System Shock 2

Moby ID: 590
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the year 2114, forty-two years after the events described in System Shock, a soldier joins the military organization Unified National Nominate (UNN), receiving the number G65434-2, and is shortly thereafter assigned to the military space ship Rickenbacker. This ship's duty is to escort the Von Braun, an experimental faster-than-light starship, on its maiden voyage. However, the next thing the soldier can remember is waking up in a cryo-tube on the Von Braun. It appears that both ships were infected with something so horrifying that nearly the entire crew was either killed or mutated into monsters. The soldier is contacted by a woman who identifies herself as the only human survivor. His first task is a rendezvous with this woman, for which he will have to traverse the monster-infested corridors of the ghost ship.

System Shock 2 is a hybrid of first-person shooter and role-playing game. In the beginning of the game the player chooses a career for the protagonist in the UNN. This choice grants bonuses to the protagonist's initial skills. Marines specialize in combat, navy officers can repair weapons and hack computer terminals, and OSA agents may begin the game with psionic powers. Notwithstanding this initial choice, the player may choose to learn any of these skills as the game progresses, spending acquired cybermodules to develop the main character in a RPG fashion.

As the hero traverses the corridors of Von Braun, he will have to avoid death at the hands of hostile creatures and robots on the way, acquire a variety of items, and complete missions to unlock new areas and advance the story. The game emphasizes survival rather than elimination of enemies; in many situations the protagonist is underpowered, and new enemies may appear in already explored areas.

Combat is done in FPS style, with both ranged and melee weapons. The ranged weapons can accept a few different types of ammo, each of them efficient against different foes, and can shoot in two firing modes. However, ranged weapons deteriorate quickly as the player character uses them, and will eventually break down after prolonged use.

Healing items, such as medical hypos and medikits, will save the hero's life, while other items will shield him from radiation, cure him from poisoning, or temporarily boost his attributes. The soldier can find armor to wear and implants which will amplify his skills, as long as their battery doesn't run out. There are also some alien items that the player has to research (which usually requires finding specific chemicals in the ship's chemical stores); researching weapons and items allows the player to use them, and researching enemies' organs makes it possible to deal more damage to them.

Apart from finding them lying around, items can be bought from "matter replicators" for nanites, the game's currency. Nanites are also used for cybernetic activities (hacking electronic systems), repairing broken weapons and improving them, healing the protagonist on surgery tables, and, after death, resurrecting him in special chambers found on most levels.

Cybermodules are received for successfully completing objectives or found during exploration. They are used to enhance the main character's attributes: the player can improve his strength, agility, endurance, as well as his cybernetics and weapon skills; psionic powers are also acquired in this way. Psi powers allow the protagonist to move objects from a distance, paralyze enemies, become invisible, etc. A special "psi amplifier" must be found in order to use them, and the hero spends "psi points" each time he uses a psi power.

Like in the first System Shock, much of the background story in the game is revealed by finding messages left by crew members before they fell victims to the mysterious infestation.

Spellings

  • 网络奇兵2 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

146 People (144 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 91% (based on 61 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 282 ratings with 24 reviews)

The greatest and most harrowing experience in games yet.

The Good
Ok, so I can do what most people did and pick out the individual aspects of the game. Which of course, is perfectly acceptable. Except this game transcends it's parts. The pure game experience is what it's about, the quality of the graphics and whatever just affect this and make the experience better or worse. I'll just mention some of these anyway: -The graphics have aged well generally. The lighting is still quite advanced and the look is very smooth. -The sound is the best in any game yet. I can't stress this one enough. Everything about the way this is structured audibly is peerless. The use of total silence, the haunting voice of The Many that drifts between speakers, SHODAN's bioelectrical crackle that accompanies hers, the squealing sound of many of the enemies...I could go on. Also the voice acting is really terrific. Dead serious, and cleverly changed when you know The Many has a hold on them. -The ship design is great. It looks the business, and the atmosphere created through the lighting and sound makes it believable. -It's an RPG. You can develop your character's stats. Albeit, not in a big way. -The AI is pretty intelligent.

So far, this game wouldn't be anything very special(ish). But it has a feeling and a magic that is impossible to describe. It's the genius of Looking Glass. The emotions that it brings out in you; fear, isolation, depravity, loss, paranoia...Ok, they may be the easiest of emotions to play with at this stage in computer gaming. We certainly can't do love yet. But they're so extreme it's incredible. It's a shattering experience, and there is no game like it. Plus; the immersion is SO great, you FORGET yourself whilst playing. You forget you're playing a game, you forget life. You are placed into this world and that is all that exists. If you ever feel really angry, play this game. It turns everything you feel into fear and survival. No game can do this except System Shock 2. Fact.

The Bad
Nothing is perfect. The stats system is not balanced well, some missions seem seperate and pointless in regards to the plot. The monsters are a bit cartoony. Rickenbacker was a little annoying to play and I wasn't to keen on the level design. And it doesn't build up to a huge crescendo at the end. There are tiny things that could annoy you but who cares? Given the quality of the gaming experience, any bad point seems like nit-picking.

The Bottom Line
It really IS genius because it has something that no other game has. Don't ask me to describe it. You can't ask a poet to explain every metaphor. Just play it. You won't forget it.

Windows · by Shazbut (163) · 2002

Nearly as good as System Shock 1!

The Good
The Atmosphere is just incredible: There is no game that is as scary as this one!

Nice Storyline, some unpredictable events and Irrational Games reanimation of Shodan is performed quite nice!

There are unlimited ways to play the game - you can hack the Cameras, shoot them or just make yourself invisible through your Psi-Skills

The Spaceships look nice because of the Thief-Engine

Incredible Sounds: The voices of your enemies and all audio-logs you find are even more scary than the graphics

Very Complex

A lot of interesting missions

The Bad
For some people the complex mapdesign might not be suitable

The interface is nearly as difficult to handle as in system shock 1

The Enemies look quite poor

The Bottom Line
As Shocking as System Shock 1, this game is one of my all-time-favorites: Play it!

Windows · by Daniel Martin (12) · 2001

Join the mass

The Good
As a sequel to one of the finest PC games ever, this was as good as could be hoped, and is one of the few games to make me play it all the way through again after finishing it the first time. Using a modified version of the 'Thief' engine, it has a similar plot to the original game - you're a lone, cybernetically-enhanced human trapped in a corpse-strewn, hostile environment. It follows directly from 'System Shock', and there are many homages - the final level is a carbon copy of the opening level of the original, for example.

Where the presentation is good, it's very good indeed, and special mention must be made of the excellent sound design - the inhuman speech-sounds made by distant, prowling robots sends a chill down the spine. The gameplay sets a balance between action and exploration, and this is one of a handful of games to be genuinely creepy (another thing it shares with 'Thief'), and as you penetrate further into the belly of the beast the atmosphere becomes more intense and claustraphobic. It's a criminal shame that Looking Glass went under immediately afterwards.

Probably the best game of 1999, this is still excellent and still worth buying.

The Bad
Not much is wrong with this game. As with 'Thief', the graphics are sometimes crude, although there's a lot more going on in the game than in, say, 'Unreal Tournament'. The role-playing aspect is more-or-less pointless, as the majority of situations require no more than brute force. And the FMV cut-scenes are awful, being crude and unattractive - especially the final sequence which almost, but not quite, destroys the atmosphere. Apart from that, you want this.

The Bottom Line
An excellent modern sequel to a modern classic, this is up there with 'Thief'.

Windows · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2000

[ View all 24 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Which SS2 am I playing? o__O Slug Camargo (583) May 20, 2008
Damn the Many... Unicorn Lynx (181780) Apr 3, 2008
No spawn and no degradation? Unicorn Lynx (181780) Mar 18, 2008
Just Finished, ITS AMAZING!! ricardoe Oct 7, 2007
System Shock 2 Expansion Pack on WinXP dave solin Sep 12, 2007

Trivia

Animations

In addition to using the Dark Engine, the game also uses some animations from Thief, most notably the zombified crewmen with the shotguns and pipes. They use portions of animation from the guardsmen in Thief, specifically when they walk around searching for your character, and when they run over to attack you.

Basketball

In Thief, part of the training mission included a little basketball court at the beginning of the game. In SS2, this basketball is carried over and is found up on a ledge on the 'street' level of the very first training mission. Go around the 'pillar' to the right of where you arrive on the street. You can mantle up to a sloped surface, and on the flat part of the ledge will be the basketball. Bounces very appropriately, too!

On the Recreation deck will be a basketball court, towards the last part to explore in the level. You have to be on the upper running deck to shoot, but if you make a basket with the basketball or even just clip the rim, you'll get a very funny email. Be sure to bring it up in your PDA, as it reads differently than it sounds.

Bugs (Spoiler!)

In a cutscene on Deck 4, the walls will drop away and a cut-scene will begin. However, you can still move around and if you fall off the platform that the room has become, you CANNOT get back up, short of killing yourself or loading your game! A neat little bug.

Cancelled Dreamcast version

There was going to be a Dreamcast version of System Shock 2, but it was cancelled

German version

The localized German version of the game was slightly modified for fear of banning. Some corpses were removed (e.g. a hanged man), and all blood was colored green.

Mods

The graphics for character models in the game was considered by many to be the low-point in the 3D Design. So some fans took it upon themselves to create unofficial high-res models which are known as System Shock: Rebirth and can be found at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/etienne.aubert/sshock/sshock_rebirth.htm

Multiplayer

There is a patch available for System Shock 2 which does not only allow adjustments of the respawning and weapon wear and tear, but adds a cooperative multiplayer mode.

Release

System Shock 2 was published by Electronic Arts instead of Eidos, which was Looking Glass‘ world-wide publisher at the time. This is due to the simple fact that EA held the copyright for the System Shock franchise -- the firm had acquired it with the purchase of Origin Systems.

Sales

Although System Shock 2 was rated a masterpiece by all major magazines, sales were only mediocre. Ironically, the game shared the same fate as its predecessor: Both games never reached a mass audience, partly because of bad marketing efforts.

Shodan

The voice of Shodan was done, as in System Shock, by Terri Brosius. She is the wife of Looking Glass Audio Director Eric Brosius.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Best Sound Design of the Year
    • November 2003 (Issue #232) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • GameSpy
    • 1999 – Role-Playing Game of the Year
    • 1999 - Best Genre-Bender (together with Drakan: Order of the Flame)
    • 2001 – #12 Top Game of All Time
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2000 - #22 in the "Readers All-Time Top 50 Games Poll"
    • April 2005 - #39 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best Game in 1999
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best Action-Adventure in 1999
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/2000 – Best Game in 1999
    • Issue 02/2000 – Best Atmosphere in 1999

Information contributed by -Chris, CaptainCanuck, George Shannon, Great Hierophant, M4R14N0, PCGamer77 and WildKard

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Linux, Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: xroox, JubalHarshaw, George Shannon, Unicorn Lynx, chirinea, Sciere, jlebel, dorlthed, DarkDante, Patrick Bregger.

Game added December 17, 1999. Last modified March 14, 2024.