KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

[Daedalos]

when the fuck is this coming out tho. feel like we been seeing the same trailer 8 times over now, no release date yet..? kek

 

[ciox]

you WILL look at the postage stamp kickstarter screenshots
you WILL watch the teaser trailers with no release date
you WILL play the endless MedSci demos

...und you will be happy

 

[DesolationStone]

the most glorious thing it's that probably the original game will be better than the remake

 

[Perkel]

the most glorious thing it's that probably the original game will be better than the remake

? This is effectively original game with new coat of paint and some modern QOL. The remake they tried to do was reimagination that failed and they went back to this.

 

[ciox]

even if the gameplay turns out great somehow, there's just too many chunks missing and changes made, certainly the soundtrack for one, ain't nobody want no spooooky Bioshock ambientscape

 

[DesolationStone]

? This is effectively original game with new coat of paint and some modern QOL. The remake they tried to do was reimagination that failed and they went back to this.

Yes, and the funniest thing it's that despite this the original will continue to be better

 

[ciox]

also what they "went back to" still has a different mood, sound design, altered weapons and hardware loadout, etc

 

[†††]

the most glorious thing it's that probably the original game will be better than the remake

Name three remakes that are better than the originals. And if you're gonna say one of the Resident Evils, think again before I click on that popamole button.

 

[DesolationStone]

Name three remakes that are better than the originals. And if you're gonna say one of the Resident Evils, think again before I click on that popamole button.

"Remake" in gaming it's a terrible definition because actually it means too many and contradict things.
Anyway, what I was saying it's that this remake seems in certain points more old than the original game

 

[Melcar]

There are remakes and remasters. Remakes are the ones to avoid as they are never good. It's basically a new old game made for current year sensibilities.

 

[Perkel]

also what they "went back to" still has a different mood, sound design, altered weapons and hardware loadout, etc

I don't see it so far. And i finished SS1 last year.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Name three remakes that are better than the originals. And if you're gonna say one of the Resident Evils, think again before I click on that popamole button.

Resident Evil 1's remake is superior.

 

[†††]

Resident Evil 1's remake is superior.

If you're into monochrome, yes

 

[LarryTyphoid]

If you're into monochrome, yes

Yes, it's a dark horror game and looks much better than the original's tacky wallpaper. And this is just graphics whoring, the gameplay is superior as well. You can kill every single enemy in the original while the remake forces you to be more conservative. In terms of survival horror it's absolute incline.

 

[Viata]

Those candles in REmake was stupid as fuck, damn.

the most glorious thing it's that probably the original game will be better than the remake

The original also took way less time to make than this remake.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

System Shock 1 will always be one of the very best. There's no way a bunch of novices can match that game just by splattering modern graphics and controls all over it.

 

[†††]

Yes, it's a dark horror game and looks much better than the original's tacky wallpaper

I would argue that the "tackiness" makes for a more unsettling and novel experience compared to the "everything is grey and dark" that you've seen a thousand of times already in horror settings.

 

[Netch]

Yes, it's a dark horror game and looks much better than the original's tacky wallpaper

I would argue that the "tackiness" makes for a more unsettling and novel experience compared to the "everything is grey and dark" that you've seen a thousand of times already in horror settings.

100%. The remake has a very haunted house vibe compared to the original's more vibrant look, which is fine but definitely less unique and unsettling.

 

[randir14]

Some new footage in this stream starting around an hour and 42 minutes in: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1571998080

Didn't watch the full thing but some changes I noticed:

-Some new animations when picking up certain items
-Robots now have voice lines
-Mutants are no longer naked
-The player now has to crawl through a vent to reach the security room with the 451 code. I wonder if this means the full game has been restructured for more exploration.

 

[gerey]

Can we please stop the hipster circlejerk?

REmake is a good game, and a good reinterpretation of the original RE1. It was clearly a labor of love by the people that worked on it, and they obviously had a lot of reverence towards the original and, more importantly, understood what people loved about it.

Is it a 1:1 copy? Of course not, nor should it have been - if you want to play the original there's myriads of ways to do so. In fact, REmake was made specifically with people that have finished the original in mind - there's quite a few surprises in there that will throw people that have played through the original in for a loop.

If we're going to debate inferior adaptations, then you can firmly point the finger at REmake 3, and to a (much) lesser degree towards REmake 2.

And to circle back to the remake of SS1 and how it compares to REmake, it's obvious that the cretins over at Nightdive have no understanding of why people like SS1 - everything they've shown about the game so far has been done to one-up the original in the most superficial and gross way imaginable.

They could have done a faithful recreation with better graphics, QoL features and modernized controls, or they could have tried to implement the accumulated knowledge and experience of 30 years of immersive sim development, but they did neither and are now stuck in this limbo of mediocrity where the game has little to do with the original, but has also failed to add any sort of meaningful complexity or expand upon the gameplay.

It's just a dumb shooter with a shitty retro artstyle wearing the rotting skin of System Shock 1.

 

[Average Manatee]

The original also took way less time to make than this remake.

At this point it would be simpler to talk about what things took more time than remaking SS1. In terms of how long a time span has been spent on active development this might be the longest game. Even DNF had a complete halts to development before a restart and was shelved for a time.

 

[gurugeorge]

Yes, it's a dark horror game and looks much better than the original's tacky wallpaper

I would argue that the "tackiness" makes for a more unsettling and novel experience compared to the "everything is grey and dark" that you've seen a thousand of times already in horror settings.

100%. The remake has a very haunted house vibe compared to the original's more vibrant look, which is fine but definitely less unique and unsettling.

I think if they had the kind of atmospheric lighting you have in modern games, Looking Glass would have used it. There are clearly some primitive attempts at atmospheric light and shadow dotted throughout the game, as well as a few instances where lights suddenly come on in a dark space, or go out in a light space. (In fact IIRC part of the gameplay is to get the lights on in spaces as you go.) And from what I played of the demo, the devs here have retained some of the pastel-like colouring of some of the walls and structures.

If anything's problematic about transferring those old games to a modern format, I think it's more the level design. In those days, you could get away with hinting at the function of a space with the graphics, but having the actual level architecture of it be focused on the gameplay, without it having to make a whole lot of sense from the point of view of quasi-realism. In games like Doom, Heretic, Hexen, you had lots of mysterious, cyclopean architecture that was kind of meaningless (but both evocative from the point of view of the textures used, and functionally blocked-out in a gameplay sense). Whereas the more real things look, the more your mind expects the spaces to be the kind of space you'd see in the real world - but that then makes it more difficult to have the same sort of gameplay as the old school gameplay with its made-for-gameplay level design.

Apropos another game entirely, I remember reading about how the nuXCOM guys designed the levels for gameplay, using simple grey blocks, and only later tried to think of a real-world function that might clothe those blocks, with all their relative positions, in a graphic covering that made some kind of sense from a quasi-realistic point of view as well. But the devs here don't have that luxury - they have to keep some element of the familiar old levels, at the risk of making quasi-realistic stuff look nonsensical from a realistic point of view. It's probably difficult to strike the right balance.

 

[Netch]

I think if they had the kind of atmospheric lighting you have in modern games, Looking Glass would have used it. There are clearly some primitive attempts at atmospheric light and shadow dotted throughout the game, as well as a few instances where lights suddenly come on in a dark space, or go out in a light space. (In fact IIRC part of the gameplay is to get the lights on in spaces as you go.) And from what I played of the demo, the devs here have retained some of the pastel-like colouring of some of the walls and structures.

If anything's problematic about transferring those old games to a modern format, I think it's more the level design. In those days, you could get away with hinting at the function of a space with the graphics, but having the actual level architecture of it be focused on the gameplay, without it having to make a whole lot of sense from the point of view of quasi-realism. In games like Doom, Heretic, Hexen, you had lots of mysterious, cyclopean architecture that was kind of meaningless (but both evocative from the point of view of the textures used, and functionally blocked-out in a gameplay sense). Whereas the more real things look, the more your mind expects the spaces to be the kind of space you'd see in the real world - but that then makes it more difficult to have the same sort of gameplay as the old school gameplay with its made-for-gameplay level design.

Apropos another game entirely, I remember reading about how the nuXCOM guys designed the levels for gameplay, using simple grey blocks, and only later tried to think of a real-world function that might clothe those blocks, with all their relative positions, in a graphic covering that made some kind of sense from a quasi-realistic point of view as well. But the devs here don't have that luxury - they have to keep some element of the familiar old levels, at the risk of making quasi-realistic stuff look nonsensical from a realistic point of view. It's probably difficult to strike the right balance.

You bring up some interesting points, although, to clarify, I was referring to the Resident Evil remake and not the System Shock remake in the post you quoted.

I argued earlier in the thread that the original System Shock (though more graphically primitive) better captures the feeling of a real, believable space than the remake on the exact bases you refer to (atmospheric light and shadow, coloring, etc). As far as abstract level design being more commonplace in old games you're right; however it's worth noting that, to my knowledge, the remake is not altering the game's level design. The actual layout and architecture should be very largely the same as it was in the original. That being the case, they really are only updating the lighting, texturing, and environmental details (as far as visuals go at least), and in my opinion if the original team that worked on System Shock had access to more modern atmospheric lighting like you mention I think we'd get something much more in line with what was done in System Shock 2 than what Nightdive is doing in the remake.

 

[Lemming42]

The seemingly illogical layout of Citadel is explained in-game:

SHODAN used repair drones to remodel the station as it saw fit. By the time you awaken, you're no longer on a space station designed for and used by humans, you're on what an inhuman AI thinks a space station ought to look like. Hence rooms with no immediately obvious purpose, hallways that lead to nowhere, strange twisted architecture that loops back on itself, and so on.

I know this lore tidbit is hidden away in a couple of logs and not common knowledge, but when you know it, the level design becomes thematically incredible, and SHODAN feels more threatening than ever. There's a lot of wonderful visual things you could do with this theme - the original game already does a superb job of creating incomprehensible level layouts and purposeless rooms that could only come from the "mind" of an AI, but imagine what a creative dev team could do with this concept on a modern engine. Sadly, the people in charge of this remake think that System Shock is a game where you walk down a dark corridor and go "aaah!" when a scary mutant pops out.

 

[Trithne]

The seemingly illogical layout of Citadel is explained in-game:

SHODAN used repair drones to remodel the station as it saw fit. By the time you awaken, you're no longer on a space station designed for and used by humans, you're on what an inhuman AI thinks a space station ought to look like. Hence rooms with no immediately obvious purpose, hallways that lead to nowhere, strange twisted architecture that loops back on itself, and so on.

I know this lore tidbit is hidden away in a couple of logs and not common knowledge, but when you know it, the level design becomes thematically incredible, and SHODAN feels more threatening than ever. There's a lot of wonderful visual things you could do with this theme - the original game already does a superb job of creating incomprehensible level layouts and purposeless rooms that could only come from the "mind" of an AI, but imagine what a creative dev team could do with this concept on a modern engine. Sadly, the people in charge of this remake think that System Shock is a game where you walk down a dark corridor and go "aaah!" when a scary mutant pops out.

One idea I have for a game in this same sort of theme is to let procedural generation go wild on the level design, to create that same sort of sense of being in something that was not design to meet human needs.