I'd love to know, for those who played both the original games, whether you liked the first game better or the second, and why?
I'd love to know, for those who played both the original games, whether you liked the first game better or the second, and why?
SS1 is notable because of how many new things it was trying at once. It was fully 3D, not that illusion of three dimensions like in DOOM or Duke Nukem. It's actual fully 3D spaces you're interacting with, but with 2D sprites for enemies. It's also interesting how they attempted to have a horror vibe without the tools or really precedent on how to do that. Purposefully scary games didn't really exist yet. Alone in the Dark 1 was one of the very first and it had just come out 2 years beforehand. It's also the definitive origin of putting audio logs in games, which are annoying now, but it was a way to do in media res storytelling. I also like that it even has a story that's still interesting now. Video game storylines in 1994 often amounted to "you're the hero guy and you walk to the right."
System Shock 2 is a masterpiece and I think it still holds up. Very good atmosphere, really cool spaceship aesthetic too. It reminds me a lot of 2001 spaceship aesthetics, or other very clean scifi from the late 60s early 70s. Which is cool they did that, because SS1 had a very clear cyberpunk 80s style.
I don't know what else to say about SS2 other than it's one of those games for me that's nearly perfect. It's too good and it's astonishing how it's still good. You can still play it and it feels great. Some people don't like the voice acting in the audio logs, ( they weren't professional actors) but I've always liked how they sound like normal people.
I guess I don't like how punishing the game can get. If you don't know what you're doing with your upgrades and weapons, you can absolutely get yourself screwed into a position where you simply can't finish the game. The game doesn't do a great job of explaining which skills/weapons are worth having over others. For instance, the exotic weapon skill sounds cool, except outside of maybe the crystal none of them are any good, and ammo is too scarce to be worthwhile. But by the time you realize you've made a horrible build, you're already nearly at the end without any resources to beat the last few levels.