System Shock review – a remake for demanding

Some might argue whether the iconic 1994 System Shock is a shooter, an action-adventure or something else entirely – you can hit enemies at close range, sneak, the game contains a number of RPG elements, hacking in the form of a puzzle or flying in virtual reality. ..moreover, aboard the Citadel space station, functioning as an elaborate ecosystem, perfectly interconnected. From today’s point of view, in the terminology of game genres, we can say that it was one of the key founders of the “immersive simulator” genre, where, among other things, we collected audio recordings (dead inhabitants of the station) for the first time in the history of games. But in fact, most of the time you will shoot hordes of mutants, robots and cyborgs. The long-awaited remake only emphasizes this fact, also thanks to the fact that he managed to modernize the gunplay in a fun way.

• Platform: PC (review), also planned for PS4, PS5, X1, XSX|S
• Publication date: 05/30/2023
• Manufacturer: Night Dive Studios (USA)
• Genre: FPS
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 10 GB
• Game time: 20 hours
• Price: 949 CZK (couples)

Modernized sci-fi horror

While it’s entirely appropriate to play this remake due to its chilling horror atmosphere, you shouldn’t have too many expectations when it comes to the story: like the original game, the remake offers more or less only two “plot sequences”. minutes at the beginning and a few minutes at the end. If in the original game these were animated sequences, in the remake they were processed directly in the game engine, which was probably cheaper to produce, but at the same time fit well with the rest of the game. But even these two plot sequences are not taken too seriously. In the first, on Earth in 2072, you hack into the TriOptimum corporate network as a hacker, for which you are immediately arrested and taken to the Citadel space station, orbiting Saturn.

Here, one of the company’s directors makes you an offer you can’t refuse: he’ll drop the lawsuit against you if you hack the SHODAN AI that controls all traffic on the station. In particular, you need to remove the “ethical guarantees” of this artificial intelligence. As a bounty bonus, you will also receive the desired brain implant and the complex surgery associated with it, all at the expense of the company. Of course, you agree, and you are subsequently placed in a six-month coma in a hibernation ward to recover from the operation. But when you wake up, the darkened corridors of the space station are unusually quiet and blood-splattered. While you were sleeping, SHODAN went out of control and unleashed not only a devastating massacre on the station, but also a series of cruel experiments.

The dark corridors of the space station are silent and spattered with blood.

Although there is no significant history here, you will find many audio recordings from which you will learn in retrospect how the battle for the station took place. But at some point, SHODAN herself begins to communicate with you directly, and it is her mocking threats, calling you an annoying insect and herself a real god, that are some of the most famous quotes from the game. While we recently had two similar sci-fi horror films (The Callisto Protocol and the Dead Space remake), neither of them captured the “seedy and believable” vibe of the classic first Alien movie so beautifully. This is largely due to deliberate stylistic obsolescence, which gives the atmosphere a unique “analogue” charm: for example, SHODAN’s voice is distorted not by modern voice modulators (such as Transformers), but by a change in its playback speed. It’s certainly not to be missed in the game’s visual styling, from the environment to the UI or font.

Ruthless Design

While the game’s remake has some really nice graphics built with Unreal Engine 4, it sticks very consistently to the original 1994 game design, which by today’s standards was pretty ruthless: it’s easy to get lost in the complex maze of similar train station corridors, and it’s not uncommon for the game to give you no clues. exactly where to look for the next target of your efforts. Such gameplay may turn off some young players who are accustomed to modern corridor shooters. But veterans will surely be in their element and enthusiastically pull out a square notebook to start drawing their own maps and writing their own notes, as was absolutely common in the nineties with similar games.

The difficulty is just as relentless – while you have the ability to set it in detail (especially for action, puzzle, mission environments, and cyberspace), you might be surprised at how numerous hordes of powerful enemies the game throws at you at times, while the resources are so like ammo or medkits are just as rare as in survival horrors like Resident Evil. Luckily, you’ll find a spawn station on (almost) every station floor, but you’ll need to activate it first. In short, don’t expect a walk in the park: this game will torment you with its overall difficulty, but as is often the case with such things, you will get a much stronger experience because of it – this is a very large part of its charm.

Veterans enthusiastically take out a square notebook.

But what will probably excite everyone is the action itself: the rework of weapons and enemies gave the remake a huge portion of dynamism, which makes it difficult to return to the original game, but on the contrary, it is very easy to understand why even fans like to bite into relatively complex modern shooter games. Together with the great atmosphere of the environment, it’s easy to get completely lost in the game. It also seems well-optimized – on my build (i7-9700F, 16GB DDR4, RTX 2070 Super) it ran 4K 60fps without issue and looked really nice on a big TV. So it will be very interesting to see how successful the remake will be, since the creators have already announced an “extended” improved edition of the second part, but this does not mean that they cannot also take on a full-blooded remake in the future. .