System Shock 2

by Electronic Arts

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000K4AX
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: August 1, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,894 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

This science fiction role-playing game returns players to the battle begun in the original, System Shock. The sequel sets you in the 22nd century, where you can use a multitude of mechanical weapons and Psionic powers to attack and confuse your monster enemies in the universe. As you play, you will discover advances that will allow you to upgrade your weapons systems, uncover alien technology secrets, and hack into critical computers. This game is based around the Dark Engine and offers surreal 3-D graphics, effects, and action.

GameSpot Review

Contrary to popular gaming lore, the original System Shock was not a commercial failure and sold over 170,000 copies over time. But when it first released in 1994, gamers overlooked Looking Glass's groundbreaking game despite favorable reviews. Some erroneously discounted it as a Doom clone, even though it was actually the offspring of a line of games that preceded any of id Software's first-person shooters. In fact, System Shock was a game that defied pigeonhole classification because it borrowed elements and themes from a variety of genres.

Prompted by the near destruction of Earth by the self-aware and malevolent artificial intelligence SHODAN, Earth's previously ineffectual political governments formed the Unified National Nominate and imposed constraints on the power of megaconglomerates. But after inventing faster-than-light technology, the corporate creator of SHODAN, TriOptimum Corporation, convinced the UNN to engage in a cooperative expedition into unexplored space. Your character awakens in the midst of a crisis, as the ship that undertook the monumental journey has apparently become infested by some form of alien life. Suffering from that infamous RPG plot device, amnesia, your character finds that he has received illegal cybernetic implants that grant superhuman abilities - just the kind of endowments necessary to survive System Shock 2's chaotic circumstances.

Even though it's a sequel, System Shock 2 feels entirely original because too few RPGs have science fiction settings. This one offers a rich combination of psionic powers, contemporary and futuristic weaponry, and William Gibson-esque cybernetic implants and technical skills. The plot unravels as you listen to e-mail and message logs. While the convenient placement of dozens of logs throughout the otherwise realistic environments is a bit contrived, the messages are consistently engaging and gradually expand upon the fates of most of the game's key figures. Unfortunately, since the settings have generally been abandoned by friendlies, the logs all but replace direct interaction with nonplayer characters.

Like its predecessor, System Shock 2 is a first-person game that cannot be easily characterized otherwise. The role-playing elements are deeper than they were in the first game, as you're able to personalize your character's initial attributes and abilities and later update them in a variety of significant ways. The game looks and generally feels like a first-person shooter, but the RPG elements and detailed environments give the gameplay more depth.

System Shock 2's engine is well equipped for such stealthy maneuvering, as it's essentially an enhanced version of the Dark Engine created by Looking Glass for Thief, combined with some of the better interface features and controls of the original System Shock. The engine's 3D-accelerated graphics are capable of producing a variety of plausible futuristic environments, and its ambient fog and lighting effects look particularly good. However, the engine seems less capable of depicting characters, as humanoid figures look like a fusion of rudimentary polygonal shapes masked by a decent texture map. But since there are some plot justifications for the irregularly shaped beings, and most of the game's settings are extremely dark, the relatively simplistic character models work fine, even if they're not as detailed as those action gamers now expect.

The game's dynamic music is appropriately fast-paced or atmospheric depending on the circumstances, but its crisp sound effects deserve particular praise. Environmental audio is a supported feature that's used to great effect. Straining in the darkness to gain foresight into the challenges ahead becomes an essential tactic, whether it be to detect the distant whirring noise of a security camera, the haunting ramblings of a mutant hybrid, or the banter of a haywire protocol droid. It's all great stuff, and it contributes significantly to the tense mood rapibly established in the game.

One of the best aspects of Thief's engine was that it accounted for how noisy and how visible your character was and ensured enemies responded accordingly. Fortunately, all this is intact in System Shock 2. Don't expect to be able to casually open the door to one room, deal with its inhabitants, and then open the next door and repeat the process. If any creatures are within earshot of combat, they'll rush to join the fun, making it important to choose your battles carefully. Enemy AI is very good generally, as even basic grunts charge after you instead of haplessly lumbering in pursuit, while certain deadlier opponents will stick to shadows from where they'll launch their rapid-fire attacks.

Fortunately, System Shock 2's interface is well designed and even fits well with the game's plot. You can maintain a view of the gaming world while searching through your inventory and use hotkeys to quickly access weapons, use items, or listen to log messages. To help you navigate you can superimpose semitransparent compass directions over your viewing window, pull up an automap, or maintain a miniature version of the map onscreen. Since your character is supposed to be grafted with a variety of cybernetic implants, there's actually a reasonable justification for your ability to access information such as this. The interface is not only effective, but it actually contributes to the game's ambiance instead of detracting from it.

Your character is initially trained in one of three military branches - marines, navy, or OSI - each emphasizing a different proficiency: weapons, technical skills, or psionic powers. But the professions don't add as much depth as you might expect, since during the course of the game you can choose to develop any skills or attributes regardless of your initial choice of profession. The professions are badly unbalanced as well, especially at the beginning of the game when the modules used to upgrade your character are extremely rare. It's very difficult to survive without picking up at least a smattering of basic weapon and technical skills, and since navy characters start the game with those abilities, they have a huge advantage. Meanwhile, marines are essentially navy characters stripped of those vital technical skills, while OSI characters lack both weapons and technical skills and are extremely fragile initially for lack of items that restore their psionic energy. During the course of the game you can develop truly different characters that are capable of successfully completing the game in their own right, but the initial selection of profession isn't relevant or even enjoyable in the manner in which it was intended.

Finally, despite System Shock 2's novel setting and its RPG elements, its gameplay doesn't really evolve significantly beyond that offered by recent first-person shooters. You'll spend much of your time strafing at enemies around corners, opening crates, and even hunting for keys. But the realistic environments, intriguing plot, and consistently uneasy atmosphere make System Shock 2 constantly effective. It is a hybrid game that effectively blends elements from a variety of genres into a thoroughly enjoyable and accessible package. --Desslock
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Single-player, story-driven action gaming at its best!, December 10, 1999

By 

B. J. Rowan "The Bandit" (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: System Shock 2 (CD-ROM)

Ever since the original System Shock appeared in 1994, I have wanted a sequel. Despite how antiquated the old game is, I still go back and play it over again to this day. And now, at last, we have System Shock 2 -- about as close to playing the lead role in a sci-fi thriller movie as most people can get.

First off, you'll need a pretty powerful system to play this game at its fullest -- I have a Pentium II 300 MHz with 128 megs of RAM, and a 16 MB Riva TNT video board...SS2 runs fine for me at 640x480, with a little choppiness here and there. My only complaint is that it seems to take a long time (20-30 seconds I guess?) to load a saved game.

But that aside, you'll never notice any choppiness. You'll forget it's even a computer game. You'll be too busy gritting your teeth in terror as you hear the footsteps of someone -- or something -- approaching you, wondering if that one last slug in your shotgun will be enough -- and praying that your badly-damaged weapon won't jam when you pull the trigger. These types of scenarios are common in SS2 -- weapons degrade and misfire, ammunition is at a premium, and the approaching footsteps of the nearby mutated monsters or security robots are ultra-realistic. The only way to play this game is with the lights off, in a quiet room, through a good surround speaker system or headphones. You will come to appreciate the suspense, the atmosphere, and the downright creepiness of the thing that much quicker.

Previous reviewers were right when they said this is a thinking person's 3D shooter. And indeed, it is almost more of an RPG than a pure action game like Quake, et al. There's a wonderful character development system, which is neither too simple nor too complex...you must build your skills and abilities, ranging from what weapons you are best with, how easily you can repair things or hack computers, etc. You CANNOT max-out everything -- so you will have to choose which skills to concentrate on. Throughout the game, there are numerous tasks you must perform, apart from killing things, to get to the bottom of the mysterious forces at work on the Von Braun, the starship you awake on at the beginning of the game. Those of you who have played the original System Shock are in for lots of wonderful tie-ins and surprises. There is one particularly horrifying revelation near the middle of the game -- during which you are reintroduced to an old friend -- that had my jaw hanging open for about half an hour. There is more atmosphere, suspense, and pure terror here than in any game I've ever played before...including the Resident Evil series.

If you or someone you know is a fan of single-player action/adventure games and likes the first-person shooter role, System Shock 2 is an absolute MUST HAVE, no doubt about it. Get this game immediately. I am certain that you will not regret it.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop reading this and buy it., July 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: System Shock 2 (CD-ROM)

I can't stress the above statement more. You will never find a better horror game anywhere. A unique blend of sci-fi, first-person shooter action, and pure terror create the world of System Shock 2. You start out simply enough, heading into the Ramnsey Recruitment center on Earth to join the UNN army, getting to choose which branch you want: Marine (weapons), Navy (tech), or OSA (psionic). Then you get to choose 3 missions to take, earning skills that will aid you during the actual game.

Next, you take part in the UNN escort mission of the newly constructed Von Braun faster-than-light space voyage. 5 months into the mission, you wake up to find the ship in chaos: crewmen murdered, some transformed into horrible alien hybrids, and the ship's computer has turned down-right evil. Slowly you realize that the alien force, known as The Many, are somehow connected to the horrific events on Citadel Station and the insane AI, SHODAN. A bloody scrawl on the wall warns you, "Remember Citadel".

I enjoyed this game, but sometimes I was afraid to actually play it; I wasn't sure I wanted to see what horrors awaited me beyond the next door. That isn't to say it isn't fun as well. The audio logs you find scattered around the ship give you a glimpse of what happened here, plus some occasional laughs at what the crew thought of each other.

Have a powerful computer handy for this one, because this thing is a systems hog. Another downside is that the load times are quite tedious; I could make myself a sandwhich while waiting for the next deck of the ship to load. Still, the pros squash the cons. Heavily immersive gameplay, compelling and surprising story, and a fun ride all the way through.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's like a horror movie... Only scarier..., December 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: System Shock 2 (CD-ROM)

This is a winner from start to finish. It is just as good as Half-Life, if not better and I could not stop playing it. A wonderful combination of RPG and 3D action comes to together nicely. Plenty of spooky atmoshpere and cool sound effects and great graphics (make sure you have a good video card) adds to it. The storyline is one of the best I've heard, and this is a somewhat realistic game that is a joy to play. It's also very scary at times, so playing it late at night with the lights off and the sound turned up makes a great (and spooky) experience. This is worth the money. Buy it!