall through.

Look at the early demos to see what it used to be like.

Ya very. I had to cut it because for some odd reason the one part I found got hit by a claim. So I snipped it. Not sure what was up.

I totally feel that. It worked for me its odd though

@@ACGreviews You didn't mention much about music tracks? Are they how much similar to original. To me original had so good and fitting sound track that it was huge thing for me. Any thoughts?

Do yourself a favor and play the second one. Still holds up as very effective and fun sci-fi action horror. Emphasis on HORROR.

​@@titusorelius9458The first one is still better for me.

shodan is a fictional character. what do you mean “actually an AI”

​@@titus17I mean the fact that the best example of our most advanced AI is in overcomplicated plagiarism cheater

@@ArcangelGamingEntertainment you dont know much abou AI do you

@@titus17 an AI as in a artificial sentient being. Today’s AIs are not even remotely close.

Agreed

Agreed

Same, I liked Prey a lot and was recommended this game .. played the demo .. kind of sucked tbh.

Never had it in demo or in here sadly

Yeah now that arcane isnt what it used to be we need other studios to make immersive sims

@@markschroder1663 yeah that's such a huge loss for Arkane now. I do hope they will make imsim again like Dishonored. in the 2010s we went from Imsim being gone to have quite many modern imsim like Deus Ex prequels, Dishonored, Prey and then back to nothing again, especially in AAA space

@@markschroder1663 what about that game by the Bioshock devs?

​@@samuel.jpg.1080p Arkane's next game is a classic Arkane imsim return to form, according to them. Recent issue is apparently due to company restructuring, and probably a bit of pressure to make more mainstream games for some time. Also, fun fact, SS2 enhanced is the preorder bonus for this game.

@@FelisImpurrator that's good to hear but I'm still cautious tho. Harvey Smith said in pre-release to Redfall that that game is still considered as imsim by him but we know how that game turned out. At this point in time, I can't just give full confidence to Arkane until the gameplay footage is up. Because Deadloop isn't that good too, at least imo, so Arkane has been in a miss lately. That preorder bonus is really good, especially for people who haven't played SS2. That game still holds up really well!

I thought it was releasing tomorrow on consoles aswell but came across a comment, on some other other review, about it beeing pushed forward. Visited their Twitter and confirmed, it's only out for pc tomorrow, unfortunately for many.

Steam Deck, my dude.

@@kent1146 nah deserves to be played on a real PC

Health reasons? Excuse me for asking, but of what kind? Nothing comes to my mind.

The game has controller support, I'm playing the nextfest demo of it on my TV.

you could try to play it with controllers since it has controller support for pc

We are at the point that...we just have to check out then if thats going to bother us.

In my opinion this direction tells me they should have gone the remaster route. Pixel visuals for a remake defeats the purpose of a remake. Resident Evil 4: Remake is how it should have been done.