I Experienced System Shock for the FIRST Time in 2023 - It's Shockingly GOOD! | System Shock Remake
75My thoughts after playing System Shock Remake as a completely fresh new experience in 2023.
00:00 - My Experience With System Shock
00:29 - What is System Shock?
01:25 - System Shock's Challenging Gameplay
02:38 - System Shock's Atmosphere & SHODAN
03:44 - System Shock's Level Design
04:22 - System Shock a Faithful Remake? and Quality of Life Changes
05:07 - System Shock Remake the Negatives / Nitpicks
05:56 - Looking Ahead, System Shock 2 Remake? System Shock 3?
πTwitter: https://twitter.com/Peter3pg
π Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpStbJ2ZipCSWcK_JWmRMYw/?sub_confirmation=1
#SystemShock #SystemShockRemake #SystemShock2023
Now I love Bioshock 1 & 2 and when I found out it was a spiritual successor to System Shock, I went back had a gander at the original System Shock and as a fresh new player I found the original a bit too old to enjoy - particularly the control scheme. So I have been waiting for this System Shock Remake for a while now, it's been delayed quite a bit but I finally got it in my hands and I've just finished my first playthrough. So this video will be from the perspective of a mostly new player.
So basically it's 2072 you play a naughty hacker who ends up getting caught. You're given an ultimatum and you're forced to use your skills to hack a space station's AI called SHODAN. You're knocked out and after a 6 month coma you awaken to find yourself on that very Citadel Station in the after math of what the AI SHODAN has done here. This is a first person RPG with survival horror elements as you hack your way around the Citadel Station in isolation and ultimately try to defeat SHODAN and her creations and traps.
Now the first point I'd make is, System Shock is challenging. You're going to have to conserve your ammo and supplies and there's no way points directing you to your objective; you need to pay attention for clues and direction through environmental storytelling via the game world and audio or text logs. The game is very faithful to the original System Shock in that aspect. If you're looking for a laid back casual experience - this might not be for you. For me I love this kind of game design and it has me even more immersed in this Cyberpunk world. There were a few moments that were a little bit frustrating like when I completely cleaned and searched a floor but still managed to miss a very small key card that was needed to progress the story. To an extent you can tailor your experience, and choose between 3 difficulty options for Combat, Missions, Cyber Hacking Minigames, and Puzzles. I really like the difficulty options don't just make you die faster like in most games. Here they actually change the gameplay experience, for instance - a higher Mission difficulty means more complicated mission objectives and extra steps that aren't included in lower difficulties. I went with the medium difficulty, I didn't want to die in real life for playing on the hardest. But System Shock was still quite challenging.
I mentioned this is very much a survival horror experience and you'll be scrounging around for anything useful and it's very atmospheric, your every move is being watched by the AI antagonist SHODAN, and you'll want to destroy every security camera you come across to limit her vision and security level. It's always kind of creepy hearing a security camera beep or creek as it turns to lock onto you and you know SHODAN is watching. SHODAN is probably my favourite part of System Shock. She's an AI that's gone rogue and has gained a disgust for humanity. Through out the game she's taunting you and setting traps throughout the Citadel Station. It's pretty awesome coming across her audio logs and discovering what horrific things she's been up to you and what her plans are. The developers top priority was getting the same voice actor for SHODAN as in the original, and that was a great decision. Her creepy robotic voice gives you shivers.
Level design early on has you going through more maze like locations onboard the Citadel Station and that claustrophobic element contributes to that horrific atmosphere. With the busy beeping and flashing of different computer systems everywhere. Levels are generally a bit more open later on and you can make custom marker notes on your map but it's still quite easy to get lost. You've got to go back to previous floors to open doors that you previously couldn't open - it's almost a smidgen of metroidvania like that and as you progress you can get new attachments that give you new features or abilities, the hover boots were a pretty awesome surprise.
System Shock is faithful to the original and that is this games' biggest strength but it could also be it's biggest weakness....
Other Videos By Peter Bytes
Other Statistics
System Shock Statistics For Peter Bytes
Peter Bytes presently has 1,756 views for System Shock across 3 videos, and less than an hour worth of System Shock videos were uploaded to his channel. This makes up 1.59% of the content that Peter Bytes has uploaded to YouTube.