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The Making of System Shock 2

Posted by Zonk on Fri Oct 12, 2007 04:33 PM
from the how-ya-doing-hacker dept.
PC Games (Games)
The British gaming magazine Edge, which has teamed up with the website Next Generation, offers up a piece looking back at the creation of System Shock 2 . The cult classic storytelling horror-themed FPS has survived as a popular and often-referenced game despite the eight years between now and its release. The piece covers the reasons behind that popularity, as well as the 'horror' of an inexperienced team taking on a dauntingly high-profile task: "The original System Shock was one of the games that made Levine want to move into the videogame industry in the first place. What made it so special? 'The feeling of being in a real place,' he raves. 'The feeling of a mystery, of unraveling it - not in an adventure game way, but in the context of an action game. You arrive and... what happened? That's a really good storytelling mechanism.' Austin Grossman and Doug Church's original idea from Shock was something Irrational expanded in its sequel. 'In Shock 1 you were a specific guy, you had a backstory,' Levine notes. 'With Shock 2, I started you out with the classic 'wake up with amnesia'.'"
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Related Stories

[+] System Shock 2 Retrospect...and Possible Followup? 257 comments
Starsmore writes: "Gamespot has a retrospective on the 1999 cult classic System Shock 2, which normally isn't that big of a deal on it's own, although it's a nice read for those interested in some of the stories behind the production of System Shock 2. The biggest draw is that tucked at the end of the article (and shown below for those that don't want to RTFA), is this: 'But why even look back at System Shock 2 at this point? Because Irrational has been, and it plans to make a related announcement this Friday (tomorrow). The studio has decided that it wishes to further what it started in System Shock 2--to work on games that promote "emergent" gameplay--open-ended exploration that offers many choices and combinations of options to players. You'll see what we mean tomorrow. Be sure to come back then.' " Could this possibly mean a sequel to the System Shock franchise? Update: 10/09 22:30 EDT by C : As many of you suspected, Irrational is in the process of developing BioShock , a "spiritual successor" to the System Shock games. Here's hoping they can distill much of what made games like System Shock and Thief so successful, yet succeed at their aim of building a game with truly emergent gameplay.
[+] The Words of Shodan 52 comments
Via GameSetWatch, an article by Keiron Gillen about System's Shock's deeply creepy villainess, Shodan. The deeply disturbed AI is in some ways a cliche, but Gillen examines why Shodan transcends genre tropes to become a truly unique character. From the article: "The core of understanding Shodan in System Shock 2 is to understand that she's no longer the AI she once was. In the first System Shock she was the cold, perfect bully aboard citadel station. The position she finds herself in orbit around Tau Ceti, millions of miles from Earth, is somewhat different. In short, for the majority of the game, she's not the antagonist anymore - but the main supporting actor and even mentor. She's not who you try to stop - she's who you work with."
[+] Ken Levine On The Background of Bioshock 23 comments
GameSpy has up an interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games. While Levine has spoken previously about Bioshock's ideology, this piece discusses a number of the elements that went into creating the game. He touches again on objectivism, but expands on the title's connection to its spiritual predecessor System Shock 2 and the process of actual developing the game. "Sterling: Segueing away from storyline a little, what sorts of hardware limits did the team encounter from pre-production leading up to this point of near-completion? Ken Levine: As a credit to my programming team, honestly, I didn't hear much about them. There was some hesitation on the part of some of programming team in pushing a level of physical simulation in the world, in part because they knew how much work that was. To their credit, I'll say, not only did they do it, they knocked it out of the park, because I've never seen this level of simulation ever in a shooter."
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  • Bioshock and System Shock (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Silverlancer (786390) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:36PM (#20960537)
    When Bioshock came out, I heard the hype, and was prepared to delve into the amazing awesomeness that Bioshock apparently was. Especially considering how good System Shock 2 was. So I expected that it would be as good as SS2 or better.

    I installed it and began playing.

    About two hours later I was bored out of my mind at the console-ized, dumbed-down mess that was Bioshock.

    I reinstalled System Shock 2.

    I played the entire thing through again and loved every second of it. System Shock 2 is without a doubt one of the best games of all time, worthy of any top 10 list as the best FPS-RPG ever. Probably even better than Deus Ex, though that's a hard comparison to make for sure.
    • I agree entirely with this post. With some of the addons (SS2 Rebirth, etc...), it can even be made to look a little better than the original graphics...

    • Re:Bioshock and System Shock (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nasarius (593729) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:47PM (#20960643)
      Absolutely...spiritual successor my ass.

      For those who want to play through SS2 again, check out SHTUP [att.net] and Rebirth [strangebedfellows.de].

    • Re:Bioshock and System Shock (Score:5, Insightful)

      by complexmath (449417) * on Friday October 12 2007, @05:07PM (#20960835)
      System Shock 2 was far better than Deus Ex, in my opinion. For one thing, System Shock 2 felt quite nonlinear, while Deus Ex railroaded the player through the game from start to finish. Also, Deus Ex contained some racist content that had me considering just uninstalling the game for a while. Not to mention System Shock 2's unbelievable use of sound, fantastic level design, etc. It's easily in my top ten FPS games of all time along with System Shock 1, Thief 1 & 2, Ultima Underworld, Half Life 2, and various others I can't think of right now. But Deus Ex may not be on that list.

      As for Bioshock, I recently started playing the game and have been enjoying it quite a bit. I agree that the interface is more like a traditional FPS than System Shock 2 and thus "dumbed down" I suppose, but still more complex than Half Life and similar more pure FPS variants. What I really enjoy about Bioshock, though, is simply the realization of the concept within the game world. How often do you get to explore the shattered remains of a dystopian world inspired by an Ayn Rand novel? About my only potential issue so far are the few scripted "scare" scenarios I've encountered. I'd have preferred if they had been done in such a way that they at least didn't feel quite so scripted. Many of the scariest moments in System Shock 2, for example, were simply an artifact of situations I found myself in and the excellent sound work in the game--the ability to hear critters nearby but not know where they were, etc.

      • Also, Deus Ex contained some racist content that had me considering just uninstalling the game for a while.


        Um... huh?
        • Mostly sound clips / audio scenarios (I'm not sure what the proper term is). One may as well have been Mickey Rooney's char from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," though there were some other notable moments I can't recall offhand. The thing is that I'm not terribly touchy about that sort of thing, but for some reason these parts of Deus Ex really struck a nerve.
          • Do you mean the terrible voice acting in the Wan Chai market, perhaps?
            • The Win Chai voice acting was notoriously poor, but I wouldn't call it racist.

              Maybe it is to someone who's never actually heard an Asian person who has trouble with "r" sounds. That (and other) stereotypes aren't just conjured up by someone's imagination.

              I can't think of anything else. I guess maybe it's racist against Greasels. Fucking Greasels and their acid spit. They had it coming.
              • Yeah just a horrible stereotype. That's why I compared it to Mickey Rooney's character in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
          • You're still vague. What 'exactly' was racist?

      • Re:Bioshock and System Shock (Score:4, Interesting)

        by urbanriot (924981) on Friday October 12 2007, @06:17PM (#20961503)
        Well, both games are in my Top 5, but Deus Ex actually rewarded you with stories, points and situations that altered based on your gameplay. Kill someone earlier in the game, and a cutscene won't contain that character. Every level, you had at least two clear options on completing it... stealth or head-on, guns blazing. While System Shock 2 might have seemed more open ended, it most certainly was not; however that's a testament to the developers for making a game that seemed open ended when it was fairly straight forward. I don't know, I can't really contrast the two games since they're both personal favorites.

        System Shock 2 was far better than Deus Ex, in my opinion. For one thing, System Shock 2 felt quite nonlinear, while Deus Ex railroaded the player through the game from start to finish.

        Deus Ex contained some racist content that had me considering just uninstalling the game for a while.
        What content offended you? Are you of a particular race they offended?

        I'm not a namby pamby liberal who doesn't go out of his way to be offended by comments or content that doesn't directly apply to me, so I might have missed it.
        • Well, both games are in my Top 5, but Deus Ex actually rewarded you with stories, points and situations that altered based on your gameplay. Kill someone earlier in the game, and a cutscene won't contain that character.

          Within certain boundaries, yes. I suppose I was just expecting more because of the game's reputation as being nonlinear. For example, one level begins (I believe) in an air duct above a subway station, and ends with the main character's capture after exiting the station. But certain other
      • Interesting...

        I see BioShock more similar to DeusEx in its intention, and perhaps that is also why I enjoyed the game quite a bit, since by nature I do not think it could be as good as System Shock 2 on doing what SS2 did... but probably better at doing what DeusEx / Bioshock attempted (I still prefer Deus Ex, though).

        System Shock 2 was fundamentally a thriller FPS - its design and its intention allowed it to be quite non-linear because, besides the atmosphere, it didn't have a narrative to tell. It felt to
    • It's amazing how many elements of SS2 and parallels to SS2 are in BioShock. I played SS2 many times and when I played BioShock the whole time I was thinking "someone who never played SS1/2 will think this is the best game ever in this genre". BioShock is a reimaged version of SS2, consolized.

      Now, if someone would just RERELEASE SS2 on a new engine. Heck, the same engine BioShock uses. I think that would do very well - as long as they don't dumb it down for consoles.

      Hell, rerelease DX1 as well.
    • Probably even better than Deus Ex, though that's a hard comparison to make for sure.

      I love Deus Ex. (Don't talk to me about Deus Ex 2, it didn't happen).

      But SS2 "probably" better?

      Even now, 8 years on, from time to time I'll see something (a hallway in a building, the layout of a foyer, or just a feeling of a dark night) that sparks a little voice at the back of my mind: "Silence the discord..." Sure, I have memories of playing Deus Ex, but nothing as vivid or lasting.

      I've sought out survival horror games an
    • Funny, because when I picked up Bioshock, I thought, "Wow, they captured the cool character customization, hacking, and plot of SS2, but actually got all the gameplay elements done right this time." To me, the world just felt more alive in Bioshock, and I didn't miss playing around with the inventory and the other elements they "streamlined" away.

      I'd accuse you of nostalgic bias, but that might force me to contemplate Chrono Trigger not being the best game of all time, so never mind.
      • Bioshock is not "dumbed down". I agree that it's way less complex than SS2 was

        Forgot to use Preview, huh?

        Please explain how something is simultaneously way less complex than its spiritual predecessor and not dumbed-down.

        I'm not saying that it's a bad game, I'm just saying that that sentence is logically contradictory.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by thegnu (557446)

          I'm not saying that it's a bad game, I'm just saying that that sentence is logically contradictory.

          I'll save GP some time:
          Dumbed-down is not the same as less complex. Dumbed-down is not the opposite of complex. Dumbed down means 'Made More Stupider' whereas less complex means 'not quite so intricate.' GP was indicating this point, and stating that it had plenty of artistic and stylistic merit in its own right. Doom is not Risk dumbed-down. Doom is Doom. Risk is Risk.

        • Not necessarily. For example, if the original game were too complex, the follow-up could be less complex and not be dumbed down in any way. It isn't dumbing something down to make it useable.

          Regardless, saying Bioshock is a dumbed-down, consoleized mess is a load of shit. If that's a dumbed-down, consolized mess, every FPS ever made is. It's a perfectly fine FPS with some RPG elements thrown in, there's nothing consoleized or dumbed-down about it.

          • You must play most of your games on a console. Bioshock is just as consolized vs. its predecessors as Thief: Deadly Shadows (and Deus Ex: Invisible War). Inventory control (or the complete lack thereof) is the most obvious symptom of this malaise.

            I can only imagine that you think Halo is the ne plus ultra of first person shooters.
            • No, I play most of my games on the PC. Bioshock is not consolized.

              And I do happen to think that the Halo series (the PC versions, not the Xbox versions) represents the pinnacle of FPS games. And I've played all the shooters people say are better (Half-Life, for example). Any other stereotypes you've drawn about me that you'd like me to debunk?

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Sj0 (472011)
          You missed a major point. In the game, you're the illegitimate child of the person who created the vita-chambers, thus one of a small handful of people who gain effective immortality through them. This, along with your brainwashing, makes you a literally unstoppable killing machine.

          Would you kindly play through the game again and pay more attention to the plot?
      • No, the controls on the computer felt fine. They had a team dedicated to the PC version that built the PC interface from the ground up. I played the 360 Bioshock demo and the controls are *much* better on the PC and I don't just mean aiming with the thumbstick vs mouse.

        I think the "consoleized" complaint refers more to game design or gameplay. I hate traditionally PC games being consoleized, but I didn't really notice it much in Bioshock. At least nothing jumped out at me, as opposed to Oblivion.
  • How unoriginal. I hope they sue.

  • What a great game. (Score:3)

    by headkase (533448) <pickett.bill@gmail.com> on Friday October 12 2007, @04:37PM (#20960553)
    I still have the disc and I'd play it again in a heartbeat if it would just run on a modern system - I've tried everything. With patience, my media will hopefully be useful again someday once the Open Dark Engine [sourceforge.net] reaches maturity.
    • Do you have a dual-core machine? I've had SS2 running on my single-core P4, WinXP before, but having played Thief on my dual core machine I have an idea.

      With Thief 2 (which also uses the Dark Engine) you have to change the processor affinity so it just runs on one processor rather than both of them, otherwise the game will crash when you load the engine itself. To do this in Thief I Alt-Tabbed out of the main menu, opened task manager and adjusted the affinity (right-click on the process) and that solved my
      • I have a dual-core and I have tried setting processor affinity. I've also used imagecfg.exe to make the affinity permanent but still to no avail. I've used an unwrapper for the copy protection. I've downloaded the "xp-fixed" exe's but they just have the affinity set in them. Thank you for the tip I really wish it would work on my machine but I guess I can't expect miracles from a game thats almost a decade old.

        Through the Looking Glass [ttlg.com] has a comprehensive forum of things to try to get SS2 working but
    • My system qualifies as fairly modern (XP, core 2 duo, 3GB, 7900GT), and I managed to get it to work reliably. How:

      - You need to set compatibility mode for Windows 2000 on the executable (from the properties window).

      - You need to ensure that it only uses one CPU core. One way to do this is to start the game and before doing anything use the task manager to set CPU affinity to one core only. Alternatively, I've made a small .exe that does this automatically.

      • Thanks for the offer, however I *really* have tried everything - check out the link in my other reply in this thread: it covers pretty much everything. :(

  • I played SS2 once.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Brian Gordon (987471) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:42PM (#20960607)
    Got to the point where you're avoiding cameras and every time you go around the corner a camera sees you. I tried various things to get past but it was just stupid, there was nothing to do. Tried various game guides, none of them had anything to say about it. So I'm not particularly fond of SS2 and I burn inside every time someone praises it.. I have a special hatred for video games that have a f'(x)=infinity learning curve and stump you after 9 seconds of playing. It's just not fun..

    • Re:I played SS2 once.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Silverlancer (786390) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:49PM (#20960667)
      You can shoot the camera. It takes one shot with your pistol. ;)
    • if you mean the first one you meet, on the first level you are on : just run to the camera and hit it with the wrench, if you have nothing else you can use against it. works fine ;)
    • ...seriously, you had a tough time with cameras? you hear the alert, just duck back until the initial alert is over. then shoot it, run past it, hack it, or ignore it, as you wish. perhaps you should have given the game more time, the cameras are not that hard to deal with. or maybe it just wasn't for you.

    • I have a special hatred for video games that have a f'(x)=infinity learning curve and stump you after 9 seconds of playing. It's just not fun..

      Dude, that intro sequence is like 30 minutes the first time through. And anyway, SS2 is definitely one of the best games of all time. I'm sorry it frustrated you so much.

      Given the choice between friends and System Shock 2, I would probably go with friends. Probably.

    • Re:I played SS2 once.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by meringuoid (568297) on Friday October 12 2007, @06:47PM (#20961767)
      Got to the point where you're avoiding cameras and every time you go around the corner a camera sees you.

      Back in, oh, 2001, I was playing through Shock 2 for the first time. I was at university at the time, and I got a summer job in a book warehouse, picking out textbooks to ship out to various schools around the place. The job involved trotting around this big building grabbing books out of various aisles and throwing them onto a conveyor.

      One day I was heading down an aisle in which the lights had packed in for some reason. It was dark. Not a problem, I have no fear of this. I walk down the aisle looking for the book that's on my order sheet.

      At this point I spot a red light on the ceiling.

      SHIT! I immediately duck to the floor and take cover behind my cart-o'-books, and reach for my gun to shoot out the camera...

      At this point I realise that (a) I don't have a gun, (b) that isn't a camera but an LED indicating that a lamp is live, (c) I'm a bit of a pillock.

      But for just a second or two, it was bloody terrifying. Thanks to the game designers for getting me so involved in their world. Salt the fries :-)

      • My SS2-overflow-into-real-life story: I'd spent a hard day/night slogging away at System Shock 2, and had just been doing the level with all the metal mothers on it. You know that noise when they die - the metallic BABIES-NEED-THEIR-MOTHERS-WHIRRR-GARGLE sound...?

        It was about 2 am, and I was a little *too edgy* to continue playing, and far too wired to sleep, so I turned on the TV and stuck in some video to calm down to. I must have dozed off, and when the player hit the end of tape, and kicked into auto-re

  • The original was the best (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:55PM (#20960725) Journal

    The reason it was so good was that for the first time in a game, you weren't in a game. Doom shared that a bit, was one of the first games you could just play without reading the manual. Doom was "real". What I mean by that is that a door looked like a door, worked like a door. Med packs were clearly visible and so on. Compare this to say a driving sim, where you do not have working mirrors, you can only see straight ahead, you have to drive by jerking the wheel hard left or hard right. Doom was "natural".

    System shock was not, but it is the first game I remember where you really felt part of the world. Since then I learned that EVERY fps that you are alone. Think about this, even in Alien VS Predator, as either the alien or the marine, you are alone. Not so in System Shock. At one point you are reading mails from someone trying to find a safe spot, as you progress you are getting closer and closer and hope to find them alive. You don't offcourse, solo FPS is solo, but still, for a moment you felt like others were in the space station with you. A magic moment in a PC game. Perhaps even better then actually having an AI with you, this woman never got in my way, didn't commit suicide, didn't get stuck, yet I felt she was another human in this alien world.

    But this is about System Shock 2 right? Can I be honest? Didn't like it as much as the original, it was too much. I would have preffered they spend more time on the bugs and less time on the three different main classes and all the various options. Nice and all but endless choice is too often an excuse for not enough flesh in the story. Shodan is back? Yeah, okay, she was nice and crazy and all but we knew her already. There was no shock. Also, the first time you were a hacker, so no wonder you were a bit crap in the beginning with combat, this time you are a soldier, so why do you still suck?

    • Also, the first time you were a hacker, so no wonder you were a bit crap in the beginning with combat, this time you are a soldier, so why do you still suck?

      You don't suck. You just don't rock as much as you're used to from Quake. You can't run at 60mph, your punches aren't as hard as a sledgehammer... But if you're a soldier you do massive damage with weapons, if a sailor you can rewire all the turrets in the game to do your bidding, if a psion then you can fling cryo blasts around the place at will.

      Th

  • The guns broke down to fast in SS2 and when you add low ammo and respawning monsters that takes fun out of the game and makes it harder.
    • I agree. It bothered me enough to disable the weapon breakdown and monster respawning, and after doing so I had a considerably better experience.

      The guns broke down to fast in SS2 and when you add low ammo and respawning monsters that takes fun out of the game and makes it harder.

    • system shock 2 is a completely overrated game loved only by fat basement dwellers


      Hey! I'm a fat SS2 loving attic dweller, you insensitive clod!
    • No shit idiot, why do you think Shodan addresses us as "panting and sweating as you run through my corridors". It's isn't because we're fucking marathon runners.

      Actually, "Panting and sweating as you stand still in my corridors" would have been just as accurate.

      Fun System Shock Fact : Shodan deliberately disabled as many elevators as she could, because she figured instead of hunting down the access codes in radioactive areas filled with Cyborg Death Nannies* and the zombies from Thief BUT FROM THE FUTUR
      • I had the most fun with the psionic powers, but the psi hypos (if I remember correctly) were few and far between. However, I believe there are cheat codes to spawn additional hypos and ammo and such if you really want to. Think I used the gun mostly for taking out the occasional camera. The crystal sword was a great weapon.
      • Yep, that's the way I do it - only use the guns for cameras or the egg pods. I ramp up strength and agility and use the wrench, followed by the laser rapier. Once you get in close enough, a couple of hits will take out most monsters.

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