The System Shock 2 (1999) Demo Review

[Note: This review of the demo of System Shock 2 was written in 1999, but the screenshots are taken from versions of the game between 2015 and 2022. Today, my extended criticism of the new-fangled "WASD+mouselook" PC control model seems laughable, but it's an interesting reminder that the game features we take as conventions now didn't always exist, and will be replaced in their turn a generation from now.]

OK. I stayed up all night playing the System Shock 2 (SS2) demo. Then I slept for a while and took some time to sort out my impressions of the game.  Here's what I've got so far.

OVERALL

Outstanding!

SS2 has everything folks from the FPS and RPG genres could want, plus what appears to be a compelling dramatic storyline, and it blends all of these elements into a game as distinct as its predecessor, the original System Shock.

Despite some frustrations with the controls, and concerns about gameplay balance at the start of the game, SS2 overall drew me in and wouldn't let me go.

PLUSSES

1. Game skills: The organization of skills into Stats, Tech, Combat, and Psi seems plausible, which supports immersiveness. More importantly, the integration of those skills into SS2 gameplay is handled brilliantly.

So far I've been able to play as a marine, inviting combat, and as a SpecOps type, striking from afar with Psi. In both these cases the skills system appeared to be full enough for me to feel that the growth path I was on had the potential to be complex and interesting, while giving me the tools I need to win the game. This is extremely satisfying.

(Other than hacking a small number of doors, crates, and security systems, I haven't seen that there's an equally interesting growth path for a Navy character. But perhaps that's realized in the full game.)

2. Level design: The Von Braun (the first game level of it, anyway) is nicely detailed. Although from the designer's comments I was expecting there to be more "stuff" lying around to give the Von Braun that "lived-in" feeling (a couple of potted plants and the occasional bloodstain doesn't cut it), level design and textures look good.

Note: While I'm more of a single-player-game kind of person myself, it looks like SS2 levels will support interesting deathmatch play. Although one game level is hardly an adequate sample, so far it appears that SS2 has a slightly more "vertical" design than SS1. Many of SS1's levels (with the notable exception of Security) were basically flat. This made sense in the game context (Citadel Station), but it wouldn't have worked well as multi-player. So far SS2 appears to improve on the original in this respect.

Another note: I thought the levels in Dark Forces: Jedi Knight were absolutely brilliant. Part of that response was due to excellent and varied textures, but a huge part of it was my visceral reaction to the wide-open spaces in many levels. "Outside" felt like being outside, and caverns felt truly cavernous. The sense of scale really made me feel like I was in a "real" environment. So far I haven't seen anything like that in SS2. If I'm supposed to feel cramped, it's working....

3. In-game help support: I can't say enough good things about this. SS2 is a complex game that could overwhelm experienced gamers and completely turn off newbies. The full-featured and beautifully integrated help system mitigates that potential problem.

First of all, the optional training simulation section of System Shock 2 (as expanded from the simple training in Thief: The Dark Project) should become the gaming industry standard. Basic game tasks are clearly demonstrated, and the voice-over explanations help put those tasks into the context of the game. I expect that the full game, which adds specialized training based on one's service branch choice, will only improve on this aspect of being helpful to new gamers.

Secondly, and not less important, the combination of info nodes and the PDA give the player all the information necessary, while allowing the player to digest that info at whatever rate he or she likes... and in a darned attractive format. No matter what, SS2 is a fairly complex game, but the help system (and a nicely-designed first level that gives the new player opportunities to access and use that information) allows players to ease themselves into the SS2 environment.

Whoever at Irrational/Looking Glass is responsible for designing and implementing this training/help system in SS2 should be given some kind of award at the next Computer Game Developers Conference. I propose calling it the "Kindness to Gamers" award.

4. More interactive monsters: One of the main gripes players had with Thief was the monster levels--players wanted more interactive enemies to overcome. So a stated goal of the SS2 designers (I read in an interview) was to make monsters more responsive by expanding the range and focusing the meaning of monster audio reactions to player actions. So far (this is just the demo, remember) this appears to be successful.

That's a subjective reaction, however. I didn't have a problem in Thief with the so-called "monster levels." (I am still in awe of the last monster level in Thief.) Still, the critters in SS2 do seem quite responsive. (Boy, is that an understatement. Ouch.)

5. Good renderer: Following the old dictum of upgrading every other 18-month generation, I'm still using a 200-MHz Pentium Pro system. It has 64MB of RAM and a SCSI hard drive, and I've added a 16MB PCI Voodoo Banshee graphics card. At 1024x768, video is surprisingly smooth -- not as smooth as at 640x480, but totally playable. Textures look very crisp, too. I don't imagine anyone with a modern video card and a gruntier system than mine will have any serious complaints about frame rates (or, more importantly, playability).

6. Good audio: Not phenomenal, but carries on quite nicely from Thief, whose use of audio was phenomenal.

7. Humor: Never underestimate the power of the occasional light touch to intensify a desperate situation. The determined politeness of the vending machines, for example, is a nice grace note that reminds the player of the Von Braun in happier days. In the same way that a Steven Spielberg movie encourages you to trust the reality of that world by the use of small but telling details -- things that aren't necessary to the plot but that you would expect to see in a real environment -- the bits of humor (albeit darkly ironic humor) in SS2 help set the stage for empathizing with the doomed crews of the two ships.

Personally, I'm looking forward to hearing the elevator music.

MINUSES

1. Controls: As much as I hated the "left hand on W, A and D keys, right hand targets and fires with mouse" control mechanism in Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (TN), I hate this system in SS2 even more. (And "hate" is a word I do not ever use casually.)

At least the ranged weapons in TN let me fight at a distance. No such luck with SS2, at least to start. When a baddie rushes you, and all you have is a wrench, and you're still trying to get the hang of combat, it is far, far too easy to get fumbled-fingered. Trying to instantaneously switch from forward movement to backing-up-and-turning-to-run movement calls for fourth-finger dexterity that's not easy for even this fairly experienced gamer to supply. Trying to target and whack a bad guy while doing so is an exercise in frustration.

A subtle part of the problem is that, initially, it helps to be able to see the keyboard... but SS2 is best played in a darkened room! The two Underworld and System Shock games didn't have a problem here because you could move with the mouse; your left hand didn't get lost trying to quickly find keys. When first playing SS2, finding those keys is critical to surviving fights, so being able to see them helps. But that means room lights on, which washes out the screen and diminishes immersiveness.

"Well, just rebind the keys!" is not good advice. First of all, bad key placement isn't the problem; the problem is using keys at all. A joystick isn't much help here, since it takes your hand from the keyboard which you still need for other functions (unless you've shelled out the bucks for one of those multi-keyed joysticks that only F-15 pilots can figure out how to use). Second, a gamer who's new to this sort of game (a crowd Eidos/Irrational/LG presumably would like to attract) is probably not going to even know about -- much less use -- key rebinding.

I'm not sure what a solution here would look like. It's entirely possible that this keyboard-for-movement/mouse-for-action combination is the best that can be done currently for interacting with a complex 1st-person environment. But wow, is it ever frustrating in high-stress situations.

Those users who complained about the control system in Ultima Underworld I and II and System Shock 1 didn't know how good they had it.

2. Long load times: The other half of the Frustration Equation is this unpleasant holdover from Thief. I know perfectly well that saving or loading the current state of a complex environment requires transferring lots of data, and that the Thief/SS2 engine adds contextual information in handling all data as resources. As a developer, I can appreciate the difficulty of designing a storage format that maximizes throughput.

But as a game player, I have to say that two minutes to load a level is obscene. It does serious damage to immersiveness.

As annoying as I found this, it's going to be far worse for newbies, who are going to get killed more often at the start of the game than even I did. I'm a relatively patient person; many gamers today are not. Nothing will consign SS2 to bargain bins faster than long load times to recover from repeated deaths. Either condition is annoying to the impatient, but the combination is much worse.

This has to be addressed somehow.

3. Cartoonish pictures of station personnel in their PDA logs: The original System Shock wins here. Even retouched still pictures of actual human beings (as in SS1) are better than the childishly simple outline graphics of human heads in SS2 logs.

After Terra Nova, I can understand Looking Glass being leery of using full-motion video (FMV) in games. You need good actors, and good actors cost money. (You can get away with a little more in voice acting.) But this is the future we're talking about here; surely a society that has been able to integrate psionics with technology will have found ways to compress video data.

Expecting high-tech images and getting cheesy cartoons really broke the spell for me. These were (supposedly) real people on board the Von Braun and the Rickenbacker, whose characters were etched in their faces. I can care about what happens to "real" people. But a static, monochrome caricature? No.

Simple FMV in a small corner of the PDA would have been a classy touch. But even suitably morphed still photos would have worked. I assume there was some justification for using cartoons; time or money constraints, or image rights, or whatever. Even so, not being semi-realistic here when so much attention is being paid to plausible realism everywhere else in the game strikes me as an unfortunate decision.

4. No ranged weapon at game start: This is more of a whine than a gripe. Even if the full SS2 training simulator includes hand-to-hand combat practice, the dexterity needed to use the SS2 control system in real-time combat could cause a new user to find it excessively difficult to figure out how to survive being rushed by a wrench-wielding enemy. Even a wimpy ranged weapon (or a less powerful first enemy) would help the new player ease into SS2 combat.

5. Upgrade chips from Polito: I don't know for sure yet if this is a plus or a minus. I've listed it here in the minus section because I found it unpleasantly manipulative to be rewarded for completing tasks set for me by the abrasive Polito. ("Good doggie! You get a treat!")

On the other hand, perhaps this emotional reaction is exactly what the designers intended me to feel. If the dramatic storyline is served by me resenting (and perhaps eventually turning on) my keeper, then this method for controlling the timing of skill upgrades is definitely a big plus.

6. End-of-demo Blue Screen of Death, requiring full reboot: 'nuff said.

CONCLUSION

The plusses of System Shock 2, based on the demo, seem likely to far outweigh the minuses. The most significant negative issue, keyboard control of movement, can be overcome by a player who keeps playing long enough to acquire ranged weapons. The other main negative -- excessively long load time -- borders on unacceptable, but doesn't quite reach the point of being a showstopper.

These negatives are minimized by the great features of this game. The integration of RPG skills into gameplay is superb; the environment is interesting and relatively consistent; there appears to be a fascinating dramatic story to be uncovered; and the training/help system for this complex first-person game does its job effectively and with style.

Go buy System Shock 2 when it comes out.

Stand in line if you have to.