As an artist who worked on System Shock 2, Bioshock, and Bioshock Infinite (heck, I designed both Irrational logos - the company was like family to me!) I think you did a great job, definitely a trip back in time and I appreciated your critiques. The one error I noticed is you mentioned Ryan Lesser’s shodan while showing a picture of Gareth Hinds’s painting of Shodan, but one error in nearly three hours isn’t bad at all! 🤣 Thanks for posting this.

For me personally, the most eye-opening element of my 1st play through of System Shock Remake was the moment I read the email “Rats in a Maze” where it’s revealed that Citadel Station was actually designed & constructively built for intentionally inducing stress levels & building anxiety in the crew in order to study the human psyche and how it can be affected by environmental subjugation and isolation

Seeing Hybrid trying to kill me with a wrench and saying "I'm sorry" at the same time is peak horror. System Shock 2 was so ahead of the time in 99.

Just to shed light on the confusion regarding how the player gets into the position they're in at the beginning of System Shock 2: After being awoken, SHODAN immediately started trying to gain what control she could over the ship during the chaos of the Many's own take over. She managed to take control a robot and use them to knock the player character, a UNN soldier, unconscious, abducting them and subsequently giving them the military grade cyberware they have. They are placed in cryosleep to undergo a similar healing coma like the one the Hacker had to undergo. SHODAN deliberately sabotages the system when it's restoring the Soldier's memory so he wouldn't remember how they were attacked and abducted, feeding him the story that he 'volunteered' to be given the military implants so as to make him more effective at fighting the threat of the Many. We can figure this out from the audio logs scattered around. One of the first logs you may come across in the game is from Dr. Grassi. He reports to Dr. Polito that a security robot showed up with an unconscious UNN soldier, recently undergone intensive surgery and with orders from Dr. Polito to place him into a recovery sleep. He adds that he recognizes that the soldier's been given military implants as well, stating how they were outlawed after the incident on Citadel Station.

It's crazy how a group of devs split up and end up making a bunch of the most influential games that shaped gaming for decades following them

Being a non-english person, my dad had some genuinely fascinating ideas for System Shock 2 story (he didn't play the first one). "Genuinely fascinating" doesn't mean "close to reality" though. When I was 6 I first played the game with him. Years later, when my English improved, I could finally tell him that a lot of his ideas were wrong, but he wanted to know what is ACTUALLY happening in the plot. I became a lecturer to my dad about it and we loved every single bit of the story so much

Many years ago I ran a tabletop RPG where I put my party on the Shodan controlled Citadel Station. I think it was the Palladium system. They were sent because the humans had found fighting technology with technology wasn't working and needed a different angle. So in true cheesy form, heroes from another world were sent to fight Shodan with swords and magic. I used several of the recordings of Shodan's voice, some of the logs and made simplified maps of the station. Good times.

With defining Immersive Sims, some aspects I'd use to define them: • A big factor is that game systems in Immersive Sims aren't definitely solely by how they interact with the player, but how they interact with each other. For example, NPCs in I-Sims are usually vulnerable to friendly fire and terrain hazards. NPCs of different factions will fight each other autonomously, not just the player. An injured NPC might seek out health items or healing stations. They are playing a role, not just serving as opponents. • Environments in I-Sims are usually built with in-fiction practicality in mind, not just how they serve as levels. * I-Sims almost universally have some degree of character customization. • The games' problems don't resist player-invented solutions so long as they make sense within the physics of the game. For example, in Prey I found a door that was shut with a crate, and you need a strength upgrade to move it. Instead of getting the upgrade, I got a propane tank and jammed it in the doorway, and shot it to make explode. This opened the door.

Something that I just noticed about the level design. It appears that Looking Glass was aware of many of the quirks around them, even providing in-story writing, concerning them. For example:, there's a particular audio log on level 4, Storage, explaining the repulsor lift's reason for being there. "The maintenance bots are remodeling the station by putting repulsor lifts in the strangest places."

considering SS2's voice acting, on one side such a "poor man's job", but on the other side, take a closed look (hear) at how Polito is done: while it's shodan ordering you about, the voice is not arrogant, but very confident. but when you find the voice log from the real Polito, where she contemplates what has been done etc, she sounds rather morose, with remorse/contrition. she actually sounds like a completely different person, though with the same voice. that is some good acting.

You probably already know this (heck, it might have been your video that showed me this), in one part of the game you can accidentally hit the trigger button on the superlaser, destroying the Earth. SHODAN responds by mockingly thanking you before you get a game over.

System Shock 2 still has some of the most terrifying sound effects in gaming history

I have to say, when I clicked on this video I put it on as background music for me to paint miniatures but about 10 minutes in and I had to put down everything and watch. This was such a great review of the series and it's impossible to state how much I respect and appreciate the effort put into this video. I'm excited to go watch the Thief review and Deus Ex one because of how well done this one was. Thank you very much for the great video!

I came to this video review because I'm a writer doing a case study on sci-fi horror in space. Particularly about body horror and machine torment, like The Strogg from Quake, Event Horizon, and of course Shodan. I loved your analysis of gameplay and the story; very in depth. I will say, my strongest influence for my next story has been the Strogg. I did notice a significant lack of coverage on youtube for such a terrifying fictional species from a game that helped define a generation and pave the way for a lot of future FPS tech. I'm not sure what you have planned for your next review, but you might consider taking a stab at it. Love the video, best of luck to you.

On a sidenote, System Shock 2's atmosphere mostly resembles a sort of darker and edgier Star Trek: TNG or Voyager. Specifically, it looks like The Enterprise facing a severe emergency-in episodes where The Enterprise is in real trouble, the lights often turn down and it looks just like The Von Braun.

small errata for u : the log portaits are not by night dive, they were implemented by them from the old mac port of the game which was the last version released and had all the CD content and a few nice little art tweaks. good video. I love SS1. Out of all the shock games its my favorite, I like how the game gives the player full choice in gameplay instead of forcing a "build"

I feel that the story of this relatively old or classic game ties in sort of nicely with modern day plans of private corporations space exploration, in which sense it sort of serves as a cautionary tale of sorts about the human premise or condition and does the job nicely I think for it was way ahead of its time.

Just finished playing through both games as a newcomer to the series. I beat the first one in two sessions separated by a couple months because of how steep the learning curve was. But after finding my groove with the controls, I really do appreciate how immersive the reloading is. It's exactly as fast as you can do it. Mess up and click the wrong ammo type to have to unload it and load the correct one, or double click and quickly reload and unload the gun, it can all be imagined as literally fumbling with the gun and the magazines. Which makes sense in some of the more stressful scenarios. Your stress induced mistakes are more connected to the character's in a way that pressing 'r' isn't. But with practice, it's a very quick and smooth motion. I caught myself repeating slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

One of the main inspirations, if not the primary inspiration, of Resident Evil was a Japanese horror movie called "Sweet Home" from 1989, which also received a NES game release the same year. A very, very similar setting with disturbing creatures and whatnot. While Alone in the Dark was definitely the originator of the Survival Horror genre, Sweet Home (which both the movie and game came out several years prior to the first AITD game) was most certainly the biggest inspiration for the first RE game. Especially considering Capcom is based in Japan and Sweet Home would've been far better known to them at the time and closer to home.

There's a single bit of not-even-minmaxing you seem to not be doing, which would solve most (if not all) of your nanite deficiency issues: Make the wrench your primary weapon for all the worm zombies and monkeys. Never kill those three with anything else. Except sometimes monkeys. Otherwise, shotgun zombies, you just run around the corner and wait for them there, then wrench them. Never waste any ammo on them. Or the spiders. With that simple trick it's possible to have plenty ammo in the last part of the game, even if you only buy it very rarely.

Fellow OG from the late 90s/early 2000s heydey. This inspired me to do another psi-only playthrough. I have a correction, though, (@ 19:39 ) Brosius didn't compose music for the SS2 soundtrack, he just fragmented and rearranged its parts to be dynamically reassembled in-game. & finalized the arrangements for the soundtrack release. "editing and remixing and such", in his words, from the SS2 Soundtrack thread on TTLG. Josh Randall/Robotkid made the high energy tracks and Ramin made the dark ambient soundscapes. Josh released his original tracks in 2012, allowing you to compare pre vs post-Brosius.

This was a great retrospective of System Shock and System Shock 2! Please do a retrospective of Prey 2017, as I think it's System Shock's spiritual successor and would definitely like to hear your thoughts on the game. Nontheless this video was great and you earned yourself a subscriber!

Regarding SS2's protagonist having 'Amnesia'? That's SHODAN covering up that those implants weren't done consensually, and putting you in state where you couldn't question "Polito's" narrative, right up to the point where SHODAN couldn't keep the act going any further.

My god man how is it possible you don't have more subscribers?? This is SERIOUS quality content!

You have done this good human short remark 1:08:00 the memory wipe in System Shock 2 is "needed" to disguise that you do not volunteer for the implant and that Shodan has set everything up and manipulated the staff to create the player as a minion to me to fight the many.

SS1 is amazing in almost every aspect, but I have to say the amount of work put to the station itself is huge. The guys who did the station walls, floor and ceiling tiles in SS1, are genious. And the station design is also 10/10. Not just rectangle rooms, but all kind of shapes on floor and ceiling too. That makes the station much more like space station; the sense of direction is less obvious. Many of the areas are also super low, just like ships, or space stations should be; space is valuable! Many areas look like Shodan is rebuiling it.. I think that hits right on the nose. Love it! In SS2 the station looks much more less alien, empty, boring, less intimidating.. more like half-life levels.

Finally finished this video, had to watch it in several pieces. Not only cuz it's long but also cuz System Shock, Shodan and the whole theming of sci-fi dystopia scares the crap out of me. I literally had the urge to lock myself in my room, which is pretty silly considering i live alone in my apartment. Seriously though dude, amazing video essay. You have a great future ahead of you I'm sure. Keep on putting out the content, I will keep on watching.

With SHODAN's motives, my personal headcanon: • The ethical constraints being removed has made her rather sociopathic (obviously). • She likely lost a good bit of self-control, and is also feeling a lot of emotions she doesn't know how to cope with. • What I think her overall agenda is, is to create a "new" and "superior" form of life. One possibility for why she sees herself as a new form of life and wants to become the goddess of that form of life. • Another component of it might be that she wants revenge on humanity for controlling her by flipping the script if you will.

Should mention how Prey 2017 is also a very close to home System Shock clone

I remember playing 'Underworld' in the early 90s in a Circuit City in Ohio. All these years and I can finally put a name to the game. I remember thinking how neat it was to be able to customize armor and have an effect on your environment but was sadly too young to really understand much else about it.

Wow. Great - and thorough - analysis. I've watched pretty much every long-form critique of SS1 & 2 (I've been using this handle for years), but you still managed to bring new information to the table. You blew my mind when you revealed that Terri and Eric Brosius were former members of Tribe. Not two weeks ago, after hearing a song on my favorite streaming station (called Radio Paradise - you can thank me later) from a band called Curve, I realized that it reminded me of a band that I used to listen to in the early nineties, called "Tribe" (as well as another band called The High Violets). On a track called "Jakpot", lead singer Janet LaValley just shreds her vocal chords at the end. It's fucking awesome. But the fact that you included this tidbit just days after I sought out their music absolutely shattered my neurons. Thanks for that, and rest of this amazing video....

Making comments as I go: In System Shock 1 a lot of the music I'd say is good, but often clashes with the tone of the game. A great example would be the Medical theme. Not only is the music not creepy (when it really should be), it's downright welcoming. The vibe it gives to me is somewhere between "shopping at a favorite store", and "going to work at a job you like, knowing you're an inch away from that promotion" (in fact, I used to listen to this song on the way to work for that exact reason).

As a random aside, I always thought that Terri Brosius as SHODAN is something of an unrecognized contributor to the history of ASMR. Once you've listened to her logs often enough to not really care about her threats anymore, the sound design's mixture of menace and condescension - and the occasional bits of creepy whispering - starts to feel familar and comfortable.

Great job with this review. I didn't look at the video length when I kicked it off ... didn't realise how long it was until I got to the end. 👍

One of the details that still actually makes me shudder with System Shock 2 is the PsiAmp, and how it literally plugs into your arm like that. It just... gah seems so painful.

System shock 1 looks really, really good indeed. It's claustrophobic as hell but I like the art direction better as well. I feel like if we built space stations like Citadel to live on them, we'd go the extra mile for whoever lives on it so it doesn't feel like a lab or a prison. In that sense, I think floors like executive with the woodsy and gold tones are totally legit, like the rest of the station and it's vibrant palette. I'm extremely interested in how Nightdive will design those spaces.

How great it is to see so many people who since then recognize System Shock 2 as the fantastic adventure it was, and today spend time on "mods" that improve the graphics - graphics that at the time had dressed the game so well, but were not possible due to the limitations that then existed. Thanks to all those who continue to work on "mods" that improve the game and keep it alive for other new users who come and appreciate the game's qualities and for its adventure. It was the OSA option in particular that I was concerned with, with the many different PSI powers that could be used against the monsters. We must also not forget the option for 3 different game characters such as OSA, Marine and Navy When I see your new graphics, my fingers and body itch and scratch again - like back then.

1:44:50 i always thought the amount of freedom scribblenauts gave you and the amount of emergent gameplay that came from it reminded me of a lot of immersive sims, especially with the whole adjective system , and i thought I was just crazy

I didn't figure out / notice SS1's reactor numbers on my first playthrough (back in 2000-ish). Instead I found a locked office with an eye scanner, but couldn't figure out which corpse's eyes I needed. The audio log I got the clue from was in my inventory, not by the body. So I restarted the entire game, played through to that point, got the audio log and grabbed the head, got into the office .... and it was just an ammo stash.

"...megacorporations that own and run everything" Which is hilarious given that Tencent now owns the System Shock property. As Interplay used to say: "From dystopian media megaconglomerates, about the dystopian media megaconglomerates!"

Thank you for this amazing review of a game that shaped my childhood. System Shock 2 is one of my favourite games and I learnt so much from this review that I wouldn't have otherwise found out about. But that ending...

Your explanation on rouge like and rouge lite and the time it took to explain it, is so damn appreciated because i actually understand it better then any of the overly bloated long videos or explanations I’ve seen or looked up.

Just caught this a couple minutes after it posted, nice surprise! Thanks for making great content

That was fantastic. Thank you for this deep dive into the series.

Amazing review, and an incredible analysis of the impact of System Shock on the gaming genre. Loved it!

OMG thank you for showcasing the German SHODAN! That was amazing!

ahaha, the comment about that Money For Nothing video. Not only did everything in this video bring me back to my childhood, but that. That video. Thank you for reminding me.

Wow I'm glad I am not alone on getting stuck in the elevator leading into that that upside-down Rickenbacker section.

Been pretty stoked for this video since you announced it.

"and you try to open the door, but there's too much blood on the knob!" that reference caught me off guard and fit so well, I had to pause the video for a moment to stop myself from laughing!

Holy shit. Amazing review, packed to the brim with amazing information and back story

This is the most in-depth video on the System Shock series I have seen.

I LOVE System Shock. I finally got the remake and man. '80s sci-fi like Star Wars and older ones like Star Trek are cool, but '90s sci-fi like System Shock has such an amazing story, ideas, and can be genuinely scary. When SHODAN says: "they are growing purifying tumors" that freaked me out more than a zombie or anything like that. Brilliant I will also add the remake addresses a lot: -A log mentions a wormhole nearby Citadel (probably how the grove got to Tau Ceti) -A log from SHODAN shows her thoughts and why she thinks she's god -The hacker is implied to have been forgotted and sealed in by Diego during the chaos

System Shock 2 and Thief prove that sound is more important than graphics. Some movie directors know this as well, that when great music moves you, to a degree, it almost doesn't matter what else is happening on the screen. Sidenote: I appreciate your critique on the art style of SS2 but when I played it back in 1998, it was terrifying. There were points in the game where I was too scared to leave a room, brave a corridor or even turn a corner. The only other game that ever made me feel so invested was Subnautica, and you know what, it's another great sound design game.

Such a well put and thought out video, awesome job!!

You make deep dives look shallow, this was abyssal. And a blast from the past that I truly enjoyed going back over. Looking forward to wading through some more of your reviews.

Fantastic review, thanks very much for all that hard work! Very well done :)

Just wanna say big thumbs up on the Rogue like vs lite thing. So many people dont seem to understand the difference and you described it perfectly.

How does this video only have 4,000 views? Fantastic work, loved the video. I hope the KZfaq algorithm is kind to you sir.

I just noticed this channel has 5k subs. I was honestly expecting 100,000+. What the fuck? This is *quality content* and it's still flying mostly under the radar!

I am so happy I found your channel

This channels going to blow up at some point if you keep up this level of quality, might be a bit niche due to the long form content style but damn, really good work my man. Wait you've been doing this for 5 years? How are you this undersubbed?

Love that slick Chinua Achebe line you threw in

Playing system shock 1 feels like controlling a sentient 3D printer with feet. You're just mobile enough to perform extremely deliberate actions but too bulky to do anything complex quickly.

This was an amazing ride… I love this and you’re really good at this. Thank you so very much and keep up the great work.

Great video, I'd like to see more of those in-depth reviews.

Awesome video, very glad I found your channel. I was getting tired of hearing about the fall of this and the fall of that from the GVMERS channel. Your content offers a refreshing different tone to those kinds of videos. Looking forward to watching more of your content.

Love your reviews! this one was a lot of fun. Thanks!!

I think part of the reason why people look back upon Looking Glass so fondly is because this was like a last great flame of creativity before video games exploded into this laser-focused money-making venture that grossed millions and billions of dollars that we know them as today. Nowadays games come complete with an all-star cast and scripts thick enough to bludgeon someone with, but there was a charm to this scrappy, passion-driven development mentality where publishers weren’t hovering over development staff during every step of the process, forcing them to compromise creativity in the pursuit of a bottom line. You don’t see this philosophy very often outside of the indie scene these days.

One of the reasons I love System Shock 2 so much is that it's the first game that gave me that "immersive sim" feeling. It's the unique feeling of amazement, surprise, wonder, and triumph when you notice you have executed the same tactic you'd use to solve the problem in real life in a given situation or gotten yourself out of a bind with some outside-the-box thinking -- I got that a lot in Deus Ex as well as SS2. But the thing that impressed me most about SS2 and what made it feel most real is that it didn't care if you can surmount its enemies, challenges, and gameplay systems or not. You're just a bug on a windshield of a cruiser traveling at half the speed of light outside of Tau Ceti IV, so if you built your character wrong or didn't utilize your resources smartly, you could be stuck. And then there's the triumph of breaking the game's systems and dominating enemies and challenges that once seemed insurmountable -- beautiful! I love this game.

Great research! Loved this.

Hi, me again. Wow, I have one of those Serpent Isle posters in my studio. All the signatures are on it, in almost the same places.

This is my first experience with your channel. I really enjoyed your review, I'm looking forward to watching your deus ex review next. Ss2 was a huge part of my childhood, I don't recall having any trouble with nanites, but your critique of the economy in retrospect is 100% on point. The greatest enemy was never shodan... It was crashing on load screens and corrupted saves.

You know your conclusion, especially you're parallels with the original system shock and BioShock, you just nailed it.. this is basically what's been swimming in my hand and I'll tell anybody you know that'll listen.. also didn't help having played SWAT 4 right before BioShock by the way... Swat 4 actually might share more in common with system shock then Bioshock at least the original as far as the unlimited tools at your disposal.. coming into bioshock, first thing I had to do was get a trainer in order to fix the fov and we were not on good terms at that point... By comparison the shooting felt absolutely hollow, and I just couldn't get that feeling that I was playing a real game it felt like that same feeling I got by playing the first Halo.. this is a curated experience to sell out a a console box and it and it feels false. The fact that the sequel managed to one up that hollow feeling by having enemies that reacted like they weren't even there, like everything was made out of paper mache and hollow on the inside despite the increased visual specter.. one thing that continues to amaze me about the original system shock is despite that I'm really not keen on playing in any time soon again especially with the remake on the rise, even with sprites it felt chunky.. and just the things you can do in 1994 the things you could do LOL we have lost the things you can do in a game mentality the more games that are designed for the 12 button controller and limited ram pools and just expectations of streamline design as opposed to what could be a better way if you gave it a shot anyhow.. this is taking me probably two days to get through, when you said your stuff was dense you are not kidding.. and I don't mean that in a bad way I have enjoyed going back over and over again trying to pick up little things.. part of that's just my attention span right now but hey good stuff really appreciate it!

I find it interesting you were apparently so nanite hungry the whole time. Even on my blind playthrough I remember swimming in the stuff. If I had to guess, you probably relied on guns for normal enemies while I used a melee weapon whenever possible, except for certain enemies that were too hard to beat with them.

System shock and marathon are always that piece of avant-garde 90's technology that I always come back to, it's incredible how similar they are and how much different too even having somehow similar genres and plot points

46:39 Boston Dynamic's doggo robot. You're welcome.

Great vid and content, subbed!

What a fantastically in-depth review!

"I hope you remember which elevator goes to which floors" The map allowed you to place notes on it. You could literally write "elevator to floors 1-3".

Looking Glass immersive sims continue to impress me by how much creativity and forward thinking those games had, especially considering limited resources.

Holy crap, I can not tell you the last time ive heard the name Lisa Frank. Folders were so dang popular when I was a kid in elementary, wonder if they are still around today.

I don't know if it was in the OG System Shock (I never played it) but in the remake there are a couple of logs that mention tracking a nearby wormhole. Which could theoretically explain how the garden grove got to Tau Ceti so fast.

1:29:50 There is a log somewhere in the game where a character discusses why Citadel Station is so whacky. It was designed in a way to intentionally induce stress and anxiety in it's inhabitants. Someone involved in building it thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to study how anxiety might play a role in inhabiting a space station and wanted the designers to amplify the anxiety. Citadel was seemingly the first-of-its-kind and they wanted to collect data for other projects, presumably to make those less anxious? Clearly Citadel had a lot of management issues.

This was amazing. We need more new cool stuff. Thank you for the awesome time, learned quite a bit about this game and its history. Cheers.

"not knowing when these drugs will wear off is probably the most cyberpunk thing ever" idk about that but it is pretty realistic

It's quite possible to remap reload to the R-key in SS1 Enhanced (it's Alt+backspace by default).

There is a audiolog talking why you don't remember much more than training and few parts of the recent travel after you wake up in Sys Shock 2- someone (Shodan) orchestrated that your memory won't be preserved so you won't question why you have been upgraded. The log talks about a soldier being submitted for cyberaugmentation out of the blue without info on preserving his recent memory

“Objects out of the money for nothing video” flawless comment

The commentary on the chase for the full simulated kitchen being boiled into a story of trickery and detailed design is what i find very interesting about Bioshock Infinite. The story really rubs this false freedom in your nose.

At some point I ended up just adding each digit of the code to the names of my savegames, basically using my built-in cyber-line-editor to jot it down.

59:13 Going by the SS1 remake audio logs, Her core is shielded without recourse, hence why you must attack her in cyberspace

The effort put into and output quality of these videos is just nutty. I saw the subscriber count and assumed there was an m after it...

Well, Shodan was a 'him', he is labelled in the manual as such. Then, when they had more money and CD space to do the audio logs with speech, they got a female as the best voice actor they could get. Up until that point, all audio logs had Shodan as a 'him' as well, which is why they were changed. With hundreds of them, one or two most have fallen through the cracks. I always thought that was all there is to it. I certainly never thought that there was oversight lacking when the System Shock story was written because there was a mixup in gender identities that actually only entered into the game way after the game was first released on floppies due to them re-recording the lines with a different voice actor than originally anticipated. In the same vein, the whole 'females are creepy when they aren't nurturing' argument falls flat due to exactly the same reasoning. Shodan wasn't envisioned as a woman AI by the writers of SS1, so any literary analysis that touches specifically on the female interpretation of the AI has no ground to stand on whatsoever as it simply is not what the writers had written or envisioned. Shodan became female with the inclusion of the voice actress and wasn't before. Some lines were even added / changed when they settled on the female VA to fit the switch even better, to the best of my knowledge. Now in SS2, she was clearly written and envisoned as female, no doubt about that. In SS1, it's hard to tell what should be analysed. The floppy Shodan was male, and all his dialogue was written with that in mind. Then, with the voice actress being a woman and many lines changed prior to the CD release to fit that fact, there were bound to be some inconsistencies with SS1's Shodan characterisation from then on out. And thus the same goes for any attempt at literary analysis concerning Shodan's perceived gender - inconsistencies are bound to appear.

This is by far my favorite game. Didnt know they made theif series and bio shock

Listened to this whole thing at work

I'm so excited that there's finally going to be a (hopefully) good remake of System Shock 1. I could never get far with the original's super chunky graphics and controls that feel like an interactive DVD menu. It was bit too off putting to really experience the ambiance and immersion it was trying to go for.

1:22:59 - “…but there’s too much blood on the knob!” Did I just catch a very subtle Simpsons reference?

It's really interesting that SS1 has more streamlined gameplay and more complex UI while SS2 has the opposite :P Personally i like the first because i love that idea of having to find upgrades and just use them (right there on the sides of the screen to activate with energy management) instead of acquiring points to invest. I had more fun finishing all the difficulty settings in SS1 (only the time limit remains, being a completionist it's difficult planning to skip many things to be fast) instead of trying perks or so on in SS2. I usually do a mix "hack/combat" build, being a pure weapons person with limited ways to open crates removes mechanics more than adding something different. Tried so many times to use PSI as main but outside lower difficulty settings or very narrow paths (i wouldn't call them exploits) it's just more work than anything. So why do i have to buff myself with limited resources when i can have similar skills levels permanently outside PSI? Another reason why i like SS1 more it's because for me it's the refinement of previous games made with that kind of engine. They have similar approaches and at the same time different "styles". For example Ultima Underworld explores the classic multi-level dungeon like in Wizardry (you go deeper and deeper until the final floor) while UU2 has an hub with different worlds you can warp to and with different levels designs each (multiple floors or not) and some metroidvania and graphic adventure elements. SS1 tries to mix both the things but also expands to other ideas like logs, implants, etc. And i'd add also Terra Nova too, with similar UI approach but totally differen gameplay (team combat, outdoor levels, etc). About the UI i think that while it's true that there are issues i'd say that when you get around shortcuts you really don't have much issues. It's more about the presentation, seeing so much stuff of screen. But if you look at the average RPG or even adventure games of the 90s you see large UIs with over the top use of commands and so on. I think that in many cases also to reduce the world screen and have a faster rendering. In case of SS1 i like the feel of having some kind of on screen display from the perspective of the hacker himself, trying to personalize the things you see from the implants. Of course it's limited but it's a feeling you don't see much more in modern games (for better or worse). I find interesting being able to shoot without mouselook. I reminds me more of rail shooting and very few 3D games do that (Metroid Prime on the WII for example with motion controls). It's kind of charming using the phaser and blast few mutants on screen without rotating the view :P In particular in Terra Nova it's an interesting match because you are in a power armor and you cannot move around as fast as normal so the cursor, locking mechanics and team mates help you circumvent that. Another point in favor of SS1 is that kind of texture style. It reminds me of PC games on japanese computers (NEC PC-98): clean designs with simpler gradients, strong dithering, vibrant colors (usualy from limited palette) and higher resolution. Very distinct vibes.

That sound design of ss2. There is nothing like it. Unless listening to Harlan Ellison read 'I have no mouth and I must scream."