Below are user reviews of System Shock 2 and on the right are links to professionally written reviews.
The summary of review scores shows the distribution of scores given by the professional reviewers for System Shock 2.
Column height indicates the number of reviews with a score within the range shown at the bottom of the column.
Higher scores (columns further towards the right) are better.
| Summary of Review Scores |
| | | | | | | | | |
| 0's | 10's | 20's | 30's | 40's | 50's | 60's | 70's | 80's | 90's |
User Reviews (1 - 11 of 128)
Show these reviews first:
Crap,
1
Rating: 1,
Useful: 5 / 64
Date: January 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User
What is this?
Got the game for free.
Expected a semi-solid shooter with a decent story to keep me playing it.
Well, this wasn't it. A way too complex game. All the time I was apparently upgrading my character's abilties in different sections. I never had a clue about what these abilities did. I got weird names and numbers, like (+1) Maintenance. 3/4 of the time I didn't even have a clue about what was I doing, wandering around way too dark corridors (Forget about playing this game during the day) trying to find something I had no clue what it was.
I got halfway trough the game, and I'm still using a wrench as a primary weapon. Apparently you can use physic powers, but it takes several minutes to select the "spell" (Among hundreds) the item, the etc and etc so I just found myself fighting with a wrench against hordes of zombies that kept coming out of nowhere.
I once got a pistol but it only had a couple of bullets. I could only find a couple of bullets per level.
Uninstalled it 4 hours after I got it, after the inmense frustration of being killed by the same zombie over and over again, when I had nothing to defend myself with except a wrench, and I had killed him a dozen times.
Not for me.
Not worth it
1
Rating: 1,
Useful: 4 / 40
Date: November 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User
I tried this game and hated it. you start of awaking from cryosleep to find aliens have taken over. we need an new storyline for games.
this game is so hard it will have you spending your gaming time screaming at the computer.
if you want a good game go for unreal tortament
no time for love, Dr. Jones..
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 2 / 9
Date: June 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User
...
this is one of the most frustrating, infuriating, mind numbing games i've ever played. the whole thing could have been completely awesome, but there's just too many of those freakin' zombies coming at you all the time. you're given an extensive menu of items, options, and what not, that you constantly have to pay attention to, but you don't have time to pay attention to it because when you bring up your menu screen, the game doesn't pause and you're constantly being attacked. what this means is: forget about using health powerups, forget about changing ammo when you run out.. forget about anything.. if you stop even for a second, you'll die.. you're better off running like heck if you see anything coming at you. i understand that in "the real world", things don't pause when you reach in your pocket for an item you may have stashed there.. so maybe that's what they were going for.. but it was a stupid idea. i don't even care about finishing this game. it's a shame, because the atmosphere has a lot going for it, and i like the action/horror/RPG mix.. but raising my blood pressure or having a heart attack just isn't worth pushing all those keys so damn fast just to reload an imaginary weapon to kill an imaginary zombie. sorry to all you fans, but i just don't think this game is all that great. FUN is the first thing any game should be, and unfortunately, FUN is exactly what this game is lacking.
the two stars are because for its time, the mix of genres and playing styles was probably fairly groundbreaking, but if you're thinking of seeking out this hard to find game, i'd say PASS on it.
...
Scary, cool, but not a whole lot of fun.
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 1 / 12
Date: February 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User
Other reviews relate this game to a really scary horror movie. I agree. This game scared the living weasel out of me more than any movie could.
But when I go out to buy a game, I'm not really looking for something that's gonna scare me. I want a game that's fun. And SS2 just didn't cut it.
Awkward play control (especially when fighting), lousy attempt at techno music, bad graphics. It's not enough RPG to be an RPG, and at the same time, not enough of an FPS to be an FPS.
Bottom Line: You wanna be scared witless? Read a good book or watch a horror movie. Wanna have a lot of fun? Buy Unreal.
Oh, the atmosphere! ARGH, the economics!!
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 18 / 37
Date: July 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User
I have played through both the original System Shock and System Shock 2 to completion. Having done so, I have to say that SS2 is one of the most over-rated games in history, and every time it shows up on some game magazine's "overlooked works of genius" page or the like, I want to scream.
First, let me get it out of the way: Yes, the story is very good (and I was particularly struck by the plot twist that introduces your ultimate enemy.) Yes, the sound design is good. Yes, the atmosphere is great- very spooky, very isolating.
But it's one thing to feel that your enemies hate you, and another entirely to feel that the _game_ hates you.
There are a dozen little ways this comes off, like that you can HURT yourself by running into things, and make it WORSE by increasing your agility stat and thus your speed. I do believe that's a first for First-Person-Shooters, and _please_, for the love of God, let it be the last. There's the fact that you can be shot a dozen times by an enemy, and when you finally kill him, mysteriously discover the weapon he was firing on you was not only devoid of ammunition, but broken to boot. There's that the game's system explicitly _expects_ you to die repeatedly (if you have enough money you get restored to life at a sort of save-point, more on that later.) There's a sequence that has you running back and forth trying to find a series of numbers for a passcode, one number per location, and all the while, the monsters keep up their infinite respawn while you're about your busy-work. (What would have been the problem with your so-called benefactor putting the entire code in one location?...)
But ultimately, it comes down to economics. The designers were so terribly afraid that the player would, at some time, have an EXCESS of something, that they overcompensated the other way.
The money of the game is called nanites, and ultimately, they're used for everything. Die and get restored to life? Cough up some nanites. Want to open a locked box? Cough up some nanites... Oh, and by the way, all that box contains is slightly fewer nanites than it cost you to try. (Why did someone put a security lock on the equivalent of a nickel? One of those great mysteries, I guess.) Out of ammo? Go to the vending machine, and cough up some more nanites. Or you could hack the machine- for yet more nanites- and then it would give you LOWER PRICES!
I don't know about you, but when I hack something like a vending machine, I expect to get something for free. I guess I'm silly that way.
And even if you have ammo, your gun might just break, given the uniquely corrosive qualities of the atmosphere on the ship. But don't worry, you can buy a repair tool- for a few nanites! (Though repairing a weapon degrades its quality, and makes it more likely to break down in the future. Thanks, guys.)
Poisoned? Your fate is sealed, unless you buy an antidote. More nanites! Or you can buy a recycling tool, and discover that what it gives you for recycling most items wouldn't buy you a lousy soft drink.
Maybe you're a psionic, using the awesome, infinite powers of the human mind as your weapon? Great- but restoring your psychic energies means buying a psi-restoring potion. More nanites! For all the talk in the manual about making psionics more than "just another gun", this particular aspect succeeds in making them _exactly_ that, and a gun much like the others that is going to fire twice and then need to be switched out for something that still has ammo.
And isn't broken.
And you have the skill to use.
After a few rounds of "BANG BANG click click
BANG BANG BANG click ZAP ZAP ZAP click click " you realize that what's making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up isn't terror, it's IRRITATION.
A simple equation: Infinite, respawing enemies + Finite resources = game that hates you. Is it really so much to ask that a foe that's been shooting you have ammunition on them? Especially if you're going to have to face an unlimited supply of them?
There's a moment in most games of both the RPG and FPS genre near the end where you feel that you are _ready_. You're bad. You've got the best weapons, a full stock of ammunition, the best spells, or whatever- you've learned the tactics you need to take on foes over many hours of play, and you know that what's coming up is going to be hard and it's going to take ingenuity and everything you've got. But it's going to be fun and you have what you need to make it possible, and you're ready.
In System Shock 2, that moment never comes. The designers were too afraid of the player having an excess, and as a result, you never have _enough_. Not even at the end. You've been nickeled and dimed through the whole game by poison, by the unending tide of zombies, by busy-work, by hacking or lockpicking things that turned out not to be worth the sacrifices, by taking damage in places you didn't expect, by reloading and repairing weapons that break down at a fantastic rate... And ultimately, that's not scary. It's frustrating. It's irritating. It's wearying. But it's not scary.
And yes, I finished the game. No, I felt no compulsion to play through it again as a different type of character.
There's other little things, like that they replaced the ungainly but interesting pseudo-VR hacking of the original System Shock with a guessing game somewhere in complexity between tic-tac-toe and minesweeper. Or that the only thing your character actually says for the entire game deflates the tension of a climactic moment for the sake of a dumb joke. Or that the bad guys seem to offer you the opportunity to ally with them, but the designers never considered making that opportunity a real one...
I've said more than enough. Pick up the original Deus Ex if you like games of the genre; let this "sleeper hit" continue sleeping.
P.S. At least two of the _positive_ reviewers have blithely stated something along the lines of "Well, yes, it's so hard you have to use cheat codes to complete it, but..." Do you guys really expect so little of game designers that you're willing to forgive this kind of grotesque mis-design in pacing and difficulty? Are you so desperate for games with an actual storyline that you're willing to ignore enormous flaws?
Last few levels kill it.
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 3
Date: April 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User
I never cared about multiplay for this game, I don't mind the difficulty (in fact I enjoyed it), and I thought the graphics were fine (especially for when it was released). Having been a huge System Shock 1 fan, I was first in line (pretty much literally, too) to buy this sequel when it was released, and for the most part I absolutely loved it.Now let me qualify "for the most part". That means everything until about three major levels before the end, at which point the game completely buried itself. To this day, I even remember the specific point at which I realized it had passed the point of non-redemption: where you found several very tall columns sliding up and down that were supposed to be (ahem) "teeth", and you had to jump across them a la 80's side-scroller. The ending of this game (along with the couple of levels immediately preceding it) was so incredibly god-awful that I have to ding not 1, not 2, but *3* stars. It it just that bad.
An ending this bad, that ruins what was a masterpiece of a game leading up to it, is nothing new in computer games. In fact, one of the highest-profile examples of it is quite similar to SS2, and that is Half-Life. Now, if you're the type that's able to overlook a game's ending and enjoy just portions of the journey for their own sake, then you'll likely enjoy this game more than 2 stars' worth. However, if you're like me and can think of few game design sins worse than a horrible ending, than my rating stands. SS2 started out as one of the best sequels I'd ever played, and ultimately ended as one of the most disappointing.
Well done, but just too violent for me
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 2 / 11
Date: March 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User
This game has many positive aspects as detailed by other reviewers, but was just too violent for me. I found the images of severed heads and limbs disturbing. While the game does have some good strategy elements and character development, in the end it is a first person shooter and your main activity is killing. The plot was very good and kept my going long enough to finish the game. I guess I should stick with Lucas Arts titles.
D'Oh! I got killed again, for the 1000th time......
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 3 / 12
Date: January 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User
The only game harder than this is the ridiculously difficult "Aliens vs. Pedator" (that's right, hardcore gamers, play it on the "extra hard" setting). S.S.2 is too freakin' hard for its own good. Not to brag, but I am very good at games like this but C'mon already! "It's so creepy" - Yeah, especially when enemies appear from nowhere and smoke you quicker than a lightning bolt. "But you have guns and stuff" - that break 5 seconds after you use them and try finding ammo when you need it. Health Packs - finding them is one thing, having time to use them is another. "Wow, what great level desi-" BANG, CRUNCH!! oops, I got killed again. Sightseeing is not a good idea in this game.However, the game does come with an ample supply of cheat codes but you have to use them at the right time. Don't start typing in the code for extra health or ammo when trouble is about to start, its too late at that point. I managed to get through the game by stocking up on health, ammo and abilities at every opportunity. By "opportunity" I mean when I was crouched behind a steel storage box while an automated gun was blasting away in my direction. Get the picture?
It's not as good as they say!
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 3 / 24
Date: April 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User
I bought this game after playing the demo and reading several reviews, which all lpretty much made it out to sound pretty good. I've played it through and am content to say that the only ting that it really has going for itself is a good story line and reasonable sound. The enemy graphics and the cutscenes stink. The weapon graphics as they fire are awful. Imagine an EMP Rifle. What do you see. A beam of energy. This thing in the game fires a giant floating blob of blue with points at the sides. Pretty dumb. Whenever someting gets shot, it dies. Shoot it in the head, shoot it in the foot, shot it in its little pinky, same effect. The role-playing is totally limited, this is not a first-person shooter for anyone with experience. The multiplayer stinks, as it is only cooperative and requires your friend to have a copy and an equal-speed modem. If you want a role-playing game with action, get Deus Ex or Sacrifice. If you want a first-person shooter, get No ONe Lives Forever or Unreal Tournament. Be smart! Even though it is inexpensive, I would never suggest buying this game.
Innovative twist on an old genre. It's doom with ghosts.
3
Rating: 3,
Useful: 5 / 26
Date: January 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User
First off, why do top designers make mistakes like building a game that's so dark I can't see the gamma controls in options? Believe it or not, they used a dark blue control for the gamma and the page is black. The other controls on the page are light green. This little artistic flourish sent me on a three day journey of frustration to play the game and get the brightness up. Navy on black is idiotic. Too many designers use tiny letters and obscure illegible fonts for games. We don't all have 21 inch monitors you know. Please keep an eye on the fools you hire to deal with the simple things like choosing fonts and background colors. Now on to other issues.The story is intriguing. The opening music was great and got me interested inspite of the rather choppy and low quality cut scenes. What happens to that great opening music later? It turns into action, disco, buttkickin game music that I hate.
Training could be more involved. I needed to play over and over to get to any proficiency with the many controls and seemingly endless information kiosks. I don't really play games because I want to read so why not just give all the information on the mfd or pfd device in voice format instead of having us read all this drivel? Better yet, build a training mission with us actually having a stress free environment to really work on skills and become familiar with controls. Hey! Here's an idea. You know those training missions I fly off on, but I really don't go I just watch the movie? (I wonder if my ugly woman is still waiting for me?) Why not really send me on that mission to learn? WHAT A THOUGHT!
Why can't I choose a weapon or get some health when I'm in user mode? The action doesn't pause and the monsters just keep pounding away and sneaking up which I just find stressful. I know you're trying to put me in the situation, but I like to pause and think. You can forget that in this game.
Here's another annoyance. You go to this vending machine to buy bullets and health and soda or whatever and first you have to select what you want on this complicated interface after you figure out what it costs from the tiny numbers buried off on the side. That's already annoying, but then you have to pick the items up individually and then you have to go to user mode and "USE" them. Just forget it if you're bein attacked and most likely you will be. A possible reason for all this difficulty is that you should learn to turn off the security before trying to purchase anything. Once again, this is annoying to me.
Is this a new genre? Action, adventure, role playing? Sort of. I think of it as an action adventure with a tedious learning curve and a lot of dull reading. It's a boring second year college course. The psionics have me interested, the inability to use guns is frustrating at first and there's too many monsters to deal with wrench style.
The ghosts are great. I didn't have any kind of religious moment or anything like I've read some people describe, but then I knew the ghosts were there because I'd read the review beforehand and now, so have you. The monsters or ex crew or whatever they are, are scary, but they are also blurry and unlike some people, this game didn't really scare me to death and make me wary when I'm alone or anything like that.
There are a lot of good games out right now and I'm having a hard time devoting much time to this time demanding game. I do appreciate the innovation involved in this game, but I also loathe the geeky qualites of unnecessary complication. Then again, without all the skills, this would be just like half life or doom or whatever. Doom with ghosts.
Actions