More and more a wonder...

Vraptor7 on 5/9/2006 at 08:14

I'm playing through both games again, too. There's still gameplay styles I've not attempted in SS2 yet, and I've only now been able to get SS1 to work preperly so it's my first go at that. Bloody brilliant game.

Quote Posted by Sulphur

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that no one actually played this, back in the day.

I honestly don't think I would have liked SS1 at the time it came out - I was way too young and a completely different kind of gamer. In fact, I got SS2 when it came out but didn't finish that until after I was a veteran of Deus Ex quite some time later. As a gamer I've really changed my tastes over the years and have only recently really gotten into RPG's.

RocketMan on 5/9/2006 at 16:41

In the beginning there was System Shock. And then God said, "LET THERE BE D'ARCY", and there was D'Arcy and we all saw that he fucked up...I mean that it was good :D (jks)

Yeah Shevers I totally agree. However I think there's something else about ss2 that was a unique improvement cuz even in ss I sometimes sat and did nothing for 5 minutes on a deck but fiddle with all my cybernetic toys to check out all the different modes they had. I especially liked that each implant had versions you could revert to that could help you save power, etc. And just when I thought I knew it all, BAM, I'd encounter a sceneario that revealed something even more obscure but cool like the fact that I could see biohazards and radiation on my map or that there was a side map, or that that enigmatic genius patch actually saved my ass on engineering when shodan trapped me in the antenna room, or that all those waves in the minimized view actually represented something and weren't just for show.

june gloom on 5/9/2006 at 17:11

i would wait all day for sundown, then play it all night non-stop until sunrise.

... i don't play system shock during the summer anymore.

Shevers on 5/9/2006 at 19:06

Quote Posted by RocketMan

Yeah Shevers I totally agree. However I think there's something else about ss2 that was a unique improvement cuz even in ss I sometimes sat and did nothing for 5 minutes on a deck but fiddle with all my cybernetic toys to check out all the different modes they had. I especially liked that each implant had versions you could revert to that could help you save power, etc. And just when I thought I knew it all, BAM, I'd encounter a sceneario that revealed something even more obscure but cool like the fact that I could see biohazards and radiation on my map or that there was a side map, or that that enigmatic genius patch actually saved my ass on engineering when shodan trapped me in the antenna room, or that all those waves in the minimized view actually represented something and weren't just for show.

Yeah, I skimmed over the cybernetic goodness in the last post - my main memories of SS1 (other than the "OH MY GOD THIS LASER RAPIER!" moment) are all based around getting new goodies like that to play around with. Maybe it's inefficient to have so much stuff that is so unlikely to be used, maybe it wouldn't work if a new game came out like that, but it made SS1 what it was for me...

Quote Posted by D'Arcy

Before Shock there was only Championship Manager. Fortunately, there still is :cheeky:

I'll drink to that! ;)

RocketMan on 6/9/2006 at 01:44

...and that voice. Oh god her voice. I think that once I entered the destruct code and she said, "What have you done you imputent insect....If I am to die now then i will avenge myself on you...enjoy your victory" her entire confident and menacing facade melted away. I loved that part. Gold. I love an enemy who thinks rationally at least...knows her place. At least they didn't make her say "haha a minor setback....but I will overcome this reactor with my magnificence. It will stop melting down just because I own"

Of course she said what she said cuz at the moment she had run out of options. Then it was good old shodan again when she decided to boogie and leave the hacker behind to melt. "You have destroyed my beautiful station.....you will not escape now. I am departing but you shall remain to die enemy....my creator".

I wonder why she added that at the end. Do you think she's saying it in sort of a sorrowful farewell kind of way...like she knows she's killing her father? I thought it was kind of touching. Her tone is hard but that addition at the end seems fragmented, like an afterthought...like something she's hiding behind it all. She envied the hacker I'm sure. Its so sad that we must part, I can imagine went through her mind. Then again, if she knew all along that she was doomed, maybe she felt sad because the man who made her was going to be the man to take her out. She may feel both helpless to an extent and also cut off and unwanted. Granted these emotions only make her lash out even more but for her to have to empower herself instead of being empowered must make her very sad and is only compounded by the fact that her existence is about to be erased just as some piece of garbage. This could have come out as a plea for mercy when she said my creator. I'll have to think more about this.

ToxicFrog on 14/9/2006 at 23:30

See, I feel like this every time I work on ss1edit. It's why I keep working on it.

I'd overrun the world with killer cyborgs to have the source code, though.

RocketMan on 15/9/2006 at 02:01

Where's that at now btw?

ToxicFrog on 15/9/2006 at 14:05

Currently stalled pending a major rewrite with new libraries. I've completely rewritten liboolua and will be using that. libsurtr isn't complete yet but probably won't be necessary, likewise libminisocket.

I was actually hoping to do some work on that and Spellcast this week, but LuaForge.net appears to be down and I need a bunch of libraries from it.

Anyways, the short answer is: it's not dead, it's just moving very slowly. I should have command-line editors for a bunch of stuff in the not so distant future, since I'm designing it with a clearer seperation between data model and interface this time. GUI stuff will occur once I have that finished, and have beaten libglade into submission.

Overlord Nexus on 17/9/2006 at 08:16

Picked up SS2 from a computer bargain bin two weeks ago. Best four bucks I ever spent. Played it through three times and I can see I'll still be discovering subtleties even on my 50th time.

What got me interested was the other characters, even though you never got to see much of them beyond the CDs they kept lying around. So often in games like this, the other characters are annoying and unnecessary, and you just don't give a stuff about them. But I found myself at times more interested in what Delacroix, Captain Diego and that Prefontaine guy were up to than my own activities. And I desperately wanted to give Anatoly a punch in the teeth for being a such a dick.

If there was one thing I would change about the game, it'd be to make the very last level a bit bigger. It was creepy, disturbing and extremely cool but it was over too quickly.

RocketMan on 17/9/2006 at 17:19

I've certainly noticed that you miss people more when they're not around. We are so used to being immersed in a world filled with people that their presence in video games just sort of blends into the background of everything else. Sometimes this is your intention but for ss2, the station is littered with people but you don't have the busy activity going with it. Instead you have morbid desolation. I guess that's what makes you notice them more and care more about what they have to say in their logs.

BTW I can't believe there are still copies of this game floating around in stores....where are these bargain bins anyway? lol