I'm worried about the System Shock remake...
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I should have probably made a comment about my thoughts on the full game post-release somewhere other than Twitter.
In short, I didn't like it. Despite the overall consensus seeming to be that it was a great remake and game. I can see why people are saying that - in truth, very few people have played the original despite it truly being a magnificent game. What the original does well - the levels and map design, SHODAN, the art and atmosphere, story etc., is mostly present in the remake. The map layout is an almost 1-1 copy, for example.
That means for anyone new to the original, it's fresh, interesting, and a lot more challenging and respectful to the player's intellect than a lot of similar modern titles. However, I can't credit the remake with what was copied wholesale from the original. I can't claim it's great because SHODAN is such a great villain or the levels are so intricate and fun. That wasn't NightDive Studio's doing.
Most of the fears I outlined in the video were present or worse - the art design was overstimulating and the visual clutter was immense. The melee combat remained unchanged from the demo years prior and was clunky and unresponsive. The enemy AI - the one thing that needed to be modernised more than anything else - was horrendous; I'd attack and shoot enemies point blank in the face and they wouldn't respond. The music was unmemorable and considerably worse than the original, a game that released in 1994 on floppy disk. The sound mixing was atrocious and dialogue was stifled underneath the action music that would start and stop almost at random regardless of when combat began. Cyberspace was ridiculously easy and a chore; fundamentally unimproved from the original which was arguably one of its worst elements.
I had mixed thoughts about the new gameplay additions - primarily the ability to buy weapons with currency obtained from scrapping random objects. Ultimately, it slowed the gameplay down considerably by forcing you to pick up every useless individual item to scrap.
The caveat I'll add is that I played the game at launch and supposedly a lot of these critiques have been addressed and patched. I haven't replayed it to confirm, but these are my impressions from the full release.
I replay System Shock every year as tradition and I was hoping the remake would be the new standard - it wasn't. In my opinion, it didn't supersede the 1994 original in either fun or creativity. However, as stated earlier, I can fully see why people liked it; especially if you're not familiar with the original because it retains the skeleton of what made it so fun. I know some general responses will be that I'm a cynical purist who never had any intention of enjoying myself; for context, I really enjoyed the RE4 and Dead Space remakes this year. I genuinely wanted it to be the same with this.
>art design was overstimulating
This game has one of the most unique and creative art designs I have ever seen. It stayed true to the 90s aesthetics and the pixelation when you zoom in on things was such a neat touch. 10/10 for the art design.
>visual clutter was a mess
This time around the coffee mugs and office junk are actually useful as they are a part of the game's economy. Some more clutter was added here and there but I never felt overwhelmed by it, nor did I ever think it was a "visual mess." Seems a bit of an overstatement.
>melee combat was clunky and unresponsive
The lead pipe and wrench were a bit clunky but far from unresponsive. Even in the clip you showed of the spider maintenance bot the melee combat looked and sounded pretty good. And the laser rapier feels very satisfying on lower-level enemies as it completely shreds and gibs them to bloodied bits and pieces.
>enemy A.I.
Not the most sophisticated enemy A.I. in an FPS, but in dungeon crawlers like this it's more about the encounter design than individual enemy AI, so that really shouldn't diminish the experience at all. In a dungeon crawler all you truly need is a dormant state and an alert state and for the enemies to move in for attack when and where the level designers choose to place the ambush. Thats all I expected from the enemies in this game and it was fine in this regard. I suppose you encountered a few bugs here and there with the enemy scripting, but thats certainly the exception and not the rule.
>the music was unmemorable and considerably worse than the original
Hard disagree. A handful of songs from the original were ok, the rest were irritating at best. I'm the type to turn off the music in the enhanced edition to make it more atmospheric. And while some songs from the original were good, they really didn't fit the game tonally - You're a hacker who wakes up to find everyone in the station is either dead or horrifically mutilated by a rogue AI SHODAN. That seems like a gruesome and spooky plot, but then theres a tonal dissonance with music - particularly the medical track - overlayed with its uppity and jovial tone. Am I supposed to be immersed in the harrowing audiologs of crew mates fighting for their lives and being assimilated over those wonky synth beats? It totally detracted from the atmosphere, while the ambient tracks in the remake actually enhanced the atmosphere.
>the sound mixing was atrocious
Another hard disagree. I simply prefer the sound mixing of the remake over the tone-deaf music of the original. And you can always relisten to the audiologs when the action music dies down, whereas in the original you always have the same uppity music playing over the audiologs constantly.
>cyberspace was ridiculously easy and a chore
Yes. I like the concept of cyberspace in the original and the remake, but I wish they allowed you to bypass them with logic probes. I had like 10 probes by the end of the game and dreaded every terminal I saw.
>mixed thoughts about the new gameplay additions
Again the useless clutter from the original being turned into a game economy to buy health, ammo and upgrades is a welcomed addition. Could they have made it a bit more efficient to recycle things? Sure, but at the end of the day it's completely optional and in no way impedes you from progressing if you choose to ignore the weapon upgrades. Nobody "forced" you to recycle anything.
>i played the game at launch
The game worked great at launch. Maybe the pipe feels a bit better now but honestly the pipe is obsolete halfway through medical anyway. Maybe try giving it another go with the patches and updates?
>i'm a cynical purist who never had any intention of enjoying myself
Well you have been playing the original as an annual tradition for who knows how many years now, so at this point its safe to assume you are biased in favor of the original. I first played the enhanced edition 2 years ago and I absolutely love it - more so than system shock 2. I put 60 hours into the game on steam and beat it probably 3 or 4 times by now. But without question the SS remake replaced the enhanced edition for me, as I find it better in every measurable way to its predecessor.
>the remake didn't supersede the original in fun or creativity
That statement would be intellectually dishonest at best, since 1.) the combat and gore effects are far superior, 2.) the upgrade hunting adds a fun and refreshing new dimension to the gameplay, and 3.) the new puzzles were just as challenging - if not more challenging - while being far more immersive than the original puzzles. And in terms of originality the zoomed-in pixelated art direction was a tremendously creative and under-appreciated artistic decision.
I think you are clearly a system shock grognard who has grown attached to the original.
@@TH-camPremiumDude So because it's got pixels when you zoom in? Why do you need to have any sort of economy when you're on the clock and need to stop SHODAN and shouldn't be fumbling around buying stuff? Nah being a grognard is based and boomerpilled and I fully support it.
Perhaps the hardest cope of all youtube comments@@TH-camPremiumDude
@@sneed890
>because its got pixels when you zoom in
Yes.
>why do you need any sort of economy
I dont "need" anything, but recycling junk for money/resources makes redundant items useful.
>you're on the clock trying to stop SHODAN
Oh nooooooo
I got almost nothing form the remake. I think Nightdive are out there doing god's work and I'm happy their remake got so much praise. That said, I won't play it myself. It might even just be the music, but it has nowhere near the soul of the original. I played the demo and I watched a friend's stream of him playing it and it just isn't for me. It seems to hit precisely the wrong balance of old and new to just switch me off completely. I'm happy to be a minority in that opinion
Glad to see you're still at it, mate. There aren't a lot of TH-camrs that focus on this particular subgenre of old school PC gaming.
check out civvie he is very good!
The environmental readability problem due to the lighting and general clutter is a problem in so many modern games. I had thought NightDive, given their focus on old games, might have noticed the ways in which the simpler geometry and bolder colors of the original System Shock games made their environments easy to understand and interact with, but I guess not. It's really a shame.
There are so many issues with gameplay: the poor hit feedback and lame sound effects on weapons, the AI that do nothing but walk at you and shoot like they did in 1994, the stiff movement (no way are they adding rocket skates to these cluttered environments), the inventory management that's somehow worse than the original (you rotate an item by clicking an option in a dropdown menu which autosorts it into the nearest available spot, they don't just let you drag and rotate it freely), the grid and wire puzzles that are way more confusing and at the same time less deep than the originals, the recycling system and credit economy that are really poorly considered in terms of balance, tedium, and just the general idea that there would be ammo vending machines on Citadel Station (in SS2 the replicators were all hacked to fabricate ammo from nanites).
The aesthetics and tone are all off too. Where the original was vibrant 80's cyberpunk with techno-industrial tunes, the remake is dark with generic ambient loops, but the goofy elements which had a place in the original stop it from being genuinely spooky. The boxy look of everything combined with the unfiltered textures (which I usually like in old games, but not here) makes everything look like it's made of legos.
If you ask me, the best philosophy for a remake of System Shock wouldn't have treated the level layouts and simplistic AI behaviors as absolutely sacred while junking the systems and style of the original, but would have instead leaned into the original's campy mania, embraced its joyful speed and sleekness, and crafted new interpretations of the environments that would serve your ascension to augmented hacker-warrior godhood as you zip around on rocket skates and slice enemies to bits with your laser rapier.
Select the item in your inventory and press R and it will rotate.
The reality is that Stephen Kick (if you couldn't tell from the earrings) is a hipster who deals in a retro gaming aesthetic even though he never played most of these games on release. He vies for the attentions of people who actually did because it's become a cottage industry for him to use Sam Villarreal's KEX engine to re-sell these games to them. It's pretty simple: scour the internet (let's say myabandonware, abandonia, GOG et al.) for properties that have fallen between the cracks, get your legal guy to grab the rights on discount, pretend you were always a big fan of Cyber Butt Raiders 1993 like the 73 other people that played it even though you didn't even play Quake when it came out, flip it on KEX, sell, the end.
That said, he isn't exactly going to be understanding of what made these games work originally. He's basically like if Uwe Boll actually counted on people thinking he liked the games he licensed.
@@thetwistedtree9543 this is the most insanely deluded commemt ive ever seen in my life
I'm just as worried, man, for most of the same reasons. I feel like every room was made by a different person and every person was told that their room was the most important room in the game.
At least they look much more complex and believable. Environment is much more interesting because of this.
@Steven Hunt You're not going to win the "which one is more believable" argument. The levels have been reworked to look like people actually live and work in them, rather than a bunch of barren square rooms.
@Steven Hunt But now hospital is conducted by who? Full light is not needed for cyborgs. I just feel that more complexed and artistically enhanced design attract visuals detaching attention from less than stellar graphics quality. I guess that for some people more darker environment would be a problem (I like atmosphere than cranked up brightness to point where black is grey ) but rooms are diverge from each other (what is good as many times in games with similar environment everything have same colors and looks alike ).
I mean to me it all felt connected
@@rokuzzoone5495 I mean in terms of believability they feel more similar than different
I miss you, ARH! 🥺
It’s almost Halloween again & would love to celebrate it with a new video from you. 👀
I tweeted recently about playing the System Shock remake demo. There was a lot to enjoy but ultimately I'm really worried. I made a quick, shoddy 6 minute video to list some of the things that concerned me. I spent months tweeting my concerns with Cyberpunk 2077 before release and wish I had put it in a video for posterity. I can't help but feel Nightdive Studios have struggled to work out what they wanted to do with the remake. I'm hoping I'm completely wrong.
Proper video soon-ish (no ETA). The mystery game is recorded and the intro is completed.
And yes, it'll be another weird 90s point-and-click adventure game that nobody could ever guess or has ever heard of.
I'm worried too brother, I'm worried too... And where I in the state I was a while ago I would list all the reasons why,.. I've been worried and ever since they released a successive series of demos that never had properly configurable settings.. although when they decided to just ghost everybody and do everything through the private discord so it genuinely looked like a scam especially to everybody on steam or GOG, somehow probably slipping their mind that anybody searching for information from the outside web doesn't have access to the private discord LOL..
I think what worries me the most though, they made or seemingly made the closest thing to system shock 2 that we've seen since.. I mean ever really, I think Doom 3 was probably closer to system shock then Bioshock ever was.. and prey... I mean that was just something else entirely, and I don't mean that as a negative.. they did the thing, but they also.. like I want this to exist outside of this tiny little bubble that has grown increasingly mixed up with the grease that it set to separate itself from.. and time and time again we've seen from the very creators this idea that set pieces and mechanical restrictions are positive despite that they strip the idea of an immersive Sim to more of a label which shines only in the contrast of knowing what used to be or could be or maybe might...
But there is a whole thing where you have 15 17 years of separation, and an entire generation of people that have grown up with the contextual QuickTime event with extra steps as a a gameplay Norm.. the idea of figuring things out isn't a feature anymore it's considered poor design.. and if you're ever going to do anything to try to get people into that, you can't just start from medium because the thing that you're paying tribute to came from a time when that was a feature.. there were several things that they needed to do in order to make this palatable, and none of it would have actually really hurt any of the core.. we live in an age where if there aren't key prompts on the screen people genuinely will not understand the controls, like the idea of the options menu doesn't even exist and honestly as far as night dive goes that might not be far from their thought process as well considering this is the first release that it almost kind of sort of worked like a menu..
Thngs like jump crouching, not even in the conceptual much less the muscle memory.. and at every step of the way what they've shown so far is functional, but rough to its core where if you genuinely didn't know any better, you would think that that wasn't an option.. a melee that has been complained about since the start, well functional and serviceable it's simple and frustrating on account of inconsistent feedback.. platforming that requires physics objects that launch you in the air, and yet when you try to move them again they might be a thousand pounds.. and I get the idea of streamlining but in this case they've gone in a way where rather than adding a layer of complexity to bring the original vision from a game where you could genuinely pick up stuff just just cuz LOL.. and now we're back to Doom 3s desperate pushing of a physics object that defies gravity and how light it is but also defies King Arthur and how it cannot be moved..
You have limited inventory, and the need to recycle junk, easy enough to figure out but nothing really points to it.. it's not that the game is hands off, it's that it challenges you to be Hands-On with its mechanics, while if anybody that didn't come from the era would look at this as a red flag that you're not supposed to be Hands-On..
My biggest worry is that it's just going to fade into a niche because of some really simple basic modernizations that again would not have broken or changed the game, and instead they simplified it further.. and by doing so made it more obtuse..
My Hope is that just for my own sake the level of interaction and agency is just gatekeeped, but.. I mean even though as it stands mechanically it's still more than most, and fits everything that I need out of a shooter which is very rare, actually exceptionally rare.. your core ability to interact with the world in a game that was designed around interacting with the world is not only severely diminished from the more overcomplicated, but it added and its own layer of complication in trying to be simple..
I really hope things are better and even if this is as it is and we end up playing the exact same levels with the systems that are shown in the demo it will still be a good time for me, I have a stupid 40 hours in this demo.. I've been waiting for it for years, and this was the first version I could play because I could actually change my settings finally.. even if I still have to r rebind my keys every time I start the program up, and run an auto hotkey script for keys that still can't be bound... Which is the bare minimum thus far LOL that they did not have in any previous demo.. so I'm okay.. I just really wanted this to actually inspire something, and kids these days don't even process this kind of thing.. all of the simplifications have added layers of complexity that they don't understand and I mean we're talking about an entire generation of kids that have grown up with the game basically playing for you.. from what I've seen of people checking out the demo, half of them don't even get 20 minutes, they don't want to have a game to figure out at least on its basic level.. and while I don't mind and I also don't have to figure out cuz I'm from the generation where this was kind of more normal.. I mean maybe there is a similarity to prey in that right off the bat it's it's challenging your ability to process any good that it could be with stupid things that you think they would have fixed 6 years ago.. it's the spiritual I guess equivalent of the pistol that was pointing to the left corner of the screen and assuming that you would assume that it was going to go center.. that level of stupid why did you do it this way when there was no reason.
I'm hoping if you aren't completely wrong, this becomes your backstory for your supervillain arc.
I'll tell you what they WANTED to do - they wanted to take that money from the original fans like you and me, and put out an awesome looking concept made in Unity that I couldn't believe how amazing they had done, then did a sly bait and switch to move to Unreal (cos we all know the framerate the PS4/Xb360 gets with Unity games) and - once caught - the project ALMOST ended then and there. But by a miracle, it was saved - but not in a good way. The focus was still obviously for the consoles first, otherwise they'd have gone back to Unity. Ironically, the new consoles could easily do the Unity version at a decent pace, with their RDNA based graphics units, and it could have been heavily downgraded for the last gen consoles to hit 30fps, even if they had to 720p lowest settings. So, in the chaos that followed, they basically forgot the most basic things - or the best talent got fed up and quit - and we ended up with something neither here, nor there.
Damn shame.
Turned out great in the end
Happy to see ya back
I was always wondering why the combat seemed like it was lacking so much impact and after this video I realized it was the sound.
I pray the devs see this and take your advice.
Ohhhh boy, this showcases everything I was worried would happen in the remake :( Especially the graphics… they are impressive but I can’t make out anything on screen!
Because it's covered in digital camo for the sake of appealing to people who can't remember a year prior to 2007
@@thetwistedtree9543 Yeah, it’s sad. Not everything needs to look so glossy and “edgy” for lack of a better word lol. I have the same issues with the modern Star Trek shows.
The example he gave of the first room in the original seems to have what is meant to look like benches with glowing surfaces, like the ones in ten forward on Star Trek TNG; with the help of modern lighting engines that could have looked very cool and futuristic while still making it very easy to make out items on the surfaces even if the rest of the environment had been kept relatively dark and ambient.
@@GillfigGarstang Star Trek isn’t just aesthetically pleasing, it’s also comprehensible. Wish more modern sci-fi took inspiration from that haha.
Fellow backer here! I haven't had a chance yet to touch the beta, but this does touch on a few concerns I had during the development. I plan on really pushing the feedback system, and I really hope they listen.
Play it for yourself. I didn't have these concerns when playing the beta.
@@VindensSaga I did. Pretty much all of them he mentioned.
just discovered this gem of a channel. cant wait to see what youve got next.
Im worried about @ARealHuman you haven't made a video in over a year. I just subscribed because i absolutely love your videos on goofy pc games. Hopefully your doing well tho thats just the big concern.
He was completely buck-broken by the System Shock remake being actually good.
He seems to be posting a bit on Twitter, mostly about older games and a book about point and click games, as recently as yesterday.
DUDE! I'm so glad you uploaded again! I actually only found out about the remake because I was checking out your twitter to see if you were still active - and I really enjoyed it. Can't wait for the next video!
I am not worried. I know they'll fuck it up.
If they don't, a happy surprise.
No expectation leaves no room for disappointment mate.
Same, my expectation is that it will be as good as a game delayed 7 times can be, designed by people who would fabricate a narrative for investment.
Finally, I'm not alone in this world!
Yes I concur to every point, that you make in this video. I can add some more - they were obsessed with blue, so this colour is so overwhelming, that it hurts. HUD - is it just me, or it blends with things around, making it impossible to see.
It's apparently been pushed back a couple of months. I hope some of the problems you pointed out are addressed
I truly hope the recent comments haven't discouraged you. I genuinely enjoy your content and would be very joyed to have you back.
Holy shit just found this channel this week and the drowned god video and I have no mouth but i must scream were two of the e greatest videos of all time, I was pretty sad when I saw the channel was dead, but now I’m glad you’re back!
I also agree with how stupidly over engineered the remake is. I got the 2022 demo and I'm a veteran of FPS games, been smashing them all on the hardest settings since the days of Wolfenstein 3D. I have a great rig, a 4K monitor, I was ready to go. And after 25 minutes, I had no idea where the fuck I was, how to get back to where I had been to see what I had obviously missed, and what to even look for once I got there. Sure the game was pretty, but the design was pretty much mental. I envisioned starting again, going slower, crawl pace if needed, but where is the "fun" in that? Then I envisioned using TH-cam to guide me through, and that's even worse. Finally I envisioned running around for hours until I had totally adpated to the map and just man it out until I figured it out - but then I remembered how huge the game is.
Again, Unity build 2017, was pretty much perfect. A balance of superb new skin, over original premise. What we have now is a total LSD induced clusterfuck, with some of the most basic things from an FPS (gunplay, hit feedback, uniformity) totally missing.
Happy holidays, ARH! excited to see the next video from you ❤
MandaloreGaming said it best in his 2nd most recent video on the Dead Space Remake when he was talking about redesigning of the ship in Remake and redesigning of the library level in Halo CE Anniversary.
"One of my worries going in was that the environments would have that Halo CE Anniversary Effect. You know where they saw all those brutal surfaces and decided they needed to be greebled up by Alienware."
Somebody really wanted to make Citadel Station look like a future place so they decided to just put light panels and things that turn on and off really quickly,, some lights that go ZOOM, some lights that go slooooow, maybe some lights that go up and down the wall because future teehee.
On the bright side, the Citadel doctors would never be out of a job, having to deal with the constant influx of employees with migraines, seizures, eye strain, light sensitivity, sleep problems, etc. It'd be a damn nightmare working in that neverending laserlight party :/
5:30 oh hey you've also got the "faceless Diego" bug!
Seriously though, at first I thought you were perhaps a bit exaggerating, but the more I heard your arguments, the more I started nodding my head. Don't get me wrong I loved the demo and I'm thrilled to see the rest of the game, but I have to agree with you on some of the issues here.
Also holy shit you're alive that's so good
I think a good chunk of the issues can be fixed with mods, but it's unfortunate that we have to rely on the community to fix the game rather than delivering a great product out of the box.
True, the ethics constraints files would have been hidden in a low level operating system directory which would be heavily locked down to prevent tampering. It likely would have been a hardcoded module that had no user config options. After all, this is not something you would want to allow users to mess with. You would ideally have to go in and delete files to disable them.
Im quite clueless on coding and general IT, but according to the system shock wiki on SHODAN, "As the Hacker couldn't alter the defense logic program at RTF address 236, he diverted the function call to a non-existent program. The error sequencing created a blank memory block, where he added a self-looping routine that bypassed normal security operations and wrote new call routines within the logistic banks..."
@@Cotac_Rastic meaning it was hardcoded. So you had to work around it.
Very glad to see this vid! System Shock Remake seems to have had a strangely turbulent development, but this is the first I’ve actually seen of it. It looks really really visually busy. I have hope for the game, but it does look like it’ll be rather rough if it ends up the way it appears it’s going to.
Always a treat to see one of your vids in my sub box. I hope you’re doing well!
They delayed it again and after first demo they took feedback to heart, so first time in years i am still optimistic for "new" release.
Edit. NVM atari brand holder bought them out, luckily we still have the original and Enhanced edition at least until atari pulls it down for remake releaase.
In the hacking sequence you can see him do some hacking before getting to the menu where there is a shut off button
I played the demo a few years ago. After playing SS2 I was excited! I spent a hour and gave up. I got stuck. I had no idea where to go, what to press, anything! Your first point is my biggest point. Theres so much on the screen you dont know what is or isnt important
Glad to see you posting again. Big fan of your work!
This is why I sincerely hope Nightdive Studios won’t remake SYSTEM SHOCK 2 and just put out that remastered version with updated mods (they probably can’t remake it anyway due to the rights to the game being in gray territory).
I completely agree with everything. The game is somehow at once both too dark and too bright at the same time. The art/design team clearly don't pay enough of attention to how light attracts the eye, and you're supposed to use that as a tool to shift the focus of your viewer/player. Instead, there's incredibly bright neon lights *everywhere*, most of which are just as attention grabbing -- or even more so -- than items you are supposed to interact with.
There's a ton of other problems. I know the intention after their reassessment of the remake was to do a "faithful" remake rather than a reinterpretation, as they originally pitched to the backers, but I think the map design is completely terrible. It's disorienting, nonsensical, and just kind of not fun. You find what looks like a secret narrow path leading under a walkway -- what could be there? You follow it down a winding corridor to a single enemy and a basically worthless health item on the ground. Why? How is that even remotely good design?
I would have never backed this knowing what it would become, as it's not longer what they promised. Oh well -- money spent and lesson learned.
"The game is somehow at once both too dark and too bright at the same time." The term you're looking for is "high-contrast".
It's the same issue as the Master Chief collection. New technology, shinier graphics, but at the cost of the original design intent of the game designer.
Stumbled onto your channel through your Drowned God review. Subscribed right away!
Did you die?
Noooooooooo!
Wooo! Glad to see you are alive, I don't use other social media so I never see your tweets or posts. TH-cam is my only link.
Can't wait for the upcoming video you mentioned!
Bro aren't you making any new video?
While there's a *couple* things I agree with, like the feedback on the hits with weapons and how the Hacker disabled the ethical constraints in the remake vs the original, I actually really *like* the remakes layout making possible for even a *veteran* of the original to get lost because it helps with the feeling of *dread*; you could go *anywhere* in Citadel Station just trying to find your way and at *any* point you could run into some sorta threat, and you *know* this the whole time, and're *dreading* it; and the lights being switched on barely giving you *any* light *also* helps with that. And the animation for using each of the stims stops players from just *spamming* them in the middle of a fight, which ups the tension even *more*.
And the *best* change was the *removal* of that weird music from the original that *killed* the feeling of dread you were supposed to experience.
As for the few things I *do* in fact agree on, the remake has a huge *advantage* over the original in that it can be *patched post launch* .
I hate how some game developers seem to think if it looks more real it's automatically "better"
"wasting time"
modern games in a nutshell, time wasting doing things that dont freaking matter , grinding exploring identical dungeons and trying to make sense of the environment.
"lighting busted"
has been for quite a while since they downgraded the game so it doesnt run like utter trash, my pc was unable to run the game before the downgrade. Its so badly optimized.
"areas seem too detailed with too many effects going on"
modern remakes in a nutshell, look at resident evil 4 remake, its too dark, way too many dark lights and shadows, this obsession with realism has made games ugly, objectively speaking the psx tomb raider games had better environments than the last 3 that every "tomb" is a boring dark cave you have to squish through a hole in some rocks.
"you could remember the old areas from memory now they are too confusing"
Old game had simple level design and architecture, far less objects so simple areas stayed in memory easily, if someone was to remake e1m1 from doom, it would not be memorable without telling most people that this is what its suppose to be.
"healing animation takes forever"
Yeah they should have ditched the slow healing time to make up for the animation being this long.
"it releases this month"
Or does it? Yeah its either gonna get delayed of be a mess on release.
old system shock: colorful af
remake: blue
They forgot other colors exist
this game has been in development for like 10 years at this point
I agree with you on everything, when it comes to the design of the levels they look cool but it's like the FOV was set too low, and there's a little too much lights everywhere, it's like you were playing a Tron game. But still excited for the remake... just hoping it won't suck.
man the old one is still scary as sh to me
you’ve gotta come back!! I miss your uploads and your voice always sends me to sleep .. please come back dude !😊
I go through both games and I think that they should be perceived a little separately from each other
glad you are back
You know it’s rough when you have to come out of hibernation and make a video on it
They need turn down the light brightness.
Never got around to play the original, so I'm a total newbie to this game. I went through the whole demo without finding the mapping tool or any weapon besides the energy sidearm. It was painful.
thats literally your fault for not exploring lmao
@@gozutheDJ "Exploring." The mapping utility is in the first closet that you literally have to go through to get out of the starting room. The fact that this guy wasn't onboarded to that confirms the truth that you (for some reason) find so uncomfortable: that objects are difficult to locate and distinguish in this game, even when they're right in front of you. In the other comment we went over how you yourself didn't even see or read the Honig log during your "exploration" that would have told you what to do in the level.
@@thetwistedtree9543 except i found it in 20 seconds having never played the original either.
The SHODAN hacking is like the evil Krusty doll from Treehouse of Horror - you just switch her to "EVIL". I'm not feeling the new version of Diego, either. The guy in the original was a classic corporate toad ("Investigate me, Rebecca! Investigate MY BUTT!") and now he's like some kind of British-accented Bond villain with a personal goon squad?
I tried the demo and really disliked almost every aspect of it. The lack of feeing combat, the clutter in the rooms and the overall design aesthetic just made me feel ill. I am sorry to say, as I was a massive fan of thus and number 2 back in the day, but it's a firm "nope".
I won't be able to play the remake due to not having the hardware for it, but I see what you're saying. With everything on the walls and even items lit up, there's a lack of signposting and some level of sensory overload. The melee weapons don't sound impactful and the feedback is miniscule, while there's nothing to indicate that an enemy has been hit or has taken damage (not even sparks flying and a ping sound if you hit metal on a cyborg or robot). And the hacking scene in the remake doesn't look very hacker-like either, it looks like you're resetting the modem/router for an elderly person.
I don't think I'm all that worried about how they're going to do the story in the remake, but the gameplay and visuals are slightly concerning when it comes to feedback and sensory input.
For what it's worth the remake runs really good, not that you'd be able to like verify any of that because the settings menu still doesn't work.. but it does, and if they ever get that settings menu to work LOL, this is the closest they've come in like six demo releases or something.. it should be easily scalable.. I mean it never really ran poorly even years ago on the unity build.. but yeah performances definitely not going to be an issue, you could probably get away with integrated graphics and still hit 60 without having to mess with much.
Great to see you back again.
Luove your videos and commentary!
The backer build has a lot of questionable issues for how close to release the game supposedly is.
Hi! Don’t know if you will see this but I recently discovered your channel and have watched a few of your videos (Blade Runner, Harvester, Dark Seed, Bad Mojo, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream) and you make great content! I see you haven’t made a video in a few months so hope you’re doing good and make a return one day!
Would be cool to see you cover games like Phantasmagoria 1&2, Black Dhalia, Ripper, Gabriel Knight series & the Tex Murphy series someday.
My take on the options that are available in Diego's computer is after the hacker changes some arrays of bytes before accessing said menu. Who said the options were available before? By changing the arrays, the hacker forced his access to the ethical constraints or created his own custom way access to them. :)
I am much like you in that I play system shock at least once a year, and I've been doing it since 2015. I know the maps like the back of my hand (except engineering, which I will never figure out) I've even completed a Flechette+Pipe+Grenade only run.
I‘m also a backer. So far I have to second your concerns. The interface is still not perfect. I‘m missing the original Intro and music. I feel like F and right mouse are kind of redundant (or could be)….and so on. But my biggest concern are the visuals. It looks way to vibrant and colorful and at the same time it is to dark.
I dunno if it’s because it’s 5:30am here and I’m sleepy, but trying to watch the remake footage bothers my eyes. I can’t focus on it. Also, the feedback on your melee and guns is non existent. I couldn’t even tell you were hitting those mutants with your wrench.
It seems like there’s still some work that needs to be done. They’re dreaming if they think it’ll release in March. I betcha it’ll get delayed a few more months. Hoping anyway.
hope you are doing alright. your videos are great.
As a new player the only thing i agree with is the weapon impact. I personally like environments to feel lived in and after a few rooms, you can easily identify and remember what is junk. Also the scene at the beginning, the hacker inputs code before what you showed and then gets access to the controls. I agree the old one looks less approachable and thus seems like only a hacker can do it, but there was more to it. As for the light switches i observed the same issue in the old vs original. Can barely tell the difference in either. Just assumed the lights were broken
Similar to the original, he's hacking TriOptimum in the beginning and gets caught. Diego takes him to Citadel Station to remove SHODAN's ethical constraints. That's when, in the remake, he just logs on with Diego's log on details and presses the off switch. Makes no logical sense. Why couldn't Diego or anyone else have done that himself?
In the original, he hacks SHODAN's ethical constraints and removes them. In the remake, he presses an off switch.
@@ARealHuman I just watched in again. After pitting Diego’s login, the hacker runs a program. A list of encryption keys runs down the screen. The hacker enters something which (i think) submits the correct ones. This is a more realistic take on current hacking of network security. Unfortunately as you know of it isnt as cool looking as the movie hackers. Ounce the hacker gets past the encryption they then have access to the controls. This would indicate that the hacker used Diegos likely high level login, but needed more access to be granted permission to toggle those off. They prob could have made a little more of a show of it to avoid confusion and look more impressive but there it is. Real hacking looks boring to most.
@Steven Hunt Kinda moving the goal post buddy. If you need in an emergency a computer, machine, or AI to do something, you will have switch for whatever may prevent it. Including whatever laws or morality you have programmed it for. You wouldnt give this power to one persons decision. Hence the hacker. You flip flop from this game having too much detail to now not enough. I demonstrated that the hacker didnt just “login and flip a switch” Its not “headcanon” It happened right on the screen.
Nice video awesome to see you got another coming up. Good job and thanks.
this summed up pretty much all my worries about the remake. I don't mind going for a slower paced game, for example needing to use the patches before/after a fight instead of during because the animation, but everything else I agree with.
It's like the melee has a good Ray cast, and I'm glad that they did it that way.. that's what all melee should be.. but it's almost like there's a graph plotted for the trace, and it doesn't follow the animation.. and it's fine enough when you hit something and hitting things that are meant to be hit, seems great.. but then if you hit a wall there's no corresponding animation you just instantly recoil and go into a close pose.. swing canceled, you.. may have missed the swing part.. but you definitely realize the canceled part, it's the loudest sound in the game LOL and you can even see where you missed because you can see where your swing would have been from the giant glowing hole.. which kind of fundamentally defies the idea of raycast melee.. you're supposed to be able to correct in the swing in order to land it, but it already calculates that you've missed, so it's like it almost feels like a hybrid where it it's feedback system is raycast but it's actual hit system is grid based hitscan.. this is like something that they've been told they needed to get right since ever.. and it's it's almost identical if not works then what it was in the unity build..
This are valid concerns I never played system shock back in the day so I was looking forward to play the remake
I am sure it won't be a good remake it's already going to be a dead game on release. It's just to cheaply made as if it was done by students' who just made a project and learning to be game developers within a company who are training them for future projet.This game should run maxed out on a 1080ti in 1440p just going by the bad visuals but i bet it won't and would need something like a 3080 LOL How much £34.99 there having a laugh you can get a doom eternal for £11.54 right now on steam and that game is £34.99 System shock remake should be no more than £10 and that's still to much for £10 there are far better games to buy now
The game actually does run half-decently on a 1080 on max settings, but mainly because it looks like it came from the first half of last decade.
@@thetwistedtree9543 I had unreal tournament 3 black edition running on a 1080 ti with 30 bots running all at once and left4dead 1and 2 at 2560x1600 all maxed out with no stuttering slow down back in the day and the visuals still look better than system shock remastered and they are a far better game to play if you like that type off game play. system shock remastered looks like it was made at the times when l4d games was made back in 2008 and 2009. It's just a very poor looking made remaster game for 2023 and that price tag the want for it well that soon will come down after a few weeks to half that. Night dive studios couldn't even do a good job of remastering the n64 doom even the CE version of n64 doom looks better and with mouse look added with gzdoom. Night dive couldn't even add that in as an option for modern gamers and they was asking for it why no mouse look up and down. It wouldn't of broken the feel of the game in fact it would of added more immersion to it and if you didn't want it just turn it off.
I mean, part of the complaints of the readability and simplicity being gone is almost just part of trying to make a space believable and lived in. Comparatively, I play a lot of games where I spend more time than I'd like scowering each room for necessary items. And honestly, as easy as the spaces are to see at a glance, they were also harsh, overly brightly colored, and the lighting wasn't as easy to implement realistically... I love the original, but if you want what the original had, play the original.
Not many people can actually get into the original, and we're always going to harshly compare a remake or sequel or whatever it may be to the original work we enjoy. And no, the Remake is not going to be the original. But isn't that the entire point? I'm all for readable items, enemies, and sounds... The lighting and the sfx complaints are valid. But the level of impressive detail and atmosphere they've attempted to give the world of the original system shock will hopefully bring more people to the games to enjoy the experience they offer... We can only hope the end result experience still has the same effect.
The animation of healing I actually like. It gives a challenge during combat.
@Steven Hunt true. But adding an animation just adds immersion. And makes it slightly more challenging.
I personally do not find the game much good looking either…
Did They also changed the mutant to be more zombie-like?
In any case, the game is showing a lot of the problems “hd-devs” shove in games when creating a game from scratch…
I don't like inventory limit and it is main dislike about remake - hundreds of items and we must decide what we should or shouldn't pickup. Less important flaw than this is graphics. I don't like stylized graphics (at close range everything is pixelated in demo ) and apart from that it is nowhere near other games on UE4. It rather looks like game max from ~2010. But I guess it is enough when we compare this to original.
I agree about the lighting the cutscenes and especially the melee. I really hope the camera effect and the audio get sorted before release as it it is now the melee is piss poor but i have to disagree with some complaints. the extra stuff in the environment is fine it makes more sense for junk to be lay around. The item animations do slow things down but at the same time it is a remake not simply a graphical update and personally i like the lean into a more immersive experience. The having to think when is the safe time to use items instead of just popping them mid fight is a welcome change to me but i get people who want a more shooter vibe would prefer no animation.
i think my take away is im looking forward to a more cautious immersive experience over simply running and gunning. Sure this will change the gameplay up from the original but at the same time the enhanced edition exists to cover that area. It is a remake not a graphical overhaul. That said im still not sold on it and hope they manage to remedy these issues and i would love to see an option for item animations that way its a player choice and keeps both parties happy. i feel that having more options in games just in general is the best way to approach possibly dividing tastes
Everything you said i picked up on in playing the 2023 demo for 30 minutes....
No audio feedback from your weapons is particularly annoying, the fight sequences just seemed so disconnected - i have no idea if i've made a hit or not.
Just like you - I'm entering rooms and scanning over dozen's of items of junk, just to see if 'junk' is in brackets on the item description.
There's some noticeable low res textures mixed with the high res ones, that i find a bit jarring.
The hack movie sequence had me cringing too....nice toggles to turn off Shodan's ethical constraints - i mean, come on!
I also miss the awesome action music from the original!
Reminds me of Deus Ex Mankind Divided. It felt like I was constantly digging through people’s junk scouring for items I didn’t need. I hate that ‘busy’ looking level design. Keep it simple, easy on the eyes.
I’m going to be devils advocate. This is a game about exploring an exotic spaceship possessed by a psychotic artificial intelligence. I think being disoriented and panicked because of the setting is part of the design. The new gameplay slows the game but also intensifies it and the strange blend of old and new art styles is perfectly surreal.
The combat needs to be improved though for sure!
Still alive I see, great :D
I totally agree with enemies show no damage at all, but with rest...I wait until I play it.
It kinda seems like the SS remake could use a Deus Ex HR styled interactable object highlighter.
yeah learn from how other devs updated their immersive sims to modern graphics
Cool to see you are still alive. I think you should check out the fear and hunger games. I think they are fitting for the type of videos you make. And if you want to play something more obscure check out martian gothic. And do not worry to much abot the System Shock remake, even if it's we will always have the original.
I'm a new player so I have never played System Shock before the remake. I have played a bit System Shock 2 since getting into the Remake thing.
Some of these issues are player skill problem. You hear a meaty thud when you hit a fleshy target and you definitely do hear when you hit a robot your hear the thud too. The audio is there so no audio problem my problem is visual that if you hit a mutant with a pipe they make no motion or anything to protect themselves but keeps advancing - meaning there is no reaction being hit. Even in Quake 1 enemies will become staggered when hit.
Having things around which the player can't use (like crap items) is not a problem. It is just part of the scenery. Removing something out of your inventory or deleting it (vaporising) is not much of a huge deal.
Most of the issues you have come up with makes me think that it is not strange why games today are easy, boring, lacking in depths, lacking in difficulty or lacking in exploration. If you want games to be harder and be more like they were before you didn't prove it in this video, it sounds more like you want "easy" stuff. Coming off like you want hand-holding.
Well I hope the people of Looking Glass is a fan of your channel and see these issues.
You mean Night Dive Studios?
I fear that so close to release there isn't much to be done unless they push it back.
It's more likely that a flood of complaints will come in after release, and that we are going to have to wait if they can or even want to patch it.
But now the cameras turn off with additional animation, its worth all these years of waiting without any doubts!
Ok, but why is the kid from Peter Bjorn and John's Young Folks music video on every one of your thumbnails?
this made me laugh so hard at the end, REALLY! ?
there’s atmosphere and detail in the remake, the pace of the game is slower in general until you get to the combat. they want you to take it all in, you’re not supposed to just fly through it, they want you to hunt down the items and get immersed
feel what you’re saying about the consumables having longer animations but it feeds into a newer combat/gameplay loop. it doesn’t play the same as the original, having an overabundance of consumables you’ve collected won’t ensure you can just cheese everything (although i’m sure you’ll be able to anyway)
i’m surprised you didn’t mention the lighting downgrade compared to last years demo. that’s my concern. It’s less optimized and looks worse. It’s not in every area, but there are definitely some spots that look ugly and have lost their atmosphere compared to just the last build
From what I see, the game turned out okay, it made some fundemental hicups like the scrap system and having the maps still be daunting to both new and old players, and very slight flinching to enemies to know if you are dealing damage, ending cutscene was ok as well.
To each his own, but @0:40 I prefer the 'visual junk' over two blinking items. I don't want to be in and out of the room in 2 seconds. I want to be immersed and look carefully at my surroundings. I'm ok with missing out on a health pickup or ammo. We all know from experience that when you've played a game 50 times you're not really even looking at it any more and much of your brain is on auto-pilot. If we're talking a game-breaking critical item that requires pixel-hunting, then I completely agree that's bad design. For a point of comparison, I'm also someone who turns off the "highlight every interactable object" in Baldur's Gate 2.
I agree to an extent. I hate how many modern games highlight all the important switches and items as soon as you walk into a room, killing any interest I might have in wanting to explore an area or figure something out for myself. Although the SS remake has gone a little too far in the opposite direction, imo. There's a slight problem with the sheer number of junk items available to pick up in each room and how easy it is to miss an important item if it's wedged amongst the visual clutter. Towards the end of the demo there were a few audiologs that were easy to miss because they looked more like random non-interactable objects on the floor instead of important items that hold a door code or plot-relevant info. It's like there was no logic behind which items were made to look "important" and which items weren't. Random junk is often large and eye-catchingly highlighted for no reason, while actual important items feel like an afterthought in some rooms.
Life has changed so drastically for me from the time the last actual productive post the devs made for us that I am beginning to think the game doesn't really exist. It just baffles me. No real word from the devs really about anything new going on. If this game does come out I fear it is going to feel extremely dated because they aren't picking up the pace and hiring more folks.
I'm gonna be honest I thought you were being a bit dramatic with the negatives and everything, but man you were so right. So far I'm on my second run through the enhanced edition right after doing the first, and honestly the levels in the remake make the original feel like a cakewalk. All the greeble and crap everywhere has me so lost and in my playthrough I'm wondering if I missed some data sticks that I need. Overall the level design has been pretty frustrating even though it's very close to the original. The scrapping and inventory system sucks, cyberspace still sucks, but differently this time. It's so joever, hopefully there'll be plenty of mods to improve the game like I've said in my previous comment.
Looks good to me. The visual clutter is more what a lived in space would be. In my mind if you walk into a house and need to find useful things you'll be there a minute opening drawers, scrounging around and whatnot. This makes more sense than stripping down the surroundings so every item you see is useful.
I don't actually want to be in and out of every room, in the sense that I played so much of the first game It would be like ticking a list and being done with it. I'm glad it's going to be a newly but slightly familiar experience that I have to actually pay attention to.
I didn't back the project or anything but so far I really like what I'm seeing
@Steven Hunt Hard disagree. System Shock is about figuring out the station, looking for items and clues and indeed going "hmm ahh" when you find them and progress. Sure you will kill a bunch of enemies but it was a much slower paced game than other FPS, especially without WASD and mouse look, which is how we played it back then.
When it came out it was much slower, much scarier and much more methodical because of the structure and the control scheme, now you update the control scheme and graphical possibilities and it's going to have these same characteristics of being slower and methodical but for other, more modern reasons, which was the point of this remake.
Matter of fact it's downright ironic to read a post about a remake of SS in 2023 that mirrors any Doom vs SS usenet/mIRC argument from 1995. ie "Not enough killing and too much rummaging around."
What i didn't like..
The recycle/credits system
The music/Ambient sounds
The gfx oddly enough.
Idk, it's full of passion, very well made and faithful they made a great job on modernize it..
But i rather play the OG and have SS3
@Steven Hunt Yea, not bashing the game but idk, in my mind i expected different
thats an issue with many new games. i can't play doom 2016 or eternal at all because of how overcrowded the environments, menus and maps are. it just hurts your eyes.
i am very excited for this game and, up to this point, i have purposefully abstained from watching almost any footage. i watched this video now and i'll wait with my judgement about each of these aspects for when i play it myself. however, i am really noticing that insanely strong camera sway each time you hit an enemy. how does that play? is it actually not that bad feeling when you are controlling it in-game? did you even notice it?
I've been having the same thoughts. Ever since I saw the showcase demo years back there has been this nagging feeling in the back of my head.
I just beat the game and I have to say I'm far from impressed. The game was very mediocre.
I was a huge fan of SS1 and SS2, as well as of Prey 2017.
I cannot believe the dishonesty in the reviews I've been seeing. They are listing off all this stuff that's wrong and then saying 9 out of 10? I shouldn't be surprised, though.
Your not wrong to worry. The whole thing looked like a lighting nightmare, it was straining my eyes.
Matt MacMuscles video on this one was interesting, but I haven't played neither original, enhanced edition or remake beyond trying out start of them. I think original and enhanced edition were too confusing to me and something about remake's demo made me feel bit nauseous iirc.
I wish Looking Glass Studios was around to do this remake instead, but whatever. You know,... incorporating elements from SS2 and the Thief games. I think the bar which the Prey sets is also high; and THAT should also be some sort of inspiration. I mean, everyone remembers how psionics were in Prey and SS2..., why not include THAT in here? it is after all a remake.
Even with Arkane jank, there's no way an indie studio even headed up by Doug Church and Paul Neurath would be able to make a 6-year-late game that competed with Prey. Considering your enthusiasm I'm guessing you didn't hear about Underworld Ascendant, which is virtually the real-life manifestation of what you're describing.
Also, the lengthy animations of hands looking at things right in your face EVERY TIME you pick up certain items. The first time it might be cool, but I don't want to watch this every fucking time I pick up a patch or whatever.
When they released first demo on Steam demo fest like two years ago (or was three?) I immediately saw that they done fked it up, as Angry Joe would say. It is wrong, no matter from which angle you look at it. Wrong in every possible application of this word. Creating remakes which doesn't adhere to original Capcom paradigm created with remake of original RE1 in 2002 (which they themselves partly failed to replicate in recent remakes) is futile if not plainly dumb. I think Nightdive doesn't realise what original material exactly they are handling - same with blobber morons who have been given Silent Hill 2 to desecrate. But I don't think Nightdive to be morons. No. They just fooled themselves, not even coming to think how properly revive such defining for whole gaming project as System Shock and introduce it to newer generations of gamers who weren't even born when original released.
I understand the points you're making, but I still think the remake is a pretty good game if you think of isolated without comparison to the original.
Yes! And if you notice, on the ORIGINAL build in 2017 with Unity, how clean everything was and how you could SEE the items, with far less clutter, and the items looked better, the environment looked better and easier to navigate and comprehend! They tried to fuck over the original backers that actually MADE the project happen, by switching to UE4 so it would run on PS4 / Xbox hardware, and turning it into some action FPS crap, and sure they "were sorry" eventually (when caught) and did a U-Turn, but now we have this hybrid of ... what? Garish, over cluttered, over saturated, messy, plasticy, chaotic nightmare.
The irony is that, had Nightdive kept on with what was shown and promised, that awesome Unity build, not only would we have a far better game, far more faithful to the game they profered to resurrect and honour, but the new consoles from both Sony and Xbox have RDNA power enough to easily run that build probably even at 1440p and a constant 60fps! So all that shit-fuckery and lying was for nothing! NOBODY benefited!
Damn shame. And you just KNOW they're gonna do the same shit to System Shock 2!
Nothing is sacred.