Thread 12109597

Do I need to play System Shock 1 before System Shock 2? If so, should I get the remaster of SS1 or the enhanced edition on Steam?

No.
Fuck remasters. Play the Enhanced Edition.

>>12109597 (OP)
>>12109690
*remake
Btw the remake is very good but the OG is still superior. OG System Shock is a very intimidating game though, just figuring out and getting used to walking and looking around is gonna take a while. It's also the most overstimulating game I have ever played with it's visual/sound design. I love it, because we are on /vr/ and I trust you can handle it I'll tell you to play it, but it's a game I normally wouldn't recommend to anyone

>>12109690
>>12109707
So in your estimation SS1 is necessary before SS2?

>>12109597 (OP)
Not really. But if you really really like SS2 you will inevitably go back to SS anyway

>>12109779
how do you read "no" as "yes"

>>12109779
NO

>>12109707
nta but how does it compare to marathon classic?
I'll admit I got filtered by it on level 2 iirc though I want to try again at some point

>>12109856
NTA but if you couldn't handle Marathon, SS might be a nightmare

>>12109690
SS1 Enhanced Edition was completely fucked by the final patch. It's got micro-stuttering out the ass

>>12109856
Magnet dude, Marathon classic is pretty much a classic Doom-like FPS, except for a few portions near the end (there's an infamous puzzle room). System Shock is not an FPS, more like a simulator where you sometimes shoot stuff. For example: you know how you can sometimes lean with Q or E in some FPS? Well, in System Shock, you have separate controls for upper, mid and bottom portions of your character. So you can lean a little to the right and just bend your knees instead of crouching. That's kinda excessive for an old game, but it's just to show how different from Marathon it is.

>>12109597 (OP)
>Do I need to play System Shock 1 before System Shock 2?
No. I barely even remember the story besides evil AI bitch takes over and kills everything in both games.

>If so, should I get the remaster of SS1 or the enhanced edition on Steam?
Enhanced edition. I beat SS1, loved it, but gave up a few floors in on the remake. The worst thing about it is it got rid of all the original music and replaced it with a terrible ambient score. The music in SS1 is fucking amazing, especially if you modify it with enhanced sound fonts. Also Nightdive are creatively bankrupt and they added a fucking awful system where you pick up items that were scrap in the original game, but in this one your take them to a metal recycler to get coins for upgrades. It's an asinine system and makes you backtrack areas for aluminum cans like a literal homeless person.

>>12109995
Crafting (and hoarding junk) is a fucking blight in gaming.

>>12109995
Recycling items wasn't too awful in the SS remake. Issue is that the temptation is there to vaporize everything and max out your potential cash, when you really shouldn't be playing it that way. Although it would be nice if you could vaporize all junk items in the inventory with one command, and maybe have the junk stack more than 100 per square.

>>12109597 (OP)
No.
The remake is way better, ignore the usual annoying hipsters.

>>12109707
>Btw the remake is very good
It's not good at all. It's dark, they raped the music, they raped the atmosphere
It is raped.

>>12109597 (OP)
System shock 2 fucking sucks. The first ones okay though.

>>12111176
>It's not good at all. It's dark, they raped the music, they raped the atmosphere. It is raped.
Yeah I hate what they did to the music too, that was one of the best parts of the original and they went in the complete opposite direction and turned it all into mediocre ambient tracks. It's not a perfect remake that's like a direct upgrade in every way, it's you win some you lose some. Overall it is still quite good

You don't need to but you should. EE is fine.
For better music install VirtualMIDISynth and get a SC-55 sound font.

>>12109707
The remake just cuts like fucking everything and turns it into this monotonous slog of a game where every zone is one colour, you fight like 2 enemies that are way too tanky and nobody would be giving it the time of day if it didn't say "System Shock" on the cover.
I think the remake is worse than Bioshock.

>>12109894
Surely there's a pre-final version.

>>12109917
>>12109856

There are definitely comparisons to Doom, but as many others have said, the closest game in gameplay to SS1 would probably be the Ultima Underworld series - which are technically a 'dungeon crawlers' rather than a 'FPSs'. The team came up with the game while working on Ultima Underworld II.

>>12109597 (OP)

You don't need to play SS1 to play SS2 - they summarise the story in the intro, but I think you get more enjoyment if you do.

Also, play the EE - I think you can still enjoy the remake, but it's a totally different game. Also SS2 will feel sluggish and like a downgrade afterwards.

>>12109894
>micro-stuttering
People always mention those, but I played EE around 2022 and didn't notice any stutters. Is it just parroting?

>>12109597 (OP)
>zoomie cunt here
What I did was give the Enhanced version a fair shot with fixes and everything (rollback to 1.0 beacuse the latest patch makes the game stutter). After around 23 hours of playtime I gave up cuz I got lost way too many times and the later levels didn't really click with me but I had a ton of fun with it. Now I'm playing the remake and the vibes are still good and the controls are ofc miles better.

>>12111164
The inventory space and filling up with junk got on my nerves after a while. Fortunately a couple of mods to stack items and minimize them to a 1x1 square each made it feel a lot better to me.

>>12109707
It’s not that hard, gamers are just actual retards.

>>12109779
well, the original SS1 (ideally without mouselook) is the better game, and it leads into SS2 in a small way. I'd recommend playing the first game first.

>remaster
>enhanced edition
what's with this board and people going out of their way to avoid playing actual retro games at all cost

>>12111169
Fuck off mouth breather

>>12111169
>The remake is way better, ignore the usual annoying hipsters.

Fuck off

>>12115156
Enhanced edition is just a sourceport really. Saying that it doesn't count as retro is just being pointlessly autistic. It's like saying Doom doesn't count as retro if you use GZDoom

>>12109597 (OP)
I think the opening level of first game is later reused in 2 and there are some other references to the first game

>>12115092
>ideally without mouselook
The devs say you should definitely play with mouselook.

>>12115156
Enhanced Edition is just different controls (mouselook is turned on by default) and the shadow/lightning system isn't as limited.

>>12117229
Some of the devs also made that dogshit underworld reboot

>>12117353
Maybe, but playing a first person action game without mouselook is pretty stupid.

>>12109597 (OP)

If it's not too bothersome for you, maybe try the original it on some older hardware.

>>12117361
If you never played Doom with keyboard only you're missing out

>>12117429
OK, but Doom is a much simpler game and barely even 3D and with little verticality and generally less complex level design.
It still arguably plays better with a mouse, but to a lesser degree than SS.

>>12111579
>turned it all into mediocre ambient track
For what its worth, there IS combat music that isn't ambient crap. But it doesn't play due to some bug. The devs know about it, yet the publishers apparently wont let them release patches anymore? Whatever the case, there is a mod on nexus that fixes the issue. Still a completely different tone tho

>>12117450
And Shock 1 is less gameplay intensive and you'll be solving puzzles as well as organizing inventory. The cursor aim is superior for everything besides quick vertical view adjustment and sharp turns

>>12117605
Cursor aim still works fine since you can seamlessly switch between mouselook and cursor mode.

>>12117467
I don't think it's a bug, I think it was that the music is randomised to some degree where only certain instruments will play instead of all of them. I guess they were going for a dynamic music system like the original had but they kinda cocked everything up in that departement

>>12109995
>>12111802

>sound fonts

better yet:

https://github.com/jcmoyer/Nuked-SC55

>>12117656
So, that IS a thing. Depending on some unknown factor certain layers will play or not play. However, the base chance for some is next to none. In addition, all levels besides executive has the combat music not only too quiet and start too late, but due to a bug never comes back after combat ends. It just becomes silence. The mod fixes all of that.

>>12109597 (OP)
Well the remake is a completely different experience from the original. I personally recommend giving the original one a shot purely because how unique the experience is. It's definitely going to be intimidating when you first start.