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Let's Play: System Shock 2 - How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?
Posts
For science.
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And it's not like the game is terribly hard, even if you never use the QRMs.
I have zero interest in reading about the OP repairing his weapons in a Let's Play thread. I'd much rather see him invest points in psychics and do something fun with those, or any of the other useless skills. Difficulty isn't really the point of these things, I don't think.
For industry!
How about this: I'll leave degradation on, but if it really pisses me off I'll disable it and spawn some repair tools.
In other news, would anyone be interested in a Lets Play for Thief: The Dark Project?
Oh hells yeah.
Would be cool, especially since I can't find my Thief disc.
Most certainly. What would the difficulty setting be?
the hardest.
and he has to role play as the goddam batman
Didn't someone do that once? I am having massive Deja Vu.
Expert. Its what I always play on since more objectives = more fun.
that was oblivion and it was glorious. he had a proper reskin too with the batsuit.
sounds like something he would do.
Not that System Shock 2 has any troubles with modern OS's as it is, some people just aren't trying hard enough to get it to run.
I dont like being scared, so I'm out. But I've heard good things.
I pronounce it bee-log.
I presume because one would think that they wouldn't try to sell us a game that flat-out wouldn't work on our systems. I don't think there's a precedent of releasing games that are broken in XP on Steam. And arguing "it's not broken, you just didn't try hard enough to fix it" is a bit silly. If it weren't broken I wouldn't have to fix it.
*EDIT* And if I recall correctly, some of the id games included behind-the-scenes DOSbox emulation so the games would work. That's pretty clear precedent.
Patch, remove copy protection, use some software to make sure it only runs on one core, add safe_texture_manager, run in compatibility mode, disable visual themes.
Done in about 10 minutes.
IIRC Cardboard Tube could never get it going.
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That's the TriOptimum way!
Edit: Weapon degradation became kind of a non-issue if you were going for the Assault or EMP rifles, since they required some absurdly high skill to maintain anyway. One tool and you're right back in the game. It is silly that burning two clips would almost break a pristine rifle, but you generally don't need to go full auto to begin with.
I write for these people. Just reviewed: Drox Operative
Good call. Since I'm in the peanut gallery on this I must do this.
Awesome thread man but where's the post???
It was Tube.
I sent him the link that helped him get it running.
For art...
Steam, PSN, XBL, Xfire and everything else JamesDM
In our last episode, we were introduced to the world of System Shock 2. After getting the hang of the controls and interface, it became time to choose our career.
After hearing your suggestions, I’ve decided to go with an OSA Psi-dude who will eventually also branch out into Technical and some other skills. But for now, it’s time to get funky!
We first arrive at some random space station (that looks like every other space station, apparently) where we will be picking each posting over the course of four years.
Announcer Lady: “Get ready to learn things you’ve never imagined.”
Me: “…I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.”
Each year you get a choice of 3 postings, which each give you different bonuses. At the start, all three choices give us access to Tier 2 Psi powers, Cryokinesis, and another Tier 1 power.
All three choices here are decent, but the ability to buff Cyber-Affinity is the winner. Especially since we’re going to be part hacker in the future, the ability to buff technical skills is awesome.
Year 2 offers some stat bonuses. The choices are +1 Endurance, +1 Research, or +2 Psi. Like there’s a contest.
Ooh, interrogation.
Year 3. If you’re observant when you first arrive back on the station at Year 3, you’ll notice a maintenance droid do a little dance. It’s hard to photograph, being behind a tinted window, but the little easter here really dates the game, as much so as the graphics. The robot’s dancing the Macarena.
Anyway, all the choices give us a bonus to Strength, Agility, and Cyber, but this one gives us the most useful of the power choices: Buff Agility.
With that, our training is complete, and it’s now finally time for the game!
There’s another FMV I can’t screencap that shows you taking your Year 4 posting: on board the Von Braun. Skip ahead 5 months, and the Von Braun has reached it’s destination of Tau Ceti V. However, the astute among us can immediately see something’s wrong. The ship’s been torn apart, and there’s footage of crewmen running around in terror, with brief glimpses on security monitors of something attacking them.
We’re being revived from cryogenic sleep, but in the process of restoring our memory something breaks. OH NOEZ! WE HAS THE AMNESIA! Fortunately, we still get all our previous three years of training, it’s just the knowledge of what’s happened.
While we’re waking up, we get a call over our radio from Dr. Janice Polito, one of the Von Braun’s scientists. She states the obvious that something’s gone wrong, and needs us to meet up with her on Deck 4. She also mentions that we volunteered for an advanced military cyber-implant. Suuuuure we did.
It’s at this time I really wish I could provide a screenshot, because I really want to show you what our character looks like. I know this game was made in 1999, but even so our character looks like some sort of deformed monkey in pajamas wearing swimming goggles. It really is that ridiculous. However, due to his immense mental capacity from our training, if I ever need to refer to the character himself, I’m calling him Brainguy.
Edit: Here's a Youtube link to this FMV sequence. Look how silly he is!
Anyway, on with the show!
The game begins with us standing outside… the wrong chamber. The FMV showed us emerging from the right cryotube, but when we start we’re in front of the left. Whatever. Polito warns us of an exploding Radar dish, and tells us to seek cover.
Whew, that was a close one!
We need to find a way to move that air duct blocking the ladder out, so let’s start looting corpses!
Is that what I think it is!
Booyah!
FEAR THE MIGHTY WRENCH!
And it’s gone! You know, if we have the strength to utterly destroy metal, we could have just moved the damn thing…
Moving right along, a very computer-y sounding voice warns us that decompression is immanent. I’m inclined to believe this voice, as lights are flashing red and everything.
The next room’s locked with a keypad, so I bet this dead guy knows how to get out!
…And we get our first taste of Audio Logs, a fun little feature that carried over to Bioshock (among many other things). Most of the story and info about what happened comes to us through these things, so it’s in our best interest to listen to everything we can get our monkey-hands on!
This guy just so happened to be the one who set the code for this door. Hooray!
Hmm, a crewmember running at breakneck pace, screaming at the top of her lungs? Nothing out of the ordinary here.
What’s funny is the door didn’t open until after she passed, making it look like the stagehand meant to pull the string missed his cue.
That damn Computer Guy’s still going on about evacuation this and decompression that. Oh hey, look! An air vent! These are always awesome to crawl through!
After learning that you can run at full speed through air vents if you just let go of crouch, we make it through the airlock, just in the nick of time! Well no, this is a video game, so unless there’s a counter on the screen ticking down you’ve got all the time in the world, but we’ll indulge them.
This room is a safe area that houses the first Upgrade Stations we’ll come across. Upon arriving here, Polito transmits some Cybernetic Modules, which are the “skill points” SS2 uses to upgrade everything. Picking a couple more off the dead guy here, we’ve got 8 to play with.
I probably don’t need it right away, but it’s so useful I’m getting it now. The first thing we’re picking up is Psi-Heal, a level 2 power. For a couple psi points, we can heal damage!
As I mentioned previously, there’s 35 powers total, arranged into 5 tiers. One of SS2’s problems with Psi powers (aside from several that just kinda suck) is that the method for switching between them is really cumbersome. You can hit the “Fire Mode” button to cycle between powers among your current tier, but to switch tiers you have to open the hud menu. The game gives you arrows on the bottom right of the screen to cycle between tiers and powers, but these suck so I just use the Psi menu in the upper-right. It works much better.
I’ll cover specific powers more as we continue along and use them, but for now, let’s see what else is here.
It’s a g-g-g-g-ghost! System Shock 2 helps build the plot further by including psychic ghosts in various parts to show a few tense moments other (now dead) crewmen faced. Polito mentions some crap about how it’s due to the cybernetic implants you’ve got.
“Can someone let me out? I can’t find my card.”
Somehow, this idiot managed to lock himself into an area with all of three rooms, and no place to lose something. No wonder he’s dead.
Oh look what we found!
Also in this area is an audio log of a cryo technician, who mentions moving “a grunt with a cyber implant that’s been illegal since that incident on Citadel” to one of the nearby cryotubes. I wonder who that could be referring to? (Not really)
With the keycard, the door is open, and now Deck 2: Med-Sci awaits. Let’s see what’s out there.
Next Episode- Med-Sci: Into the Abyss!
On a side note, does anyone know how to get System Shock 1 to run on a modern rig? I'd like to give it another play through after all these years (and reminders from threads like these).
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Currently playing: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Metro 2033