KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

[Child of Malkav]

Again: you literally got filtered before opening the first locked door.

Considering I finished it without finding the map it can hardly be considered that I was "filtered". With or without a map the game so far is still a piece of shit.

 

[anvi]

I don't see the point of remaking things if it's not going to be an improvement. This sounds worse than the original in almost every way.

 

[JBro]

Just finished it. It was great and your complaints were overblown, as expected when one of you retards got the last demo confused with this new one that wasn't even released yet. My issues, though are basically the same, just not dealbreakers. Melee against the organic enemies lacks impact, lack of the OG's music, and the hundreds of times your character shoves an item up to his face.

I like the pixellated look of the textures. Texture filtering is for retards and bitches.

 

[sosmoflux]

It's good. Runs super smooth too.

I don't get how extremely important items are just placed around though. I'm certain heaps of players will miss finding items like the map, health display, keys, etc. On one hand it's cool but on the other they all sorta blend in with the junk items. Needs work.

And yeah the enemies are goofy, combat is goofy, and the atmosphere seems tuned for normies. The lack of spookyness is really at odds with all the minced up dead bodies and gore and other horror elements. It's lacking the surrealist isolation the originals had for their time.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Modern inability do make a good-looking game with user-friendly readability and avoiding visual clutter. I can poke some fun at a guy who claims to have finished the original and then was unable to get the map going in the remake when it's exactly the same thing, but tbh I can't blame anyone new to this missing a lot of the important stuff.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

the first SS is pretty much an action game

The problem with this asserion, is that it implies that the most important element of SS1 was the combat
Which everyone knows it is not the case

fluid movement that the player had in SS1

PC moved like a tank in the original, it was clunky as hell...

 

[Lord of Riva]

the first SS is pretty much an action game

The problem with this asserion, is that it implies that the most important element of SS1 was the combat
Which everyone knows it is not the case

fluid movement that the player had in SS1

PC moved like a tank in the original, it was clunky as hell...

You basically say, what I meant, in your own post: It's true, SS 1 laid the foundation for what was called "immersive Sim" in this thread. In a lot of ways it failed though, it was clunky as shit while retaining a formular like an ego shooter. While it may have tried to be something else, it was pretty much still a labyrinth in which the main focus was shooting enemies.

Again, some people here see it as harsh criticism of the game, I really like it though it's highly innovative in places but there is a reason why most people have not played SS1 (before it's somewhat revival as a cult classic) Its faulty and clunky, as you said and failed at being an action game, while retaining most of the formula of one. They ditched that after, which is why SS2 is way better known and recieved.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

it was pretty much still a labyrinth in which the main focus was shooting enemies.

I disagree
As the game's strongest point was the level design and exploration, the reason why people primarly remember it and still might play it today
No to mention, with such reasoning can be applied to similiar games - like Metroid Prime - which fail to identify these games strenghts and ultimately allow for misguided comparasions as we've seen in the last pages ("Doom is better because its combat is better")

 

[Average Manatee]

SS1's combat is absolute shit with unstoppable hitscan attacks everywhere, and the main strategy of ranged combat being barely inching out of cover to shoot the edge of the enemy sprite while they can't shoot you. It kind of gets better once you get the laser rapier and can put your monstrous agility and speed to good use like a Jedi who has no power other than force speed, but if not for that the original would be practically unplayable on combat difficulty 3.

As it is it's going to be hard to compare the two, because the remake does almost everything except the shooting a lot worse.

 

[RatTower]

Played through the demo last night.
The obvious stuff first: Visuals and music. People have gone into this numerous times before. I have personally made my peace with the visuals. They are slightly more colorful but all in all, they are very much in line with the original. I still think Nightdive did itself a big disservice by not doing more with the original music. Especially considering how the rest of the game tries to stay true to the original. There are small hints of the original music here and there (I think they remixed the cyberspace track and there is also the elevator music, which is kind of a comedic relief thing), but all in all the action in the original hits different with the music in the back. I guess there will be mods sooner or later that will address this and even if there won't be you could just set the music volume to 0% and put on the original music in the back. There are plenty of modern remixes out there.

But whatever, here are my real issues:
- loooong animations here and there; never really cared for that. It's actually one of my main gripes with lots of modern games. I guess the healing station animation is interesting for some sort of trailer or whatever, but if you use it two or three times in the game, you've seen enough of it, really. Makes you really appreciate the snappy responsiveness of System Shock 2, where you click the healing station and that's it. Same thing with some of the consumables. These already take a while to work in the first place (at least healing does), but now you also have to wait through the animation first, which is kinda meh, but whatever.
- wire puzzles: These were my main issue with the demo. They were already cryptic in the original but the remake is actually worse at (visually) communicating what the point of these things is. Mostly because the power level of the individual wires isn't really properly visible. I think they have a very small green and blue marking at their respective outlets, but the problem is also it's not really clear what the goal is. Going in completely blind you'd assume the goal is to fill the little bar at the bottom, but actually, you have to bring it down to a specific level. I had the hunch that the required level might be related to the blue marking below the bar, but I solved one puzzle (by accident) and the whole thing closed too quickly for me to get what was actually going on. So in the end, I didn't really understand what I did right.
- combat could use some more oomph I guess

So far so good. These are not big issues. Some people just expect those animations I guess (?) and the wire puzzles can (and should) be fixed. Combat feedback could perhaps be improved, but generally speaking, that's not really the game's main issue. I suspect that System Shock will struggle severely due to one reason:
Its design (both level and "quest") is straight from 1994.

All the other stuff (animations, combat, visuals, whatever); that is all just noise. With some goodwill, people will get past that. Not the design though. This is the one thing that will burn, I'd say, around 80% of whoever picks this game up. And that might actually become a problem for Nightdive.
Now I, personally, have zero problems with the design. I like it even. I finished the original and had a blast doing so. Overall, I liked the demo so I guess I would also like the full game. The Kickstarter was about a remake so this "issue" is inherent to the nature of the project. But let me be a little provocative and ask you this:

Can you see a single big magazine reviewer finish this game?
Can you see someone coming from Bioshock finish this game?
I would even say it will be difficult for System Shock 2 fans to get into this (given that they haven't played the original - which is a substantial amount of the fanbase).

This remake is basically a dungeon crawler from 1994 in a modern action game suit, nicely dressed up as an experimental genre.
Now for a very specific audience (like myself) that's fantastic, but I'd reckon that 80% of players will tap out. And that will show in the reviews. And that's a smoking gun right there.

Of course, we can always say "Well, fuck those reviewers, they don't know what they are talking about!" but considering how long it took to develop this game, it might actually turn out to be a problem for Nightdive.
That is what I fear with this.

I'll be really curious about those reviews. Especially the negative ones. I could see people homing in on various technical shortcomings like combat feedback, but in all honesty, I think the main issue for most people will be the fact that they already get stuck on medical. Forget about reactor. Forget about flight deck or beta grove. They gotta get out of the medbay first.

 

[JBro]

I'm certain heaps of players will miss finding items like the map

Me. I'm blind and retarded and there's nothing any of you can do about it.

 

[Lord of Riva]

All the other stuff (animations, combat, visuals, whatever); that is all just noise. With some goodwill, people will get past that. Not the design though. This is the one thing that will burn, I'd say, around 80% of whoever picks this game up. And that might actually become a problem for Nightdive.
Now I, personally, have zero problems with the design. I like it even. I finished the original and had a blast doing so. Overall, I liked the demo so I guess I would also like the full game. The Kickstarter was about a remake so this "issue" is inherent to the nature of the project. But let me be a little provocative and ask you this:

Can you see a single big magazine reviewer finish this game?
Can you see someone coming from Bioshock finish this game?
I would even say it will be difficult for System Shock 2 fans to get into this (given that they haven't played the original - which is a substantial amount of the fanbase).

Actually, I would not think this as problematic. The issue with SS1 is the Jank, that is absent in the remake (in so far we are looking at it with what we have now as something "progressive"), the main path, as has been voiced here before, is while the geometry is somewhat abstract, pretty well done and does hold up to this day.

In any case, I'm pretty sure it will be okay.

 

[Trithne]

They sort of brought back the sensurround, incidentally. Its now right near the end of medical, and it marks on the minimap the locations of useful items. Not sure how well it works if you haven't picked up said mapping unit.

The biomonitor still does nothing.

 

[Zlaja]

Here, you get 10 pistol rounds for 4 credits, and items recycle for 1-5 credits apiece. So now when you enter a room and see a bunch of junk (and there's a lot more junk than SS2), you're looking at potentially 50-100 rounds if you recycle

Man, I hope they re-design this shit ASAP, otherwise the looting aspect of the game is not gonna be fun. And since I'm a "lootfag" that's a big deal for me. Looting needs to feel meaningful.

I was running around with around 300 pistol ammo by the end of the first level

When the level runs out of enemies and its scripted spawns, its out for good

I don't mind this part. I'm one of those people that likes cleaning the place out. Just balance the resources proper for the amount of enemies present.

 

[Average Manatee]

To be fair, the massive amount of ammo you get *may* be completely accurate to SS1. You don't notice it because SS1 doesn't have your amount of ammo staring you in the face constantly, just colored ticks next to your ammo, but I'm pretty sure I had in the hundreds of pistol/dartgun ammo by the time I left level 2 (don't know about level 1, IIRC you mainly have the dartgun for that level).

But if the devs are adding credits, shops to buy ammo, and trying to enforce some kind of resource starvation then the numbers need serious tweaking since as it is it feels superfluous.

And yeah, the amount of ammo is incredibly excessive if there are no respawns. I'd rather have respawns just more gently than SS1 does it where the whole level gets a respawn wave the instant the number of enemies in the level falls below X. The fact that attacks aren't all hitscan now would also make respawns significantly more palatable, Reactor level in SS1 was hell with the fucking hoppers that spawned way too often and hitscanned you for a quarter of your health every second. The hopper in the remake demo had avoidable shots and was actually kind of fun to fight (though a bit easy).

 

[Lord of Riva]

To be fair, the massive amount of ammo you get *may* be completely accurate to SS1. You don't notice it because SS1 doesn't have your amount of ammo staring you in the face constantly, just colored ticks next to your ammo, but I'm pretty sure I had in the hundreds of pistol/dartgun ammo by the time I left level 2 (don't know about level 1, IIRC you mainly have the dartgun for that level).

But if the devs are adding credits, shops to buy ammo, and trying to enforce some kind of resource starvation then the numbers need serious tweaking since as it is it feels superfluous.

Ammo is only an issue in the beginning in SS1 origínal and you can mostly use sparQ and laser rapier anyways. I don't think it's an issue.

 

[Red Hexapus]

So, I've just finished the demo a few minutes ago and I think if the rest of the game is like the Medical level - it will be a solid game. There are some minor things that annoy me (melee, wire puzzles, highlighted item on top of the screen), but overall i think it captures the feeling of the original game, without some of its jank.

 

[Naraya]

Is there a way to play the demo having no Steam?

 

[Lord of Riva]

Is there a way to play the demo having no Steam?

I don't think so, no.

The older demo is still on gog though, if you just need a general impression. The game has changed of course, but the feeling is not that off, just a bit rougher.

 

[Daedalos]

Real talk: I never played either SS1 or SS2 - yeah i'm a fucking loser, but it is what it is.

I hope the remake do the OG game justice, and therefore, entice me to play SS1. So far it looks p. good to me.

 

[KIss My Ass]

So are they just gonna shadow drop it or what? Why is there no concrete release details beyond "March"? I smell a delay.

 

[Theodora]

I would sincerely encourage you to play the original game first and even the DOS version without the ‘enhancements’. While mouse-look is what we're used to and is very convenient, the game wasn't balanced for it and the combat gets trivialized somewhat by its inclusion. Two major elements that are incontestably inferior in the remake are the music and the visual style of the Cyberspace.

So there's no difficulty settings or whatever one can compensate with? It's not that I've not played games with 2h kb controls -- plenty of roguelikes are ideal with that -- but I never really got the hang of it when it comes to shooters; and am sure I'd prefer the EE in a vacuum for general QoL reasons.

 

[schru]

Real talk: I never played either SS1 or SS2 - yeah i'm a fucking loser, but it is what it is.

I hope the remake do the OG game justice, and therefore, entice me to play SS1. So far it looks p. good to me.

Play the original. It's really not as difficult to get used to it as it may seem at first.

I would sincerely encourage you to play the original game first and even the DOS version without the ‘enhancements’. While mouse-look is what we're used to and is very convenient, the game wasn't balanced for it and the combat gets trivialized somewhat by its inclusion. Two major elements that are incontestably inferior in the remake are the music and the visual style of the Cyberspace.

So there's no difficulty settings or whatever one can compensate with? It's not that I've not played games with 2h kb controls -- plenty of roguelikes are ideal with that -- but I never really got the hang of it when it comes to shooters; and am sure I'd prefer the EE in a vacuum for general QoL reasons.

I imagine higher difficulties can compensate for it and the game has even rather elaborate settings for that for its time, but they were all still designed with the original controls in mind.

I don't think the Enhanced Edition actually has much that's different about it apart from the mouse-look (which is available as a modification for the DOS version anyway), higher and wide-screen resolutions (which shouldn't be used because of the way they distort the UI), and the fact that one doesn't need to modify any DOSBox settings before launching it. Additionally, it should be noted that it has character portraits from the Macintosh version on by default, which I don't think is good as while they are in a higher resolution, they make some of the characters look rather silly, Shodan in particular.

Incidentally, while I'm not sure about Ultima Underworld and perhaps some obscure titles I don't know about, none of the early major shooters had two-handed keyboard controls as the default. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Star Wars: Dark Forces, etc. all supported horizontal mouse-look and their manuals recommended playing with mouse and keyboard. As for System Shock itself, it is still perfectly playable with mouse and keyboard in its original version—all the important movement and turning keys (including the ones for looking up and down) are close to WASD, while the mouse pointer can be used to manipulate all manner of options and objects in the UI or the environment.

If it is DOSBox which is the turn-off, I can provide general instructions for how to go about configuring it. Technically the Steam and GOG releases of DOS games already come with it, but the configuration is usually inadequate, especially with respect to resolution scaling or the renderer.

 

[Average Manatee]

Play the original. It's really not as difficult to get used to it as it may seem at first.

Main thing to know is that the 90s interface has a minimalist mode that makes it much more palatable. Though play the EE if you want WASD controls and mouselook.

I wouldn't say that modern controls trivialize it, the combat is still incredibly deadly on maximum difficulty and abusing corners to shoot enemies when they can't shoot you back is how you mostly play the game unless you are in melee (or willing to backtrack constantly to heal). Arguably WASD makes melee stronger because you have better movement control, but that's also fun and not utilizing super speed skating turbo lightsaber mode is not playing SS1 right.

 

[Star Citizen]

Looks good but they goofed me playing it day 1 by increasing regional pricing 3 fold after some announcement.