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      <h5><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">//<a href="../../../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">loonygames</font></a>://<a href="../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">issue 
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                    <p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="2">The 
                      Top Shelf: </font><font color="#904C10" size="4"><br>
                      System Shock 2 </font></i></font></b><br>
                    <div align="right"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">By 
                      <a href="mailto:corto@panix.com">Austin Grossman</a></font></div>

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                  <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E">Vol. 
                    2, Issue 4<br>
                    December 2, 1999&nbsp; </font></b></h5>
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            <h5 align="right">&nbsp;</h5>
            <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><loonystart>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.</font></p>
            <p></p>
            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
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                  <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http:/home/loonygames/loony.timedoctor.org/content/cgi/image.pl?image=/content/2.4/shelf/images/02.jpg&amp;w=480&amp;h=360&amp;back=/content/2.4/shelf/index2.php&amp;name=The%20Top%20Shelf"><img src="images/02_sml.jpg" width="97" height="73" border="0" alt="click to enlarge!"></a></font></div>
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                  <p align="center"> <i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" color="#000253"><ignoreme>The 
                    blood! (57k)</ignoreme></font></i></p>
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            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
            <p></p>
            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
            <p></p>
            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
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                  <p align="center"> <i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1" color="#000253"><ignoreme>Creepy 
                    zombies (57k)</ignoreme></font></i></p>
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            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
            <p></p>
            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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. </font></p>
            <p></p>
            <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
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            <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></loonystart><br>
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. This review is &copy; 1999 Austin Grossman. All other 
  content is &copy; 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited, 
  goldarn it.</font></i></p>
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