The old System Shock was the first 3D game I played in my life. I was a kid and could not read English and did not understand what's going but had tons of fun.
I played the remake recently. I was decent, but I think it was _too_ faithful to the original in some ways:
- There's lots of junk items with (almost) no purpose that you can pick up.
- Buttons are often difficult to see on walls; you might skip an area because you thought you cannot progress because you couldn't tell there's a button from clutter
- Enemy AI is very simple and easy to exploit. Combat can feel a bit dull, because it's mostly the same kind of combat as the 1994.
- Inventory management UX could use some work. I found popping up the menu annoying.
- Large complicated maps, sometimes can feel a bit empty and comes with lots of backtracking. I kinda enjoy that though.
I liked the remake, and that the story and puzzles were faithful but I wonder if someone who wasn't a fan of the original would find it appealing. This might be a "where the hell do I go" game for anyone who hasn't played it before.
SHODAN's voice acting and over-the-top megalomaniac lines are a reason alone to play this thing.
Also I wished they had remixed or brought back the old soundtrack. The only place where I heard a hint of the original music was on the reactor level with the unusual bass line. It was my favorite track.
The backers revolted when they revealed that there were too many changes. So the developers reverted many in order to be faithful. That's why it works like this
> There's lots of junk items with (almost) no purpose that you can pick up.
AFAIK the point is to use it with the replicator-like functionality. This wasn't in the original but System Shock 2 had a similar functionality so they sort-of backported it.
> Large complicated maps, sometimes can feel a bit empty and comes with lots of backtracking. I kinda enjoy that though.
Same here, it wouldn't be a proper "Shock" game if it wasn't for the labyrinthine maps (looking at you Bioshock) :-P.
>> - There's lots of junk items with (almost) no purpose that you can pick up.
A pity the remake does not have an option to switch off all the red herring items. Red Herring items really spoil a game…. it’s an idea that fortunately modern games seem to have left behind.
This is the sort of thing a remake should fix or give option to fix.
They should fix the “hidden button” problem too.
Presumably it’s not too late for NightDive to do further updates.
I spent my first 5 hrs collecting all the dog tags automatically, as naturally in any modern game this would lead to some kind of achievement.
I only found out they serve no purpose at all when my inventory was completely full and I had to check on reddit if I even needed the damn things.
I played the original, but my memory is somewhat hazy given its been ~30years. On balance I really like this remake, but it does carry some of the original's warts too.
Especially if you have limited inventory space. If you have plenty of space for the more useless items, then there isn't much harm (achievements would be nice).
I thought in general, MIDI on Soundblaster was rendered via OPL2/3 whereas GUS had wavetable synthesis with customizable patches. Would you not generally expect it to be better?
I played the remake recently. I was decent, but I think it was _too_ faithful to the original in some ways:
- There's lots of junk items with (almost) no purpose that you can pick up.
- Buttons are often difficult to see on walls; you might skip an area because you thought you cannot progress because you couldn't tell there's a button from clutter
- Enemy AI is very simple and easy to exploit. Combat can feel a bit dull, because it's mostly the same kind of combat as the 1994.
- Inventory management UX could use some work. I found popping up the menu annoying.
- Large complicated maps, sometimes can feel a bit empty and comes with lots of backtracking. I kinda enjoy that though.
I liked the remake, and that the story and puzzles were faithful but I wonder if someone who wasn't a fan of the original would find it appealing. This might be a "where the hell do I go" game for anyone who hasn't played it before.
SHODAN's voice acting and over-the-top megalomaniac lines are a reason alone to play this thing.
Also I wished they had remixed or brought back the old soundtrack. The only place where I heard a hint of the original music was on the reactor level with the unusual bass line. It was my favorite track.
Reactor level music in the original (loud warning): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up80FfzySFA
New reactor level music from the remake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxku9cbIcMQ