System Shock 2

The Good
I'm gonna be brief on this one, as there are a lot of reviews for this game. As you may have read this game is superb in a lot of ways. It's a very proud role game: in contrast to the average, there is more than just kill or stealth, there is at least hacking and "psyching" too. The role factor is enough important that can make you play the game twice or even three times. There is also a very good story driven by a very well voice-acted journals; you even have two villains for the price of one and each of the levels will be different and full of surprises. Wow!, this is a hell of a game, and if you like complex games with good stories (with poor graphics though), this one is at the top, just read the titles of the reviews, there is no negative one, and "best", "great" and "ever" (and "scary") are usual words.

I'm going to talk about some concrete aspect of the game: I'm going to propose you to play it with friends. Think for a moment about multiplayer games, think on games that you have play MP or know how are their MP modes. I can count no more than two or three different type of multiplayer games, you have games like Unreal Tournament, some like Rainbow Six or Hidden & Dangerous 2 (very enjoyable game), that are based on killing the enemy or defeating him in some way, sometimes in very sophisticated ways. And there is too the games based on role playing (90% of them in some tolkien-esque world), with the MMORPG as the most usual type. But there is always something I have miss when playing some good game with a good story and it is that I can't play it with friends. Normally you play it at the same time as some friend and then you talk about it with him/her later, but it's not the same. Well, as far as I know, System Shock 2 is the only game you can play the SP levels in MP, I mean, you can follow the story playing with your friends. plus, it's a role-playing game, which means that every one of the player can play different and complement the others.

How many times have you play Thief, for example, and thought "it would be awesome if I could play this level with a friend as another thief"? or with Hitman, or with Deus Ex or with any other story-driven game or something-more-than-just-killing game? SS2 has it and it was one of my best gaming experiences. You know, every time you play some role-playing game, most of the time you wander what would happen if your character were different, imagine now that you have them all. In SS2 you can play the game in 3-4 different ways (not only kill and stealth), but you can also play it with 3-4 friends (no more than 4 possible) and make different kind of characters. When I played it, we were three, one "psi", one mechanic/hacker and one bad-ass marine. We played it with a voice software, so we could talk while playing. The experience was really fun, I remember once, when we entered some cutscene, when one of the villains (the biological one) tries to play with your mind I started screaming and the others started asking what was happening until they entered too. You can't have this kind of fun when your only tasks are killing and defending and little more.

The Bad
Well..., graphics and movements are very low in quality specially if you play it now. The rest is more than average.

The Bottom Line
This is, finally, a game that makes something as easy as letting the players play the main story both in SP and in MP. Of course, there should be more, like Quake II, for example, but, as a role playing game with a complex story, a frightening ambiance, different ways of solving problems and labyrinthic levels, this is an MP experience you can't miss.

The Good
Atmosphere: you will fear the lonelyness, you will become paranoid as hell, and get really, really engaged in the game. With letters written in blood on the walls, alarms sounding, things exploding and falling appart without warning, dead bodies piled up everywhere, ghostly aperances forever re-experiencing their last moments of life, and distant screams and zombies mumbling in undead voices for you to come to them; either to kill them, or join them, or both. Even today, this game is has to be the scariest game ever made!

Story: At the heart of all the terror lies an engaging and evolving plot; something goes horribly wrong aboard mankinds first FTL inter-stellar starship, and the joruney of your dreams, has become your worst nightmare from hell.

Voice-acting: Will at times send chills down your spine.

Graphics: Similar to that Thief - not good, not bad, just in between; graphics is not really important in a game like this.

Gameplay: With sci-fi RPG-elements, a bit advanced but mostly easy interface, and several ways to complete different tasks: System Shock 2 is one of the better First Person Shooter / adventure games out there.

The Bad
At times TOO scary; but maybe that's a good thing?

The Bottom Line
This game is not for the weak of heart, but if you are looking for a good scare; look no further. This is quite possibly one of the best FPS-games ever made: better then Half-Life, better than doom, and unique even today.

The Good
The atmosphere, the atmosphere, the atmosphere, baby. I have never been as literally frightened by a computer game as I was by this one. Beyond that, the monster AI is quite good, in a they-really-just-make-a-beeline-for-you kind of way, and of course the graphics and (particularly) the sound are stellar, as one would expect from Looking Glass Studios. Much has been made about the fact that this game uses Thief's Dark Engine, but let me tell you that that all comes to nothing in the end. Making everything photo-realistic wouldn't have added a thing to this game. It's as completely immersive as anything you'll ever play.

The Bad
The story is slightly hackneyed (think Alien with only one person investigating the distress beacon this time--you), and I found some of the dialog on the recorded messages you discover lying around the ship a bit hard to swallow, although the voice acting is competent enough. Also, the weapons wear out far too quickly and there is not nearly enough ammunition to get through some areas unless you already know what to expect and conserve accordingly. Monster respawning takes place far too frequently--sometimes right in front of your face--as well, although that can be adjusted with a patch.

The Bottom Line
Worth its weight in gold to any fan of the Alien movies, RPG's, and/or shooters. Worth a look from everyone else if for no other reason than to see what is probably the greatest character ever invented for a computer game, Shodan.