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(More customer reviews)Besides my terrible opening statement, I do declare System Shock the first to be the ultimate it in difficult games.
To get it to work requires advanced knowledge of DOS, access to an old 486 machines, early Pentium stuff primarily.It also requires considerable patience.
This is a game that requires one be willing to take considerable time setting up, fixing over, and smoothing out.It will take hours to tweak the sound properly, make sure the technical faults present in DOS as well as in your drivers does not conflict with the game's sensitive and far-reaching usage of your machine's hardware.
When you're done, you've arrived at a blissful point I like to call "heaven"
This may be the first perfect game.It may also be the last.Aside from the difficulty of getting it working properly, there's not a damn thing to say wrong about it.
It's got a plot, a real good plot.One that you can't just shrug off or miss.It's important.This is a story that would stand up in a book for sure.It's a dark, tech-noir flavored super-cyberpunk influenced labyrinth of conspiracy, betrayal and deceit.One man's bid for self-preservation that causes a disaster that threatens the future of humanity.
It's also one of the first games to develop the concept of the HUD beyond Doom's use of it.It takes it to places where no other game did before it.That it's clunky, difficult and awkward at first (like the uncustomizeable control setup) fades away as one gets used to it.Other games, like Doom, Unreal Tournament (any edition) and even perhaps System Shock 2, feel almost simplistic in comparison.If you can master this game's controls and interface, most other games possess almost nothing of a learning curve in comparison.When mastered, the control scheme is effective enough.A bit uncomfortable evene then, but it gives you access to a very wide range of commands, and allows you to control your actions in far more elegant ways than most other games do.
Which is good, System Shock's environment is rich, detailed and massive.Working on a truely three dimensional engine, the environment renders damage, movement and space with renewed clarity.It puts the sprite concept to the ultimate test.This is a game which showed just how worthwhile polygon tech would be when other developers caught up.Visually speaking, it was more ahead of its time than Doom3 was in the 2004 crowd.It set unprecedented, system-taxing highs, so high that only high-end users (and even mid-range computers back then were EXPENSIVE) could run the game.It was bold in that sense, and in all other senses.The term boldness is appropriate for every aspect of this game.It's unlike any before it.It's quite unlike most games that have come since, with only its far different (and some argue far superior) sequel even matching its achievements.
At the time of its release the most sophisticated games besides it in terms of depth of play were Roleplays, which were obscure, obtuse and difficult for new players, except for such games as the Final Fantasy series, which built a linear narrative, almost voyeuristically following its characters, robbed almost entirely of the 'world' concept at the heart of Western Roleplay.System Shock matched them in every way, exceeded them in others.Obscure details, not worthy of a buy it?Don't buy it? Kind of recommendation...
It's a difficult thing on that level.Do you buy it?Don't you?
Do you have access to an old-as-Adam Smith computer?Are you familiar with using DOS and configuring startup and specification settings for individual games?Are you patient?
If the answer, unequivocally to all the above questions is "YES" then I do recommend it.The only alternative to that is, are you willing to peruse the VOGONS boards for the solutions you need?You can get it working under Windows XP (my hat is off to the VOGONS folk, they achieved a mammoth task in that regard) with much patience and effort.
In summary, if you've got the patience, go for it.If not, forget it.
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System Shock: Enhanced Edition
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