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Post by Magma MK-II on Sept 15, 2014 10:03:10 GMT -5
Does the versions on gog.com include the patches?
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Post by dskzero on Sept 15, 2014 13:15:31 GMT -5
I think not. Maybe the newest "sort of official" patch, but none of the fan made stuff.
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Post by Discoalucard on Sept 15, 2014 13:50:24 GMT -5
It has the patches so it will run on Windows XP/Vista/7 without a problem, and has a launcher so you can easily add mods. But as far as the high res textures/models and things like that, no, they need to be downloaded and added separately.
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Blake Casimir
Full Member
Space meditations from Alpha Centauri.
Posts: 105
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Post by Blake Casimir on Sept 16, 2014 7:51:13 GMT -5
Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but on this article's two pages the "discuss in the forums" link goes to the Freescape thread.
Bioshock was massively disappointing as a follow up to System Shock, one of the first mainstream games to emphasise simplifying and dumbing down of gameplay to suit an audience. It isn't a bad game at all, both 1 and 2 are decent FPSs, but they cannot compare to the terror, immersion, depth and feeling of agency one has playing the first two System Shock games. "I am a person in a dire situation but there are a variety of tools - and a voluminous inventory - to help me get out of it." SS2 isn't perfect but the end result of its various systems and design creates an unparallelled experience only its precursor can match.
Bioshock Infinite just sucks imho. Incredible production values and visuals, huge clusterf*ck of a plot, generic shooting and a very unsatisfying experience overall. Mostly because I kept asking myself "what is my motivation for being this character?" "why do I have to fight these enemies?" etc etc. Sky high (ho ho) ludonarrative dissonance mixed with the already messy "dimension travelling" plot. I wish I'd never played it. The skyhooks were fun, though.
Sigh... At least Paul Neurath is going to produce another Underworld...
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Post by dskzero on Sept 17, 2014 9:18:02 GMT -5
System Shock II is an horror game though. Bioshock it's a much more pure action-adventure FPS. I understand where you're coming from but they are vastly different games sadly likened for the names and the plots. Both are awesome for different reasons. I liked Infinite though. It was pretty fun, but I seem to be in the vast minority.
I've been trying to fiddle with System Shock II for steam for awhile but the mods are such a hassle to configure I pushed it away. Sadly, because it's one of my favorite games of all time.
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Post by bakudon on Sept 17, 2014 23:49:07 GMT -5
I haven’t played the Rapture-Bioshocks, but did play Infinite. I don’t really follow gaming press nowadays, so I went in expecting some kind of System Shock light, but got a straight-up FPS instead. Which I wasn’t really unhappy with, because while it feels like a Disney theme park ride through a tunnel of backdrops, at least those backdrops are gorgeous. I’d have preferred the setting be used for a bit more down-to-earth story than it was, though, and less excessive gore.
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Post by GamerL on Sept 18, 2014 1:50:59 GMT -5
System Shock II is an horror game though. Bioshock it's a much more pure action-adventure FPS. I understand where you're coming from but they are vastly different games sadly likened for the names and the plots. Both are awesome for different reasons. I liked Infinite though. It was pretty fun, but I seem to be in the vast minority. I've been trying to fiddle with System Shock II for steam for awhile but the mods are such a hassle to configure I pushed it away. Sadly, because it's one of my favorite games of all time. oh, I liked Infinite too, I just don't think it lived up to it's full potential but maybe the problem is not with Infinite itself, but with E3 and how it's become a time for developers and publishers to flat out lie to your face (see also: Gearbox and Aliens Colonial Marines, Watch_Dogs' original trailer and so on) instead of show you what video games will actually fucking be like anymore, it's possible that had I never even seen that E3 2011 trailer I would have been more impressed with the game
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Post by dskzero on Sept 18, 2014 10:31:26 GMT -5
Ah, the "creepy Elizabeth" trailer. I totally agree with you. I've been avoiding most of these events and press releases, trailers and stuff for a few years by now and with the recent debacle I think I will completely stop reading previews so taht might be helping me. That said about Bioshock they have been doing that ever since the first one so I guess that explains why I didn't really felt so cheated.
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ant
New Member
I am just an ant!
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Post by ant on Sept 21, 2014 19:26:19 GMT -5
SS2 rocked. I couldn't get into SS1. BS was nice, but not fun as SS2 IMO.
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Post by dskzero on Sept 23, 2014 8:47:39 GMT -5
I've come to believe System Shock is actually a better game. It's hard to pinpoint why though
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Post by aganar on Sept 28, 2014 14:24:12 GMT -5
Am I the only one who finds it odd that Dead Space is mentioned in the spiritual successors section, but not Deus Ex?
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Post by Discoalucard on Sept 29, 2014 9:27:21 GMT -5
Am I the only one who finds it odd that Dead Space is mentioned in the spiritual successors section, but not Deus Ex? I've always lumped Deus Ex together with System Shock 2 because they were both prominent FPS/RPG hybrids, but there's not really a clear evolutionary connection between them. While it's never been publically stated or verified, it's been inferred that Dead Space may have started as a System Shock sequel due to the renewal of the trademark at the time. The end product is very different, but you can still see some links, and it has some of the elements that Bioshock dropped. One of the most interesting parts of this article was tracing back to how modern games had their roots in some of the earliest computer software, from Ultima to Ultima Underworld to System Shock to System Shock 2 to Bioshock/Dead Space. Ironically the most tenuous links are between Ultima and Ultima Underworld, since the game originally began as something else and was just tied in to increase its name recognition.
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Post by Gendo Ikari on Oct 8, 2014 9:07:35 GMT -5
System Shock 2 is one of my favourite games ever, one of the few titles capable of keeping me in front of the screen until late night. I played the first several years later and only after the release of the mouselook patch, but despite the obvious aging - non only the clunky interface, but also environments often more concerned with a maze-like structure than coherence - it's still another great game and the influence it and Ultima Underworld had on later games is evident. If I recall correctly, Warren Spector collaborated with the production of both, before going to Ion Storm Austin. For a long time there was a legal tangle that prevented the games to be re-released (and may be still in act with the first episode): EA possessed only parts of the IP and the rest was in the end of some law firm. Looking Glass did that to have some guarantees on the System Shock IP but since they went under a few years later it turned against the series itself, until Night Dive Studios came in. The latest patch would have deserved some words because it's more than a mere "fix" to run the game on newer systems: as I remember perfectly (since I was the first to post about it here), it's an engine upgrade that allows for resolutions and color depths that weren't supported back in '99 (with a little tweak to a config file, you can also adjust the HUD to be in a lower resolution than the 3D view) and adds mousewheel support, among other things. It came with an improved editor too. Even its release has an interesting story of its own, as it was quietly posted on a French forum (but had an extensive English documentation), and the identity of the master coder who did it has been never known. Only sure thing is that it was very convenient for Night Dive Studios to use.
I also highly, HIGHLY RECOMMEND playing through Christine Zink's fan missions after System Shock 2. They feel like a natural continuation and are just "more System Shock", which is a rare and valuable treat.
I second your recommendation except with the last of the four, "Urlaub": it's interesting that they tried a completely different setting (a tropical resort on Earth where the character, recovering from the previous adventures, stumbles in Tri-Optimum's secret plans) but the difficulty is horribly unbalanced, with damage sponge enemies. The other three - Ponterbee Station, UNN Nightwalker and UNN Polaris - are high quality though, with even some touches of humour that's not jarring. All combined I think they ensure up to 15 hour of gameplay.
A much more recent project is System Shock Infinite, which is still worked on, started as sort of Groundhog Day in Space and later given some ties to the other Shock games. It looks like it has made extensive use of the abilities of the newer patch and editor, and a lot of modifications to the general gameplay, with several different endings possibile. I'm eager to try it but given it got some updates over the months I'd rather wait a little more. There was going to be a small homnage to System Shock in Bioshock Infinite. In the code, it has been found that the final scene was originally meant to feature a lot of different buildings. Untextured models are there, and one of them is a miniature Citadel Station.
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Post by jjmcjj on Oct 13, 2014 11:38:52 GMT -5
I could go on and on about both titles, but I'm getting tired right now so I'll say for now I love SS2, and the first one I grew to really dig as well once I got used to its play style (even with the mouselook mod the controls still felt a bit funky compared to SS2). One thing I wonder though about SS1, is I still don't understand the logic behind those colored wire puzzles, and no place I've tried to look has provided a real explanation for them either. So many of those were just trial and error until I got them correct.
I'd love to try these mods sometime. I wonder if they'll even work though. I downloaded a Thief 2 mod/campaign that was basically an entirely new story/setting with a female thief in the lead role, but the game kept crashing on me every time I tried to open it. Recently I threw in a silly mod for SS2 that was to replace a bunch of sound effects with ones from Goldeneye, but that one didn't work at all.
I found one of those mods that significantly increases the difficulty of the game because y'know, every game with a modding community has to have one of those. In addition to making the game more challenging it's also supposed to fix many of the game's balancing issues (which admittedly there are) but a lot of people are finding that it just throws the game off balance, but in another direction. Like, they made it so as you progress hacking items becomes nigh-impossible unless you've been continually upgrading your hacking skills. Enemies are much faster and aggressive too apparently, and weapons have been made so even more enemies than before are immune to certain types of damage (one complaint I read was how the laser rapier did zero damage to hybrids and other flesh-based enemies). As a masochist who actually bothered to play through and finish the game on impossible with no tech or weapon skills, just a psi amp and a wrench (this is a good thing to try if you feel like punching your keyboard is a good idea) this initially seemed tempting but I decided that as they were still not quite done with it and in the process of continually updating it I thought I'd dismiss it for the time being. Reminded me in a way of Call of Pripyat's Misery mod, at least what I read about that one (an attempt to make a more "realistic" and challenging mod for the game that just ends up throwing the game off balance into Kaizo territory with plenty of less-than-realistic artificially difficult elements to go with it).
I recently conceived, for shits and giggles, to make an Amnesia: TDD custom story with the same layout and structure as SS2, only entirely composed of Amnesia assets so it would not play the same obviously. But, like, you wake up in a dresser instead of a cryo-sleep thing, the mysterious voice communicating to you is via phonograph records, you trawl mostly through mansion and dungeon layouts (maybe the game takes place in a mansion or castle of some sort but flying around in SPACE... for some reason), toxic mushroom gas instead of radiation, maybe oil, health and tinderboxes as rewards for missions completed instead of cyber modules, and being surrounded by giant Alexander portraits/faces instead of SHODAN during the one "scene" if you know what I'm talking about. Dead bodies will be as they were, only they're all naked of course (since the editor does not allow for clothed corpses) with written notes as "audio logs." That ending "Half-Life" level would just be oodles and oodles of red slime. Limited on the monster front since according to everybody making new monsters with animations and stuff on Amnesia's engine is about impossible, or at least so laborious to not be worth the bother unless you're getting paid for it.
But I don't know how to make a game with any engine, let alone the Amnesia custome story editor, so this probably won't happen.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2015 5:09:40 GMT -5
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