OUT ON STEAM!

A stealth release of SS2 on steam! It's also 30% off at the moment. So for $7 you can have one of the most atmospheric PC games of all time.

Horror-FPS-PRG. I can't see anyone not being super excited about this. I remember loving this game so much back in the day, and have been missing it so bad ever since.

There is only one thing I can say about this.

Yes.

(I know it's been available on GOG for a couple of months, but I hadn't gotten around to re-buying it yet and I find Steam preferable when given the choice, anyway.)

I prefer my old games on GoG. I like 'em DRM free.

As someone who hasn't played this... is it still completely playable?

@barrock: Suprisingly playable. Just so you know, there are security cameras that will activate an endless stream of enemies. That's the only thing in that game that was never explained, is not very noticeable and is kinda easy to fight (destroy camera, look for the alarm sitch, turn it off). Besides that, everything is explained and it's pretty damn easy to enjoy the game as it stands, without any mods.

Does anyone know if the directory structure is changed for the Steam release? Curious if there's any issues with installing mods.

Hmm I would buy it but I'm not sure I trust Steam with older games like I do with GoG. I'll probably just buy it from GoG when I eventually get around to it.

I had a lot of problems running this on windows XP. I have 7 now. Can people confirm it works alright?

Gaben is watching me.

DEFINITELY don't trust steam with games this old. I picked up Freedom Force which apparently was buggy enough on release, and 11 years later just breaks all the time and is practically unplayable. Tons of posts on the Steam forums, and zero response from them other than "It's Irrational's Problem".

Steam is a wonderful service that I use all the time, but for old games, GOG is a must.

I agree, buying KotOR on Steam and having it just not work really ticked me off, it's not Steam's fault that the game doesn't work but I don't think they should be selling games that won't work for the majority of their users.

Nice. But I'll wait for a sale, because it has the same old $7 = €7 shit and that bugs me to no end. This is my little, almost irrelevant form of boicotting them :(

@koolaid: It worked great with the old unofficial community patch, but it works even better with the new one. I've played it without issue on Vista, 7, and 8 with the classic patch and the same goes for the new patch on 7.

http://www.sshock2.com/shownews.asp?id=400

http://ariane4ever.free.fr/ariane4ever/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4287&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=5fb30e2ac9f6a8491c14c973b7176eb1 (Good Lord, does Google Translate demolish French!)

I hope it'll work well and without issues.

I hope it'll work well and without issues.

It's fucking hard but still holds up. Even looks half-way decent.

It's fucking hard but still holds up. Even looks half-way decent.

Eh, already have it on GOG. I should really get back to it...

Don't tell me this, I finally cracked and bought it on GOG 3 weeks ago!

You're going to have to remap the controls, but otherwise it's still A-OK if you're fine with old graphics and character models. Weapon degradation is notoriously high, though, so you may want to look into that. It looks daunting at first, what with the long tutorial and the many controls, but it's not.

And that's my biggest issue thus far. In Bioshock, the cameras made noise and gave off a light; here, I don't see or hear anything until it's too late.

I bought it when I saw it, never played it when it first came out and after hearing so much about it over the years at the price I felt it was time.

Cheaper on Steam for the time being, but the GOG version gives you extra stuff and is more mod-friendly (though I've only used SHTUP).

I preface my argument with this: tacking on what I am about to say to any argument about Valve's Steam release decisions is going to get old and tiring any day now.

I think that there is a logical dissonance between the buggy, often crappy games people say are released on Steam and the perfectly good games on Steam Greenlight that are barred from release.

Does SS2 still need to launch with single processor affinity and certain graphical options? I also know that it needed to be launched in compatibility mode (avoids crashing) and with a certain video codec installed (DiVX, I think, to play any cutscene). Do you still have to do that?

Also, I know that this game's rights are held by a third party. I want to hear the story about how this game even got permission to be re-released, because that's an amazing feat right there!

@ostratego: I believe they talked about how they got it to re-release on GOG (where it originally re-released a few month ago). I am at work though so I currently cannot get to finding it.

If you're bored you can start your search there, though.

I saw it and bought it right away. Although it's kind of funny, I was just talking to a guy at work about how I refuse to even pay half price for games anymore because my library is so big. Then I got home from work, and bought a game for just 33% off without thinking twice. =P

The online co-op doesn't work, but judging by reports it never has - constant crashes; one of the players can get randomly stuck in the floor with no way out; saves getting corrupted. By far the biggest issue was getting stuck in the floor constantly.

Also, the controls have to be re-mapped but other than that it's grand.

Sound is broken for me, very annoying when you are looking forward to playing a gem that you missed and it just doesn't work.

@thesilentgod: If you are on Windows 7 64 bit then I had this problem too. Just go to sound and change it from OpenAL or whatever the default is to hardware acceleration on, and you should have sound.

That's the only problem I have experienced, everything is great! It even had a default option in the menu for the native resolution of my monitor, which was very cool. I'd say the steam version is fine.

I think the online co-op was added in a post-release patch and it's pretty much always been broken, to my knowledge.

I'm glad they're finally sorting out the distribution problem though. A larger user base is always welcome. I'll grab this when it's on a bigger sale (don't give me that look, I already own a retail/disc copy of the game! But I wouldn't mind the convenience of having it in my steam list for those times when you feel like hitting some fool in the face with a crystal shard).

Hopefully things like Rebirth are still being developed for this game - I wouldn't mind to see some updated models and user made high definition texture packs down the line.

@twolines said:

This.

So does this actually work on steam or should I get it on a gog sale? I've always been super interested in this game and it seems like its still playable. I may just have to pick this thing up

@sackmanjones: On sale on gog now, 2.50$ http://www.gog.com/game/system_shock_2 about 20 hours left.

Looks like the only thing the Steam version adds is trading cards. http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/System_Shock_2

I thought steam already had this out? I would purchase it on Steam, but in a nod to GoG I'm satisfied I got it from them.

@forcen: I've been waiting to get this game for a long time and for that price I can't pass it up. Thanks for linking. I'm one of those guys that would much rather have the DRM free version.