System Shock

 PC
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 110 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 74 out of 110
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 110
  3. Negative: 13 out of 110

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  1. Bosso2015
    Jun 1, 2023
    6
    The combat is really bad. The levels are bizarre mazes that make little sense. The puzzles seem worse than the original game (harder to solve, but also more confusing visually).

    I do really like the way it looks, and the controls are much better. I love what they did with cyberspace, but, like the puzzles, enhancing the visuals has again made it more confusing to navigate. It's difficult    The combat is really bad. The levels are bizarre mazes that make little sense. The puzzles seem worse than the original game (harder to solve, but also more confusing visually).

    I do really like the way it looks, and the controls are much better. I love what they did with cyberspace, but, like the puzzles, enhancing the visuals has again made it more confusing to navigate.

    It's difficult to recommend this game to a modern gamer as I honestly think most players will find it frustrating.    … Expand
  2. Babutto
    Jun 2, 2023
    7
    I'll give it a 7 for the following reasons.

    Pros.: - Nice graphics. The game looks legit. - Some nice add-ons - animations of jettisoning, explosion, etc. - Added intro of Hacker's room. To introduce controls and some initial story info - it was clear Hacker was into TriOptimum for a long time and they tracked him down. - Weapons' upgrades. - Elevator music. - Some small nice    I'll give it a 7 for the following reasons.

    Pros.:
    - Nice graphics. The game looks legit.
    - Some nice add-ons - animations of jettisoning, explosion, etc.
    - Added intro of Hacker's room. To introduce controls and some initial story info - it was clear Hacker was into TriOptimum for a long time and they tracked him down.
    - Weapons' upgrades.
    - Elevator music.
    - Some small nice old-school secrets.
    - Puzzles.
    - Difficulty.
    - End music from Hardware (1990) OST.
    - Still can beat without some weapons and upgrades.

    Cons.:
    - The atmosphere is killed. Music is changed, and audio logs are changed too. Yes, you have to be very careful even on the medium settings to beat the game. But the events on Citadel were dreadful.
    - Audio logs lack depth and background noises and effects. Before, you could feel it was something in there, people were fighting, trying to survive. Now, it feels like they are just in the studio.
    - Music is awful. Very bad work of the composer. Similar boring tracks all over. Except for the elevator theme.
    - Could use more scripted animations throughout the game.
    - SHODAN is not threatening. No depth in her character anymore (background noises, glitches, etc. - most of them are gone). This is the most significant downside of the remake. It is NOT HARD to add noises, glitches, etc. It is the job of the sound designers that they screwed up.
    - Bugs. "Dancing" corpses, some audio logs cannot be picked up.

    Basically, they were just lazy to add details. But they added their useless NightDive logo easter eggs, of course.    … Expand
  3. Glic2003
    Jun 2, 2023
    7
    A pretty good remaster of a classic game. But in a modern context, it's hard to recommend. The biggest problem being that, while the graphics were updated, almost nothing about the gameplay was. It's still a confusing mess at times, and the combat is still far from enjoyable.
  4. AnonymousPower
    Jun 1, 2023
    5
    QOL in games has come a long way since the 90s, and this remake misses the opportunity to improve the game in ways that it really should have. For example, how are you supposed to know that you should be noting down random digits that you find in the world or what their significance is? Why is there no clue what random switches do when you press them? These things aren't "dated" design,QOL in games has come a long way since the 90s, and this remake misses the opportunity to improve the game in ways that it really should have. For example, how are you supposed to know that you should be noting down random digits that you find in the world or what their significance is? Why is there no clue what random switches do when you press them? These things aren't "dated" design, they are and always have been *bad* design.

    The cyberspace minigame gets old really fast. I was over it the second time I had to do it.

    Combat feels awful, there's no feedback whenever you hit anything. There's no clue how much damage you are dealing, if you are even dealing any at all.

    It kept me interested for about 10 hours but I really just can't be bothered with this game, it's too much effort.    … Expand
  5. Pickle
    May 31, 2023
    5
    For the most part the most significant changes done in this remake -by Nightdive studios nonetheless-, have to do with the game’s presentation, not so much with the game’s mechanics.

    I guess one could argue there’s some quality-of-life improvements here and there, you don’t have to battle the UI as much as you did in the original, but still, the game just has this overarching feeling of    For the most part the most significant changes done in this remake -by Nightdive studios nonetheless-, have to do with the game’s presentation, not so much with the game’s mechanics.

    I guess one could argue there’s some quality-of-life improvements here and there, you don’t have to battle the UI as much as you did in the original, but still, the game just has this overarching feeling of coarseness to it, where it clearly seems as if it needed a bit more polish in some pretty significant areas.

    Mainly the problem I had with the game was the item pickups and the lack of direction, but to be honest, it was the first issue the one that brought down my experience to a crawl, and inevitably made me quit the game altogether. This is simply a game that isn’t balanced properly, it’s all about exploration and when it works, it’s glorious, you find things naturally, and the game’s completion is rewarding; when it stops working though, it makes the game feel like a chore, and this is something that happens in later levels, that I’m not sure if people will even notice or get to them because of the level design and lack of direction that gradually manifests as you play.

    There’s a sense here where if the first level was created in an intuitive way, the rest of the levels feel as if they needed more polish and attention. There are times where I found myself gaining access to areas that I clearly wasn’t supposed to be in, like one where I had the key-card to get into the room, but not to open the shortcut that would eventually interconnect with the rest of the area; so, I could obtain the upgrade present at this location, but instead of continuing my path, I had to backtrack from where I came. Simply put, this was clearly an issue with the way Nightdive distributed the pathways and items required to progress, providing me with the ability to obtain the latter I required, but not the initial ones I truly needed.

    Eventually I was also running out of health, there were no health stations, not health pickups, nothing; eventually I did find three health pickups but each of them bugged out and prevented me from actually healing, effectively leaving me with too little health in order to progress. This was the moment where I quit.

    The thing about Nightdive is that they’re responsible for some incredible ports, re-releases, and remasters of past games, but it does feel as if in this case, as it was with Blade Runner, they’re just biting a bit more than they can chew. I’m kind of stunned to see this level of quality as well because deep down you can tell all the fundamentals are there, is just that -as you progress-, all the cracks in this start showing, and eventually, the game bursts.    … Expand
  6. leaveit
    Jun 1, 2023
    5
    The bizarre army of shills that Nightdive have built up over the literal 9-year development of this game are doing a fantastic job of rating it just above the worst-rated of the popular immersive sims (Dark Messiah, Thief 4, etc.), and indeed everything came out much better than I thought it would 5 years ago when the game was already late and going on hiatus. Unfortunately, this will notThe bizarre army of shills that Nightdive have built up over the literal 9-year development of this game are doing a fantastic job of rating it just above the worst-rated of the popular immersive sims (Dark Messiah, Thief 4, etc.), and indeed everything came out much better than I thought it would 5 years ago when the game was already late and going on hiatus. Unfortunately, this will not be quite enough to make the game successful. The credits list at least 50 distinct people involved in the project, and even if they were only contracted for 1/3 of the time, that's easily $6,000,000 on the payroll alone, for which they'd have to make multiple hundreds of thousands of sales on Steam to turn a profit. It seems the game is headed for the, "kind of well-rated, but ultimately unsuccessful" niche of the original, thanks in no small part to its dated interface, graphics, extreme development time, boring soundtrack, floaty combat, various bugs and the studio's willingness to repeatedly alienate even non-hostile subsets of its supporters.

    POSITIVITY TIME: The art is very cool. The pixelated textures are an affectation in my opinion, and don't come at me with "OK zoomer" or whatever since I played the original, DOOM, Marathon et al. multiple years before the CEO of this studio did. But, pixels notwithstanding, the art in the game is among the best fan works of System Shock I've ever seen and is more than a match for the original game.

    The game design is improved in several (albeit obvious) ways. This was truly the whole point of the project in the first place: to go beyond compatibility porting and move into modernizing game mechanics. Yet it still retains a surprising amount of the original game's design - more than you might expect for a relatively inaccessible game like System Shock. For this I have to praise Nightdive's grit knowing that there would probably be bellyaching about manual saves, writing down CPU room codes, time limits, etc. and including that anyway.

    Lastly, polish. It's not perfect, but neither was the original game in this regard. The final product, dollar-for-dollar and adjusted for age, really does feel more professional than the original.

    Overall, this is a SIGNIFICANTLY flawed, EXTREMELY late debut-slash-swan-song from a somewhat witless developer that was probably wise to sell out and let someone else handle their PR. There are diamonds in the rough here, but let's not kid ourselves by saying this is an 8/10 game. If it is then you may as well quit playing video games now.    … Expand
  7. SurTails101
    Jul 14, 2023
    6
    Never played this game before (OG). I liked the vibe of the game so I got it. Put around 13-14 hours into it but I feel the game mechanics dates. Also the whole game feels too claustrophobic. You're like a rat in a maze and there is tons of backtracking. Games have evolved since the first release. Purists/OG nerds will be happy but it's so difficult figuring out what you have to do. Why isNever played this game before (OG). I liked the vibe of the game so I got it. Put around 13-14 hours into it but I feel the game mechanics dates. Also the whole game feels too claustrophobic. You're like a rat in a maze and there is tons of backtracking. Games have evolved since the first release. Purists/OG nerds will be happy but it's so difficult figuring out what you have to do. Why is there not some sort of questing system that at least hints you at what you're supposed to do next? I agree with other reviews saying there is no feedback to the damage you're doing and that just feels odd. Other than that, the vibe of the game is great. The remake graphics work real well. The shooting was hit and miss for me (no pun intended) . Will not be finishing this one. Felt a bit like a chore. Wish I had played it back then: likely my opinion would of had been more positive.… Expand
  8. Traxillion
    Sep 8, 2023
    7
    It is an extremely faithful remake to the point that some points are detracted due to keeping oversights from the first game.

    Cyberspace is less confusing but still annoying and unnecessary as it was implemented. The last boss is very disappointing and anti-climactic, The ending itself is kind of a letdown as it's really basic, and some of the 'story puzzles' are still really convoluted    It is an extremely faithful remake to the point that some points are detracted due to keeping oversights from the first game.

    Cyberspace is less confusing but still annoying and unnecessary as it was implemented. The last boss is very disappointing and anti-climactic, The ending itself is kind of a letdown as it's really basic, and some of the 'story puzzles' are still really convoluted without a guide or a former playthrough.

    Still a very good game overall, I really like the graphics as they fit the aesthetic (trying for photo realism would've been a mistake in my opinion).

    Combat is fun although it gets rather tedious in the last two floors.

    The game also does a really good job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere early on, shame is kinda gets lost around the Executive floor.

    That's also true for the difficulty- I played on the highest difficulty and it was only challenging up to executive, where they decided to give you unlimited resources.    … Expand
  9. PhoneTheo
    Aug 16, 2023
    7
    F un

Awards & Rankings

29
#29 Most Discussed PC Game of 2023
3
#3 Most Shared PC Game of 2023

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 77 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 56 out of 77
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 77
  3. Negative: 0 out of 77
  1. Generación Xbox
    May 20, 2024
    82
    It is a game that may not be for everyone, but it has that charm that many of its fans will like. It would be unforgivable not to give a chance to one of the games that served as inspiration for other successes.
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  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 22, 2024
    100
    The developers didn't invent the already invented - they figured out how to bring a cult classic out of cryosleep and offer it to a world that may have forgotten how brilliant it was. [Issue#328]
  3. Riot Pixels
    Sep 30, 2023
    65
    The System Shock remake is a boring shooter. It will not surprise old fans and can hardly attract new players.
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