Recent reviews by Kyeki

as somebody who's a big fan of both the original system shock and system shock 2 (one of my favorite games :D) i was on high alert for this game when the kickstarter initially dropped in 2016, and i put my preorder in to this game in 2021 ... unfortunately it took them 2 more years to bring the game out and i cancelled my preorder in between then and now cause i was getting fed up with waiting, but now we finally have it and i was absolutely not disappointed.

system shock 1 desperately needed a remake. of course, the original game is very playable today and is still a load of fun, but the enhanced edition added traditional fps mouselook, a feature that the original game was not designed with in mind (remember, this was 1994, they haven't really figured out the whole fps thing just yet) and it makes the game not only a lot easier but even trivializes some parts where the game is expecting the player to be using the traditional weird operating system controls. i was able to blaze through the hardest difficulty of the original with no real resistance thanks in part to mouselook. even keeping in mind that the game was insanely innovative for the time (it had poor sales partly because many computers at the time couldn't even run the game) some parts stick out as being dated and you can only help but think "if only they did it again today with the design practices and technology we have now, it'd be so much better" ... well, that's exactly what they did with this remake and i was very impressed.

the game is admittedly a little rough around the edges, which personally doesn't affect my experience that much but it can throw some people off. i mean, if you look down at your feet and lean your upper body will separate from your lower body, that seems like something that would have been easily caught by testing... there are some other minor bugs sprinkled throughout like ragdolls glitching through walls or physics items acting weird, and i only had one "fatal error" crash. i've heard rumors of bugs with saves, but i didn't personally experience this.

there's a lot to go over in terms of gameplay, so i compiled my general positives/negatives into a list.

the good:
+ the game no longer suffers from horrible control problems. the game controls like a typical fps, which makes it a lot easier to pick up for people not willing to study the controls of the original for 20 minutes.
+ the inventory system makes a lot more sense than the original's "you have x amount of slots for weapons, and x amount for "miscellaneous items" and that's it". it's more reminiscent of system shock 2's inventory system with each item taking up a certain amount of slots.
+ normally i don't care too much about graphics, but in a survival horror game like this that emphasizes immersion it's worth bringing up that the game looks absolutely stunning. the groves, for example, actually look like the advertised "simulated outdoor environments", the gore looks visceral and nasty as expected, and even the overall design of citadel station itself looks incredible.
+ the balancing of the weapons in this game, including the new weapons, feels far more deliberate than the original's. i'm pretty sure in the original game you could easily go the entire game with only using the laser rapier, it was that powerful. mutated cyborgs, cortex reavers, even edward diego himself stood no chance against the original's laser rapier. here, in comparison, every weapon you pick up has a purpose and you can easily be juggling multiple weapons all the way up to the end game, each with their own use case.
+ the music is fantastic. i really admire that they not only fit in the fast-paced music reminiscent of the original's, but they also fit in some great survival horror ambience as well. they could have did a better job with the dynamic music so more of the tracks could shine, but overall it was still very well done.
+ the cyberspace segments, even despite being disorienting (as are most 6dof-controlled games to me) i never really got lost in them and the objectives basically completed themselves as you traverse through them.
+ overall, the gameplay is well done. the puzzles are more enjoyable and rewarding to complete compared to the original's "just mess with it until it completes", the weapons are satisfying, combat is fun, and i never particularly found myself lost or not sure what to do next.

the questionable:
? although the new music is great, the credits didn't even use the system shock theme. i know, it's a nitpicky complaint, but they had it in the intro for a little bit, i don't see why they couldn't use it in the credits too where it could serve as a good bookend track (where it would fit, and where it was in the original too)
? the voice actors for the audio logs in the remake deserve credit, they did an absolutely wonderful job roping you in to the story and there were no particularly bad performances. however, i personally prefer the original's audio logs since the original's gave a more "desperate employees/scientists getting caught in a horrible situation" tone and it never came off as too dramatic, it was completely believable. the remake's, however, goes a little too far with the audio glitching and felt overacted to me which at times took me out of the immersive environment they've built.
? unlike the original, the targeting upgrade doesn't tell you how much damage you did to an enemy or enemies. instead, you press alt on one target at a time and it tells you the health/energy of the specific target. you can also "hack" an enemy, which i hardly used as i felt it just wasted time when i could just be shooting the enemy to death.

the bad:
- the intro was stupid. i'd have much rather preferred a well-crafted cinematic like the original had. in immersive sim fashion, the intro of the original gave you a blank slate (the hacker) to insert yourself into so you could truly be put into the experience, and the shift of shodan's third-person speech to first-person to signify the extent of her ethical constraints being removed is a wonderful way to hint at the devastation she would cause to the station, which you're otherwise put in the dark about for some time. this new intro has none of that, and your hacker "character" is flipping off trioptimum agents and is supposed to be The Ultimate Cool Guy:tm: in the face of edward diego, a character who no longer has the "charismatic businessman who will drop ethics if it means profit" type personality that the original portrayed. this is probably my biggest complaint with this game overall, the intro missed a lot of marks and first impressions really matter.
- they added a bit more to the final boss fight compared to the original, and i suppose it's more eventful, but it just didn't really feel impactful for a final boss. in a similar vein to the original's, you just Shoot Stuff Until Something Happens, which i felt was a missed opportunity to make the cyberspace duel maybe a little bit more climactic.
- next to the pocket dimension add-on, there's an audio log that's literally just a verse from rush - 2112. i wouldn't care if it's just a reference, but it's literally just one of the verses from that song ... come on, that just takes me out of the experience.

i commend the developers for keeping many of the elements that made the original so great unchanged, and stripping out or updating the dated mechanics. it says a lot that even though the remake is more "modern" than the original, a lot of the elements of the original were left unchanged (like the energy system, the acquiring of add-ons, add-ons like the envirosuit being hidden to gate your progress and pace the player, the environmental storytelling) because they were so well done. if you liked the original system shock, or like immersive games in general, there's a very good chance that the remake will be worth your time. well done nightdive.

no idea what happened to Counter-Strike 1.7 to 1.9, but Counter-Strike 2 is pretty good

i usually don't write comprehensive reviews but i felt that this game in particular needed it, as it stands out as a particularly good example at how to ruin the chance to remaster a game that might not be as well remembered as the standout 90s classics.

quake 2, as it stands with a source port, is a mediocre game. it's not particularly a bad game nor is it a particularly good game like its predecessor. it's basically the bare essentials of an id software game (an arsenal of good-feeling weapons, advanced engine/effects and good visuals for the time) mushed into a fine paste. no part particularly stands out and if it weren't for me coming back to it to replay for the achievements i probably would have mostly forgotten anything and everything that happens in this game. it's a historical game - at the time, the effects and advancements in software rendering made quake 2 an absolute marvel against its sparse competition in 1997, and i feel anybody wanting to play the game now needs to go into it with that mindset in order to get anything out of it and not just be expecting another groundbreaking game that expands on quake 1 in every aspect. in fact, the game is a sequel in name only, so it's best to just treat it as it's an entirely separate game.

the game is surprisingly easy, even on the highest difficulty. some may struggle on the highest difficulty due to the unpredictability of the enemies on that skill, but for the remaster i decided to go through the "medium" difficulty just to get it out of the way and get the achievements and i figured this would probably also be the difficulty "new" players on console and pc alike will see as being the normal way of play there are a handful of boss fights that occur that are trivially easy since, unlike the predecessor quake 1, you are allowed to hold onto powerups continuously until you need them and it hardly takes much for the bosses to go down. i felt the game didn't really know where to go with its atmosphere, and drew more from doom with a fantastic electronic-infused metal that stands up very well even outside of the game. the objectives are straight-forward and at the end of most "units" you're hitting an exit switch after completing all of your objectives, much like doom. it took me a little over 3 hours to complete the campaign, and on medium it was incredibly easy, although i suspect newer players that have never played it will take a little longer.

i wouldn't even give quake 2, the base game, a negative review, as it really doesn't deserve one. people playing should bear in mind that the game was a technological marvel at the time and it obviously won't hold up to the same comprehensive standards that we have today. this remaster, however, is absolutely atrocious in holding this mindset up and i personally feel that anybody playing this remaster will never be able to appreciate quake 2 for what it is. i have many complaints about the new features added and i'll go through them in the order in which i discovered them:

firstly, the remaster comes with hitmarkers and hit indicators on by default. i was able to turn off the hitmarkers, but the hit indicators stayed on for the entirety of the run as there was no option to turn them off. this is not call of duty, it's a 90s fps game... most of the enemies are going to be right in your face or ambushing you from behind in a doom monster closet-esque trap. next, i noticed there were some additional "graphical effects" not present within the original game similarly to how the quake 1 remaster does not look as the original game does. the remaster includes options for effects like bloom and depth of field, along with the option for motion blur which thankfully was already turned off by default. next, the game includes "restored AI behaviors" which are not found in the original and i believe are constructed from unused assets from the original, which is neat. there are sound effects from quake 3 arena for footsteps which is annoying, slightly different weapon behavior (weapon swap faster, and something about the speed of weapons in general felt a little off) which is also annoying, and "enhanced cinematics", which i suppose i didn't mind but i would have really appreciated a way to turn them all off to keep the game as it originally released.

finally, as i picked up a powerup and went to the new radial menu (a new feature i actually didn't mind) to use it i noticed there was a "compass" item, so i used it, and it pointed me to the next objective.

there's a compass item in this game that tells you where to go.

at that point, why not just add a feature that lets the game play itself so you can sit back and relax? the game isn't even hard as it is, some levels have the illusion of choice but really you'll end up fulfilling the same objectives in a linear path and if you're paying attention there really is no way to get lost. a compass is, by all means, the antithesis of a game like quake 2. it would be basically the same as putting it in a doom game and telling you where to go to grab the keycards and doors. absolutely despicable. the compass at some points even pointed me to inaccessible parts of the map as it was pointing me to the wrong objective. what's the point of putting a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ compass into the game if it isn't even going to work and just confuse players even more???

all of the above features that i dislike ultimately point me towards the main goal of this remaster, which is to bring quake 2 to modern consoles and to let "the newer generation" experience these games with improved fidelity. while i don't necessarily mind most of the changes that were made with the quake 1 remaster (although i have gripes about the graphical options) since quake 1 is a very influential game and can hold up for what it is, quake 2's is particularly nasty as quake 2 as it stands is a niche game where most players that go out of their way to play it are already playing it through a comprehensive source port and are going into it with the mindset of "this isn't a standout title in the id software catalog" instead of "ooh, shiny new remaster just released! this will be the perfect opportunity to live through a classic!" this was the ultimate mistake with this remaster: it was treated like it needed new features and a brand new coat of paint to appeal to the "newer players" when all the original steam release needed was to have the soundtrack included and for it to properly run on modern hardware easily and most people would have been satisfied with it.

if you want to play quake 2 for some god forsaken reason, just get yamagi quake 2. it's a source port that's got everything you need to experience it as it originally came and runs incredibly well with no fuss on modern systems. don't play this crap.

refuses to launch. tried every fix/patch under the sun and would still refuse to launch with a "memory access violation" error. been able to play the game previously on non-steam versions, it just so happens that this mod somehow breaks on my computer. apparently, a beefy computer crumbles to the effort of running a game based on an engine from the early 2000s.

as good if not better than postal 2, has some fantastic-feeling guns and a lot of the features and design from postal 2 (exploration gives you items, buying items from random shops around the map, shooting random people, etc) but with its own brand new assortment of items and features, which makes the game pretty much endlessly fun. although it gives a different feeling from the early 2000s jank vibe that postal 2 has, the jank is still very present and very enjoyable

from the moment i watched the intro to the game, with max standing on a rooftop with a sniper, i *knew* i was going to love this game.

setting aside that the game is the first of its kind to utilize bullet time, the story + writing is FANTASTIC for a game of its era and there are aaa titles nowadays that can't hold a candle to the writing (or even gameplay) in this game. every gunfight is interesting and despite being a very linear game it manages to give you quite a few ways to kill your enemies.

a feature i was particularly fond of is the fact that max is as fragile as the enemies are. you can't take many hits without dying, which makes it feel a little more "realistic" considering a leather jacket wouldn't do too well stopping bullets

all in all, if you're willing to install fixes to get the game working on modern systems, this game (along with its sequel) is well worth the money especially when they go on sale for cheap

what's there to not like about this game? it's got something for everybody, including:
- throwing guns in order to instagib your target
- the ugliest, most unrealistic environments in an immersive sim i've ever seen, more reminiscent of a late 90s website like worlds.com than anything realistic
- dedicated suicide button, which activates an explosive in your brain killing nearby people
- a kick so powerful there's no words to describe how powerful it is, and there's an augmentation to make it even stronger
- eating corpses to regain health and stealing their organs to sell on the organ market
- dedicated key to open the stock market and invest in a diverse portfolio

genuinely one of the most unique and interesting video games i've ever seen. although it might be a little short (it took me about 4-5 hours to get to and finish the last main level), there's a scoring/timing system for each level, a load of unique augmentations and weapons to encourage different strategies, incredibly responsive gun mechanics, and an entirely different layer + different endings of the game if you're willing to secret hunt. all of these combine for a nearly endless amount of replayability.

my only critique is that at the moment there's no level editor. besides that, this game is well worth $20. goty contender for sure.

people are *not* joking when they say that this is the greatest game ever made.

perfect soundtrack by the dudes who also made the unreal tournament soundtrack, possibly one of the most innovative games of its time, unique story that has a very solid ground in real conspiracy theories and politics that really gets you immersed into the experience, and the gep gun feature, all mesh together to create one of the finest games ever created.

ah yes kill the klansmen with chainsaws in dusk BANG BANG big gun two barrel super shotgun is that a doom quake reference???????

excellent game, actually 10/10 - have had zero bugs throughout my entire playthrough, excellent soundtrack, excellent 90s-like movement, superb weapon loadout that hits the general "id software" arsenal nail on the head with super shotguns, energy weapons, and rocket launchers, a surprisingly good story to follow instead of having a bunch of unrelated levels linked together like in other 90s games, and accurately depicts civilian life in pennsylvania

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