System Shock 2

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'.