/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8027686
Always bet on the first one since it can be played with mouse only

Is it true that they keep fucking with SS1 Enhanced Edition?

Either way, I have played SS2 a lot more than SS1, and there's plenty I really like about it, I had a lot more fun with SS1 on the single playthrough of the game that I have done.

System Shock 2. Love the atmosphere, enemies, and gameplay. Kino ending.

System Shock 2 is great on the levels where the devs werent pressed for time but there are too many areas where the game is unfinished and there is not nearly enough tense interactions with SHODAN
the flaws of the game are ignored because muh influence.
system shock 1 is clearly the better, more polished game if you like the gameplay differences

How should I play SS1 for the first time? Is there a definitive version? Any unofficial patches or mods I should use?

>>8027686
I played 2 first, then 1 years later, and I ended up liking one more. I think it's because I'm a really big Thief fan so I kept comparing SS2 to Thief in my head or something. I dunno. I wasn't a big fan of the combat and inventory mechanics. Atmosphere was good but I always felt like I was playing the game a little wrong.

SS1 is a more straightforward dungeon crawler that's all about your equipment (which I like) and I thought it had a more cohesive "this is all taking place in one big space station" feeling despite the comparatively primitive graphics.

I should replay both.

>>8027974
Got me. Bastard.

>>8027970
Just play it, EE is fine, no real good reason to play old DOS versions unless you really, REALLY are autistic about playing the "developer intended" way and dont want full mouselook. avoid eceleb videos, i saw one that had several hundred thousand views out of curiosity and the dude spoils memorable sections of the game that should be surprises without warning or good reason,
Only thing of note to improve would be to use SoundCanvas VA to get SC-55 midi music. Also I prefer DOS portraits personally, the "mod" is included in EE

>>8027974
lmaoin

>>8027974
>Look at you, bunghole, a pathetic creature of meat and bone
>Hehe, "meat, hehe, "bone".
>Shut up, Butthead

>>8028371
>spoilers for a 27 year old game
Holy shit grow the fuck up.

>>8027686
2 but 1 is still a good game. I think the Ultima Underworlds are better than SS1 though and the attempt to merge the two in SS2 was the right decision.

>>8027970
DOS version is better, EE is missing effects and has inaccurate lighting since it's a KEX engine port. The devs were cutting edge in 1994 with proximity based texture filtering and interpolation and these features are missing from the KEX port in favor of ultra blurry anisotropic filtering or nearest neighbor. They also have no way to switch out the shitty Mac weapon sprites back to the DOS version.

>>8027686
Don't have a favorite
Thought I liked 1 better, then I replayed 2 with psi powers and basically wrecked crap instead of having to rough it most of the game
Music in 1 is better though

I wish SS2's story-important items moved around a bit more. The game is a drag to replay when you remember where everything is.

Does the game work at all like thief where difficulty level change item spawns and such?

>>8028872
>if you haven't played every single game from the last 27 years, go fuck yourself

nice logic there dude

>>8030141
What the fuck are you talking about? Nobody is looking for a System Shock 1 "review" in 2021 for purchasing advice.
>goes looking for discussion of a 27 year old game on YouTube and a Malaysian basket weaving forum and gets upset with people having in-depth discussions

>>8030225
literal word salad, get help

>>8030256
He's right, you're a retard and probably a preteen who shouldn't be here in the first place.

>>8027974
>>8028767
kek

>>8027686
Video man make internet movie

>>8028872
I doubt even 5% of the now 1.2M people who watched that review ever played the game, and theres no spoiler warning. I mostly pity the people who got spoiled of memorable moments in a top game. Keep defending your eceleb though, donate to his twitch or whatever it is zoomers do

>>8027686
1, they're both fantastic games but 1's levels are cool and it has cyberspace

>>8031403
I agree with anon 1, if you care about spoilers for an almost 30+ year property, you're a slow retard.
But, I don't understand it with Reviewers spoiling the game in their reviews. The whole point of a review is to get people interested in a game, spoiling it or just regurgitating the plot is counterintuitive. Funnier too when they even tell you not to watch until you beat the game. What's the point in even watching after that? I already beat the game, I have my own opinion already. Yours is now worthless.
Youtuber reviewers are as worthless as the official ones.

>>8030225
>>8028872
>>8031652
>A game is old so you shouldn't care about spoiling the plot to people who haven't played it yet
I've seen a lot of stupid shit on this board since the rule change but this one really takes the cake.

>>8031982
Anon, who the fuck is coming up to you on the street, shaking you and revealing that Shodan dies at the end of System Shock 1?
You came to the thread, you went searching for discussion on a 27 year old game because you've already played it and want to engage in in-depth discussion. Don't act surprised when people want to have more than a surface level discussion about a 27 year old game. Any normal human being would exercise some fucking self control and just go off and play the game for themselves. Instead, you wanted to come to this thread and bitch about your weird gatekeeping obsession against ecelebs and "people who probably didn't even play the game anyway"

>>8031982
Yes, I don't care about spoiling the plot to an old game that has been discussed many times before, especially to tards that wait for a funny man to make a video on it.
Shock 1 has only ONE real plot spoiler, if you're too dense to sense scum radiating from one character.
Anyone that cares should actually play the game instead of going to a discussion forum.

>>8027686
System Shock 2
I always end up abandoning System Shock 1 whenever I set foot into the reactor level

Seeing as this thread is going wildly off-topic, I'll throw my hat into the ring.

Personally, I prefer SS2. In many ways it's objectively worse than SS1, but the skills system gives it a replayability that SS1 doesn't really have. I love experimenting with different builds.

Also, SS2 has a modding scene, and SS1 doesn't.

>>8032251
I want to drip syrup of shodan's flatware

Weird question, I'm playing the enhanced edition and everything is normal except I got to the executive level and can't use the elevator for delta grove. Is this a bug or do I need to do a fresh install/game?

>>8033976
I think you have to jettison the other groves before you can use that one. There's an audiolog somewhere that says that.

>>8034184
Did a fresh install of the gog version(I was playing steam version) and somehow it picked up a couple of my steam saves(?) was on research, realized I was just starting executive so I made a bee-line for delta grove since I had the route memorized after hours of looking for what I didn't do in alpha or beta grove and in executive in general. The switch was there. Go figure. The credits rolled after I exited that save because I had mentally committed myself to just re-running the game. It's pretty short on a by task basis if you know what you're doing.

>>8031403
>Talking shit about a rare actually worthwhile gaming youtuber because he hurt your feefees
Your horrible taste just unsold me on the game lol

>>8035951
Reddit. Now.

>>8035951
>worshipping youtubers
Stop. Go away.

Both are good.

>>8036325
>if I post this meme that's the same as saying I'm right when really I'm just being a centrist to be "right" and please everyone.

>>8036648
Go back to Twitter.

>>8031403
>>8028872
>>8028371
Are you talking about the Mandalore video.

>>8032251
I gave a shot to SS2 mods, but they just didn't work. The problem is that the game is very, VERY, complicated, there's many different systems to manage at once, and that doesn't mesh well when playing custom stuff. You cannot just load a mod and start shooting things, like it was a Doom WAD, in a SS2 mod.

One would think that SS1 much more straightforward gameplay would make it more mod friendly.

>>8027686
I've flipped from 2 to 1 over the years but it's been some time since I've played 2. What makes 2 a little more exhausting to get into now is I always gotta see what the current best way to play it is so my old install I have kicking around is likely dated.

>>8029713
Those are extremely petty reasons to eschew all the cool shit EE brings to the table. Being able to single click pick up shit ALONE is worth it.

Von braun is much better than Citadel station, so is the story and atmosphere, but man does it take away all the different puzzles and minigames and cool upgrades that SS1 had

Okay what video am I supposed to psychically know you're talking about? There are tons of videos about SS1 and 2. I wanna be mad at it too. Link?

Tangentially related, Tribe's music was pretty kickass and SS1's OST is tinged with a few of their songs. They shoulda made it.

I prefer ss. I have grown to love the farty midi tribes music, the more action/adventure vs. rpg feel of 2, SHODAN seems better in 1 than 2. I don't care for how 2 doesn't trust you with the twist so it gets spoiled well before the 3rd act, the edm was fucking terrible compared to how hard they worked on the original's ost. I guess the music is different based on how SHODAN feels about you, though I haven't noticed a marked difference based on level security. Idk one man's opinion.

>>8027686
having to backtrack when I realized I needed to write down the code digits found in every level killed the first game for me.

>>8038258
SS2's music is fantastic, but a little immersion breaking at times. Some tracks more than others. I feel like it gets better as it goes. The dynamic MIDI of the first game is better, and more interesting though. Especially if you have a decent soundfont loaded like Chorium or Weeds or something.

>>8038359
It's not 2's fault. People didn't 'appreciate' 1's sound design enough so they just tried to please the target audience whom they thought wanted edm I guess. I think synth like anything by goblin would have made 2 fucking awesome.

>>8028006
>>8028371
>>8028872
>>8031243
>>8031652

WHAT FUCKING VIDEO ARE YOU WEIRDOS TALKING ABOUT?

>>8038428
Nevermind, found it. Fuck you morons, though. How do you throw the youtube zoomer insults around when you're the ones collectively watching the same shit? Idiots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tONyeEcozrw
Here's the stupid video for anyone wondering.

>>8038443
I think the original gripe was with the EE vid, not the SS2.
>>8028371


That said a 30 min vid gets forgotten during 7-10 hours in a game. Spoilt reveals and dialogue is still effective if you play the game blind because the Shock games are labyrinthine so even simple tasks can be challenging.

>>8038467
Just figured because it's the newer one and people are all claiming it's because of a new video. Be nice if faggots would specify instead of presuming OP's motivations like schizos, but whatever.

>>8038497
I'm not even sure that's even related to op. Just guys sperging back and forth because yt got mentioned.

>>8038497
>>8038505
OP here. I wasn't even thinking of a video when I made this thread. I played through both SS games years ago and I just wanted to have a discussion about the games

These idiots are the ones who made this into a shitshow about youtube ecelebs

>>8027686
I think 1 is better than 2, overall. Not retro, but I personally think that the upcoming remake of SS1 has potential. Its a remake, not a prequel nor sequel.

>>8038539
I think they fuck up by giving you a gun right away. Not getting one until completing medical made it a game changer heading into research until you find out how many hoppers there are. Unless I'm retarded and there is a gun sooner than destroying the nodes and getting the pistol, or reducing security to 0 and picking up the magnum. I mean SS isn't perfect for giving you a lightsaber less than half way though but whatever. Weapon balance in a single player game that's 27 years old is stupid so who cares.

>>8038561
pretty sure you can find a sparq gun early on in medical but I could be wrong

>>8038614
I think you find it in darcy's office. I would still rather have a pistol over the sparq over the stun or dart guns

>>8036648
>you HAVE to pick a side. you're not allowed to enjoy multiple things. I can only think and experience life in binaries
NPC take

>>8038359
>but a little immersion breaking at times
Really the big problem is it starts your first encounter with an enemy while blasting the rave music. In every other case it's playing rave music when you're fighting enemies you've already seen then gets creepy when the spooks start happening.

I can admit that I played 2 first and that's why I didn't like 1 anywhere near as much.

>>8038539
Remakes were always allowed to be discussed.

i dropped SS1 when i had to play the cyberspace levels and i didn´t know what to do, such a shame

>>8027686
Second. But thats mostly cause of music and overall sound design. Replaying original System Shock always makes my ear bleed.
Also the amount of labyrinths breaks my immersion

Does anyone know what screen has a switch under it on executive to remove the force shield from the camera near the elevator? It's fixed in the ceiling and has a green shield I can't find a puzzle or adjacent switch for. I've done everything except the beta grove interlock and the master jettison which aren't relevant.

>>8040719
In EE you point yourself using the mouse use s for thrust, left click for your equipped weapon pulser or drill, pulse is for enemies, the drill comes later when you encounter ice defenses on data/software objects rotating mouse wheel will alter between the two. You collect software unlock door get key card access and get data objects in cyber space. Software is stuff you can use in cyber space, data are information on the level or key codes check these in the data portion of you info reader. Follow the arrows to tunnels that link rooms, you can enter cyber space immediately after exiting it doesn't effect your proper health or energy. Remember old games like came with manuals to answer questions like these.

>>8040719
Cant you literally turn them off?

>>8027686
I've only played the second should I try the first?

>>8040880
apparently the reason why ss1 sounds so insane no is because it was actually dependent on some sound card thing that no longer exists so we just get these janky tracks that modern people know it for

>>8042591
I personally prefer to first one over the second. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I would say the first one does exploration and Shodan much better, as well as give you a lot more options to experiment and mess around and find your playstyle. Second game is way spookier though and the RPG system changes the game up substantially for multiple playthroughs. The huge pitfalls of the first game are cyberspace and the first 2 levels. Once you get to maintenence and the game opens up it becomes way better. I think you can disable cyberspace if you really really don't like it, but personally I never found it to be that bad since those segments are very very short. Not sure why people complain about it so much.

>>8042613
I was listening to an interview by Greg LePicollo and apparently it was made for the sound blaster which is the default option in DOSbox. I set it up with MUNT (MT-32 emulator), basically the top-tier sound setup at the time, and it was marginally better. I feel like some autistic fans would've made a huge deal about this if the soundcard changed it up as much as Mandalore says.

>>8042613
>>8042625
It's just MIDI. It depends on the sequencers samples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h_GgBzGNjA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up80FfzySFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvlGbv3JIEk

I didn't play SS2 until after I'd played Bioshock, and I didn't play SS1 until... geez, must have been around 2011.

I loved SS2, but honestly, I ended up being more impressed by SS1 and how ambitious - and polished - it was for its time.

To be honest, I think ss2 has one of lamest weapon balancing of any fpsrpg.
It feels more like they made all the weapons and designed them around them all being usable at once, only to then implement rpg mechanics.

Nobody can tell me that the devs though the annelid weapons were viable, or that the other two heavy weapons beside the grenade launcher was good or that the EMP rifle wasn't useless almost all of the time.

>>8042694
I don't get why they couldn't pull a SS1 and simply make ammo for powerful guns rare.

>>8042694
>To be honest, I think ss2 has one of lamest weapon balancing of any fpsrpg.
The balance in general is just fucked across the board. It's not exclusive to weapons.

>>8042737
>Dump a shitload of points into research, exotic weapons and maintenance
>Get slapped with rare ammo meme
>Meanwhile the invisible OSA melee guy can run around with the crystal shard and oneshot everything for free
SS1 didn't even make powerful ammo rare aside from the mag pulse. The game showered you with grenades too. It was made before shitty devs could only balance stuff by making the ammo rare.

>Assault Rifle is one of the strongest weapons in the game and it needs max Standard Weapons to wield.
Fine
>Grenade Launcher is THE STRONGEST weapon in the game and it needs only 1 Heavy Weapons to wield, and will gain strength for every level.
Hmm
>The Stasis Stasis Generator does no damage, temporarily slows enemy movement, yet needs a HW of 3 and strength of 3
What?
>Fusion Cannon is weaker than the pistol at max Standard Weapons, because it requires max Heavy Weapons and 4 Strength to use and can't have its damage increased beyond modifications. Plus you can kill yourself with it.
Why?

Are there any mods that extensively mod the balance for the better?

>>8042996
it's called git gud

>>8043635
>Knowing the difference between a game breaking build and a useless one is being good
Kek. It more-so has to do with people being tired of half the shit in the game being flat out useless.

>>8042625
MT32 is for games from 1992>=, you want an SC-55 for SS1.
Only track thats fucked is the machinery/radiation one but idk what sound card even plays that one properly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuPYnma2TBs
>They've killed my men and now they've killed me. I'm holding my guts inside of me with both hands. I'm almost done... resist. This is bigger than my little life, the lives of my men and the lives of the people I was forced to kill. Resist. Humanity demands it! Resist!

>>8042580
you can make the difficulty lower, idk if you can turn it entirely off

>>8042869
>aside from the mag pulse
You may be misremembering, or maybe it's bc I didn't use it until the latter half of the game but there are enough mag carts lying around from like the Storage on(currently playing through engineering). There's a fuckload of it lying around in Executive and the groves.

>>8027686
I like System Shock 1 till you go to the grove and it's full of fucking radiation so it makes me want to kill myself taking constant damage.

>>8044036
Did you get the rad suits from storage and maintenance? Idk if you can get the one in maint(the retina scanner puzzle), before trying and failing to jet the groves. Only beta really harms you.

>>8041186
EE fucked up the classic controls by default. You can use space to thrust yourself in the original. I do that, and use WADX to look around. Q and E rotate, too.

>>8044025
Lol then absolutely no weapon is scarce at all and that other anon was just talking out of his ass. For some reason I specifically remember hoarding magpulse ammo and it being rare but nothing else, but I didn't go to the storage area until way late in my playthrough so thats probably why.

>>8042996
System Shock 2 community patch I'm pretty sure. I think the changes are just fixed, though. Like making it so the pistol wont do more damage than lategame weapons you need to max out heavy/exotic weapons to use, because the heavy/exotic weapons don't scale in damage all due to their skill requirement.

>>8044982
I mean most weapons become obsolete if you have access to a charge terminal and have the blaster or better version of energy weapon, and the laser rapier is fucking broken slicing up most enemies even high level ones. But ye I'd argue you encounter less railgun and skorpion ammo because they're late game but I'm just wrapping up Engineering and moving onto security and the bridge eventually. SO there may be more of those ammo types, and their rarity insofar as anything is relative to their addition to the game and not their application. I just think you get the magpulse early as a lesson to conserve ammo when you see a pretty reasonable drought until storage.

>>8027686
God 1's box art fucking sucks. It may have directly contributed to its hidden gem status for years.

>>8045307
It actually grew on me, to some extent. At first I didn't like it, either.

>>8045349
Yeah but it only grows on you in that hipster-ass 90s AESTHETIC ironic sort of way. I don't think it did it any favors in its day.

>>8042643
That weird high-pitched shrill noise you hear in the second and third examples isn't present int he Sound Blaster version. The note is there, but the sound that the SB generates sounds like it actually belongs.

>>8042613
>>8042625
>>8042643
>>8045423
I always heard that the soundtrack was dynamic. I don't know how true that is, though. Seems a bit early for that technique.

>>8045392
>Yeah but it only grows on you in that hipster-ass 90s AESTHETIC ironic sort of way. I don't think it did it any favors in its day.
i dunno, I definitely felt uneasy during certain portions of the game, and that image definitely gives that sort of vibe, if nothing else.

>>8045307
the elite cyborg guards retroactively remind me of Gunther Hermann from Deus Ex

>>8045423
The sound blaster was the card they were making the games for so it makes sense. I think the DOSbox built in soundblaster emulator is just inaccurate.

>>8045430
It's not far fetched. Dynamic sound was all over point and click adventure games in the 90s. It was very easy with MIDI because it's just sequenced sounds but is very hard to do with modern music that is usually composed before hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLd5wmBNCBM

>>8045392
Can you express yourself without buzzwords?
Or please elaborate on what exactly it means for a 1994 computer game to have 'hipster'(there was nothing hip about computer games in the 90's) 90's aesthetic is usually bright pastel for late 80s-mid 90s due to the overlap in style between decades. Actual hipsters at the time were more interested in grunge flannel and stuff like that the cover of system shock evokes neither. What exactly is ironic about it? You can just say you don't like it. That's at least true.

>>8045307
They really should've used this. They used a variant for the PC98 release.

>>8045818
Forgot the image.

>>8042618
>are cyberspace and the first 2 levels
I played the first 2 levels before I just didnt feel it anymore.
I guess this is my call to get back to it.

>>8045430
It's real. It even changes depending on what kind of enemies you're fighting (organic or mechanical)

>>8045430
It's not a very know thing, but the music does distort depending on the danger near by.
Off beat sounding notes indicate a organic enemy is near, like mutants.
Electronic shrieking/wailing for when a mechanical enemy is near, like cyborgs.
And a rarely used 3rd one that sounds more "tense/horrifying" Only used in areas that I guess you could describe as high danger, such as Radiation filled rooms and Diego's shrine
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RMp6o_hu_5s

>>8046435
The music has phases for when you're walking around, in peril and in direct combat too.

The Rickenbacker is pretty comfy even if it's a weaker part of SS2. It gives me strong Xbox 360 vibes like FEAR and Condemned.

>>8047375
I guess the story is, they were going to make a tng game and it got cancelled so the pivoted into the system shock sequel.

I just hope they incorporate stealth more in SS3. It was actually kinda fun to realize that SS2 still has all of Thief's stealth elements and that you could lure hybrids around by hiding in the shadows and hitting the walls with your wrench.

>>8048560
It'll probably get dumbed down. Bioshock was really dumbed down from being an immersive sim and that was 13 years ago and it started life as a sequel to SS2. I can't imagine it will be better in 202X since there haven't been any dev updates on 3 that I'm aware of.

>>8048657
Yeah, I'll probably be extremely disappointed.

They're adding VR to SS2 apparently. Does this mean they still have the Dark Engine source code? Why don't they release that?

>>8048673
>They're adding VR to SS2 apparently.
You mean you can play on a vr headset? That'd be pretty fucking cool if they code in 1:1 head movement to what you see.

>>8048712
https://twitter.com/NightdiveStudio/status/1348348791372480513
It would be perfect for Thief as well.

>>8048716
That's pretty neat as a toy. Still can't get me to drop the $ to get a vr headset but neat regardless.

>>8027872
They keep doing little improvements

Does anyone think that the regen stations and the progressive way that the world behaves in spite of your death e.g.
>surgery bed
>regen
>item remains destroyed
>save game
>item remains destroyed
The wheel and spoke system of exploration
Lore getting into item desc in ss2
Could have inspired ||souls games||?

>>8049086
I don't turn on the respawn stations anymore when I play ss2

>>8049450
Chad move if true.

>>8049539
Not chad, just too jew to spend the nanites

>>8027686
It's been a minimum of 24 years since I played SS1. What's the enhanced port like?

>>8049789
Just has patches built into it. Mouselook by toggle, etc. There's a mod menu implying you can add your own from inside the game, like from local files.

>>8047375
>xbox 360 vibes
Help me understand.

>>8045628
You know what I fucking mean. It's bad art. The game sold poorly because it was marketed poorly. Eat a dick.

>>8045628
You know what I fucking mean. It's bad art. The game sold poorly because it was marketed poorly. I was also explaining that someone 'appreciating' it in the current day is probably out of endearment for its particular brand of dated badness or good will built for the property over the years. I was not saying the hipster shit regarding how it was perceived at the time.

That explain it enough for you, autismo?

>>8050379
The Rickenbacker was basically a corridor shooter that occasionally had some areas you would be stuck on till you did an objective. That shit was all over the 360. I listed off the 2 that came to mind. FEAR was on the 360 and Condemned 2 had some futuristic parts. Halo also and I think the Turok game too.

Also SS2s aesthetics is pretty much what the 2000s view of the future looked like. Metallic/Grey, rounded edges, throw some hard edges or lines in there. You see a lot of that stuff in 360 games.

bring the ball to the court

>mfw I played through half of SS2 before realizing the security terminals shut down the turrets rather than just the security cameras/alarms

I knew something was wrong when I kept getting gangfucked by those laser turrets in engineering

>>8036325
>>8038723
Hey niggerfaggot.
The question was "Which one was your favorite," not "Which one was good."

>>8050845
I like that aesthetic. I have an innate fear of the future looking bland and boring.

https://youtu.be/KYUiCY4KuH0
Is it ever said in-game where that soothing female voice comes from when you walk into radiation, get poisoned or are low on health?
Was that part of the cyber upgrades that the soldier had?

>>8044798
cant you just rebind them?

>>8052643
Yeah, but what's the point of calling them "classic controls" if the cyberspace controls are completely fucked? Should be patched.

>mfw timbres of heaven reactor

I like the wrench more than the crystal shard and laser rapier for some reason.

>everyone keeps using the shitty inaccurate chicajo midis

>>8027686
Are we considering the SS1:EE for controls that haven't aged like a 50/50 milk/urine smoothie left under the sink since its release?

If so, then SS1. Not even close by any margin. I actually replayed both a little over a year ago and I gotta say, SS2 was a complete let-down after all these years. Asinine level design, completely imbalanced weapons system, and a terrible third act. It broke my heart, because I remembered it *so* fondly.
Gotta say that once you play the original, it really does ruin the sequel. Not that SS2 is a bad game by any means, and that it doesn't have a lot of merit, but I don't hold it in the same regard as I once did.