I have been playing PC games since the DOS days, I bet if I were to have been born a lot earlier, I’d be playing games on the computer a lot earlier, too. But alas, I was born on 1989 and was able to play DOS games in the tail end of its run before Windows fully took over.
That being said, I have played a lot of classics, like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, etc. Another game during that era was a little game entitled System Shock.
I was too young to appreciate the complexity of the story and gameplay; in fact, I stopped playing because it was a slow paced, of what I initially thought, FPS. I was still high on the fast paced shooters like Doom that came a year before it. So I thought it was a step backwards at the time.
But as I gotten older, and after overcoming my console phase then returning to good ol’ PC, I was reminded of System Shock when System Shock 2 was released. I got myself System Shock 2 and was blown away.
It was at this time where I was already fully transition to both the RPG genre and the PC platform, so I was getting well versed with the control scheme of the PC and the RPG elements of System Shock 2. Thus, I appreciated both the story and gameplay of the sequel.
With that, I tried returning to the original game, but the control were already too clunky for me to use. The same clunky controls that stop me from playing Elder Scrolls: Arena and Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall.
So, I thought of just foregoing ever playing the original game.
But the PC master race gods have smiled upon and me recently and showered me with gifts such as Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity (Feels like Bladur’s Gate), and the upcoming Torment:Tides of Numenera. Still, they thought bringing back classic titles to the modern age or making spiritual successors were not enough, they decided to bring yet another classic title to the modern era.
Yes. The guys at Night Dive Studios, the same guys that developed System Shock 2, is releasing System Shock Enhanced Edition.
Sure, they haven’t totally enhanced every aspect of the game in terms of in game sprites (be it items or enemies, etc.), they did clean up them up enough to look decent to play again. With that, it supports higher resolutions, though I doubt playing in Nvidia Surround or AMD Eyefinity will be natively supported (not sure if anyone would want to, but I am not just anyone… So I will still try and make this happen because of reasons).
The enhanced edition also has support for mouselook, which is an all important update to make the game playable without suffering from the clunky controls of the original. As well as remappable keys… a small bonus, but every gamer has their preference, so this is also a welcome change.
Though, I would like to mention that System Shock Enhanced Edition is just available at GOG as of this writing (and currently on sale as of this writing), the guys at Night Dive Studios responded to my tweet mentioning that there are indeed plans on releasing it for Steam, but they do not have a time table as of the moment. So, I will play the waiting game.
Here is the link for those interested in getting it in GOG now.
But all in all, this is great news for those people wanting to play System Shock all over again with higher resolution and support on later machines, or for those like me, who never got to really play the original and need not suffer from the odd controls of the original.
I cannot wait for it to be on sale in Steam. I mean, System Shock 2 was such an influential game to me and how it depicted cyberpunk (this coupled with Deus Ex made me such a cyberpunk fanatic), that my most recent PC system build is named SHODAN; a homage to the AI antagonist in the game.
Will this be a true enhanced edition of the game? Or will it break my heart like what Baldur’s Gate “Enhanced Edition” did to me? Here’s hoping the former will be true.
Anyways, until next time!
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