Review

Wow. This is an incredibly well-crafted game. It's got some technical wrinkles, but I'll blame Looking Glass for all of those, since they're engine related. This being a short review, I'll try to keep things to the point. System Shock 2 is excellent. This is the kind of thing that differentiates computer gaming from every other media that tells stories: books, movies, live theatre, television. The differentiation is the opportunity to feel that a story is being unveiled around you and to some degree because of you. When executed correctly, this feeling can compensate for the sacrifices in a story's detail and structure that are inherant in a computer game. Having played System Shock 2, it is what comes to mind when someone mentions 'interactive entertainment'. And it's only the tip of the iceberg.

The interface is awesome. It makes it so easy to manage both sides of the game coin: the interaction with objects and the 3D environment in general, and the assimilation and manipulation of information associated with your character and the story. There are only a couple of nagging issues. The first has to do with using ladders, and its the same problem that plagued Thief, the first game built using this engine. The second problem is the inability to use the mouse wheel. If you play 3D shooters with any regularity, you've no doubt become accustomed to using the mouse wheel to cycle through weapons, and when you encounter a game that doesn't let you do that, working that functionality back into the keyboard feels very ungainly. On the other hand, something that isn't yet a convention but that I have thoroughly enjoyed in every game in which it was available is the ability to lean in different directions. This makes such a huge difference, and obviously moreso in a game like System Shock 2 that requires a high degree of prudence when moving. I'm also in love with the ability to mantle objects too high to jump onto. It's such a natural thing to be able to do.

On the surface, System Shock 2 is a run of the mill shooter. The AI is better than average, but only in the sense that their perception modeling is vastly improved. Once you're detected, they don't do anything terribly clever. The weapons aren't anything to write home about either, but they get the job done. The psionic abilities are certainly a different experience, but I didn't play a Psi Corp character, so I only used a few of the abilities. The level design is well done, and I never seemed to mind too much that it was easy to forget that you were on a spaceship. One very important aspect is the ability to freely roam back and forth between the majority of the levels. This is something that I've consistently enjoyed in the Hexen and Heretic games from Raven, and it had the same effect on me here. Furthermore, I don't recall feeling like I was on a scavenger hunt; the flow between the decks of the ship was believable and fun. Anyway, the point I want to make is that the individual parts of System Shock 2 are all part of the basic recipe for a shooter. It's the design which exists on top of these parts that makes System Shock 2 great. To misquote James Carville, "It's the game design, stupid."

System Shock 2 is more an RPG than some RPGs I've played. It's undeniably an RPG because as you play it, you have to choose what kind of soldier you are, and you have to embrace that role even as you define it. The choices you make as you develop your character's skills determine how you overcome obstacles in the game. Fundamentally, that's the nature of an RPG. It so happens that unlike many traditional RPGs, none of the obstacles in this particular RPG has anything to do with communication or NPC interaction.

I've got a couple of quick gripes:

• I was frequently irritated that I couldn't view the mini-map for any deck of the ship other than the one I was on. This was really annoying, as I often found myself knowing what I wanted to do, and specifically where I needed to be, but not quite sure of how to get there because I didn't remember the deck layouts. So I would subsequently have to jump back and forth between several decks just so I could see the map and say, "nope, not this deck".

• I felt that the combat of the game was too monotonous. I love the slower pace, but the suspensefulness of the game was at times compromised because there were no discernible ups and downs. Of course, many games solve this kind of problem by staging "hot spots" that feel more contrived than anything else, and I was thankful that System Shock 2 never resorted to that.

• One other nit-picky thing: I didn't like the manner in which the implants use energy. Implants are energy driven and constantly dissipate their charge when installed. The effect that this has on the game is to impose an urgency that I personally felt adversely affected the game. I was irritated at having to be "on the clock", so to speak, whenever I was using implants. I think the cause for this irritation wasn't the fact that implants use energy, but the rate at which they use it. It's too fast. I was constantly having to re-charge the implants I was using, and it prevented me from being as stealthy as I'd liked. One of the coolest and unique things about games like System Shock 2 (and the Thief games) is that you get to dictate the pace to your own tastes. The implants, much like power-ups in traditional shooters, tend to dictate the pace, taking it away from the player. A possible alternative to just slowing down the energy consumption rate is to divide the implants into categories. Those that dissipate constantly, those that dissipate only when doing certain things (i.e. action-based consumption) and those that don't dissipate energy at all (making them more like a pure cybernetic upgrade). Just a thought.

• The ending was fairly disappointing, in several different ways. The last section as you approach Shodan was just goofy, and the final conflict itself was anticlimactic. I appreciated the impression I got that Shodan was ultimately very vulnerable in nature, as you'd expect based on what she is, but that didn't make the ending any more satisfying. There's also another aspect at the very, very end that I didn't appreciate at all.

Let me wrap up by saying that System Shock 2 is the scariest game I've played, and it will be best enjoyed if you let yourself get fully immersed. Turn the lights out. Wear headphones and turn the volume up. Inform your spouse or roomates that when you're playing this game, they need to announce themselves in a loud and clear voice when they get anywhere near the room in which you're playing. I think I lost several years off of my life when I played because my wife had the habit of approaching me from behind and putting her hand on my shoulder when she wanted to tell me she was going to bed. Hmmm... maybe she was doing it on purpose.