The MasterClass in Horror and Immersion that is SYSTEM SHOCK 2 

Another useful tip for System Shock 2: The *elevator* cannot have enemies in it and is a safe haven where you can rest and fiddle with your inventory. Also, using it's a great idea to use it as your extra gear mobile warehouse that will follow you from floor to floor!

I really wish more love was given to System Shock 1. It takes some getting used to but once you get past the barrier to entry you find a really high quality survival horror metroidvania.

Played it when I was 13, scared me to death five minutes in. Didn't play it again until I was 14. 10/10

"It looks like 2020 is going to be a very good year..." 2020: **stares in biblical apocalypse**

This game won 18 awards and even was featured as a PC classic and was being sold in stores all the way up to 2004

_"The Polito form is dead, insect. Are you afraid?"_ -S.H.O.D.A.N. When she first revealed, I swear I nearly shat bricks. Every wonky AI character in gaming owes a debt to 'The Perfect Immortal Machine'.

Major tip: after reaching Hydroponics, start overcharging your laser pistols Also, don’t bother with Repair. Maintenance is much better as it not only prevents your weapons from breaking, but also improves damage

This video of System Shock 2 reminded me to turn on suit sensors

"2020 looks like a good year for System Shock 3" not so sure about that anymore...

Dammit, Nightdive, hurry up and finish the remake! Also, dammit, now I want a BLT. :/

I remember playing System Shock 2 out of curiosity and I have nothing but respect for the guys that made it. I’d honestly consider it one of my favorite games of all time, and I’ve seriously recommended it to other people. Seeing someone talk about it and how much of an influence it is makes me really happy.

Here’s some Easter eggs from the system shock universe from way back. I remember playing crusader no remorse and included in the box was a fluff newsprint with the WEC announcing the building of shodan on Saturn. Also if you watched the end game cut scene closely you could see that the hacker was looking at a mobile power suit from the strike force centauri game.

I have resisted the urge to watch this video until I finished the game for myself, not because I don’t want to hear your thoughts but because I wanted as fresh an experience as possible. God. This game is top 10 if not top 5 for me now

"Nah"

No game in my life has given me nightmares, but System Shock 2. It’s an absolutely chilling video game, and truly is a masterclass in horror and immersion. It scared me for such a long time that I couldn’t beat it for years.

"you're never going to get to the point of power creep" *CACKLES IN OSA MELEE*

"2020 is going to be a good year" yea, we wish

"Most things that were good in System Shock 2 were dumbed down in Bioshock." There, fixed that for ya.

Always saw this as the predecessor to Bioshock and to hear what Kevin Levine was doing before Bioshock, is a bit funny as to how simple things can change the course of history.

I'm a massive BioShock fan (not Infinite admittedly) but calling BioShock an Immersive Sim is a stretch. It is far more linear than System Shock 2, which itself was more linear in level design than System Shock in my opinion (not in gameplay though). For everything BioShock improves though I believe it takes away, or at the very least streamlines. I don't mean streamline as a bad thing though, it has peaks and drops. Great video though, and the recommendations were a really nice addition to it all. I'm really glad this channel exists with all the Immersive Sim content. Thank you for continuing to upload

I didn't get the greatest first impression from System Shock 2, but after giving it a second shot years back I finally felt it click. It's such a fantastic game.

Omg I never realised how much arcane is really trying to keep the immersive sim alive, prey is very system shock, no wonder its name was supposed to be phyco shock. The weapons look very similar

"GLORY TO THE FLESH. GLORY TO THE MANY."

"Nah." -The coolest guy ever. 207something.

0:50 - The true insipiration of most of it is System Shock 1.

Just finished system shock 2 and i loved every second of it. You sparked my love for immersive sims.

"An assault rifle will get you through the game much smoother than a laser sword will." This makes me kinda sad.

I remember after I finished prey 2017 (which I absolutely adored and love so much ) a lot of online people said to check out system shock and I am just now looking into it ;-;

"Oh my god what is that supposed to be?!" That's what happens when you play a game that has early 3D graphics.

Thank you! This was the first game that made me feel something. Can't believe it has been 20 years.

I came back to this video to say, THANK YOU MAN! I LOVE THIS GAME I've been doing so many playthroughs with just the grphx and ease of life mods this game came to be my top 5 by my 2nd failed playthrough. I legit can't thank you enough for helping rec this game. It wss THE FIRST thing I nabbed when my.laptop finally arrived in july. I also thanked the other madlad who told me about this brilliant gem

The Thing right is that this game much like the original is a space dungeon crawler, not a horror game, they just pulled it off so perfectly, that its scarier than many horror games

I played this masterpiece back in the day, and although difficult to set up co-op games, the hoops you had to jump through to play multiplayer were well worth it as playing with others took the game to another level.

Just finished this game, from your recommendation, and I LOVED IT SO MUCH. I will be recommending this to everyone interested in games, generally.

"SILENCE THE DISCORD" The Many, giving good advice to content creators since 1999.

Not many people realize but with lazer pistol, u can fire overloaded round then swap setting to normal and keep on firing without losing momentum. Most usually fire overload round then cant shoot again until pistol cool down so they give up using overload altogether and stick with low dmg normal setting till end of game.

Amazing vid but also more cat please

The tips at the end on how to enjoy SS2 with modern control schemes is what drove me to like AND subscribe.

God System Shock 2....should play it again. Keep thinking about it from time to time.

To this day my second favorite game of all time, right behind Deus Ex. A Masterpiece. Hope third game from the series will hold this level.

A sci-fi first person horror game with RPG element like System Shock is the best thing ever happened in gaming at the time

SS2 was hands down the BEST accidental video game purchase I ever made! In '99 I knew NOTHING about it or its predecessor; just thought the SHODAN artwork on the box looked cool. The best part of the game for me was the ambiance...I didn't dare play this game at night without all of the lights in my house on!

“You can get an assault rifle...” around the time you board the Rickenbacher “and shoot your way through this game...” what, are we revisiting earlier levels? “but where’s the fun in that?” I don’t know, I tend to keep going once I’ve gotten the assault rifle.

Bought it on steam sale years ago and will be installing it for the first time tonight, thanks CW!

I played SS2 and I thought the controls were really wonky, then like a year later I tried it again and it turns out the devs updated the game and made the controls feel like a modern today's game, I was impressed they would still update such an old game, I just had to play it.

It's about time. Thank you for this.I thought people had forgotten about this gem.

I bought Shock2 on discount games bin from a shop at $9.95 - this was the best $10 I ever spent.....brilliant game. For System Shock 2 is the best game ever made - even slightly higher than Deus Ex.

I'm going to watch the second part of this just because I really, really do not understand why people keep saying that Bioshock is "System Shock 2, but better"..... it's System Shock 2 when you remove choice, thought and consequences. It's easier to play, but that's about the only thing I can think of Bioshock does better.

I 100% disagree with Bioshock. Bioshock 1 was a great game, but it took most of the freedom you had in SS2 and limited you to "doing it the correct way". Each following entry especially Infinite had worse story telling as well. Bioshock had the choice of "choosing whether you save or kill the little sisters", and that's it. I mean, the story itself is about you having no choice. I see it basically as a corridor where there are doors that you can open if you have a certain skill, but otherwise you just walk to the end of the hallway. That's why Bioshock is and although I played all 3 entries, each entry got worse and by Infinite I felt insulted playing it because the game was treating you like a baby throughout the whole game. Prey 2017 on the other hand, at least for me, is the worthy successor to this franchise. It does everything that SS2 did but took great advantage of Veriticality in 3D games and whoever came up with the goo gun is a genius since it truly opens the game up for freedom in traversing the map. In Prey you are pretty much free to kill NPCs (although there are 4 I can think from the top of my head that change the story a bit), or even decide to never take any skill points into Typhon augments. The story is also phenomenal and its a twist done right (although I do also like BS1's twist). I'm baffled on why this game didn't get the recognition it deserves.

Bro you didn't have to spoil the working for shodan part. That was the best twist of the game

Heh it's been a long time since I've seen the original models and textures in SS2, having only played runs with mods for many years

Playing it for the first time co-op now in 2023, and while some RPG aspects are tedious and some other in general have aged poorly, it's still a very great game with a lot of depth to it.

how has this channel not gained a larger following yet? Like seriously this has a lot more worth while within it then a lot of channels with 1mil+ channels nowadays. AND it covers obscure realms of gaming in great detail. Not the most common thing an thus an attractive thing to anyone with an interest in gaming and the like. All im saying is. This channel has to be the best thing I've come across on youtube in a long while.

Man I love these videos keep up the good work

It really saddens me when people call Bioshock the "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2. It's a bit like saying Call of Duty is the spiritual successor to Deus Ex. While System Shock 2 is fairly linear, you can choose how to tackle your various tasks and are free to wander the ships as you unlock each area. Bioshock, on the other hand, is so _insultingly_ linear they included a quest marker arrow *and* glowing key items (both turned on by default!) just to make sure the pea brains playing don't get lost in the narrow hallways that they're guided through. Inventory system? Gone. Character customization? Essentially gone. Horror atmosphere? YMMV, but IMO: gone. Sound engine? GONE. Nobody did sound like Looking Glass. Nobody comes close even today! What did they replace all of this with? Bargain bin philosophy that doesn't even work in context and a hacking mini-game slightly more complex than connect the dots (which becomes increasingly tedious as the game progresses). Bioshock is an INSULT to the System Shock legacy. It's a dumbed down shooter, and I'll never stop saying so.

Just started to play this game.. i freaking love it.

13:10 love to see mr. scratch from american nightmare be mentioned, that character is awesome

This group of people invented the first-person stealth game and the first-person rpg-shooter. All these youngin's forget where the predecessors come from.

such a great game. no hand holding, just heres a map and heres your objective, work it out yourself. the modern cod era gamer would be stumped.

One of the weirdest things was learning that the guy who wrote System Shock 2 was also the same guy who wrote the trash that was BioInf Like..what happened, Ken?

SS2 is 21 years old this year. And it is _still_ utterly batshit, even on the "Normal" difficulty. I'm back on Operations deck right now, and I've hit the part where I'm *really not going to win any popularity contests.* Rumblers and Cyborg Assassins swarm me right out of the regenerator pod. Wooh! XD

I bought the game thanks to this video and it really is as great as you say it is, maybe even better. Thanks for finally convincing me to play it, it's been on my mental "need to play" list for far too long.

Whoever remembering playing it back in 1999 knows for a fact that this game was a masterpiece.

I preordered System Shock 2 because I was a Thief fan and I liked the demo a lot.

If only the makers of Alien isolation would make a system shock type game

This reminds me of those noisy ghosts in thief.

i just finished SHOCK2 yesterday!! total run time of 16 hours and a whole lot of save scums, but genuinely loved the game and am excited for the enhanced edition/future VR support!

😍

Ahh yes. The only game where monsters attacking me apologize to me.

18:28 - 18:42 this aged like milk in the desert on a hot summer day.

This is a amazing video for a game that deserves much needed praise. my only nitpick of this video is the word masterclass. I feel is already overused.

How dare you? Don’t you ever accuse me of taking psychic monkeys for granted in modern gaming, good day sir!

Fighting that Protocol Droid at 1:36 with a basic pistol and 3 HP made me tense the fuck up just watching it.

6:43 - that Thief animation though

Jesus. This game's so scary I freaking jumped when the hybrid cam out at 2:20 and it was just you talking over gameplay footage

*Makes agility build* Forest Gump: wakes up from cryochamber

In the beginning I never thought I would actually finish this game. I was (and still am) new to the entire immersive sim thing. And like for every newcomer, SS2 was slap in the a**! But as time progressed, I LEARNED to PLAY this game! And eventually completed it and LOVED it! Don't judge a game immediately when you start playing it! But if you are for example a BioShock fan (like myself), be aware that this isn't your typical FPS.

A video about System Shock and Bioshock featuring an adorable cat? Man this is the best channel ever!

You know what killed me.... Now, I knew of System Shock, but I was so caught up playing Doom, Street Fighter II, Virtua Fighter, etc... to really pay it much mind. All throughout my life, I have played on consoles and PC. So you better believe I was all over System Shock 2 in 1999. However, I always thought (was it Looking Glass Studios?) really dropped the ball with System Shock 1+2.... If there was ever a set of games begging for a Sega Dreamcast release, the System Shock series was it. I remember playing Half-Life on my Dreamcast/PS2, thinking where is System Shock? Especially since if I remember correctly the company behind System Shock wasn't making the kind of money they deserved as their games weren't reaching their full audience potential. Addendum- Both the Dreamcast and PS2 had the graphical chops to run the System Shock games quite well. Both consoles had mouse & keyboard support, which would have made their transition a breeze. The only issue I can maybe see is the games would probably need new shorter loading zones, and with the Dreamcast, maybe multiple discs. What do you think?

Imagine if the Internet itself became a sentient AI. And had full control and immediate access to all the technology and information on Earth and in space. And ruled the world as an immortal digital God. That’s a terrifying thought.

I had a blast playing recently but I got a more thriller feeling then horror, maybe if I played back when it was released it would have been more terrifying but the aged graphics and writing took away much of the horror, honestly died laughing at the end and that made it entirely worthwhile. The gameplay holds up amazing though and had a really fun time!

I love System Shock 2, but there's some revisionist history here. Actually a lot. And not much research. First, and most importantly, it's called System Shock "2". System Shock existed. System Shock 2 was a more popular game, but the original game was responsible for so many of the gameplay elements. The biggest improvement in the game was that when System Shock was released in 1994, while shooter controls were still in flux, while by the time SS2 was released, shooter controls were standardized (at least, pre-cover shooter controls). System Shock has some unnecessarily complicated controls. The biggest influence of System Shock 2 was repackaging System Shock in a modern-ish package, a game which had flopped and was not well known because of that. A say modern-ish because one thing new reviewers don't seem to know is that System Shock 2's graphic were regarded as sub-standard and primitive at the time. It was a small dedicated team working on the game, they did not have the resources. If you compare to Playstation games it might look fine, but for PC gamers, this was not a good looking game. In fact, the biggest problem was that it was so obviously not a AAA game. This was certainly not the first real-time shooter game to have a "mana bar". Even your narrow definition is off, ignoring the fact that an element like Mana was standard before Diablo game out. Jedi Knight, for example, 1997. Raven's 1994 CyClones. I can go back as far as there are FPS. Bungee's Pathway's Into Darkness in 1993, for example. To say it was the first is to not have tried to look for one. I could probably go before Wolf3D, but I don't want to argue over what counts. And clearly a game like Jedi Knight is an FPS with a suite of Magical-Adjacent utilities. First "Stable" FPS Hybrid. I don't even know what you mean by Stable, but no. If you don't count Arena and Daggerfall because they don't shoot guns, I'm sure we can find more. Let's see. DeathKeep, game out on 3DO (!) in 1995. (also had a mana bar). King's Field, 1994 (magic bar). Raven's ShadowCaster in 1993 (Mana bar). To say the origin of RPG elements like skill points is from this is also to ignore the non FPS games as well. Maybe those other games weren't "stable" enough for you. "More sympathetic villains" Citation needed, to say the least. Shodan was a very influential character, and again people saw this because they played System Shock 2, but these are elements of the first game that were recycled in the second game. It's a good follow-up, plot wise, but that character is from the first game. Also, Deus Ex is not a child of this, that game was well into production. Deus Ex is a child of the original System Shock, not this. Spector was not with Looking Glass when Irrational came up with the idea for System Shock 2. If System Shock 2 had not come about, we still would have had much of the ideas become public through that game. "Emergent" game play. Again, this is thin logic and ignores other PC games that don't fit your narrow definition that had this. Like The Elder Scrolls. Or Thief. Other games outside this area like Jagged Alliance. Heck, this was the selling point of the N64 Mission Impossible game before they stopped trying to make it good. By making claims that aren't true, you make it easy to undersell the game because they're easily proven false. In reality, this was very important evolutionary game. It did set standard for how things should be done, but it didn't invent them like you say.

>shooting your way out of situations >not banzi kamakazie wrenching everything in sight

Can't WAIT for Nightdrive Studios SS2 Enhanced Edition!!!!

You know, it's funny that I love the immersive sim genre, but I only learned that it's a genre called immersive sim like 3 days ago.

I finished the game two days ago. absolutely amazing. I Played every single Immersive I could find. only Prey is left which runs poorly On my pc

Awesome video about one of my favourite games ever! THX a lot! ;)

First played system shock 2 like 4 years ago when I was like 12 and did not get it and gave up but I’ve been playing it recently and it has to be one of my favourite games

System shock is 23 years old damm it can drink now

RIP SS3

Oh no no no, Bioshock can't hold a candle to System Shock just as Dishonored can't hold a candle to Thief (maybe excluding Thief 4).

I'm amazed how this game, 20 years after I've first played it, still has some ungraspable atmoshpere. I can only describe it as a visual charm, it has a unique lighting or something that can make up for the aged visual quality, no matter the year. It gives a lot to the experience as somehow, it makes the visuals more immersive and plausible than competitors of its time Half-life or Unreal. Dunno it's maybe just me seeing it. I can't see this 'magic' in those remake projects or in any other 3D engines. I would be curious how well this 3D engine could have worked as an archviz system in its time period to depict actual places.

My glory is endless

God bless people how make such content! Thank you man! Very interesting story

I played this about a month ago, but I only wanted to sample it since i haven't beaten System Shock 1 yet. In fact i was talking about it on discord saying how Bioshock was inspired by it and you came out saying that you were actually working on that video.

I just bought this game on GOG for £1.19... Then I see ur video... Then I get excited..... Shame the GOG deal runs out in 20hrs

Bioshock really doesn't play like System Shock 2 at all. It poaches many of SS2's game systems, but it pushes them so into the background that they barely matter. It's first and foremost a simplistic shooter, but with pretty graphics and a couple of marketable character designs, so everyone falls all over themselves praising it. It's telling that in Bioshock Infinite they jettisoned these legacy gameplay elements almost entirely.

Looks like System Shock 2 also invented the hive-mind-zombie-things with fleshy walls in games. Like the Flood in Halo or the Necromorphs in Dead Space.

System shock 1 was good and all, but system shock 2 perfected the recipe

Damn, am I only guy here that can't watch at the gameрlay of this vid becouse the рlayer always uses wrong tiрe of ammo (and energy weaрons on the flesh enemys) on the most of the enemys. It's strange to hear analysis from the narrator that even didn't understand the core feature of the combat system of the game. Anyways, like for the remembering ss2 (this game deserves more attention).