So, this page will mostly reference the original game. And what if hostile aliens invented such a drive in the past? Is there like a reality altering war going on? It just gets weird. The concept of a reality altering drive is way overpowered and can't take the story further. something wanting to get back to Sol? Huh? Then there was the ESP ghost replays seemed like an artificial narrative tool. The first FTL ship built later was then conveniently near Tau Ceti to pick up a distress signal from. Beta Grove had no FTL drive and was probably not built for interstellar travel (it had to travel 12ly in 30 years. SPOILERS: I also reacted against some suspect plot decisions (though I may have misunderstood things), like having the ejected Beta Grove (a sort of bio dome) from Citadel Station crash land on Tai Ceti, which is 12 light years distant from Saturn. I heard that SS2 was initially a different game and maybe that explains why it doesn't quite mesh with SS1. Prerendered sprites can look a bit primitive now but gave the artist much more freedom with detailing and creepy self-shadows. Also, early low poly 3D models generally age poorly. System Shock 2 is more sterile with kind of generic gory enemies. System Shock 1 has colours, interesting and detailed enemy designs, cool textures and environments, and interesting writing. The System Shock CD almost looks scary, like it would harm System 7.5 or whatever Mac OS was out at the time.Īnyways, having finally played SS1 Portable in 2010 and also having watched multiple let's plays of both games recently, I now have a verdict. I think Full Throttle and The Dig were also included. It came with a Mac games bundle containing a whole bunch of other classics which were more interesting at the time.

I actually bought System Shock 1 back in the day and never touched the CD.

System shock box art making of