“In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. If I wish, I can smash it all. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that raze the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well.”
Edit: Oops, don’t know how the game intro got posted twice in a row. I’ll fix it later.
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I remember system shock…Man that game had some seriously chilling moments!
I’ve been wanting to try system shock since i played bioshock, but I have vista so I doubt it’d run it, but this little series of horror classics is sweet dude, can’t wait to see the next spoony!
The combat in the first was pretty tortuous, but the second game was incredible. The plot twists were incredible, the development of the story including The Mass, and above all, that fucking rec dec level. God, I hate it so much, it was just nerve wracking.
L-L-L-LL-LL-LOOK AT YOU,HACKER
A P-P-P-PATHETIC CREATURE OF MEAT AND BONE
PANTING AND SWEATING AS YOU RUN THROUGH MY CORRIDORS
chills man chills that was creepy
Incidentally, whilst I think of it, I did miss Cyberspace from the second game.
Also, I wasn’t aware that Shodan was creating the midwives, I thought that The Many, already sentient at that point, had taken over the minds of the doctors to create these people (as you get in the logs of the doctor who says “you’ll be the mother of them all!” – Shodan instead was trying to kill her “wayward children”.
Oh Looking Glass studios where have you gone?
They should remake and port these games..
I looked for the first System Shock for a while but could never really find a copy. I did find a copy of System Shock 2 a few years back though, and it instantly became a favorite for me.
Dead Space is a ripoff of a psycho computer formula? I don’t remember much of a psycho computer in that game, there are aliens, but no psycho computers, How is it a ripoff of Dead Space!?
Used to play this in a pitch dark basement with my friends. Oh… my… god…
Amen brother! Screw Pyramid Head! Screw Nemesis!
Horror, thy name is SHODAN!
Technically, SHODAN spent most of System Shock 2 playing you against her rogue progreny, the organic mass-mind known as the many. And yes, the nannies were creepy as Hell. Though the normal Annielid Hybrids- the basic zombies of the game- take the cake for High Octane Nightmare Fuel for me. Particularly when they beg for you to kill them…
Though, if you really want to creep yourself out, go look for a document that details the logs from Shock 2. Knowning what’s going on is almost as bad as not knowing.
Ah, you’ve got taste, Spoony.
Heck yasssssss!
Took me years to get up the nerve to play through System Shock 2; the first deck alone scared me so much I was incapable of progressing past it up until around. And it was around then that I found a copy of the first SS to play. I played it entirely while watching Dinosaurs DVDs in the background. (Oh Dinosaurs…I love you.) Immersive as the dickens game, yass yassss. I could never beat SHODAN the traditional way (in Cyberspace)…I had to cheat and throw a bunch of grenades at the main computer until it just like defaulted back to the main menu.
Need to replay it, for sure.
Love what you’re doing Spoony!
A well-thought-out and comprehensive list of classic,quality,scary games is SO what I needed right now…(I’ve been making my own scary-gaming wish-list too). I hope you add CLOCK TOWER and FATAL FRAME to this group.
Never played system shock but always wanted to. She’s very reminiscent of The Master from fallout.
The Funny thing about this famous “Look at you Hacker” quote is that I never heard it in the first game only in the intro of the second one. I went trough the whole game hoping I would hear it one point but I didn’t.
Also the most terrifying thing in the first game for me was the final battle in cyberspace. At first I thought it was a bug and pretty anticlimactic that there were no music during the battle. During the fight your screen will be slowly filled with Shodan’s face (A really scary face, nothing like the face she has in 2) and if your slow, it takes over the whole screen seeing nothing but this creepy face in the silence. I pressed everything maybe the game is still on but nothing happened it was just that face. I was just about to ALT+F4 out of the game when it showed mercy to me and sent me back to the main menu.
That face… THAT FACE
man, that computer has one sexy voice. hey Shodan, wanna go out?
It’s funny that you say Dead Space rips this game off because Dead Space (according to EA) actually started out as System Shock 3. But they decided it was too risky to do that because it would never live up to the standards of that series so they instead made Dead Space.
Hmmm. Psychotic female AIs are hot. Hooray for GLaDOS!
I’ve yet to try SS2, but I hear BioShock is essentially a steampunk remake of it, y/n?
The e-e-e-end of your trivial existenencssssssssssssssssssssse?
You are lucky you got to play System Shock 1. I played 2 and it took hours just to get it to run. When I got my hands on a friends copy of 1, I spent several hours and only ever managed to get the intro to run. I kinda wish they would remake it for newer systems.
I’m playing System Shock 1, but I have no voices. Where did you get a copy that has voices? Or is that from the second game?
I remember trying System Shock 2 and giving up – It was damn hard!
Bioshock I played to the end though: Damn that game was good, and scary. Another good example of a game where the story makes up for any shortcomings in gameplay.
Excellent series!
I remember reading somewhere that the final clip “Look at you, hacker” is actually a separate sound file and wasn’t actually in SS1, which is why there’s no in-game clips of it anywhere.
IMO the most creepy SHODAN clip is after you defeat The Many in SS2, she whispers “Thank you for running my errands, puppet”. Every other time she’s talking in that scornful voice, as if to an insect, but here she hisses at you and she actually sounds malicious.
Dude, Spoony, did you even PLAY System Shock 2?
The cyborg midwives only tended to the annelid eggs. They weren’t ever PREGNANT. WTF?
And SHODAN was against the annelids (her created life form). A lifepod containing the basic original organisms that SHODAN created on Citadel was launched into deep space (along with part of SHODAN… it’s how she survived the first game!) and crashed on Tau Ceti V. They grew and evolved there… and they rejected all things machine, including their creator. That’s why YOU do SHODAN’s bidding and she supports you along the way.
How could you miss this? It’s the plot of the game!
If you want a REALLY excellent PC horror game, look no further than Alien Vs Predator 2 from way back in 2001. It STILL tops my list as the scariest game of all time. The marine’s motion tracker is the best devise for suspence ever conceived. Imagine walking down a ramshackled, dark industriously futuristic hallway and all of a sudden you hear a faint “wee-wee-wee…” and a little white dot in the bottom corner of your screen that slowly gets closer to you… the very definition of horror.
I do 2nd that Beaker. AVP2 Human Campaign was one of the best horror games i’ve played on PC. System Shock 1 and 2 were good – fairly recently just before bioshock so i may have had a dimished effect from them.
As far as spoony Missing stuff from the plot he did say he hasnt played it in a while so im sure it was not intentional he got the plot wrong.
None-the-less, I cant say much, I never could get the game to run so I’ve never played either one. I remember when SS2 came out and the rave reviews and seeing other people play it but ive never played either one myself. Ive always wanted to, though, and of my knowledge of it yes there is alot of plot that is used these days (Some of the best games of late really have used the system shock model, such as Bioshock and Dead Space). Its not so much the enemy, but rather the twist that we refer to, btw, when we say they are ripping off System Shock. Although imho its not a ripoff its just using the ideal and making it its own because neither one was at all the same in premise as SS only very similar in twist and plotline point (Just in my experience it seems to be the Cronenberg of Game Design plot, very social commentary in nature which is probably why they are my favorites cus i love social commentary horror).
I really wish i couldve gotten SS2 to run when i had it, and I can only wish theyd somehow rerelease it with the ability to play on modern computers cus this is another one Id love to play, always wanted to but never got the chance.
On a related note: since this is horror classics I know you wont be doing Penumbra (while that series is indeed the greatest horror game ive played this year its not a classic yet, it just came out vey recently and I can only hope time wont forget it, its a superb series) assuming you want to stick to true classics.
I dont know how many more your going to do of these but technically there really is ALOT more for PC (you suggested there wasnt many, which I’m majorily a PC gamer and I have alot of horror games for PC). Undying is a classic PC horror game, fairly decent one at that, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines had some horrific moments, Half Life 2s Ravenholm Map was scary when it first came out, and a little bit newer but not recent classic Condemned is also worth a mention. There’s alot i could mention (The Suffering for Xbox, F.E.A.R, Sanitarium, Shivers, and Blood to name a few more: sorry like i said I’m mainly a PC gamer and most scary games I know of are on PC).
Theres alot of classics so I cant wait to see which else you choose to look back on. These are fun =)
love the idea behind this series, and great picks so far.
for a similarly impressive list of horror game, check this out:
http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-top-7-scariest-games-youve-never-played/a-20091022154518850027/p-3
also, Direct2Drive.com has an impressive sale on horror games which lasts until the end of the month. i HIGHLY recommend picking up The Path before the sale ends.
I find myself replaying SS2 from time to time. Even though the chills have worn off, it’s still a well-crafted FPS roleplaying game with two great villians (I find the Many to be as terrifying as SHODAN, but then the Many is a chip off the ol’ SHODAN block). If you’re trying to play SS2 on XP this days, you need to get a special driver for the 3D engine compatibility. I don’t have the website on me where it lies, but Google “System Shock 2″ fix and you might find it. If you like Thief and Thief 2 (also by Looking Glass Studios), the same fix will work for those games as well. Haven’t tried it on Vista.
I actually got SS1 from a freeware site, but even with DOSBOX I couldn’t get it to play for more than a couple of minutes before crashing. Rather disappointing. The site’s gone now, but I think you can still find SS1 on the net if you look hard enough.
I hope for a SS3 some day, but I hope it’s done with care. Bio-Shock was fun, but I really miss SHODAN as the principle villian.
Aaand for anyone who was wonder, Shodan was voiced by Teri Brosius, sister of Eric Brosius who is the audio mastermind behind SShock2, Thief + Thief 2 (and assisted with Thief 3) and so on. Teri also voice acted Viktoria from Thief, and Stephen Russell, aka Garrett, was one of The Many’s voices (given the many speaks with multiple voices at once). Yay trivia!
I love this list!
Keep ‘em coming Spoony.
Hahaha! I love you Spoony. System Shock was amazing and I’m glad you love those games.
i have heard a lot about this game, but after watching that i really want to play it. seems like it has a good atmosphere and soundtrack
I only played a little bit of System Shock; it’s hard when you have to click the HUD to look up and down. I should try it again. I remember that the animation that plays when you die freaked me out quite a bit.
System Shock 2 is a true work of art. Xerxes was just about as creepy as SHODAN herself.
Cant wait for what you say about the Fatal Frame series. :3
Ah, System Shock series… The creepiest moment in SS2 was perhaps the moment you meet this doctor that has been sending you messages through the early parts of the game, giving you advice and telling you what to do. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t played it, but it is awesome.
I’ve never played the first one, but I do have the second one. I remember as I was playing it, the further I got into the game, the more I got scared. Eventually, I stopped playing it. I should play the game again, except this time with a trusted friend who won’t try to scare me.
Story corrections:
1. You don’t design the AI. You are contracted by Diego to remove a security barrier from SHODAN’s system because Diego was facing an Trioptimum auditor and wanted to remove traces of … I think embezzlement from the station’s systems. This has the unforeseen consequence that SHODAN is capable to evolve beyond the specified parameters and is no longer bound by the Aasimov-esque ethics programmed into her.
2. You have to differentiate between SHODAN and The Many in the second game. They are not on the same side.
Also on top of Anaphyis’s corrections:
3. Xerxes vs Shodan Vs The Many
Aaargghh please please SystemShock 2 go away go away go away………
It’s not fair i cant play anything even remotely scary now because i played it ;/ i cant even play bioshock or left for dead……. AAAERRRGGGHHHHH Bad memories bad memories….
To get SS1 running: http://www.m3fe.com/content/sshock/
There is a patched executable which runs the game on Windows XP. Also on that site is a link to the System Shock Hack Project which is trying to reverse engineer and recreate the original executable to run it on modern systems. Dunno how far that is along.
You have to keep in mind that SS1 had two releases: One on floppy, another on CD. You want the latter even if it is just for the audio clips of SHODAN that aren’t in the floppy release.
As for SS2: Check out the Rebirth mod. It’s a must have if you want to play that game.
Another way of getting SS1 to play, is to try the portable version. Methinks that it was created by modding the extended CD version. You can google it or try here: http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,211.0.html
I’d like to see a “let’s play” on this series in classic spoony style.
If anyone is interested, the first game can be found right here for free:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/24684/System+Shock.html
Have to disagree a bit on the AvP 2 comments as the first one was better and scarier. Yeah, Monoliths version got more polish and better production values but Rebellions version had darker and scarier atmosphere, hands down. Fighting the aliens as a marine was damn nerve-wrecking, not only they came from every possible angle in unnatural speeds, but shooting off their legs didn’t stop them as they still came at you, crawling on their arms, hissing. Shudder.
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