Page 2: What am I actually playing here?

Contents

As is now very typical for an immersive simulation, "System Shock" is also very difficult to cram into a fixed genre corset. It managed the feat of not being branded a "Doom clone" at the time. This is probably mainly because it may look like a typical mid-90s shooter, but it is anything but a typical mid-90s shooter. But what is it? An action game? A role-playing game? A horror game? An adventure game?

The answer to these questions is: yes. Because right at the start of the game, you have the opportunity to customize your adventure in astonishing detail: In the slightly cryptically named "Combat", "Mission", "Puzzle" and "Cyber" areas, you have a choice of four difficulty levels, from 0 to 3 – which has a dramatic impact on the gaming experience. At the lowest level, enemies never attack first and are killed after just one hit. Puzzles are solved automatically and in cyberspace you have all the time in the world. If you crank the challenge all the way up, on the other hand, you suddenly have to deal with extremely aggressive and resistant enemies, the puzzles are real brain-busters, cyberspace is strictly guarded – and the entire game has to be mastered in just seven hours!

A completely insane challenge, but perfect for the "System Shock" pro who thinks they know the game inside out, which of course greatly benefits the replay value. And the good thing is that you can play freely between these two extremes, which was very innovative at the time.

4-5-1!

Citadel Station is divided into nine sectors, from the infirmary to the command level. Unlike "Doom", for example, which is divided into individual levels, everything here is logically connected, but also overwhelmingly large and confusing. Not everything can be reached directly or via an elevator, there are many secret passages, supply shafts or mezzanines that you have to find first – It's a good thing that there is an overview map that can be called up at any time.

However, the most important tools for moving forward are access cards and codes for the many, many doors that block your way while the adventure. Some cards are lying around, some are in cupboards or briefcases, some codes can be obtained from logbooks, others are written in blood on the wall, some doors are broken and need to be repaired first, others can only be opened via an access point in cyberspace. Fun fact for fans of subsequent immersive simulations such as "System Shock 2", "Deus Ex", "BioShock" or "Prey": The number sequence "451" as a password started here and, according to Warren Spector, was simply the access code to the Looking Glass offices at the time, which then became an inside joke at some point.

Welcome to cyberspace

Speaking of cyberspace: this is a separate part of the game that can only be entered via special terminals. If you do so, the elaborately textured space station suddenly transforms into a "Tron"-like wireframe structure through which you float freely to find data fragments or solve special hacking tasks while being attacked by SHODAN's defense programs. This implementation of the cyberspace concept, which goes back to the science fiction author William Gibson, is undoubtedly innovative, but from today's perspective it is very abstract, confusing and takes some getting used to.

To be honest, this also applies to the entire game. It was never as accessible as, for example, a "Doom", which everyone can probably grasp immediately. "System Shock" is slow, demanding and cumbersome, the game's HUD is packed with crumbly mini-icons whose functions you have to internalize. The very first thing you see after starting the game is a collection of red boxes that explain the contents of the screen – 22 in total! Interface designer Marc LeBlanc said in an interview in 2011 that he regretted using the game in hindsight. He called it "the Microsoft Word school of user interface".

However, this is of course the modern view of the game – at the time, which hardly bothered anyone. On the contrary, people were enthusiastic about how many movement options the game gave them: In "System Shock" you can walk and sprint, look up and down, lean around corners, jump and even crawl on the ground. Just like in the "Ultima Underworld" games, the mouse moves independently of the player, allowing you to interact freely with the environment. Thanks to the advanced physics engine developed by future Xbox father Seamus Blackley, all objects in "System Shock" have specific properties such as weight or inertia, thrown objects tumble around in a reasonably believable way and sloping surfaces have a noticeable effect on the character's movements. From today's perspective, this may all seem cute, but in 1994 it was nothing less than spectacular! So it's no wonder that the game testers back then were enthusiastic across the board.

The legacy of Citadel

Just three months after the original release, Looking Glass brought an expanded CD version of "System Shock" onto the market – and Warren Spector later expressed great regret that another version had ever been released. The CD version was not simply a kind of "director's cut", but simply the much better game: surprisingly, this was less due to the improved graphics, which showed significantly more detail with a maximum fourfold increase in resolution, but above all to the continuous voice output, which with spoken audio logos and the electronically distorted insane staccato of SHODAN now turned the quasi-silent film into an atmospherically oppressively intense horror adventure. No wonder that some games magazines revised their ratings for this version upwards once again.

However, all the enthusiasm did not turn "System Shock" into a mega hit: the game sold just under 200,000 copies, which was not bad by Looking Glass standards, but only just missed out on being a flop due to the high development costs. Nevertheless, it was followed by an excellent second part (which we have already written about here), spiritual successors such as the "BioShock" series, an "Enhanced Edition" perfectly adapted to modern systems and a complete remake in 2023.

The spirit of "System Shock" lives on to this day, for which we must be very grateful. This game created the "thinking man's shooter"; not a typical shooting game, but an exciting mix of action, adventure and role-playing. If you play it again today, or even for the first time, you will inevitably come across anachronisms: difficult to identify objects in the crumbly textures, little to no guidance, overview problems, fiddly controls. But if you give the game a chance, and the innovative system of variable difficulty levels is as accommodating as a mid-90s game can be, then you get an intense experience that lets you sink into the world of Citadel just as much today as it did 30 years ago.

(emw)