#System shock 2 weapon degradation windows 7#

That System Shock would be released the year after Doom, and System Shock 2 the year after Half-Life, illustrates a level of genre exploration now effectively extinct. Looking back, it's astonishing that an action game would ask so much of its player.

Some of Shock 2's elements (like the class system) seem like legacy systems that could be designed around, and some (like weapon degradation) would probably be more easily sold if they were a bit less aggressive in their hindrance, but the overall sensation of having so much control and choice over your player character - and so much responsibility during nearly every moment of play - is fascinating and empowering. With my most recent revisiting of System Shock 2 some time before the existence of BioShock, it was initially a jolt to recall how much more intricate and numerous its mechanics are than in its successor - and to note how much BioShock directly inherited nonetheless. A warning: The first section is about design, and is spoiler-free the second section deals heavily in story details. More than a decade after the game's release, it's possible my thoughts are nothing new, but the game made a strong enough impression to demand some organized thoughts.

#System shock 2 weapon degradation windows 7#

After some fiddling to get the game running on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine, and about 15 hours of play this February, I finished System Shock 2. That was when I was starting to think more seriously and critically about the medium games of the Looking Glass lineage, like Shock 2 and its contemporary Thief, were instrumental in the development of my thinking about games, alongside Valve's Half-Life.Īnd so, as BioShock 2 approached earlier this year, I decided I owed it to myself to finally fill in that partially-empty gap. This remains an unfortunately common occurrence with me, but it was particularly so during that era, before games had become a 'primary' hobby. Despite enjoying the game, and playing it to various stages of completeness, I never managed to stick with it until the end.

When I first played Irrational Games' 1999 classic System Shock 2, I didn't complete it.