SYSTEM SHOCK 2

                 Reviewed by Stefan Herber

It must be a tough world being a game developer.  Take the
following scenario - you produce a game different from anything
else on the market; it receives rave reviews and is highly
regarded by the industry - and then nobody buys it. Those like
myself who played it thought it perhaps the best game EVER at the
time. Name of the game in question? System Shock. Being a fatalist
you as the developer mutter something like "ahead of its time" and
go back to the drawing board.

Five years later you try again. The name of the new game is System
Shock 2. What happens? Rave reviews; voted one of the best games
of the year by critics and industry; still in the top 5 RPGs of a
certain magazine - and nobody buys it. Why? Well let's think about
that one.

In the latest epic you are awoken from cybersleep to find your
spaceship has been taken over by an unknown force.  Everybody
seems to have been killed and your only clues as to what is
happening come in the form of e-mails from the unknown party and
audio logs which crew members have left lying around. You are
surrounded and constantly attacked by all manner of creatures from
hell. And there's no one to help. On the plus side there are
weapons and ammunition left lying around as well as areas where
you can heal and regenerate.  The game (on my second go and at
medium level) only took 15 hours but this is a fraction of the
time spent dying and reloading - I'd wager it actually lasts at
least twice as long.

I first started it several months ago but really found it too
intense. There's barely a safe place to go where you won't be
attacked; it's not like a "conventional" RPG where you can
regenerate by sleeping; and every moment spent doing nothing
drains energy from your vitally important implants or armour.
Also your weapons degenerate with use at an alarming rate and
ammunition is difficult to come by. Eventually though I sat down
and finished it but have to rate one of the most fiendishly
difficult games I have yet completed. I had to give up on my first
run- through after halfway as I had run out of money and
ammunition; by more careful use of these the second time around I
ended the game with plenty to spare.

Was it worth it? Emphatically yes. Far superior to "Half Life"
with a strong storyline that keeps you hooked; I think at least as
good as "Deus Ex" and three times as intense. And that might be
the reason it didn't sell - its intensity and difficulty. The
creatures you fight have an amazing amount of AI and (the bane of
my life) can and do regenerate when revisiting places. In other
words if you want to finish this game you have to rely a lot on
melee combat (not always possible) or play through a level and
when you've sussed it go back to the beginning so that retracing
of steps is kept to a minimum. Not quite the sort of thing to do
in 5 minutes at lunchtime.

Gripes? Apart from respawning it is not really compatible with the
new Windows although a patch helps. After finishing it I was
dumped back on the starter screen and to view the final movie had
to reinstall it at full install (the movie was worth it!). And -
maybe - it was just too hard. However I wouldn't have missed it
for worlds.















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