Recent reviews by Contra Machina

This game, although having fun combat, is way too repetitive and fatiguing for me. I simply got too fatigued doing the same things over and over again and eventually quit about a third or halfway through the game.

{ ~ The Good ~ }

+ The visuals are nice, but that doesn't really matter.

+ It's one of the best first-person magic combat systems I've played. The way you build and customize spells is cool.

{ ~ The Bad ~ }

- The story is not great (convoluted and boring)
- No interesting NPCs
- No interesting objectives
- No puzzles
- Nothing interesting to take part in
- Your useless sidekick sucks and does nothing

In over 40 hours I've done nothing but cast spells at hordes of the same mindless enemies and walk through long corridor levels. There's nothing to do. You're a Mary Sue who fights the evil guys in an extremely repetitive fashion. At times I was actually falling asleep while playing hoping the level would soon end. Eventually I came up with a game-breaking spell combination but was still falling asleep due to the long corridor levels devoid of content.

{ ~ IGN vs Big YouTube reviewers ~ }

This is one of the few times I thought IGN was spot-on. Here's a small portion of IGN's review of this game:

"...The trouble is that this badassery too often takes the same form. This is a game that all but begs for puzzles and related activities to break up the routine of fighting, but for the roughly 24 hours I played, it rarely deviated from the same dance of mowing down enemies who mindlessly rush you or fling death from afar...
...By the time you've reached the New Game mode, the magic of experimenting with spells against the onslaught of samey foes has largely fizzled out."

I figured the popular YouTube reviewers would have revealed this and sadly I was wrong. They spent too much time talking about options menus, graphics, and giving you a spell-making tutorial. This is one time that all the big YouTube game reviewers basically failed their fans. I'm getting tired of bogus reviews and things like the "Review Beta" system. It doesn't matter if the graphics are nice, or if the magic combat system is great. If the rest of the game is devoid of actual content, it's not worth the money that I payed.

{ ~ Steam's Terrible Refund Policy ~ }

The reason why I didn't return this game is because the return policy is ridiculous. You spend your first few hours in-game getting the hang of the spell system and hoping for cool stuff to happen. By the time your 2 hour return window is up, the game turns from fun to repetitive and you realize it's devoid of interesting content.

This game is phenomenal. Very ahead of its time.

I was born in 1992 so I had no idea about System Shock as it was originally released in 1994. I was playing Sesame Street PC games around this time. Now I see why Nightdive chose to remake it. Not only is this game amazing but it's fresh to me even though it's over 20 years old. There are many elements of this game which have been copied by others to this day.

{ ~ First Impressions ~ }

The Enhanced edition comes with the manual and the Classic edition. You'll want to give the manual a read through. I haven't figured out a convenient way to view the manual while in-game besides alt-tabbing or printing it out.

The Enhanced edition has improved image and sound quality. The soundtrack sounds way better in the Enhanced edition than the Classic.

This game offers replay value by allowing you to change various settings before starting a new game such as...
...the complexity of the plot and objectives
...you have the option to impose a time limit on yourself
...you can alter the combat difficulty and behavior of enemies.
...you can make puzzles harder or easier

{ ~ Gameplay ~ }

This game has a pertinent and interesting dystopian storyline, cool setting and map layout, interesting puzzles, fun combat, looting, various items with various effects offering various playstyles, and more. It's very immersive.

You are required to fight, recover important data, and bypass technological security systems in order to navigate the space station and complete game-progressing objectives.

> You need to analyze and be aware of your surroundings.
> There is no handholding.
> Looting, inventory management, unlocking doors, and most hacking is done in real time.
> Enemies respawn.
> I don't think there's any cutscenes in this game besides the intro and end cutscenes.

{ ~ Control / Mechanics ~ }

System Shock's approach to selecting and throwing certain items like grenades is unique but functional. After a bit of practice it gets easier but you need to be careful or else you'll blow yourself up.

The Classic version of System Shock is harder to play due to the outdated control mechanics, but the Enhanced version makes the game very playable almost like a real FPS. Playing the Enhanced version on PC really improves the feel of the game and makes moving through the environment and aiming more natural.

Save yourself the time and frustration. If you like good quests, story, freedom and etc then purchase a previous Elder Scrolls game or be sure to use free mods if you do purchase this game.
The Special Edition and the Creation Club are total ripoffs.
The addition of paid Survival Mode, something which has been free for years, is a true disgrace. A while ago I paid $5 for Skyrim in a Steam sale so if I got Skyrim the whole game for $5, then Creation Club content has to either be one penny (0.01) or free. That's all there is to it.

The last good Fallout game.

I'm never going to buy another Bethesda game again. It has the worst storyline and quests of any Fallout game I've ever played. There is a lack of freedom and true RPG mechanics from past Fallout titles. Free mods are what saved this game but ever since the addition of the Creation Club we have been burned by Bethesda yet again.

This isn't really like other 'mech games. It's basically a twitch / arena shooter with very little customization. It has a flight ceiling cap which is nonsensical. It's hardly updated with barely any added content as time goes on.
It doesn't have the best atmosphere...

Also, the developers discontinued working on Hawken for PC. You can only play this game on XBOX and PS now.