/vr/ - Retro Games

prepare to get spooked, No Tips go in blind.

Best game ever

Try not to waste your bullets and save skill points for when you need them. Think of it as less a FPS or even an RPG than a game of resource management.

Go blind. Don't read guides. It's okay to restart the game if you fucked your build. Starts with horror and quickly turns into an action game.

It's a fantastic game.
For a first play through focus on standard weapons and hacking. Maintenance and agility are also very helpful.

>>4087459
If an alarm goes off, enemies respawn until it's disabled.

>>4087459

It was great for it's time, but System Shock 1 was a better 3D metroidvania while Deus Ex is the best of the original set of "shock" games before Deus Ex 2 and Bioshock changed direction towards being more casual.

SS2 is a nice piece of history though, especially if you're playing through the whole series. It's still a good game.

>>4087459
Haven't played it yet, but intend to after playing the first one someday. I wonder why SS2 never came to the PS1?

>>4090593
Everything about the game's interface is built around using mouse and keyboard. At best you'd be left with a terrible port with clunky controls and massively gimped graphics.

>>4090636
>Clunky controls
Yeah, even if the port allowed for button combos.

>>4090593
Because it sold like shit originally and was way too demanding to even get ported to the PS1. I think there was a Dreamcast port in the works though.

>>4090816
There was indeed a Sega Dreamcast version in the works.

Anywho, I personally wonder from time to time how bad-okay a port of the original System Shock to the Sega CD(as one of its final retail games), Saturn, N64, and 3DO would have likely turned out. Also, I find it kind of sad that the Acorn Archimedes never got any version of SS1 made for it, not even a 3.5" floppy release...

>>4087459
is this game better than Deus Ex?

>>4091000
Depends on your taste and such.

>>4090998
I wonder why SHODAN only had the Beta Grove jettisoned from the Citadel Station shortly before everything else that was not the Bridge area and a few minor hallways directly connected to it exploded? I also wonder if the 3 voices of The Many originally belonged to separate individual life forms?

>>4087470
But why?

>>4091000
SS1 > DX > SS2

>>4091081
Lets Hope System Shock 3 isn't the next Battleborn.

>>4091162
*crosses fingers and hopes*

>>4089997
Enemies only respawn if the alarm goes off?

>>4091187
WAT

I do wonder...

WHAT THE FUCK was it that made the first System Shock even more of a damn chore than SS2 to locate the source code so that it could be put up on GOG, with a release via enhanced Graphics and music on Steam!? What mad it so?

>>4091187
No, some enemies will spawn over time/at random. You can walk through areas you've already cleared and encounter a Zombie or something. When alarms are active though, there's a constant stream of shotgun zombies being spawned and headed to your current location. Avoid setting off alarms, destroy every camera you see. If you fuck up, just hack a security terminal to turn alarms back off.

>>4091326
Indeed so.

>>4091294
The Enhanced Edition isn't based on updated source code; it's a collection of existing fan patches to hack in things like a Win32 wrapper (so it can run in Windows without emulation) and support for mouselook and higher resolutions.

In fact, it's been nearly a year since Night Dive announced it would publish SS1's "in the near future."

>>4091000
Not even the same genre desu

System Shock 2 never really clicked for me.

*The gameplay is shite. It gives you a ton of choices, but most of the options are either mediocre compared to other ones, or outright handicaps unless you plan a specific build from the very start of the game. There is no reason to not just beat the ever-loving shit out of everything with the wrench while hacking vending machines and hacking or evading cameras for almost the entire game unless you are crazy enough to do a challenge run of the game.

*There's little progress against The Many themselves. They aren't actively trying to block you for most of the game; it's just that they had a tendency to break things when they took over before the game started and have their goop block stuff because they're lazy. You feel like a repairman that's being annoyed by poorly-modeled mutants, not a guy that's trying to save humanity from a conglomeration of creatures working together to assimilate everything.

*The game isn't really scary unless you're a dumb teenager or retard with an overactive imagination. A single mutant saying "KILL MEEE!" can be weird the first time; it is annoying after murdering the 100th mutant with a wrench to the face.

*Bad enemies. Everyone remembers the bog-standard mutants and the midwives, but they forget about how the game becomes Spider Squashing Simulator 1998 once you get onto the recreational deck because the enemy variety devolves into endless generic, but large spiders and cannon fodder mutants with the occasional Shambler wannabe that's staring at a wall at that point.

*The game falls apart once you reach the Rickenbacker. You go from ascending a doomed spaceship to what is literally an easter egg hunt. Oh boy! After that, you get to go into a claustrophobic version of Xen, then end the entire thing with an underwhelming boss fight.

*The atmosphere is nice...in the beginning. Once you start becoming a whirlwind of death, any sort of tension from it goes away very fast.

>>4093039
Ok whatever.

>>4091967
>Deus Ex
>FPS/RPG

>System Shock 2
>FPS/RPG

Where's the mismatch?

>>4093039
Nah.

>>4093083
System Shock is really more of a survival horror/RPG

>>4093256
Maybe, but it's still non-linear like DX, and first-person like DX, and you use guns like DX.

>>4091648
Oh, very well then.

>>4087459
Just don't do PSI.

Energy weapons are garbo too except for the end

>>4093443
Huh? What makes you think that they are garbage for use in battle except for really late in the game?

System Shock 2 felt like it had a lot of identity issues and never fully realizes anything it tried to do. I know the game had a lot of issues during development and all, but playing this game today really honestly feels like all the hype is nostalgia and people buying into it to seem like cool retro gamers. Not entirely to say that it's a bad game, but SS1 feels so much more focused and better overall

>>4093582
Is it because The Many is not the actual final boss?

>>4093582
Welp, here's to hoping that SS3 is at least several bits better than 2.

>>4091078
what the fuck is the point of playing a game if you're just going to ask us to spoil it for you? please go back to /v/.

>>4091326
I see.

I'm scared as fuck of the "infinite respawns, limited ammo" part of the game to be honest.

>>4094161

The infinite respawns are not a problem if you use the wrench. Wrench cannon fodder and you can save ammo for foes that actually need firearms to reliably go down. You can build up a very nice ammo surplus if you wrench most things to death, especially if you get good drops from the Shotgun Hybrids.

>>4093147
I see what you did there.

>>4093582

I think one of the big problems is that the RPG system is really poorly done. Psi is a giant waste of points unless you fully spec into it from the start of the game, Standard Weapons so obviously dominate the game the other branches usually have one good weapon max, and some of the skills, like Repair, are mostly obsolete thanks to other skills. A practical build is a melee-loving, researching, maintenance hacker speced for Standard Weapons, with a single point in Exotic Weapons for the crystal shard and maybe a point in Heavy Weapons if you have the inventory room for Grenade Launcher + ammo for it.

The survival aspects are pretty phoned-in as well. You're supposed to be worrying about ammo and possibly trying to avoid fights, but melee is so uber for trash in this game you'll be swimming in ammo sooner than later if you use the wrench on trash and keep ammo for robots and bigger annelids. The weapon degrade system is pants-on-head retarded and makes the gameplay aggravating than adding to tension because of how fast your guns degrade.

>>4093443
Energy weapons are good at taking out cameras, turrets and robots...
plus they never really run our of ammo. If anything they allow you to save ammo for your other weapons and still be able to take out cameras and turrets.

I just beat SS2, and it's way easier than people say it is.

Navy is so ridiculously OP that the game became a joke once I managed to get to Deck 4. The power curve with Navy (or really, any class if you play them right) is almost exactly like Bioshock 1's; a little challenging at the start, gets a lot easier the closer you get to the middle of the game, and is a walk in the park at the ending parts. I was carving through Rumblers. the game's ultimate badass enemy, even faster than I blow away post-Ryan Splicers. The main difference is that SS2 tries to prevent power-creep by gating items behind a shitty RPG system, while Bioshock lets you mix and match from the start.

Call me a retard, but I think Bioshock 1 is actually a little bit harder than SS2. Early Big Daddies are an actual threat, while the closest thing to them in SS2, early Protocol Droids, are ez if you didn't blow your armor piercing ammo like a retard. Bioshock 1 also jacks up Splicer HP around the middle of the game to make them a lot more durable to the OP gear you're starting to acquire, while SS2's enemies have no HP changes and the new baddies, the Rumblers and Cyborg Assassins, simply can't stand up to weapons like the Assault Rifle, Grenade Launcher and PSI blade, especially if you're loaded the right ammo and gotten the right upgrades.

The game showers you in so many cyber modules that you can branch out a bit and start blowing them on unnecessary upgrades around past Deck 4, making a decent amount of challenge from the RPG system moot. Around halfway through Deck 6, I had upgraded everything I needed and still had a large surplus of modules, so I just spent them on whatever . I managed to carve through the Rickenbacker, Body of the Many, and the final level with ease.

SS2 has a better illusion of challenge thanks to the RPG system forcing you to commit down a path at the start of the game, but if you specialize early in the game, the game is just as easy as Bioshock 1 is.

>>4094914

And yeah, I know about the higher difficulties changing cyber module prices, but I'm basing this on Normal, the default difficulty for the game that I wager most players are going to play through.

I got a tip: when you're told not to grab every chemical in the chemical rooms - don't grab every chemical in the chemical rooms.

>>4095736
I do not remember that, it has been a decade since I played it for the first time.

>>4095736
it depends on your build and how much you're willing to research.

>>4096581

The only research that's useful (unless you're doing a dedicated Exotic Weapons build) is the enemy organ ones for extra damage and the crystal shard. None of those require you to stuff your inventory full of research chemicals to get them.

nah
>mfw
Great game.
Never want to play it again.
The ending absolutely kicked my ass.

>>4087459

Just play the game you weirdo. Get rebirth without glowy red eyes and busty nude lady as well (should be latest?), and HD texture mod.

>>4091000

I personally think Deus Ex is better, but SS2 is in my top 10 for sure. Deus Ex has a more complex and ambitious story-line and just nails basically everything, SS2 has a near perfect atmosphere though.

>>4094161

I would be as well in theory, but it works well in game. You'll learn to see why, I wont spoil it.

>>4094830
>they never really run our of ammo

Except when you move on to the body and never see another charger again.

>>4098851
I wonder what happens to the remaining Hybrids, Arachnids, Cyborg midwives, and the annelid and swarm eggs after you destroy all the defense nodes and kill the brain of the Many? Do they slowly die out or go go in to such a shock that they dive into chaotic, erratic behavior that sometimes leads to them killing each other? The latter would be hastened into their permanent demise quicker with the robots such the assassin droids and the heavy weapons bots being taken full control of by SHODAN in an effort to wipe out any possibility of another mutant HIvemind.

>>4091065
Shodan didn't eject the beta grove, the hacker did. I don't remember if the other groves had mutants in them too, or if it was just the beta grove. The hacker had to eject the beta grove because it was the most dangerous or about to be launched at earth or something.

>>4099591
The Delta Grove also had mutants in it, I think. Though it wasn't as developed/mutated as the Beta. Also, I was talking about what happened to the remaining cyborg midwives, eggs, Arachnids, and Hybrids of SS2 after the Many's brain is destroyed?

>>4099591
Oh, and the Gamma Grove also got ejected, but by the inhabitants of that grove. However, SHODAN managed to shut down all life support systems right be for it got jettisoned.

>>4099537

I assumed the core was the glue that kept the Many together. Without it, the whole thing would unravel very quicky, like the biomess dying off and sending it's inhabitants into space. I thought most of them fell over and died soon after the Many's destruction, since the hivemind isn't there to control the Annelid parts of the creatures anymore.