<html>

<head>

<title>loonygames - print happy version</title>
</head>

<body leftmargin="10" topmargin="10" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<table width="100%" border="0" height="58" bordercolordark="#000000" bordercolorlight="#000000">
  <tr> 
    <td height="57" width="26%" align="left" valign="top"> 
      <div align="left"> 
        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
          publication</font></i></b></font></h1>
        </div>
    </td>
    <td height="57" width="74%" align="center" valign="top"> 
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p><a href="../2.4/shelf/index.html">&lt;&lt; Back to Normal View</a></p>
<p>URL: <a href="../2.4/shelf/index.html">http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.4/shelf/</a><br>
</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 4<br>
                December 2, 1999<br>
                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
              
                <b><i>The 

                  Top Shelf:</i></b></p>
                <b><i> 
                  System Shock 2</i></b></p>
                by 
                  Austin Grossman</p>
              
              

<!--
       function gotoSite(obj)
          {
          var s;
          s=obj.options[obj.selectedIndex].value
                         location.href=s;
          }
// -->


              <?
              
              include("/home/loonygames/loony.timedoctor.org/includes/shelf.htm"); 
              
              ?>
              
              
              
               Six 
                years ago I did the preliminary game design work on <b>System 
                Shock</b>, spending three or four months on it before I left Looking 
                Glass Technologies for graduate school. Naturally, when <b>System 
                Shock 2 </b>came out I was eager to see what it was all about. 
                It was like coming back home after many years. Mind you, a rusted-metal, 
                cyborg-infested, virus-ridden, insane-AI-controlled, derelict 
                drifting-in-space sort of home.</p>
              I had 
                had a brief glimpse of the work-in-progress in December '98, and 
                I had read the rave reviews on the web. I got hold of a copy and 
                booked some time on my roommate's computer. I was unemployed, 
                and kicking SHODAN's ass was my new occupation. I took the job 
                pro bono.</p>
              
                 
                   
                    
                  
                
                 
                   
                     <i></i></p>
                  
                
              
              The game 
                makes a good first impression. I had a smooth installation on 
                the first try, even on my flat mate's mongrel system. The introductory 
                screens ooze production values. Character generation is quirky 
                but fun, an involved process that gives your guy a little prehistory, 
                harking back to the old Traveler system -- by joining one of three 
                government services you give yourself a boost in one of three 
                skill-areas -- physical combat, technology, or psionics -- and 
                your subsequent job assignments give you further skill and ability 
                bonuses.</p>
              <b>System 
                Shock 2</b> has a vast array of skills, and although your service 
                choice gives you a head start in one direction, you can gain ability 
                in any of them once the game starts. There's a kind of compromise 
                here between a skill-based and a class-based character system, 
                that left me feeling a bit lukewarm: it aroused in me an initial 
                hunger for character-differentiation that then went unsatisfied 
                when I realized how fluid the system was. I started out trying 
                to build a kind of hacker-technician character, but as soon as 
                I got into the game I panicked and started buying up combat skills 
                left and right, and by the end I felt sort of generic. Okay, arguably 
                I have only myself to blame.</p>
              On the 
                other hand, the designers did succeed in creating a complex skill-system 
                in which the skills have a tangible effect on your abilities in 
                the world. There are so many numbers -- including both character 
                stats like strength and agility, and skill ratings -- it's no 
                mean feat to have made them all matter in the game.</p>
              The story 
                premise is terrific -- it's fully in the spirit of the original, 
                but creates a whole new chapter. I'll try not to say too much: 
                mankind's first faster-than-light voyage ends in disaster, as 
                the colony ship and its military escort become a battleground 
                between human scientists and sinister (and, may I say, disgusting) 
                other forces. (One can feel a whole future-history taking shape 
                here, a surprisingly complex dystopia dominated by corporate interests, 
                and it makes me wonder if anything further will ever be set there.) 
                As usual you're caught in the middle: you wake up with your memory 
                gone, equipped only with a state-of-the-art neural interface and 
                a stubborn will not to get be iced.</p>
              <br>The 
              combat is as intense and nerve-wracking as anything I've ever found. 
              Some of the critters are very nasty, ammunition is scarce, and you'll 
              find yourself peering around every corner, trying to make every 
              shot count. Frankly, this is a scary game, and you never ever get 
              a free ride. There are lots of audio cues to tell you what kind 
              of enemies are nearby, and you'll need to pay attention and have 
              the proper kind of blaster in hand, with the proper ammunition loaded.</p>
            
               
                 
                  
                
              
               
                 
                   <i></i></p>
                
              
            
             I'm not 
              sure if other players shared my experience, but I found the weapon-balance 
              a little arbitrary -- some of the later weapons that I expected 
              to pack a big punch, didn't. Certain weapons do work better on certain 
              critters, but even so -- midway through you get the semiautomatic 
              rifle with armor-piercing rounds, and none of the fancy sci-fi arms 
              I got later improved on it. This was a big disappointment, given 
              how hard I worked to get the necessary skills to use them. Where 
              was my payoff there? </p>
            </p>
            <b>Shock 
              2</b> is a hard 
              game, and it just gets harder. Gamers, prepare to be tested -- I 
              have rarely felt such bleak isolation in a game, such terrified 
              hopelessness, as when I got launched into that giant alien biomass. 
              You're low on ammo, surrounded by enemies, and in the wrong damn 
              solar system -- it makes <b>Die Hard </b>look like a visit to Grandma's. 
              When I survived I felt I had really earned it -- I walked out of 
              that mess I feeling that I had balls of solid titanium steel. </p>
            
               
                 
                  
                
              
               
                 
                   <i></i></p>
                
              
            
            Thumbs up 
              for <b>System Shock 2</b>. It's great to see that narrative depth 
              in first-person games is trendy again, and that game developers 
              are finding new, effective ways of telling stories in an interactive 
              situation. The narrative-light mid-1990's were, I feel, a useful 
              transitional period -- <b>Doom</b> and <b>Quake</b> had almost no 
              story, and this meant getting rid of heavy, pretentious exposition, 
              burdensome complex stories that nobody wanted or cared about. </p>
            </p>
            Now story 
              is coming back in new forms, as a part of the game rather than just 
              window dressing. <b>Half-Life </b>and <b>System Shock 2 </b>led 
              the way, with <b>Daikatana</b> and <b>Deus Ex</b> hopefully soon 
              to follow. This is the kind of evolution in the medium that we all 
              hoped for.</p>
            
            <i>- 
              Austin Grossman is a game designer who has worked for Looking Glass 
              Technologies and Dreamworks Entertainment. </i></p>
            <p></p>
            <br>Okay, 
              starting the game. The <b>Thief</b> engine looks stunningly good 
              here, I hardly recognized it -- this is a really successful engine 
              re-use. The environments are extremely detailed and lavishly realistic 
              -- you feel you can walk around and sense that people actually lived 
              here; it's a chilling effect, because their deaths then feel all 
              the more real. This is a great example of cutting-edge technology 
              and skillful artwork adding to the emotional impact of the game.</p>
            <p></p>
            <p>That said, one of the 
              game's foibles is that the art style isn't terribly innovative. 
              Graphically, the original <b>System Shock</b> was based on films 
              like <i>Alien</i> and <i>Blade Runner</i> -- claustrophobic, techno-dystopic, 
              biotechnology gone bad. <b>Shock 2 </b>stays very close to look 
              of the original, and by 1999 this visual style has become a little 
              dated; this problem is intensified by a lack of graphic variation 
              between levels.</p>
            
               
                 
                  
                
              
               
                 
                   <i></i></p>
                
              
            
            <p>The game's interface 
              is a marvel, a triumph of careful forethought. The baroquely complex 
              set of skills, abilities, weapons, ammunition types, armors, power 
              cells, special items, not to mention an Automap, manages not to 
              slow down the game's action, and gives you a rich set of options 
              to draw from. The manual mentions the UI going through 6 or 7 different 
              revisions, and the work has clearly paid off -- it's a model of 
              parsimony and ingenious context-sensitivity.</p>
            <p></p>
            <p>Much as in the original 
              <b>Shock</b>, you walk through a derelict spacecraft, piecing together 
              bits of the past through log entries left by the crewmembers. A 
              few of the human crew are still alive elsewhere on the station, 
              and you can get e-mail from them, and from -- shall we say -- certain 
              other entities. Multi-sided carnage is happening onboard, and you 
              have to figure out what to do, who to trust, and which forces to 
              back. Cool.</p>
            <p></p>
            <p>There's a new storytelling 
              device as well - a kind of psychic hologram effect, where you see 
              ghosts of certain past events as you walk through the deserted halls. 
              This is an eerie effect, but as the game progressed it doesn't take 
              on much importance, just an occasional vision. This is puzzling, 
              and a shame -- it might have been used to great effect as a part 
              of the main story.</p>
            
               
                 
                  
                
              
               
                 
                   <i></i></p>
                
              
            
            <p>The audio logs let you 
              trace the fates of various station personnel. The voice acting is 
              decent, but the stories are terribly hokey. As you search for clues 
              among the diary entries, prepare to feel cheap -- the crewmember 
              narratives are milked for every possible bit of pathos.</p>
            <p></p>
            <p>Meanwhile, though, you're 
              on the job and kicking ass: finding weapons and ramping up your 
              powers, and handing out punishment to whatever mutant, cyborg, robot, 
              or miscellaneous/unclassifiable folk cross your path. As you play 
              you allocate points to your skills -- hacking skills, various kinds 
              of weapons, psychic powers, first aid, and so on. </p>
            <p></p>
            <p>There's a bit of a struggle 
              to figure out which skills to buy -- at times I felt I was filling 
              out a huge, life-threatening tax form, or investing in dozens of 
              mysterious penny-stocks -- which one will pay off? Strength? Research? 
              Psionics? It's more fun later on, when you have a sense of what 
              means what. This is on top of keeping track of the various errands 
              and sub-quests; you tool around the station destroying things, turning 
              things on and off, powering on, powering off. One could make the 
              point here that although there is a good story here, story and errand 
              running are not the same thing. It might have been more effective 
              if I had had some overall sense of the layout and logic of the spaceship, 
              but as it was some of the errands felt arbitrary, an ad-hoc addition 
              to extend playing time.</p>
            <p></p>
            <br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
<p><a href="../2.4/shelf/index.html">&lt;&lt;Back to Normal View</a></p>
<table width="100%" border="1" height="29" bordercolordark="#000000" bordercolorlight="#FFFFFF" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr> 
    <td height="20" width="99%"> 
      <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i>loonygames 
        - the best damn gaming magazine online </i></b></font></div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
  loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. You got that??</font></i></p>
 