The greatest fear I had with this blog was that I'd grow bored of adventure games. Sure, I'd barrelled through the Gabriel Knight games. That was great fun and all, but I'm the kind of person that likes to start things but hates finishing them. It's a wonder I ever beat games in the first place, let alone things that have a tangible impact on my life. Even if there are an average of 3 comments per entry, not committing to what I've set out on is a personal failure. System Shock 2 proved to be unable to conquer me and, despite my ever-draining will to see it through to the end, I've walked away from this with a greater appreciation for many things in modern games and a whole lot of retroactive disappointment in them.
Most people that play this game for the first time post-2007 are playing it to find out some of the roots of the BioShock series, but I can't say I was ever a fan. I just thought I'd point that out before I "heap" praise on this game, just in case any crazy people start getting weird ideas about me. That would require people to read this, though...
Anyways, I wanna talk about something else first. Because I've left the back half of this game for a separate post I decided to throw in some extra thoughts about another (non-UAKM) game I finished:
Shadow Warrior - Bad Jokes, Racism, and a Bucket of Fun
I don't really know what I can write about this game. It's a remake of a 1997 3D Realms shooter that used the Build Engine - the very same engine that powered Duke Nukem and Blood, and unlike those two I'd never actually played the original. I really don't know if I ever plan to, even if the classic version is actually free on Steam and still sitting in my installed pile of games waiting to be played. After the 11 hours I spent with the remake I'm not sure I even want to. The game is by no means outright bad, in fact I'd say it's damn good, but the style of shooter that it happens to be is only really palatable in small doses.
Luckily, Shadow Warrior knows that it has to play hard and fast to keep your attention. With its insane mixture of sword mechanics, including special moves with unique inputs, over-the-top and likely incredibly offensive humor, and a mess of guns that are mostly useless this game doesn't hold back. Half the time, when the game wasn't throwing a really stupid enemy type at me, I was having a blast bunny hopping with a rocket launcher and a katana that shoots fucking energy beams at people.
There's not a very weighty story or any sort of real atmosphere here other than kill, kill, kill which is kind of the point. Unfortunately, the game tries to hastily smash some sort of sympathetic plot in the end for one of the main characters that just sort of brings the whole thing down. Man, does it lay it on you too. There was one section where Lo Wang - yep - had to reunite with his buddy and reinvigorate the little guy's spirit. That worked, mostly because it was brief and fit more in line with the broader, incredibly stupid thematic elements of the game. After that, it gets sappy in a story that it doesn't really need or, frankly, deserve.
Thankfully the game only goes down that direction a few times in what is an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable, low-brow shooter. In spite of it's own vain attempts at making the player feel emotions and other strange sensations, Shadow Warrior is a totally great game and well worth the asking price even if only to screenshot every single fortune cookie in the game like I did.
No, seriously. I have far too many pointless screens of this overwhelmingly stupid game.
System Shock 2 - "Nah," aka the Best Use of a (Mostly) Silent Protagonist
Last time I wrote about this game I was busy smashing everything to bits that referred to itself as "we." I thought it was a good idea at the time, and I enjoyed the visual of a burly hacker running around rewiring everything to do his bidding and, when that wasn't an option, beating the everloving shit out of anything he stumbled across. "Dr. Polito" was pleased with my successes, awarding me a boatload of modules that I could use to enhance my already superhuman abilities. At this point I was capable of using a shotgun and didn't really want to go down the gun path any farther than that so my modules were constantly piling up. I was toying with the idea of flirting with energy weapons to get a feel for them, but decided my wrench was doing just fine.
That is, until I found my true love: the Laser Rapier.
This unassuming beam of light wasn't quite the Dragon Tooth from Deus Ex, but at the time that I found it the thing was absurd. With my armloads of upgrades ready and waiting, getting the requisite Energy weapon and Agility stats was just an elevator ride away. After that, I was able to dance across the Von Braun and the Rickenbacker like some sort of cyberpunk jedi. It was pretty rad, and then because of my already upgrade Energy stats I decided to take up a laser pistol and EMP rifle. Combined with the sword, this was the best decision I could have made. Most of the annoyance in this game comes from dealing with the service droids, the explode-y ones that makes my eyes roll so far in the back of my head they've gone cross and the much larger and more threatening laser and rocket launcher toting ones. With the EMP rifle in hand these were no more than a momentary environmental hazard, because - as far as I could tell - the rifle both dealt massive damage and disabled them for a brief time. The downside being that anything that was purely flesh (or a hybrid, minus the midwife enemy) was totally unaffected by the gun.
But with the combination of my Super Butter Knife and Zappy Cannon, things were looking up for the hacker. Until I met up with Polito/SHODAN. Oh spoilers, I guess. If it isn't obvious SHODAN was speaking to you by this point, especially with the extremely heavy handed descriptions and references to the rogue AI throughout the first half of the game, there is no hope for you. Still, despite the obvious twist, the scene that plays out to explain it is far better than most games could have done. After I've been introduced to the real force behind my operations, the game funnels me through another series of floors to get more keys with which to open things. The real bastard of this game is this completely stupid code puzzle that requires you to search every one of a specific environmental object to find the code. It's real, real dumb. When I'd gotten through the entirety of the crew's art collection, I was pretty much clear to find my way to the Rickenbacker and eventually off this hellish ship.
But, surprise, SHODAN betrayed me!
I know, right? This electrical monstrosity that frequently called me an insect, a pile of flesh, and uselessly inadequate didn't want to be buddies with me and help destroy itself? Gee whiz! This is truly one for the books. Now, this is what differentiates System Shock 2 from most story driven games I've played from this era - sometimes, most times really, the game makes it's intentions completely known and relies on its intense atmosphere to leave you immersed enough to just go with the moment. The audio design, the music, and the rich flavor in the audio logs all back that immersion up and make that twist much more digestible because of that. Without the feeling that the Von Braun is taking shape around you as the game occurs, the plot would feel thin and vapid. Instead, because the game commits fully to its intentions and doesn't really pull any punches in any category, I connected more to this story than what most games have tried.
So there's some story left, I guess and at this point I've lost track of my ability to give a shit about what this game is trying to tell me. Even if the game's ability to keep me interested constantly ramps up with the atmosphere, the actual plots and character motivations in the game are just plain tedious. I lost the thread for a few conversations, resulting in me relying on my instincts of having played games long enough to get me through it. And you know what? I wanted to confront SHODAN and see if I could end the game that way, because I had lived in this world as a character that wasn't going to just assume this computer-lady was on the uptake.
My reward was finishing the game. That's it. There wasn't some grand, super special path to this conclusion. I had just made the right choice based on the way the world and its characters had revealed themselves to me. That's the illusion of choice that games strive for, the style of making players believe they have a real impact on the world while making sure they go down this singular path.
That's the key to this game's evergreen nature, I think. The static plotline is easy to comprehend: you wake up, there are monsters and you are told to find keys to navigate this unknown area. Also, space. After that, the designers left optional world-building in the form of the audio logs for you to conceive your own viewpoint for this universe and the ship. More so, the game uses the amnesia trope to great effect here by letting you develop that sense without any preformed notions of the way things work. That is, assuming you've never played the original System Shock which is totally understandable since that game requires a little more patience to go back to than this one. Even if there's a linear path that the story takes you along, the illusion of choice in the later portions of the game is just right so that it lets you believe you’re making a truly unique decision while giving you a completely heterogeneous solution.
This story - the central arc of the game - isn't trying to revolutionize anything about the cyberpunk genre, nor is it anything more than a great backdrop for the personal story you create. There isn't a vast open world, thinly populated with vaguely interesting areas and half-formed quests. There's just you, a wrench, and a Walkman filled with the screams of the dead.
I enjoyed System Shock 2, but I don't know if I loved it. There was plenty to like about the game, and it's pretty clear that I really liked the way the world managed to build itself without being overt and cloying. I feel like I should say that this game is something I do believe everyone who calls themselves a fan of the BioShock series should play. Since I'm not one of those people I'm just gonna chalk it up to liking good old games, but hey it is what it is. It's incredibly obvious how influential this game was and still is, but after a point influence stops being a critical factor and the need to actually connect with the game personally steps up. With System Shock 2, I sort of connected to it. When I wasn't fulfilling my macho fever dream of a cyberpunk pulp hero, the game was doing an incredible job keeping me interested in its world with some of the better use of audio design I've heard in a long time.
Now I've had my cleansing ritual, and can return to the fray of playing 90's point-and-click games. I can look back on The Beast Within as a sad could-have-been and Sins of the Fathers as my bright expectations for the adventure game genre. Everything I've learned from these two is stored away in my head now, replacing what was probably a useful skill in place of the understanding that clicking every pixel available is a good idea. All that's left is to stay true to my word and continue my adventures in point-and-clickism with the game that this entry and the last were supposed to be about:
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