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NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2024 16:21:53 +0000
From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: System Shock (Re: 2024 c.s.i.p.g.action Holiday Give-Away Day #0000000000aa...x?s-I??_??<buffer overflow>)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:21:53 -0500
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On Tue, 17 Dec 2024 18:43:15 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

>Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:


>> IIRC, that final end sequence was made on the rush after a disk-crash
>> erased the original. So I'm a bit forgiving of its lack of depth. 

>I never knew that. Where did you read that?

I don't remember. It was something I read in the news way back when
"System Shock 2" was still new and fresh. Apparently the final
cinematic was lost and Looking Glass had to rush to make a
replacement. Supposedly that's why the protagonist rejects Shodan's
offer with a simple "nah" before he just shoots her. 

Hmmm. Searching Google, I find a (slightly) more modern re-telling on
Kotaku:
https://kotaku.com/system-shock-2s-surprise-ending-for-ken-levine-anywa-5460395


     "Due to miscommunications or differing ideas, a different 
      cinematic video was created from the one that I originally 
      scripted," Levine says in a behind-the-scenes story 
      Irrational published on its Web site yesterday. "We didn't 
      have much to work with. It was like when you look in the 
      cupboard and you're trying to make soup, and you have a bag 
      of salt and couple of pinto beans."

      Levine says they bulled ahead anyway, having to rewrite parts 
      of the game's story to fit with the video they'd been given. 
      "We completely ran out of time and that cut scene wasn't 
      the right ending for the game," he says."


It's possible both stories are true; that the reason Looking Glass
created the unsatisfactory end-game cinematic mentioned by Levine
--and had so few resources to do so-- was because all the money was
spent on creating the original, lost video. But whatever the truth of
the matter, the final result was that the we the gamers never got to
see the INTENDED ending to the game, but instead got an inferior
version.


>> My personal take-away was that of all the games, the "Redux" version
>> was the best one to play; the remaster looked like a 2024 game but
>> played like one from 1996, and this mixture of old and new was
>> aggravating. There were so many things they had the opportunity to fix
>> and improve, and they didn't! But with the Redux you never were
>> confused that you were playing an old game, so its creaky mechanics
>> were more forgivable.

>Hmm. I thought this version was supposed to fix the original game's issues. 
> I don't remember having that problem with its prerelease test or whatever 
>it called in 2016.

That depends on what you consider a 'problem'. If you want a
prettified recreation of the original, then the Remaster is probably
perfect for you. But I personally was always disappointed by the
maze-like level design, the constant searching for keycards, the lack
of sign-posting providing guidance to the player, the uneven combat,
and the overall poor pacing of the original. All of which are pretty
much recreated in the remake. 

The "System Shock Remaster" FEELS very much like a game made in 1996
with 2020 visuals. Personally, I think that a complete redesign would
have been the better move, but in too many areas the design was almost
slavishly copied from the first game. I completely understand /why/
this was done; after all, there was quite an outpouring of outrage
when the developers suggested they might change things. And
considering how it was these upset fans who were likely to be the
primary audience for the remaster, keeping them happy was obviously
paramount. 

But I think it made for a poorer game overall. It catered too much to
the nostalgia-blinded fans and ignored three decades of advancements
in game design. 

But YMMV. If all you want is "old game with new skin because old game
was perfect" then the remaster will probably please you. I personally
was hoping for more.



>ERROR /me re(start/boot)s you.


<beeeeeeeeeeeeeep>     <beep-beep-beep>
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