Just finished the Kickstarter Beta of the System Shock remake. All in all, well worth the wait, will write a bit more tomorrow.
System Shock 2 is one my favorite games of all times. I even remember how I got it: I was visiting a friend in Liverpool (which was my first trip to the UK) in late 1999 and I brought back Shock 2 (and a bunch of other PC games because game prices back then were much cheaper in the UK and I was a poor student).
After falling in love with Shock 2 (and Deus Ex a bit later) I went back to try older „Immersive Sims“ (this genre name did not exist back then though), but I bounced hard off Ultima Underworld and while I got pretty far into the original System Shock, I never actually finished it. Early 90s 3D games looked and played vastly different than games released just a few years later. I really got into gaming around the time of Quake, so my arrogant teenage self discarded those „outdated“ control schemes and looks of earlier games: „Not worth my time!“
So I went into the Kickstarter beta of the System Shock 1 remake without much nostalgia. I did not remember much of my first playthrough at all.
Nightdive has no NDA for the backer beta, they just asked not to stream the game in its current state. Folks who played the latest Steam Nextfest demo know what to expect: that demo contained the whole first level and the rest of the remake is pretty much in the same vein.
It is always hard for me to distinguish between „Remaster“ and „Remake“. Remasters make the original run on current platforms, maybe up the rendering resolution and have better textures, but don’t change the game itself (like Nightdive’s regular releases, e.g. Shadowman or Forsaken). In Remakes like the recent Dead Space the devs pretty much remade the entire game, and besides new graphics they changed level structure and the gameplay/flow of the original.
Nightdive’s System Shock is somewhere in between a remaster and a remake. It runs on Unreal Engine 4, looks like a modern game (with retro aethestics) and controls like a modern Immersive Sim (e.g. a mouse controlled inventory to play Tetris). But the game world itself is straight out of those dreaded early 90s: the layout of all levels of Citadel Station is nearly 1:1 mapped from the Original - which I am sure will be dividing for the game’s receiption. Many empty rooms just exist because they were there in the Original, which made me feel playing a remaster rather than a remake. But if that was Nightdive's intention all along (the Kickstarter campaign was so long ago), then they were successful.
A few other nitpicks: the map looks busy and is hard to read (reminded me of Doom). There is no handholding, no quests on screen, no arrows to tell „go here next“. Because levels and objectives are straight out of Shock 1, I had moments where 20+ year old Gamefaqs posts helped me figure out where to go next. It was a bizarre experience at times. You could take a walkthrough for the old game and use it for the new one.
New Immersive Sims got rare in the last few years, so enjoyed my 22 hours even with all the caveats mentioned. The weapons feel different, ammo is scarce enough, upgrades are meaningfull. It is fun to explore Citadel Station. Btw: was this the first game to introduce Audio Logs?
Oh, and Shodan still rocks. She is scarier than in Shock 2, but also is so funny when sulking because you did something she did not want you to do. Great voice recast (not sure of this one)?