System Shock 2 -- 25th Anniversary Remaster

[Starfox]

Finally the System Shock 2 remaster dropped after 2 years of waiting. It was promised with the release of System Shock 1 remaster and free for people who pre-ordered the game but it was quite a long wait.

So is it special? Well, it is good old System Shock 2, with some adjustments. But before anyone gets overly excited, it's mostly equivalent to a copy of System Shock 2 (1999) with all the good mods installed for prettier graphics and compatibility with modern hardware. The difference is that everything is already installed so you don't have to get your hands messy to make it work. It even comes with a 64 bits executable.

There is one major change worth mentioning though. They (by "they" I mean Nightdive Studio who had the responsibility of this remaster) managed to cram in there full controller support, so something that you won't get on the 1999 version, certainly not out of the box. It's not completely practical as System Shock 2 features the use of sooo many keys and a controller has a hard time keeping up with all the commands available but, with some getting used to, it's workable. In fact I'm surprised it works that well... It's not perfect but considering the game UI complexity, it's... okay.

The rest of the changes that you can't get on the old version without some real tinkering are much more defined and readable graphics adapted to high resolutions screens and much nicer movies. The models are slightly better but again you can get the same or similar in the original version with mods. Also the introduction of Ambient Occlusion and bloom (I'm not sure it makes a difference to me but, there you go). You won't get RTX here, that would have been a step too far... Oh, and I forgot to mention (because I don't care about that) the introduction of cross-platform multiplayer for a full coop experience!

So, as far as I'm concerned, System Shock 2 25th Anniversary Remaster is not a complete flop. Anyway, as long as they leave the gameplay mechanics alone, it's hard to transform a gem of a cult game into pure crap. I wish CDPR would have been that prudent with their "Enhanced" edition of The Witcher 3 and its ridiculously oversimplified skill tree. Not that the "Enhanced" Witcher 3 became crap but... Well, that's a whole other story that I might expand on later.

Anyway, we're there for System Shock 2 remaster which also had some gameplay changes but it's for the better. For example, if you have to use an item in a device, it is now sufficient to have the item in your inventory, clicking the device use it automatically. Before that astounding bit of evolution you had to open your inventory then drag the item from your inventory to the device (now you just have to be careful where you click -- I've lost a couple of surgical activation keys, installing them in beds I didn't want to install them into; I just wanted the loot that was on the bed).

Is this remaster for you? I don't know. I didn't have to pay for it and if you have an original well modded copy, don't feel the need for multiplayer or the ability to play with a controller, you might think that this isn't worth the $30 price tag. However, if you're too young to have experienced the full glory of the System Shock universe, it's the occasion for you to get to it, without the hassle of having to tinker with mods. After all System Shock is the original inspiration behind such games as Bioshock 1 and 2, Dead Space and Prey (2017). So if you don't know what System Shock 2 is but loved any of those four more recent games, you might want to give their ancestor a try.