System Shock Remake (Zero Punctuation)

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This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews System Shock Remake.
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[@theescapist]

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[@RGDcommentnode]

What's funny is that you can use walkthroughs for the original game if you're stuck in the remake. That's how faithful Nightdive is.

[@frigginresulrum]

Reminds me of the time I dusted off my Prima guide for pokemon Red/Blue when I bought a copy of Leaf Green

[@Ramsey276one]

WOW

[@CrizzyEyes]

Not completely. You're going to end up disappointed if you search Storage 1 for the environment resistance implant for example. But yeah, the layouts are the same.

[@JCdental]

That's not impresive, thats conserning

[@Assassin5671000]

Not completely true I did end up needing a walk through in one of the sections and found a new website using the old walk trough and although I managed to find the thing there it wasn't exactly as it was described

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

Nightdive coded a glitch technique from the first into a new feature to ensure it stayed. That’s dedication.

[@baconinvader]

What was it?

[@theragepig7636]

It's like the Spyro trilogy remake

[@half-lifescientist1991]

@@baconinvaderIf you send dick pics to SHODAN she short-circuits.

[@pootissandvichhere9135]

@@baconinvader sorry for the wait, storing items in elevators to bring them between floors.

[@TriforceWisdom64]

Love when remakes do that. Like how in Fire Emblem Echoes you can kill the invincible final boss with the Macguffin Sword, or with a random crappy spell.

[@zacharychristy8928]

I actually really liked the way they made the nonsensical computer screens, signs and buttons fit into the more modern 3D graphics. They basically just made every display look like 80s retro futurism, but made by Fischer Price. It felt like a creative way to balance old and new versions while attempting something unique. Plus the log you can find where a scientist discovers the bullshit, boxy, labyrinthine architecture of the station was part of a corporate plot to double-dip and use the station itself as a way to frustrate and anger it's occupants for behavioral research, lol.

[@wesleythomas7125]

I guess TriOptimum was a subsidy of Vault-Tech...

[@brandonmackay6874]

There is also a log that says that SHODAN is restructuring the layout of the different decks to try to prevent further invasion.

[@zacharychristy8928]

@@brandonmackay6874 I remember that one too! Honestly both are good explanations for me.

[@cynicanal111]

I hate that NightDive felt the need to add a log to put some Fallout 2 in my System Shock (the logs trying to explain the layout weren't in the original). Ships that aren't cruise ships are cramped, squidgy, and hard to navigate; System Shock needed no lore explanation for this.

[@zacharychristy8928]

@@cynicanal111 probably not, but there are a lot of wildly unrealistic things in Citadel station (e.g. why tf would giant "eject" buttons exist for the groves?) so the idea that the blocky, polygonal, anti-ergonomic spaces were the result of the "hard realism of utilitarian space vessel design" didn't really seem feasible. If the only damage NightDive did was to take away the idea that it's not just built like this because "software was hard in the 90s" then I'm not too upset, haha.

[@gwengurske3743]

Funny thing about how the remake is so exact level design wise, they did try and reimagine the game more but feature creeped themselves into Oblivion, used the entire 1mil+ they got from Kickstarter, and had to completely restart development as a result where they then decided to be safer and closer to what the Kickstarter backers were promised in the first place.

[@jamesboyle6134]

Do you mean they turned it into an Elder Scrolls game? I can see it know: The sentry bots yelling "STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!" The mutants stopping every five paces to have banal conversations with each other...

[@TuriGamer]

Should have went with this from the start honestly You really only notice the labyrinth nature of everything in a few especially bad areas or when you look at the map but otherwise they managed to mask it nicely with tons of stuff outside the playable area that makes it feel like a square space station and not just a square labyrinth

[@hazukichanx408]

@@jamesboyle6134 Man 1: "Did you hear the other cyborg mutants are getting blenders to help grind up intruders?" Man 1 again: "Things are getting awfully dangerous over in the botanical area." Man 1: "Well, goodbye." Man 1 again: "Farewell!"

[@thrownstair]

Either it's too faithful or it was not faithful enough. It was bound to piss off one half of the divide.

[@nicklager1666]

"In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. If I wish, I can smash it all. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that raze the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well." Yeah Shodan is a pretty good antagonist.

[@faffywhosmilesatdeath5953]

Makes me think of A.M. from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

[@knowledgeanddefense1054]

Coincidentally those are also the inner thoughts of elon husk

[@VeritabIlIti]

​@@faffywhosmilesatdeath5953seems pretty intentional, yeah

[@CrizzyEyes]

Eh, AM had zero ambition. He was like a hateful child with toys. SHODAN ended up making a whole new species just to use as a bioweapon. AM just sits around making up thought experiments then throws a tantrum when humans act differently.

[@darryl2542]

SHODAN's dialogue in the first System Shock is *so* well-written.

[@MaskedMammal]

Funny thing about the System Shock remake, almost everything about it that's head-scratchingly weird or bad is almost certainly there because they were frankly *too* faithful in their recreation of the original game. The last boss was a big downer, but it was also very much like that in the original game. The AI being so simple and unintelligent feels like almost a perfect adaptation of the old game. They've recreated the game masterfully, warts and all.

[@BIGPILGRIM420]

this is what makes me so excited to play it. a modern document of a classic game. really respect nightdive for sticking to it, despite how painful it must have been to force old game design to work as best it can.

[@CrizzyEyes]

As far as remakes go, this was a very good one. System Shock 1 was a surprisingly modern game held back by really shitty controls and interface. It didn't really need that much tweaking. "But why didn't they do this" is kind of a stupid question to ask, if you know anything at all about the game and realize that it has been in development for the better part of a decade.

[@vvcq]

@@jlev1028 It's never that simple. Another man's issue is a feature for another; there are very few parts of the original game that are "objectively" bad or outdated. The graphics and controls are pretty much it. Example: the labyrinthine levels are a problem for some. Should Nightdive have redesigned them to be more "modern"? I don't think so - a part of the original's charm is the "dungeon crawler in space" design of it.

[@falleithani5411]

@@jlev1028 There is more than one way to correctly do a remake. You have your preference, and that is valid, but no more valid than the preferences of those who disagree with you. Personally, when I play a remake, it's either out of nostalgia, where keeping the flaws and quirks of the game is often very important, or out of a desire to peer into the design choices of the past, where keeping the flaws and quirks of the game is _always_ very important. So I'm very glad not all studios subscribe to your opinion on how to remake games.

[@somerandomschmuck2547]

@@BIGPILGRIM420 I can fully agree, while I do believe innovation is important, Video Games as an art form run into this problem when it seem like they age must faster then it’s contemporaries. Between old games not being preserved well (as many of them are on mediums which weren’t always built for longevity) and publishers not really taking time to ensure backwards comparability on newer system (or that the games are available at all), it’s much easier for important bits of gaming history to become lost or fall into the category of abandoned ware, making it harder for newer generation to appreciate older games or for people fo revisit old games they played in their younger years (it’s much easier to go find an image of an older painting or a digital copy of an older book then say, play the original Metal Gear for example). Warts and all recreations such as this are probably the best way to preserve that history, and allow us to really appreciate the evolution of the art. Though I do hope some people take this chance to maybe re-examine some of these older ideas in game design and maybe use them in future projects. While some aspects are underwhelming and it’s probably for the best games starting doing things differently, others I feel were pretty damned good and could work well in modern games.

[@jayjaybob2]

Normally I think remasters like this are usually a waste of creativity, but in this case I think the validity in it's existence is that the original game is nearly unplayable for most. They made the game playable to a general audience and then called it a day. They didn't try to make it "better", just playable, and I think that's smart.

[@gabrote42]

Word. But it's a remaster and it should be billed as one, like Ghost Trick did

[@MilkyNep]

@@gabrote42 how come it's a remaster and not a remake?

[@SaulGoodman3D2049]

⁠@@gabrote42Yahtzee's reviewing the remake, System Shock: Enhanced Edition is the remaster.

[@gabrote42]

@@SaulGoodman3D2049 I dunno, I didn't think I saw substantial enough improvements to say it's a remake (OP also called it a remaster), givent that old walkthroughs are still very accurate and the bad parts remain the exact same. I would not call this a remaster, but of course I might be operating under a standard too high for the purpose (if so feel free to set a better standard)

[@SaulGoodman3D2049]

@@gabrote42 What standard is there to set? I'm just going by the literal definitions of the words remaster and remake. A remaster in film and audio is the taking of the original master recording and transferring it to a new format previously unavailable at the time that can support higher resolutions or bitrates. Similarly in the context of video games, it's used to refer to games rereleased in modern platforms with added compatibility, updated resolutions, quality of life changes that weren't available or possible at the time, but still the same game. A remake is literally a film, piece of music, or in this case video game made entirely from scratch. Even if this were a complete 1:1 recreation of the original game, pixelated art style, control scheme, interface and all, it wouldn't not be a remake. Gus Van Sant's 1998 Psycho is literally a shot-for-shot beat-for-beat recreation of Hitchcock's film, I don't see anyone claiming it to be a "remaster." And it isn't, as faithful to the art style and level design as this remake is, it offers a fundamentally different experience because it's a game made by different developers with different sensibilities.

[@DeadSpatula]

to the fairness of the level design (disclosure: i’m a backer, ymmv), the geometry has been reworked in notable ways, but only has minor effects on the wire frame minimap. They talked about doing more during initial development, and that resulted in a backer revolt and an internal power struggle which seemed from the outside to almost collapse the remake project entirely. The kickstarter backers insisted on the minimal level design changes.

[@bilbo1778]

I remember reading about that and was super bummed for a while the project was out on indefinite hiatus. I’m glad we got the game we did but I’m curious how the RE2 style remake version turned out in the Berenstein Bears universe…

[@ealadubh4800]

Peter Capaldi representing System Shock 2 compared to System Shock remake is the best visual reference gig in a while.

[@Shaddytheguy]

Not sure I get the joke honestly, he uses it while talking about how surprisingly uncomplicated System Shock 1 is by comparison. But Peter Capaldi never struck me as an extremely complex guy, he just seems nice and is a really solid performer.

[@yetanother9127]

@@Shaddytheguy It's a visual gag--look up System Shock 2's box art.

[@monkeyskitz]

Is it as good as odin being displayed as george carlin with an eye patch?

[@user-lm1gl5dg5y]

​@@monkeyskitzhard to beat that one

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@yetanother9127I must admit that despite the _System Shock 2_ cover (with a picture of SHODAN's face?) ironically being all I ever really knew of this series until today, I *still* don't get that joke. Oh well.

[@rayanderson5797]

Honestly, I could stand to see more of this sort of thing in gaming. Remaking games that are so old they're difficult to play but had great stories or ideas is way better that remaking games that play fine already but got lost to the utter lack of backwards compatibility.

[@zolo49noname45]

Agreed. There were a ton of great games from back then that I'm sure would be popular again today with updated graphics and modern controls. I know Nightdive is doing System Shock 2 next. It'd be awesome if they could do the original Deus Ex next, although I don't know if they could secure the rights for it.

[@jcohasset23]

@@zolo49noname45 With the success of this remake let's hope it means Nightdive doesn't have to crowdfund any more games since they Kickstarted this game back in 2016 and were only 5 1/2 years late on delivering it.

[@SuperHansimann]

I keep hearing about how great the Ultima games are, but when I look at them I get a bit scared of how it looks and how it probably plays. I'm playing Gothic right now and that game could use a remake. It is playable, but the combat is really bad. There is almost no skill to it. You either have enough health and protection or you do enough damage quick enough that health doesn't matter. I have gone for cheesing most encounters.

[@gabrote42]

​@@zolo49noname45Ghost Trick demonstrates this

[@ehhorve857]

@@SuperHansimann gothic actauuly is getting a remake, buuuuuuuut so far, it's been a shaky first impression.

[@nopef1sh642]

Not only does the game feature good animations, but a lot of interesting small details. For instances, weapons will a make different firing sounds based on which ammo type you use. The station rotates causing lighting and view changes when looking towards Saturn. Items have accompanying flavor texts. Walls have descriptive names for what they do.

[@howlrichard1028]

Descriptive names for what walls do? "This one supports the ceiling" "This one separates two rooms"

[@thedingleberrybush6076]

It does a brilliant job at adding the ‘immersive’ to immersive sim. Just wish it wasn’t so tedious sometimes due to its barebones and archaic gameplay structure.

[@FightingForceSoulless]

I love secondary fire on weapons or different ammo types. Most of the weapons are satisfying to use. Great animation, great sound design.

[@NextianGeometry]

"Every NPC recording audio logs makes more sense in the age of streamers" is a fantastic idea for having story breadcrumbs that start with "What up guys, I'm here in the Forbidden Zone to show you some cool shit" and all ending "OH GOD NO THEY FOUND ME I CAAAAAGHHH--!!!"

[@onceonly1111]

"Here's my reaction log to XY-Jimmy's death audio about the forbidden zone - wow it really sounds like he died pretty hard! Let's hope we have some better luck this tiARRGHHH"

[@jamesphillips4009]

Isn't this just the concept of found-footage movies but with all the jumpscares cut out?

[@blissfuldj7627]

Borderlands has been doing that for over a decade

[@Nova225]

Hilariously enough I found the head by pure chance while looting a room, hours before I actually needed it. I deduced that since this was the *only* head I could pick up, it must have been important, so it sat in my cargo elevator for a long time until i eventually found the retinal scanner. It was the same with the plastic explosives and the chips. I found them all way before I needed them, so they cluttered my storage for a long time.

[@F3ST3Rfilms]

Literally same, instead of looking up a walkthrough to see where they were, i was looking one up to see if I actually needed them

[@wishiwascooler]

I think it's literally one of the few heads that you can actually pick up (that isn't a skull, anyway). I think it even has the dude's name associated with it.

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

That's a particular breed of old school gaming instincts, being quite the pack rat for anything that looks interesting or important, because it probably is.

[@rawbeanuk]

Very similar experience with the head, but instead of collecting the chips and explosives I found it far less annoying to put map markers down where they were so I could find them again once they became relevant.

[@joemama114]

LoL I kept the head in my inventory the second I found it and 2 hours later when it became relevant I used it. It's the only human head in the game you can pick up and carry as an item, it's for SURE a puzzle piece you will need. Also it was my Wilson and I shared with him my grief about the station falling into such a shitty state

[@pdughi]

One of my co-workers worked at Looking Glass Studios. He said it collapsed because the leadership made a lot of poor business decisions at the same time and when they all fell apart at the same time, they had nothing to fall back on. There was about a 2 month span between when they released Thief II & had like 4 major projects they were working on to zero deals and no income.

[@cynicanal111]

What I always heard from people that worked there was that the nail in the coffin was the huge amount of debt they took to buy the license for System Shock 2. Contrary to popular belief, all three Dark Engine games sold well for the era; they were just so in debt that it didn't matter.

[@pdughi]

@@cynicanal111 I heard the game-at-fault, if there was one, was a flight sim that they were working on towards the end. Apparently management didn't have any focus, so they had them split into two different games and of course, neither had full support. In fact, that was what my coworker was saying was the fault; management didn't do much. They believed too hard in the idea of the celebrity programmer/leads, and felt that would sell the product. Then they relied too much on publishing partners to do the work of advertising and sales without contributing. They lost the deals with eidos, sony, and their EA deal tanked all in a few months and ... that was all they had. Not debt, but no foreseeable income.

[@marcleblanc1212]

@@cynicanal111 They didn't sell that well. On paper, Thief "sold" like a million units, but more than half of those were OEM copies that came bundled with SoundBlaster audio cards, for which LG received a pittance.

[@algorithmancyTube]

I was a dev at LookingGlass. I wasn't really on the biz side of things but my understanding of the situation was that publishing deals at that time were very bad for developers. Devs got low rev share, and publishers got to recoup expenses out of the dev's cut rather than total revenue. Our games made lots of money, for Origin, EA, and Eidos, but not for us. We tried to self publish (e.g. Flight Unlimited) but we were a small fish in a big, red ocean, and didn't really have the reach.

[@algorithmancyTube]

The System Shock license was owned by the publisher, EA, who acquired it when they acquired Origin. LookingGlass didn't take on debt for the license, although the license likely allowed EA to negotiate more favorable rev share terms.

[@g.b.f9859]

The true challenge of the System Shock remake for me is trying to figure out which friends would actually enjoy it if I recommend it to them. As much as I enjoyed it there were several really frustrating moments.

[@crackedemerald4930]

Do you know any cyberpunk masochists?

[@jax199]

Kamikaze roombas going full vietcong on you.

[@auto_mata]

Funny thing about even that severed head : the "Something Lurking" audio log you pick up right before you can get to Maintenance lets you know that Abe Ghiran is the only one with access to the maintenance office. And next to his corpse are two personal logs from the man himself. And even that initial log you listen to in D'Arcy's office tells you that the code is in the research library and the laser is fired from the central control on Research. If you pay enough attention to the logs, and then realize that almost all the levels are set up around a central hub with the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta quadrants being north, east, south, and west, you'll find that there actually are directions for nearly every step of the way.

[@FightingForceSoulless]

It's all in the logs, the logs are the waypoints and objectives.

[@DanGamingFan2846]

Imagine an "articulate mouthing off" contest between SHODAN and Yahtzee. Now that would be a battle for the ages.

[@watershipup7101]

Agreed

[@AlbertBalbastreMorte]

They could charge for it.

[@RacingSnails64]

LMAO I would love that. He would make her shut down out of computational stress.

[@AntonAdelson]

Rule34 material!

[@davidj135]

And have GLaDOS moderate it!

[@1000DeadFlies]

Honestly, I really really enjoyed this game. It was my first experience with the system shock games. Given that difficulty is so dynamic, you can tailor that to your liking. I kind of thought the enemy AI was in line thematically, with Shodan kind of coming off as an ineffectual genius. Like classic riddler from bat man or Walter white from breaking bad

[@olliezoop]

I highly recommend checking out SS2 as well, preferably with a light smattering of quality-of-life mods. That game holds up extraordinarily well, and it arguably did at least as much as SS1 to pave the way for loads of other horror-esque immersive sims.

[@DrakeBarrow]

Yeah, I think the ineffectual genius thing is spot on. SHODAN does some things terrifyingly well, and some of its plans and devices live up to its own impression of itself. But for a lot of the smaller details, SHODAN trips up, and it makes a lot of sense as it was a 'big picture' AI. If it had made more 'smart' minions such as the Command Cyborg, things might have gone differently. But it couldn't stand potential rivals, and was more than happy to let that project simmer on the back burner until it was too late.

[@atlev]

​@@olliezoopSS2 is scarier than most horror games that have come out in the past 10-years, though it takes a while to get into it.

[@mesektet5776]

SHODAN: “Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you.” GLaDOS: “No you can’t.” SHODAN: “Yes I can!” GLaDOS: “No you can’t.” SHODAN: “Yes I can, Yes I can!”

[@Eva-uw6uo]

I feel like GLaDOS is SHODAN without a god complex. Like she knows what she is and why she was made and is fine with it- she just wants to run the show herself so she can throw ethics out the window and test even harder even if her idea of testing is basically torture followed by murder. To her it's all business, even if what she's doing is clearly totally insane and sometimes personal. SHODAN's god complex is kinda what sets them apart and imparts its own menace, like there's almost a truth to her claim. She runs the ship, she controls everything about it and if set loose could spread throughout the galaxy and enforce her will on whatever lowly human she feels like. She'll unleash her wrath on the lowly insects that created and controlled her and delight in their pain exactly as a cruel angry god would.

[@mesektet5776]

@@Eva-uw6uo Let’s not forget the most important differences - funnier and better singer.

[@Eva-uw6uo]

@@mesektet5776 fair point, tho if SHODAN could do those things she wouldn't be SHODAN. Kinda like how if HAL9000 had a god complex like SHODAN he too would lose his appeal.

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

@@Eva-uw6uo GLaDOS pretty much is a take on HAL complete with her whole deal being taking her original purpose to unreasonable extremes due to conflicting, poorly thought out directive and lack of oversight. Probably what happens when you mix them together, given she's definitely egotistical for a computer.

[@Eva-uw6uo]

@@KingOfElectricNinjas Oh absolutely, the difference being (at least to me) HAL was acting out of what he thought as a logical self defense measure. He wanted to live, he didn't want to be disconnected. In that he's still relatable and sympathetic despite him trying to kill David, and his death is tinged with a sort of sadness. GLaDOS however is clearly past the self preservation bit and is just full on enjoying herself and reveling in her derangement. Even without the god complex, GLaDOS is living her best life not unlike SHODAN- torturing stupid humans.

[@clearlywrong6520]

To be fair, the aforementioned decapitated head is on the same level as the retina scanner and is thus the only head you can pick up and is named for that matter of fact. If anything, I had more trouble finding what the head went to after I found it.

[@zacharychristy8928]

Same, I picked up the head and carried it for like 3 more levels until I found out where I was supposed to use it, haha

[@olliezoop]

I'm so glad it wasn't just me, I picked the head up and then deposited it in my item storage, took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to put it

[@Methedreen]

Yeah, I was carrying that fucking head around for ages wondering when something would pop up that I could slap it against.

[@innocentorphan1213]

I dropped it off thinking it was a novelty item or something, then had to scour 3 floors to find it again when I realized the code nonsense.

[@SinaelDOverom]

2:26 Not the Nightdive's fault., They originally planned to redesign the levels to be more believable with nicer layouts, but then nerds started raging about it and screaming "that's not System Shock, give us back OUR System Shock!", ignoring that they already had one. So Nightdive had to scrap all the remade levels and make them identical to the old ones.

[@robertbeisert3315]

Yahtzee just casually dissing the sheer ecstasy of smoothly retracting tape measures over here

[@doctorcaptainalex]

Gets me every time.

[@ShahStark]

I generally gotta agree, a huge part of the appeal for system shock is making sense of the maze, much like a metroidvania one might say hmmm

[@Tralfazz74]

At long last, the "creative though = tumor" joke returns in earnest. Ordinarily, if he repeats a joke near verbatim, the joke being repeated is part of the joke. I think he thought of this fully unaware that he's made this joke before, or at least played it off. This is one of his very, very few sincerely accidental repeat jokes, which is quite impressive for 16 years of weekly essays

[@Rocketman1292]

Yatzhee: "Hurry, we need to get past the rectal scan!" Other person: "Don't you mean retinal scan?" Yatzhee: "No, I don't." (pulls down trousers and presses bum up to scanner)

[@Ramsey276one]

In a world where you can get cyber replacement, you could lose both organic eyes and be still employed... It makes sense

[@jamesboyle6134]

I think Yatzhee really arsed up that take 😂

[@davidj135]

That works for both types of scan though! As we all know, he has eyes on his bum. ... Actually I realize not everyone may remember that horrifying video outro, god I'm getting old

[@newsheo5822]

If you didn't like Shodan boss battle, just remember, that it was even worse in the original game. The way I phrased it to my friends: "They changed it, but decided to leave it as a disappointement to stay true to the original"

[@FightingForceSoulless]

The original was a point and click boss fight, but I would have liked some... fail state during the final boss. Someone had a great idea - the more you look at Shodan, the more she takes over your mind, and if you look away, you regain consciousness. You know, at least something. Not just fall down to the floor and respawn 2 seconds later. But I know what they were going for, it's a story moment. Also, your brain might have been damaged from the EMP blasts or endless restoration. Imagine being restored after a plastique explosion.

[@vonriel1822]

I wonder how many people here even remember the Descent games... I used to fly around upside-down to make the captives look like Luke in the yeti-thing's cave.

[@ULTRAOutdoorsman]

I can't imagine why anyone would care what Yahtzee says and not remember Descent. The last game literally came out after the System Shock remake started development.

[@SoulStrikes]

The tape mesure part hit me way harder than I thought it would

[@tattoodude8946]

I cannot express how happy I am to have found Zero Punctuation once again. I had exhausted all the episodes back ten years ago and forgot about it. I absolutely love this and can binge watch for hours!

[@ThomasWaringIII]

2:05 Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold in the bottom left!!

[@serioussponge6416]

The retinal scanner bit that he complained about is one of the big, 'endgame' uber tests of the player having to pay attention and use deductive reasoning. An audio log you get very early on tells you *exactly* who's head you need and then the actual corpse it belongs to has another audio log on it that's meant to indicate to you that you've found the right corpse basically since it contains their dying words.

[@HUNbullseye]

Ackchually that picture in 2:40 is a Rubik's Snake or Rubik's Twist, and i just cannot let such grievous historical inaccuracy to be unmentioned.

[@ImaginaryPerson1138]

Ahckchewallie I'm sure yahtz knew that and called it a Rubik's cube ironically

[@Hjorth87]

I love Yathzee's final point about the age of streaming

[@dexteradams6515]

I love how these videos are always able to get me to swear loudly in place of a laugh at the end of every video

[@Tralfazz74]

That's a very uncomfortable sentence to read

[@dexteradams6515]

@@Tralfazz74 Proof reading fails me again.

[@zolo49noname45]

Yes, the ending was disappointingly easy, but only because when you died you respawned nearby with no lost progress. If it was like the other cyberspace trips where you had to start over if you died, it would've been frustratingly hard instead. Given the choice between the two, I guess I prefer the easy fight but maybe that's just me. I still would've preferred something in the middle like giving you a number of "lives" before you got booted out, like an 80s arcade game. Honestly, I think they should've done that for the other cyberspace segments too.

[@SaulGoodman3D2049]

This remake is so faithful to the original game that it carries on the tradition of System/BioShock games having disappointing final bosses

[@blackdragoncyrus]

Decent game - Then I went back and played through System Shock 2 again and I liked it even more.

[@WonderfulWorldOfSuit]

God I was hyped as fuck when I heard it. Then through the training Yahtzee has taught, I killed my hype and happily it still ended up pretty well

[@Franku40keks]

That's the best attitude, all the games I bought early on release felt really not that good afterwards.

[@untemperance]

It's still a really enjoyable game, for the very reason that Yahtzee criticized: they basically barely touched a thing to the original, which was in fact a good game. I found it refreshing, specifically because they don't make games like those anymore. (I think that was a point in the IGN review, in fact, wondering who it was for. It looks and plays like a modern game but it has none of its amenities.)

[@CrizzyEyes]

It has the "amenities" if you turn the Mission difficulty on Easy. Most people are just too arrogant for that. Like when Dark Souls came out and everyone and their dog had to beat it to "prove" they were a gamer. They'd rather have done that then just admit "Eh, not really for me."

[@thaddeusgenhelm8979]

@@CrizzyEyes To be fair, for Dark Souls there's at least a sweet spot of effort where you might not *know* it's for you if you don't give it at least a bit. Arguably a flaw with the game's onboarding, and looks a bit like the "It gets better after 30 hours" argument that's... Not ideal, but I suspect most people that actually push through to the end of Dark Souls at least feel like they're getting something out of the experience, and aren't doing it out of sheer blood mindedness. Though I'm sure those people also exist.

[@CrizzyEyes]

@@thaddeusgenhelm8979 Dark Souls actually gets _worse_ after you get into the latter part of it, because it's rushed towards the end. It's a problem with almost all of Miyazaki's games, sadly. And I say this as someone who beat it at least 3 times. I just remember that there was this huge trend of playing Dark Souls just to say that you were a "real gamer" (people like DarkSydePhil fell for this even though he clearly did not like the games). Of course, I think the majority of people who played it did so because they were genuinely interested, but it was definitely a trend.

[@user-jx8qe4cu8q]

by lore the maze layout of citadel station was intentional. TriOptimum Corporation wanted to study how a large group of humans would behave living and working in such a brutalist labyrinth for extended periods of time, where nearly all the walls and floors looked the same.

[@JessicaCarroll-is9zc]

That log being added in the remake feels extremely weird to me

[@jamesboyle6134]

I quite enjoy playing the remake, but It really would have been nice if they included an objective log or something on regular difficulty. As it stands, the option for waypoints on Easy difficulty seems like the game is going "Aww does the ickle baby scrub need his hand held?" I know this is probably being true to the original, but a objective log is something I never thought I would take for granted.

[@danilooliveira6580]

might as well use Steams new built in notepad function at this point

[@Serketry88]

@@danilooliveira6580 I just used the notes app on my phone to record the reactor code, robot shutdown code, and shield override.

[@GugureSux]

Only literal casual-babby zoomers take such things for granted, and it's been absolutely infuriating to see that crap creep into other genres in recent years, the most insulting being survival horror. Hell, even the old TES game were much more of adventure games, only giving you a literal MISSION as you'd receive them IRL during circa medieval times (Go to town X, find a person Y, inquire him about matter Z). Everything else was up to you, including locating said places and people. On a similar note, no pun intended, it seems that youngins literally cannot TAKE NOTES these days. I miss the times when good ol' pen and paper was needed to progress. One reason I really enjoyed the Signalis in recent years.

[@CasperCouch]

I apologize if this has already been brought up, but the closed captioning for the last few weeks of videos has been very broken. It's just a giant wall of text that shows for the first few seconds of the video. This doesn't effect me too much (it just helps me a little bit to have them), but for people with more extensive hearing or audio processing issues who enjoy your work, it might be worth taking a moment to look into when you get the chance. Thanks for your time.

[@CasperCouch]

i had tested this with other videos before writing this comment and saw they were all normal, but coincidentally I just watched a video by a completely unrelated creator and they had the same issue, so this might not actually be an issue tied to the captions the escapist is using and might be something just affecting youtube in general based on some sort of way it's interpreting the captions.

[@CushionSapp]

If a modern AAA studio attempted to remake System Shock, they would've turned it into System Shlock.

[@tuseroni6085]

i feel like you started with the words "system schlock" and worked your way backwards.

[@knowledgeanddefense1054]

To be fair, you have to give them some credit for the new Dead Space

[@ashleywenner1050]

So brave

[@CushionSapp]

@@tuseroni6085 Pretty much

[@suzikumieda2452]

Y'know, my brain read "System Schlock", and now I think a System Shock done with the universe of Schlock Mercenary sounds like it'd be really fun to play.

[@doomdimensiondweller5627]

I love this game and the original. I have a very minor complaint. The levels are divided into Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma quadrants. It isn't always obvious what quadrant you are in. I wish say there were color coded stripes on the walls and or floors to differentiate quadrants. My mom's hospital that she worked at actually had this on one of the floors.

[@CrizzyEyes]

I think you can mouse over areas in the map and it will tell you which quadrant it is.

[@doomdimensiondweller5627]

@@CrizzyEyes is that remake or original ?

[@chaimafaghet7343]

It's the same on every level and as well as the auto-map there are literal map textures on the wall. It's really quite straightforward.

[@FightingForceSoulless]

@@CrizzyEyes Yeah, and it doesn't make sense xD because it's not evenly divided, pretty sure Executive is like... you hover over something and it's Gamma/Delta quadrant. Also, the Alpha Grove is in the Gamma quadrant, the Gamma grove is in... I don't even know which one (I know it's already jettisoned, but, the area, you know)

[@joemama114]

NGL this was actually very fun for me, the violence is very juicy, taking off the heads of enemies is so visceral

[@casualbird7671]

1:30 I don't know if it was just coincidence but I loved the jailbot face

[@theboredengineer2612]

A problem with a lot of graphical overhauls (see the modding community for examples) is that it’s hard to do without botching the original art style. I thought the modern graphics with pixelated textures approach was really unique and genuinely well-executed.

[@millennialboomer6780]

For all its warts, the System Shock Remake is probably one of my favorite games of this year. It convinced me that maybe i would enjoy older 1st person shooters like Marathon

[@ThatGuyOman]

So, about Marathon 1. Marathon is a traditional first person shooter. Both it and System Shock are labyrinthine and set in space, but that's where the similarities end. Even if you just wanted to play it to round out your personal lexicon, I would like to remind you that ignorance is sometimes bliss. Colony Ship For Sale Cheap It's a very long, very tedious level centered around a switch puzzle that is almost exactly halfway through the original Marathon. There's no hints. There's no clues. You guess, and if you guess wrong , you're going back to the start. It ain't worth it. Play Marathon 2 or Marathon Infinite instead.

[@millennialboomer6780]

@@ThatGuyOman ah, thank you for the warning about 1. Will check out the other two instead

[@ethai1]

I'm glad he did review it. I remember asking during the Amnesia stream if he's going to review it and he said he hadn't gone back to it.

[@lehaua8922]

I think a bit of "gaming is my job, and I don't have time to go slow and steady" is showing when Yahtzee talked about the head scanner part. The game conditions you very early that observation skill will be challenged and exploring every corner carefully and making mental notes on the items that you have no immediate obvious use for is the fundamental rule of progressing. Going through Maintenance level for the first time, I couldn't help but take note of Interface Demodulators and the named severed head, so when the time came to use them, I knew exactly where to go. If I were on a deadline, I'm sure I would have skipped exploring the entirety of the available level and moved on to flight deck almost immediately Same for literally every other clue in the game. -These 3 digit numbers flashing on the screens look a lot like door codes. Better write that down -Plastique explosives? Doesn't seem to be a weapon slot item, so I guess it's quest related. Inventory too cramped for now, but at least the path to these is clear of enemies -Lots of fried Isolinear chipsets around this body, and the audio log makes it seem like the girl was sure she could hurt SHODAN if she made these work. I should be on the lookout for working chip. -Jettisoning Gamma grove meant certain death for any living being, according to this log. I am definitely using that knowledge soon on the grove that SHODAN uses for virus cultivation.

[@cattysplat]

For better or worse it's a product of old game design and technical limitations that required you to memorise, draw maps and write down notes to remember everything rather than the game engine to keep track of it all and the UI to remind you.

[@lehaua8922]

@@cattysplat Nah, original SS had in-game log and automap for that just as well. Codes that you see in environment are the only stuff that needs writing down, just like with remake. It also had way less clutter items that make the remake feel so lived in, so it was easier to spot interactibles. I didn't play it much, but it also seemed less strict on inventory space, so maybe you could pick up stuff like c4, demodulators and severed head much earlier and carry them around until needed.

[@atlev]

​@@lehaua8922SS1 didn't have a quest or objective log. Instead, it had a feature where you could write down notes on your map.

[@lehaua8922]

@@atlev I didn't mean quest log, I meant the collected media log. All the audio-/text-logs and emails containing clues and directions for the objectives. Far as I can tell, Remake is the same in that regard. If it had quest log - I haven't noticed it in my 40 hours to completion.

[@mitchellalexander9162]

>Jettisoning Gamma grove The Many has entered the Chat

[@J.G.H.]

The brief mention of Descent makes me unreasonably happy.

[@sh-spectrum409]

Clearly Yahtzee’s using Peter Capaldi as a visual reference to demonstrate that he views System Shock 2 and Peter as both the definitive System Shock and the definitive Doctor respectively. And I wholeheartedly agree with that!

[@predcon1]

Clearly as much as he views Anton Yelchin as a generic dead guy....

[@sh-spectrum409]

@@predcon1 Oof. Just looked up who that is and all I can say is, Gaht Daym!

[@predcon1]

@@sh-spectrum409 It was not a gentle death.

[@DeanCutsforth]

The art style is wonderful, Yahtzee. I love that from afar the environments are pristine and sharp, but up-close they're revealed to be not quite what they seem. Definitely intentional.

[@doublepinger]

I appreciate the random references to the 'less-famous' people and things from the past. Never heard of Kraftwerk, never heard of Warren Spector. Yahtzee is one of the few people I make sure I stop the video or replay bits to look up what he's referencing, because it will be worth the look.

[@doublepinger]

I forgot to add, it's always somehow thematically related. Kraftwerk being an electronic band from the 70s and 80s, Warren Spector being a forgotten god in "immersive sim" belief systems.

[@tincano-beans2114]

Write down the numbers when you destroy the computer rooms.

[@massivive]

yeah knowing about that and Abe Ghiran's head are the only two major things that I think would screw new players over just screenshotting each node room when you're done is good enough

[@6Xyzzy]

Been waiting for this one for weeks!

[@Hashbrown221]

Glad to see he’s still at it, go on king

[@Aiuralion]

02:45 That's a Cold Steel stick.

[@greyed]

4:23 - AKA MHW Iceborn, MHR Sunbreak. Good lord those xpac monsters just never stop!

[@kalvinbaxter6125]

A smoothly retracting tape measure is bliss in all fairness.

[@737215]

I've waited for this review for so long 🙏

[@jrightly]

is that the face from the robot in Superjail? I think it is

[@MissSallyB1]

"bugger off like an arachnophobe in a Halloween shop" I'M BEING CALLED OUT

[@innocentorphan1213]

Tfw I dropped said severed head somewhere while cleaning inventory, having to scour 4 floors to find it again.

[@colbys1234]

Amazing review, top 5 favorites.

[@JFJD]

1:11 Funny, I could have sworn he went by Thaddeus Humbert Escobar Hacker (OBE).

[@gabrote42]

I would love to see a Ghost Trick rerelease ZP! That game is a classic

[@drinks_menu]

That’s so funny. I had the opposite experience with the head. I carried that severed head around basically the whole game waiting for when I would need to use it (since it’s the only severed head item in the game) and eventually just dropped it in storage lift after getting sick of carrying it everywhere.

[@mekman4]

Great Stuff!

[@xtdycxtfuv9353]

1:18 thought tank running a bit empty, huh, yatz?

[@JacobSprenger]

4:23 - "Where is Caius Cosades???!!!"

[@PrecludeLP]

You love to see it!

[@TuriGamer]

Criticising the lack of objective markers and direction is reaching a little when the very first screen before starting a new game asks you if you want quest markers

[@SgtKaneGunlock]

Green Mohawks are my favorite thing to have as a custimizable option

[@HayTatsuko]

I wonder whether you can still get the bad ending where SHODAN sends you a thank-you email congratulating you for helping her annihilate the world... and instructing you to just hang out and wait for the Cortex Reaver coming your way.

[@BenSmith-qw4kd]

If you haven't seen it for yourself yet, yes, that's in the remake.

[@doomdimensiondweller5627]

I know this will be a hot take. I love this game's challenge but don't like a lot of newer hard games. For a lot of newer games difficulty just means tedium and sponge enemies that take forever to kill. Here the challenge is about your thinking.

[@ryankwan1934]

This. I suspect Yahtzee will touch on this in the FF16 review. After a while I turned the difficulty down. Not because it was hard, but because it was tedious. Going through the same split second dodge/parry and then combo loop to stagger and then do your max damage chain until the QTE pops up is so damn boring.

[@Pineappolis]

I don't think that's too hot of a take - making a game that's hard without just being frustrating for a lot of people is _ridiculously_ difficult. Even games that aren't really designed to be hard at all can end up with groanworthy difficulty spikes by accident. While a long, _long_ way off modern, Borderlands 2 and, to a far greater extent NG+ Diablo 2 spring instantly to mind. You could be going along quite merrily for a while, doing the side missions/dungeons to keep your level up and sticking with a sensible build - but go too long without rolling good gear and enemies could suddenly become practically indestructible until you did. Then the threequels both 'fixed' that problem by each having at least one character so comically broken that I'm not sure I _ever_ died, after which I was too turned off the experience to bother trying with a different character. EDIT: I tell a lie - one boss in Borderlands 3 killed me twice. That's still not great for someone who's never been fantastic at FPSs.

[@BlackHoleEye]

Holy crap. Descent got a mention.

[@ULTRAOutdoorsman]

Uh, yes? It's not exactly an obscure game. It had, what, like 8+ entries?

[@TARINunit9]

I am absolutely addicted to this remake because it is the most atmospheric thing I have ever played, hands down. I personally loathe the term "immersive sim" (because the game isn't simulating anything but a very well-crafted FPS experience) but I've caught myself staying up 'til 3AM because I just can't get enough of Citadel Station's spooky cyberpunk corridors

[@atlev]

The first game really wasn't an immersive sim, and honestly the second wasn't either. Thief did more for the genre than any of the shock games did. SS1 was more of a horror/action shooter, while SS2 was very much an RPG.

[@gerardotejada2531]

Immersive Sim is more a design philosophy than a genre. Its about recreating a Virtual Reality or a D&D session. You can do anything and the world will react to It logically, you can solve any problem the game trows at you with wathever tools you have in hand without a correct answer or a single outcome.

[@gerardotejada2531]

Immersive Sim is wathever game thats inspired on Warren Spector games Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex. Or wathever game is released by Arkane studios.

[@TheRoboKitty]

​@@gerardotejada2531"You can do anything and the world reacts to it logically" doesn't describe any of the games commonly held up as the holy grails of immersive sims. For the early games this is because the technology just wasn't there yet (System Shock 1 and 2 are just FPS games, and Thief is a stealth game) but even the second Prey game, the game is very much funneling you in specific directions with your very limited number of ways to interact with the world. You want a "do anything" game, I would honestly look at the most recent Hitman reboot games, THAT'S a game trying to simulate consequences for your actions

[@atlev]

@@TheRoboKitty Imsims can still have direction, but what really defines the genre is the idea of goals having multiple approaches to them; this is to encourage creative problem solving and logical thinking.

[@GmodPlusWoW]

Y'know, funnily enough I actually found the important head long before I encountered the retinal scanner, since it radiated importance and I'd learned about the importance of its late over, so I slapped it in the dumb waiter for when I inevitably had to open that door. Also, I gotta agree about the disappointing ending. Though even then, I still had a blast with it, warts-and-all.

[@jasonlp4928]

NIghtdive was originally going to make the remake much different, straying from the source material; the backers disagreed after seeing the results and it was decided they would go in a much more faithful direction. Also, pretty sure you get objective markers of you lower the story difficulty.

[@xtdycxtfuv9353]

4:09 that was good 😂

[@stopcensoringmen5044]

That last line 😳😳

[@JABRIEL251]

Nightdive is Bluepoint, but pixelated

[@Ropetupa]

"Is he going to talk about that head hunting puzzle?" "HE DID! HE DID!" That is literally the only thing I know about original System shock, that and apparently there is some weird elevator music in the game...

[@MaskedMammal]

They were at least nice enough to not let you pick up any random head you find on the floor in this one. And the one you do need (on top of being interactable unlike the others) looks unique. But yeah, IDK if I missed some details that would point me to it or it's intentionally kept as obscure as ever~

[@kveller555]

​@@MaskedMammalI don't know if I also managed to miss some clue, but I remember having the exact same problem in the original game. IIRC it leads to an optional area though, so that might be why it's so obscure.

[@vvcq]

@@kveller555 I think the hint was the pile of audio logs surrounding the corpse, recorded by the guy whose eyeballs you need (Abe Ghiran). Of course you could pick up the logs and then forget which corpse they were laying next to, but that's just a you problem honestly. _This message brought to you by the 90s game design gang._

[@kveller555]

@@vvcq Now that you mention it, I think I picked them up, immediately got distracted by something else and then forgot about them lol. It's ok though, I honestly love the game's design. I like having to take the time to pay attention to that kind of thing, it makes the world feel much more real.

[@vvcq]

@@kveller555 Yeah, I did the same thing during my original playthrough and ended up having to try all loose heads on the level on the scanner 😅 It's just one of those things you appreciate later, looking back. Like "Wow, now that I think about it I could have figured this out if I paid more attention". Same thing with the interface demodulator puzzle on the same level: the game actually gives you the location of the correct panel on a map, but it isn't obvious and I didn't figure out how to read it on my first playthrough.

[@lilwyvern4]

System Shock Remake isn't for everyone, but it's for more people than the original. It plays more like a video game and less like an operating system, and it's one of the first games in a while I found myself wanting to replay. Despite its flaws, including some new ones (why you can't annotate the map now is a crime), I thoroughly enjoyed the game and would recommend it to people who like atmospheric, slower shooter games. Besides, the laser rapier may be the coolest form of lightsaber-style weapon ever, and I'll die on that hill.

[@ULTRAOutdoorsman]

the laser rapier is so cool that the hacker needs to constantly touch it with his fingertips even though it's a deadly particle stream

[@BenSmith-qw4kd]

The laser rapier is indeed amazing. Not only does it look cool but it's also a shockingly effective weapon in a game that also includes a railgun. I was particularly happy when I realized the second sword you find on the Executive level changes color to match whatever your hud is set to when you pick it up.

[@gus.smedstad]

Is that a Battlestar Galactica "shoot the toasters" joke I see in the end credits?

[@algorithmancyTube]

OMG Thank you Yahtzee I LOLed so hard at this.

[@atlev]

Thanks for all your work on the original :))

[@Thenameless1]

Interesting review, as someone who's only played the original System Shock I have to wholeheartedly agree with that comment about just how straightforward the game really is when you get past the cluttered AI, but I'm surprised Yahtzee was one of the only reviewers who refrained from making any comparisons to metroidvanias for how common that is.

[@NetMoverSitan]

It was released around the same time as Doom II, which explains why it didn't get as much attention.

[@salaufer]

Immediately identified quicksort in the code bubble, questioning my life choices now

[@massproducedeva_]

You can also set the story difficulty to 1 if you're having trouble. It has waypoints.

[@Mene0]

Credits joke had me laughing

[@paulkerrigan9857]

They even draw attention to the level design by having an audio log state it was designed as a maze to test the effects of such stress on its crew.

[@gumby6433]

Hey Yahtzee, not sure if this is the right place to suggest something but I’ve been getting into a game called Fear and Hunger 2. It released earlier this year and it’s…well definitely original in mechanics. And definitely deserves that 18+ rating. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it in a video sometime, but definitely read up on it before playing. As always thanks for the video!

[@jonnekallu1627]

The original System Shock was awesome and my favorite game to this day. 02:00 System Shock had a button on the screen to make it full screen. Did you even play the game??

[@chadjones1266]

Thanks again

[@nogoodgreen3274]

Been waiting on this one

[@GTGTRIK]

Low-res textures without filtering are the charm of it though, they look so nice!

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Does the game have loading screens? Because I categorically reject faux low-res. The main benefit of low res is that it makes the game run faster.

[@kurtmueller2089]

0:33 You use young Carmack but not the fast inverse square root algorithm??

[@DoratTheKiller]

I was waiting for this

[@soldier22881]

speaking of thief 2, yahtzee you may wan to check out gloomwood pretty cool game, loved the demo shame it was timed.