FullCapacity on 5/9/2006 at 00:16

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I played Deus Ex after a friend recommended it. I really enjoyed that game and I was told to give System Shock 2 a shot because many elements of the gameplay was similar.

I would consider myself an average gamer, the kind of casual game player that generally makes or breaks a game in terms of total sales. I've played NOLF 1 and 2, Max Payne, Starcraft, first Resident Evil, first Tomb Raider, Call Of Duty, the first Medal Of Honor, World Series Baseball, but avoid online FPS like Quake, CounterStrike, etc. I had a buddy who used to be a producer for EA and he'd ask me questions all the time. Not because I was such a great gamer, I was probably a very mediocre one to be honest, but because it served him no purpose to ask people who were super into games about the games he was working on. If I said "Hey I don't understand why that's happening" then he'd listen. Because I represent the average guy. Good enough to beat games on the hardest setting with some experience but doesn't play games all the time. My buddy didn't tell me anything secret or anything, but he would play lots of games already out and if I was at his house, he'd ask me what I thought about certain issues. And then he'd explain some stuff to me about why certain games were built and designed certain ways. I felt I learned alot about games this way. I want to qualify this because I think as an average guy, maybe my view on this might explain, to some degree, why SS2 didn't have more of a mass appeal.

Why I did not enjoy SS2

1) The training levels were way too short. I think the early Med/Sci level was supposed to be a "training" level in many ways, but often it was confusing trying to figure out where to go and how to play the game at the same time. I felt like the training could have been much more expansive. Don't just tell a guy how to use a Repair tool, but actually put him in training and make him use one. Give him some Proximity Grenades to toy with in training so he can figure out their range and effectiveness. Make him use a chemical to research an item. Make him spend cybermodules to upgrade something. I really felt this is where Deus Ex excelled past SS2, the training levels were much more expansive.

2) The controls were choppy. At no point did I ever feel that the controls were smooth. I could really tell how clunky the controls felt when I was going up and down ladders the most. It was not always clear what could be explored or not just from the visuals. The menu/inventory system itself was done well IMHO though.

3) The game felt like it was being cheap to be longer. Not sure how to explain this best. In No One Lives Forever 1, there was a level on a train where the character had to go from one end of the train to the other to get an object, then go back again to talk to another character, then go back again the other way to fight your way out. I kind of understood the idea, it's a train, there's only so much you can do on a train, and to extend the gameplay you gotta make the character retrace their steps. I understood this in Deus Ex too where Denton keeps having to come back to NY or Headquarters so the game could reuse the same levels over and over. Having a game do this in short bursts is tolerable, I understand the need to do it. But do it too much and it just starts to feel cheap.

I felt SS2 did this the whole game. I picked up a gun and couldn't use it. I had to upgrade. This felt very counterintuitive. If I pick up a gun, I should be able to use it. Now maybe not use it well, but I should be able to fire it. Then I would kill a guy, who was shooting at me, check his gun, and his gun is busted and empty. That felt cheap too. It was a way to keep my ammo low. And my weapons would break and had to be constantly watched. At some level, I felt like, if the game didn't want me to have a gun, then just keep the gun from me until I get to a certain level of the ship. Or give me one working gun and 20 bullets and force me to decide how to use them. And the constant respawning, so when I was forced to backtrack, to make the player feel the tension of never being safe. Well at some level, a player wants a payoff. The satisfaction of knowing you cleared a level of enemies and you can now explore without getting hit over the head by a respawn. I never felt any of this was good for the game. I never felt there was a reward for all the trouble, just more spawns, more broken empty guns and more upgrades to actually use something I'm already carrying around.

I felt like a guy running back and forth in a train with the same 10 cars. Just running back and forth because someone wanted me to believe there was more than just a train there. But mostly because they just wanted me running around. I don't think this is the best way for SS2 to get more people into the game. Frustrating does not always equal challenging.

4) The game lacked balance. There was alot of stuff you could get, but often the stuff you could get later in the game wasn't worth the effort or cost. It often didn't feel like a payoff for doing X and Y and Z. I also thought, thanks to the limited tutorial, you didn't really understand what you were getting and what it could really do. Again, being mysterious and just not telling the player what's going on are two different things. Also as you progressed in the game, the level design and general layout seemed to get less impressive. This again felt counterintuitive because I feel like a game should get more interesting and more expansive as you go on.

I felt like SS2 was a game that would just make more sense and be more interesting the second time though. And I think that statement to me explains why SS2 was not more popular. Because a game should make sense and be intuitive the first time through. I did enjoy many elements of the game, particularly the unfolding storyline and little tidbits like the shock value in watching severed heads and screaming women running from crazed dudes with pipes, but so much of SS2 felt like a rough draft of a good game.

Anyway I respect anyone who does enjoy SS2, I enjoy DX and not everyone enjoys that, so to each their own, but I thought as an average guy, maybe my views on SS2 is a starting point why it was not more popular.

Vigil on 5/9/2006 at 00:47

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Thanks for taking the time to post. I agree with several of the points you make, and quite a few of them have come up recently <a href="http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108347">in a very longwinded thread about Bioshock</a> (System Shock 2's spiritual successor) and the expectations average gamers may have.

Get prepared to get flamed in short dismissive bursts for your opinions and told that the game wasn't "for you", though ;)

Edit: Oh look, what a surprise!

byrofish on 5/9/2006 at 03:31

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I felt there were certain areas (down near the cargo bays in particular iirc) where the respawning was too predictable.

I remember hearing doors close behind me and knowing that when I went back through them there would be an enemy waiting for me.

I understand the 'never feeling safe' concept, but such instances made the respawns too unbelievable. It seemed obvious that the only feasible explanation for an enemy's appearance was that they had been conjured out of thin air and this was detrimental in my opinion.


Regardless, I absolutely loved the game and remember waiting for the sun to disappear so I could turn out the lights, turn up the sound, and immerse myself in it. And then when it was dark, actually getting nervous about going back in. I knew I'd be utterly terrified while playing, but I was also utterly compelled to do so.

TheNightTerror on 5/9/2006 at 04:44

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I second that, especially considering this guy's played Deus Ex. :weird: Those ladders were a living hell to deal with, you could fall at any time, and it was hit or miss as to whether you could look over your shoulder without falling to your death. System Shock 2's ladders were much easier to deal with, you hang onto them until you jump off or walk onto the ground, that's all there was to it.

Ziemanskye on 5/9/2006 at 10:22

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Apart from the fact that the CyberModules and OS upgrades are non-reversible, so the "experimentation" requires loading an old save or starting over again. I know Invisible War went too far the other way (and cut too many options down/out), and Bioshock might run into the same problem since we know you can reconfigure your Plasmids, even if it does require finding a terminal.

And the respawn always kind of annoyed me too. It's a couple of ships with a crew of like 300 or something (I'm sure it says somewhere). Then you kill 500 Mutants - before counting Midwives or any other "augmented" types, and there isn't that much chance for actually growing biomaterials (not enough nutrients around for much more than fungus), so where's all this extra stuff come from? Admittedly I don't know how much they brought up from the planet, but it always felt weird to me, especially considering how much material must have gone into building the Brain.