And you're given huge choices to make without any context. The game begins with you - a nondescript soldier - training for accompanying the first FTL ship, the Von Braun, on its maiden voyage. This is about the mechanics, and how they've split my mind down the middle, both recognising what I've been missing, and how I have to admit to appreciating some levels of simplification. So I'm not writing about the story here - I've not played enough of it yet to do that. For instance, it's been a while since I thought, 'I really should have read the manual'. But at the same time it echoes dying features of the 90s, some missed, some well abandoned. It's a fascinating piece, a fusty grandfather of the few FPSs still using their imaginations, a knowing father of games that defined my twenties like Deus Ex. it's not easy, is it?įor me, System Shock 2 has become more of a beacon for what games no longer are, than what it perhaps is in its own right. But with my first gap in my schedule since August 1999, I've been having a go at the freshly re-released version on Steam. Adam never realised you were supposed to apologise to ducks. For instance, Jim has never hopped, too scared to take such a risk with gravity.
