Great Remake, Terrible Ending

[Dokkova]

I got through System Shock Remake. I've been waiting seven years. In that time I passed the original 3 times, remembering and loving it as one of the coolest games of all time. And one of the highlights of the original was the ending. The text, which may not have been written for a long time, but what a text it is. Assertive, firm, harsh, even somewhat crude. Old and strong language. "Old habits die hard."

And yet it's clear. The hacker destroyed SHODAN, saved himself, sent Trioptimum to hell, went about his business.

And, of course, the music, which throws firewood into the viewer's brain, causing euphoria, wow-effect and the desire to smoke, as if after a good sex.

Fast, clear, cheerful, cool. The ending from the 1994 game, which is still looking.

The remake changed the style of the music, and the beginning and the end. The beginning was great in the remake. Except the ending didn't follow the same pattern. I had a man sitting with me who wasn't familiar with the original. And when he watched the ending of the remake, he asked me - is Hacker alive? What happened to him in the end?
It's a failure.

The ending here is quick, too, but it has no explanation. Why was added a scene with the flight of the shuttle to the remains of the bridge station (it is clear that they wanted to show that for Hacker flew and saved him, though it could be shown differently, so that the player does not have to guess) - I personally do not understand, it confuses the rhythm of the ending. No text, no monologue, nothing but a silent, narrative to moody, let's be honest, music. The ending had the WORST track possible. Plus then some cheesy half-pop rap or something("This is what you want - this is what you get" (WTF is this???)). This song is even blocked from streaming recordings on Twitch, indicating that the developers didn't bother to buy the rights for at least a year for public listening.

Well there are tracks with strings, heavy instruments, one of them comes after the track described above. At least put it - and it would look better.

Yes, i understand, the mood of the game has been changed to more horror, thriller, in connection with which was made and a new OST. And that went a long way in the game. Like SS2. But there WAS GOOD MUSIC that made you shake head in tempo. Just like the original one. Like the remake, it's there too! But only here, despite the fact that the music in the game is generally good (with reservations about sound design, but specifically its appearance and duration) you are not in the vigor, you sometimes yawn. That's neither bad nor good, just noting that the developers knew what they were doing.

I caught some of the design notes from DooM 3. Darker and sharper. But DooM 3 had a closing song (aka main menu music) that had a wow effect. Maybe they couldn't add the old soundtrack, at least to the ending, but wait - Nightdive Studios owns all the rights to SS1 and SS2, and they even released a vinyl of the original game soundtrack, where the A side is the modernized original soundtrack by composer Jonathan Peros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASTNxCRZ1us), and there is also a version by original composer Greg LoPiccolo. It's published in 2020. What could have prevented them from at least adding to the ending the track that we (who passed the original) all know and love? Questions, questions...

Honestly, for me the project is flushed down the toilet with this ending. You don't feel satisfied after it, only frustrated. Instead of a sense of victory after a good fight, some kind of neuropsychiatric fashion disorder in today's youth.

P.S. A personal opinion I wanted to express as a longtime fan of the series.

P.P.S. Maybe I am scolding the developers in vain, because the fact that the original soundtrack on vinyl, design and a lot of love for the original (remake, (as a reflection of the original) - I repeat - great) suggests that the developers wanted the best. Maybe the fact that they had a publisher influenced the final result. Sad result.

[Dokkova]

Originally posted by Joltin:

I agree. The remake's ending did not give me as much of a "wow" moment compared to the original's. The absence of the "Old habits die hard" line was especially upsetting. When I was a kid I always thought it said "Old hagits die hard" and I was confused beyond belief.

Indeed. I caught some of the design notes from DooM 3. Darker and sharper. But DooM 3 had a closing song (aka main menu music) that had a wow effect. Maybe they couldn't add the old soundtrack, at least to the ending, but wait - Nightdive Studios owns all the rights to SS1 and SS2, and they even released a vinyl of the original game soundtrack, where the A side is the modernized original soundtrack by composer Jonathan Peros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASTNxCRZ1us), and there is also a version by original composer Greg LoPiccolo. It's published in 2020. What could have prevented them from at least adding to the ending the track that we (who passed the original) all know and love? Questions, questions...

[tymon2701]

I didn't play the original but the ending was rather confusing to me. And yeah, the ending music is terrible.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Dokkova:

The beginning was great in the remake.

If you're referring to the playable intro instead of the original intro cutscene, no, it's not great, it's clunky and awful.

[Dokkova]

Originally posted by ZylonBane:

Originally posted by Dokkova:

The beginning was great in the remake.

If you're referring to the playable intro instead of the original intro cutscene, no, it's not great, it's clunky and awful.

I agree. It's also clunky and overly long. The beginning makes up for it with all sorts of references and items. The same guitar that plays one of the themes of the original SS1 (Again, THERE it is, but not used in the game itself). It also looks blurred, due to the fact that too quickly passes and the player does not have time to get up to speed. The only thing in the beginning there are dialogues that explain at least something.

I don't know why I'm trying to justify it, although I agree with you.

[Dokkova]

Originally posted by tymon2701:

I didn't play the original but the ending was rather confusing to me. And yeah, the ending music is terrible.

Honestly, I think ardent fans will make mods that fix the beginning and the end. I've seen threads in discussions along the lines of, "give me a mod for the original music!" It would be cool if we could negotiate with Peros and LoPiccolo to get them/the rights holders to give permission to use it in the mod. Especially if you get to use the soundtrack from the vinyl.

Anyway, waiting for SS2 ENHANCED. I wonder if the developers aren't using fan work (SS2TOOLS). Then the story will be like the Skyrim scandal.

[Kain]

Originally posted by ZylonBane:

Originally posted by Dokkova:

The beginning was great in the remake.

If you're referring to the playable intro instead of the original intro cutscene, no, it's not great, it's clunky and awful.

Yeah, I love that opening and it's a great way to give a bit more input on the hacker's personality.

[Vanessa]

almost no one has beaten the game yet so this is a weird thread

[Cutiesaurs]

Well the ending for the remake is bad but Temtem comes along and say hold my beer. https://youtu.be/1hPeEfvzTgI

[Vanessa]

Originally posted by Cutiesaurs:

Well the ending for the remake is bad but Temtem comes along and say hold my beer. https://youtu.be/1hPeEfvzTgI

those faces my god

[Kyorisu]

Original intro. Laptop with a keyboard.
Original Outro. Using the implant to hack

Remake stuffs this detail up.

[Toasty]

Just finished the game and I have to agree. The information it's supposed to communicate is unclear. If you weren't reading the hacker's screen, you would have no idea he was offered a job by TriOptimum. I could also imagine someone thinking the hacker died since his vision blurs, he stumbles, and then slumps to the floor.

As I understand it, the ending song is a reference to some famous cyberpunk movies or something. I'm sure there's at least one middle aged guy who would read the last sentence and get angry at me for not knowing, but I didn't really care for it. If you don't already know what it is, it just feels weirdly out of place, as if one of the developers just randomly selected a song from their favorite playlist to use as the credits music. The fact that it's so wrapped up in copyright that you can't use it in a stream/video is also annoying. I really think they should have made an original credit song.

Originally posted by Kyorisu:

Original intro. Laptop with a keyboard.
Original Outro. Using the implant to hack

Remake stuffs this detail up.

Also this

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Kain:

Yeah, I love that opening and it's a great way to give a bit more input on the hacker's personality.

The intro being playable gives zero more "input" on the hacker's personality than a non-playable cutscene would have. The hacker isn't even supposed to have a personality, beyond "generic 90's whitebread cyberpunk guy".

This seems like as good an opportunity as any to explain why, exactly, the remake's intro is crap compared to the original. To begin at the beginning...

The remake, as discussed, replaces SS1's introductory cutscene with a playable intro. This is one of those things that I'm sure sounded cool in concept, but utterly failed in execution. You're forced to aimlessly wander around your tiny apartment while waiting for your pixelated laptop to decide it's okay to click it, at which point you trigger a strangely robotic capture sequence where the hacker remains rooted to his chair, pivoting like a lazily-scripted camera, as TriOp goons bust in and capture you. No dramatic music during this scene, no player motion. It all feels very perfunctory and honestly a bit unfinished.

Then you wake up on Citadel and it's more of the same half-assedness. Diego shows up as a hologram for some reason, orders you to hack SHODAN, and... you do. Right then. Takes like 30 seconds of sitting there watching the hacker's hands flying around doing random "hacker" things. There is no player interaction with any of this. It's both boring and ridiculous. He literally opens up a menu and switches the Ethical Restraints switch from On to Off.

So to compare the two...

Original Intro: Tells the player everything they need to know about who they are, where they are, and what's happened to them, all to the beat of a thumping soundtrack, in two minutes flat. And the intro is optional. You don't even have to watch it.

Remake Intro: Tells the player less about what's going on, wastes your time, no music, replaces the original perfectly sleazy-sounding Diego with an eyeless elder vampire Diego, makes the hacker weirdly voiceless, and makes the process of hacking SHODAN look laughably trivial. All this in a minimum of four minutes if you skip everything that's skippable. This entire sequence is mandatory. You cannot choose to just start on Citadel.

Alfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the dull bits cut out". Whoever put together this sequence desperately needs to learn this lesson. The original intro is a masterfully assembled montage, showing only the bare minimum necessary to grasp each scene before moving on, all threaded together by Terri Brosius' lovely voiceover. The remake intro, by dire contrast, is predominantly "the dull bits". No music, no voiceover, just a clunky mess that answers the question, "What if you made a playable intro with no gameplay?"

[Kain]

Originally posted by ZylonBane:

Originally posted by Kain:

Yeah, I love that opening and it's a great way to give a bit more input on the hacker's personality.

The intro being playable gives zero more "input" on the hacker's personality than a non-playable cutscene would have. The hacker isn't even supposed to have a personality, beyond "generic 90's whitebread cyberpunk guy".

This seems like as good an opportunity as any to explain why, exactly, the remake's intro is crap compared to the original. To begin at the beginning...

The remake, as discussed, replaces SS1's introductory cutscene with a playable intro. This is one of those things that I'm sure sounded cool in concept, but utterly failed in execution. You're forced to aimlessly wander around your tiny apartment while waiting for your pixelated laptop to decide it's okay to click it, at which point you trigger a strangely robotic capture sequence where the hacker remains rooted to his chair, pivoting like a lazily-scripted camera, as TriOp goons bust in and capture you. No dramatic music during this scene, no player motion. It all feels very perfunctory and honestly a bit unfinished.

Then you wake up on Citadel and it's more of the same half-assedness. Diego shows up as a hologram for some reason, orders you to hack SHODAN, and... you do. Right then. Takes like 30 seconds of sitting there watching the hacker's hands flying around doing random "hacker" things. There is no player interaction with any of this. It's both boring and ridiculous. He literally opens up a menu and switches the Ethical Restraints switch from On to Off.

So to compare the two...

Original Intro: Tells the player everything they need to know about who they are, where they are, and what's happened to them, all to the beat of a thumping soundtrack, in two minutes flat. And the intro is optional. You don't even have to watch it.

Remake Intro: Tells the player less about what's going on, wastes your time, no music, replaces the original perfectly sleazy-sounding Diego with an eyeless elder vampire Diego, makes the hacker weirdly voiceless, and makes the process of hacking SHODAN look laughably trivial. All this in a minimum of four minutes if you skip everything that's skippable. This entire sequence is mandatory. You cannot choose to just start on Citadel.

Alfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the dull bits cut out". Whoever put together this sequence desperately needs to learn this lesson. The original intro is a masterfully assembled montage, showing only the bare minimum necessary to grasp each scene before moving on, all threaded together by Terri Brosius' lovely voiceover. The remake intro, by dire contrast, is predominantly "the dull bits". No music, no voiceover, just a clunky mess that answers the question, "What if you made a playable intro with no gameplay?"

Yeah, nice post, but I disagree. I like the small nods to what the hacker likes, like the guitar, the toys and his apartment and how quickly motivated by personal gain he is.

I don't want to sound dismissive, but I guess I just don't care about your opinion, specially when you make it to be a fact. I guess if you had presented your opinion as what it actually is, an opinion, I would have been more interested.

[Ulysse 31]

Originally posted by ZylonBane:

Originally posted by Kain:

Yeah, I love that opening and it's a great way to give a bit more input on the hacker's personality.

The intro being playable gives zero more "input" on the hacker's personality than a non-playable cutscene would have. The hacker isn't even supposed to have a personality, beyond "generic 90's whitebread cyberpunk guy".

This seems like as good an opportunity as any to explain why, exactly, the remake's intro is crap compared to the original. To begin at the beginning...

The remake, as discussed, replaces SS1's introductory cutscene with a playable intro. This is one of those things that I'm sure sounded cool in concept, but utterly failed in execution. You're forced to aimlessly wander around your tiny apartment while waiting for your pixelated laptop to decide it's okay to click it, at which point you trigger a strangely robotic capture sequence where the hacker remains rooted to his chair, pivoting like a lazily-scripted camera, as TriOp goons bust in and capture you. No dramatic music during this scene, no player motion. It all feels very perfunctory and honestly a bit unfinished.

Then you wake up on Citadel and it's more of the same half-assedness. Diego shows up as a hologram for some reason, orders you to hack SHODAN, and... you do. Right then. Takes like 30 seconds of sitting there watching the hacker's hands flying around doing random "hacker" things. There is no player interaction with any of this. It's both boring and ridiculous. He literally opens up a menu and switches the Ethical Restraints switch from On to Off.

So to compare the two...

Original Intro: Tells the player everything they need to know about who they are, where they are, and what's happened to them, all to the beat of a thumping soundtrack, in two minutes flat. And the intro is optional. You don't even have to watch it.

Remake Intro: Tells the player less about what's going on, wastes your time, no music, replaces the original perfectly sleazy-sounding Diego with an eyeless elder vampire Diego, makes the hacker weirdly voiceless, and makes the process of hacking SHODAN look laughably trivial. All this in a minimum of four minutes if you skip everything that's skippable. This entire sequence is mandatory. You cannot choose to just start on Citadel.

Alfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the dull bits cut out". Whoever put together this sequence desperately needs to learn this lesson. The original intro is a masterfully assembled montage, showing only the bare minimum necessary to grasp each scene before moving on, all threaded together by Terri Brosius' lovely voiceover. The remake intro, by dire contrast, is predominantly "the dull bits". No music, no voiceover, just a clunky mess that answers the question, "What if you made a playable intro with no gameplay?"

Seems like modern day story tellers take more time to say less, unfortunately.

[Dextrose]

Originally posted by ZylonBane:

Originally posted by Kain:

Yeah, I love that opening and it's a great way to give a bit more input on the hacker's personality.

The intro being playable gives zero more "input" on the hacker's personality than a non-playable cutscene would have. The hacker isn't even supposed to have a personality, beyond "generic 90's whitebread cyberpunk guy".

This seems like as good an opportunity as any to explain why, exactly, the remake's intro is crap compared to the original. To begin at the beginning...

The remake, as discussed, replaces SS1's introductory cutscene with a playable intro. This is one of those things that I'm sure sounded cool in concept, but utterly failed in execution. You're forced to aimlessly wander around your tiny apartment while waiting for your pixelated laptop to decide it's okay to click it, at which point you trigger a strangely robotic capture sequence where the hacker remains rooted to his chair, pivoting like a lazily-scripted camera, as TriOp goons bust in and capture you. No dramatic music during this scene, no player motion. It all feels very perfunctory and honestly a bit unfinished.

Then you wake up on Citadel and it's more of the same half-assedness. Diego shows up as a hologram for some reason, orders you to hack SHODAN, and... you do. Right then. Takes like 30 seconds of sitting there watching the hacker's hands flying around doing random "hacker" things. There is no player interaction with any of this. It's both boring and ridiculous. He literally opens up a menu and switches the Ethical Restraints switch from On to Off.

So to compare the two...

Original Intro: Tells the player everything they need to know about who they are, where they are, and what's happened to them, all to the beat of a thumping soundtrack, in two minutes flat. And the intro is optional. You don't even have to watch it.

Remake Intro: Tells the player less about what's going on, wastes your time, no music, replaces the original perfectly sleazy-sounding Diego with an eyeless elder vampire Diego, makes the hacker weirdly voiceless, and makes the process of hacking SHODAN look laughably trivial. All this in a minimum of four minutes if you skip everything that's skippable. This entire sequence is mandatory. You cannot choose to just start on Citadel.

Alfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the dull bits cut out". Whoever put together this sequence desperately needs to learn this lesson. The original intro is a masterfully assembled montage, showing only the bare minimum necessary to grasp each scene before moving on, all threaded together by Terri Brosius' lovely voiceover. The remake intro, by dire contrast, is predominantly "the dull bits". No music, no voiceover, just a clunky mess that answers the question, "What if you made a playable intro with no gameplay?"

They turned hacking Shodan into literally this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQBXPiaECHE