System Shock 2

Overview

System Shock 2 is the sequel to Warren Spector's 1994 action-oriented role-playing game System Shock. Set in the future, the player takes on the role of a nameless soldier aboard the military starship UNN Rickenbacker as it serves as a defensive escort on the maiden voyage of the first faster-than-light starship, the Von Braun. The game begins as the player is brought out of cryogenic stasis -- with no memory of the previous few weeks -- to find the ship in ruins, devoid of intelligent human life, and overrun by a host of hideously mutated, feral former humans who refer to themselves in garbled speech as "The Many."

Over the course of the game, the player discovers what has happened by making their way through both ships and uncovering clues left behind by deceased crew members. Several months into the flight, the two ships encountered a distress call sent from a planet in the Tau Ceti system. Investigating this signal resulted in The Many's infiltration of the ships, the compromise of the Von Braun's FTL stardrive, and -- in a stirring mid-game plot twist -- the resurrection of the first System Shock's antagonist, the malevolent rogue artificial intelligence named SHODAN.

Plot

The game begins in 2114, forty-two years after the original game System Shock. After your player - Soldier G65434-2 - joins the United National Nominate, he is assigned to the military spacecraft, the Rickenbacker. This ship is appointed as the maiden-voyage escort of the Von Braun, an experimental starship capable of faster-than-light space travel.

After a couple of months into the journey, the ships respond to a distress signal from the planet Tau Ceti V. A rescue team is deployed to the surface of the planet where they discover strange eggs throughout the entire facility and nearby area. The eggs suddenly infect the rescue team and integrate them into an alien communion that calls itself The Many. Upon the rescue team's return, the infestation takes over both ships.

The soldier awakens in a cryo-tube in the medical wing of the Von Braun with amnesia due to a computer malfunction on the systems. He is immediately contacted by another survivor, Dr. Janice Polito, who guides the soldier to safety seconds before the medical wing depressurizes. Dr Polito implores the soldier to meet with her on Deck 4. As he makes his way to his objective, the soldier battles the infected crew members; all the while The Many communicates telepathically with the soldier to join their collective.

After the soldier restarts the ship's engine core and incinerates everything in the elevator shaft, he reaches Deck 4 and discovers Dr. Janice had been dead for some time. He is confronted by SHODAN, an evil artificial intelligence that caused the devastation on Citadel Station in the previous game. She reveals that she has been posing as Dr. Janice to gain his trust and is solely responsible for creating The Many. They are the results of her bioengineering experiments on the denizens of Citadel Station. Forty-two years earlier, an unnamed hacker ejected the grove that contained both she and her experiments into space to prevent them from contaminating Earth. When the grove landed on Tau Ceti V she went into forced hibernation which allowed The Many to grow beyond her control. SHODAN issues an ultimatum: The soldier must help her destroy her creations or die.

The soldier tries to regain control of the main computers, but ultimately fails. SHODAN informs him that destroying the Von Braun is their only option but he must transfer SHODAN's consciousness to the Rickenbacker first. While on route, the soldier briefly finds two survivors, Tommy Suarez and Rebecca Siddons, who flee the ship on a working escape pod.

When the transfer is complete, the soldier travels to the Rickenbacker and learns both ships have been infected by The Many's source: a giant mass of organic tissue. The soldier enters its mass and destroys the core from within, stopping the spread of the infection. SHODAN congratulates the protagonist and informs him of its original intentions: merge real space with cyberspace by subverting the reality-altering mechanics of the Von Braun ship. The soldier confronts SHODAN in CyberSpace and defeats her.

The final scene of the game shows Tommy and Rebecca receiving a message from the Von Braun. Tommy answers, telling the soldier that they will return but Rebecca isn't feeling well. She is heard speaking in the same voice as SHODAN.

Characters

Soldier G65434-2: The player character, and the main protagonist of System Shock 2. Depending on which branch of the military you decide to choose, you'll either be in the Navy, Marines, or Psi-Ops.

SHODAN: SHODAN makes a terrifying return as the main antagonist in System Shock 2. Unsatisfied with how her "God experiment" went in the creation of The Many, she manipulates the protagonist to clean up her mess.

XERXES: XERXES is the AI aboard the Von Braun. XERXES gets co-opted by the Bio-mass of the Many and helps them run riot on the Von Braun. Later on in the game, SHODAN assimilates his AI core.

Dr. Marie Delacroix: One of the only people left alive on board the Von Braun. She is the main liaison between the protagonist and the corrupted environments and creatures of the crippled Von Braun and Rickenbacker.

Dr. Janice Polito: SHODAN mimics her voice over the radio transmissions to the protagonist in order to establish trust. Once this has been established, the protagonist discovers Dr. Polito's body on the Ops deck and finds out that she has been dead for quite sometime and that he was following SHODAN's orders all along.

Capt. William Bedford Diego: Captain Diego is the son of Edward Diego, the vice-president of TriOptimum Corp from the first System Shock. He is the Captain of the UNN Rickenbacker, the military battle-cruiser escort for the Von Braun.

Weapons and ammo

Standard Weapons	Ammunition	Skill Requirement	Firing Modes	Description/upgrades
	Bullets: Standard Armor-Piercing Anti-Personnel	Standard 1	Single Shot Three Round Bursts	The Pistol is one of the most useful weapons in the early part of the game, it does a fair amount of damage and needs a low amount of skill to be used, it's effective against most enemies, as long as the appropriate ammo type is used.
	Slugs: Rifled Pellet	Standard 3	Single Shot Triple Shot (Double Damage)	The shotgun deals a good amount of damage and the ammo isn't as rare as many other weapons. It is effective against flesh-based enemies at close range.
	Bullets: Standard Armor Piercing Anti-Personnel	Standard 6 Strength 4	Single Shot Automatic	The assault rifle is one of the best weapons in the game and the best of the standard category. Its damage is comparable to the pistol with a 25% damage bonus and features automatic fire and a wide magazine. It can kill many strong creatures with a few shots if the appropriate ammo is used.

Energy Weapons	Recharges	Skill Requirement	Firing Modes	Description/upgrades
	Battery	Energy 1	Normal Overload	The laser pistol is a weak weapon, it does only a small amount of damage on normal mode, but can be set to overload to increase damage. One of the main features of this weapon is its essentially infinite ammo (the weapon can be recharged at a power station).
	None	Energy 4 Agility 3	Melee	A powerful melee weapon, despite being less effective against flesh-based enemies. It is more powerful than the standard wrench.
	Battery	Energy 6	Normal Overload	The EMP rifle is very effective against mechs, but useless against flesh-based enemies. It is effective against mechs and, like the laser pistol, can be considered to have infinite ammo.

Heavy Weapons	Ammunition	Skill Requirement	Firing Modes	Description/upgrades
	Grenades: Fragmentation Incendiary EMP Disruption Proximity	Heavy 1	Impact Bounce	The grenade launcher is the most versatile weapon in the game, in the sense that it can use a wide variety of ammo types. It also has the ability to cause splash damage to nearby targets.
	Prisms	Heavy 3 Strength 3	The stasis field generator can be used to freeze a target in place for a certain amount of time.
	Prisms	Heavy 6 Strength 4	Normal Death	A powerful heavy weapon that, if used in close range combat, can not only deal damage to enemies but can deal damage to the player as well.

Exotic Weapons	Skill Requirements	Firing Modes	Description/upgrades
	Exotic 1 Research 3	Melee	This weapon is the only truly useful weapon from this category, it's the most powerful melee weapon of the game, it does a high amount of damage and like the onter melee weapons its own uses are limited by its range.
	Exotic 3 Research 4	Human Annelid
	Exotic 6 Research 6 Strength 3 Agility 3	Human Annelid

Other	Skill Requirement	Description
	None	The wrench is the likely the first weapon the player acquires and can be considered one of the most useful as it does not require any skill nor ammunition.
	Psi 1	The Psi Amp isn't a proper weapon, but it allow the player to use psi skills. It can be used as a weapon as long as the player is equipped with the proper powers. However, the psi powers are not as useful as some of the higher end ranged weapons, thus making it a questionable choice of weapon.

Suits

Armor/Suit	Skill Requirement	Attributes
	Strength 2	Defense 20
	None	Anti Toxin 75 Anti Radiation 75
	Strength 3	Defense 50 Anti Toxin 10
	Strength 4	Defense 30
	Strength 6	Defense 40
	Research 3	Psi 2 Defense 20 Anti Toxin 30 Anti Radiation 30

Items

Hypos

• Medical Hypo - restores 10 hitpoints over 5 seconds, and is the most abundant healing item in the game.
• Psi Hypo -
• Anti Toxin Hypo - instantly reduces toxin level by 2 increments.
• Anti Radiation Hypo - instantly reduces radiation level by about 15% of maximum possible radiation.

Edibles

• Orange Juice - restores 1 hitpoint.
• Cigarettes
• Liquor - restores 1 hitpoint, but reduces psi points by 5.
• Bag of Chips - restores 1 hitpoint.
• Can of Soda - restores 1 hitpoint.

Other Consumables

• Medkit - The medkit is a large health-restoring item, restoring 20 hitpoints over 4 seconds. It is also more expensive to buy and more rare to find than Medical Hypos.
• Surgical Activation Unit - This item is used to activate the surgery units in the game, once used you can see it in the corner of the activated unit and you can restore your health in exchange of nanites.
• Psi Booster - increases the Psi stat by 1 for a limited time.
• Battery - recharges one energy-using item.
• French Epsain Device - instantly successfully modifies a weapon, increasing its modification level by one.
• Item Recycler - destroys any stackable item, giving a small number of Nanites.
• Game PIG
• Maintenance Tool - increases a weapon's condition commensurate with the Repair skill.
• ICE Pick - instantly successfully hacks one device.

Levels

Intro

• Ramsey Center

Von Braun

• • Deck 2

1. Science
2. Medical
3. Crew Quarters

• • Deck 1

1. Engineering Control
2. Cargo Bay 1
3. Cargo Bay 2
4. Engine Core

• • Deck 3

1. Hydroponics 1
2. Hydroponics 2
3. Hydroponics 3

• • Deck 4

1. Operations 1
2. Operations 2

• • Deck 5

1. Recreational 1
2. Recreational 2

• • Deck 6

1. Command 1
2. Command 2

Rickenbacker

• • Rickenbacker Pod 1
  • Rickenbacker Pod 2
  • Body Of The Many
  • Where Am I?

Reception and heritage

System Shock 2 was noted for the original aspects of its design, including the usage of found crew member audio logs as a narrative device. These voice recordings tell the story of what happened aboard the Von Braun and in some cases document the horrific transformation of the crew into mindless, savage agents of The Many. This method of storytelling allowed the story to flow at the pace of the player's progress, instead of sweeping the player along by force. The game is also noted for its atmosphere and tension, and to this day it ranks on many critics' lists as one of the scariest games ever produced. Despite the game's critical acclaim, piracy and a lack of marketing resulted in lackluster sales, and System Shock 2 is known today more as a cult hit than a commercial success.

Although it wasn't a huge commercial hit, a lot of game mechanics and ideas were refined and used many years later in its critically and commercially acclaimed "spiritual successor" Bioshock (including audio logs to push the story forward, plasmids in place of cybernetic upgrades, and almost similar mid-game plot twist regarding the player's antagonist). Deus Ex, another well received game of System Shock franchise creator Warren Spector, also used many of the ideas of it's predecessor, most notably cyber augmentation and strong, skill-based RPG elements fitted into FPS gameplay. GLaDOS , the main villain of Portal is often considered to be an homage to SHODAN, as both AIs are "female" and have a similar manner of speech.

Keeping the game alive

Although many years have passed since it's release, System Shock 2 still has many devoted fans and modding community. The most known mods are Rebirth, which replaces some of the game's original NPC 3D assets with new, fan made, high-resolution models, and SHTUP, which updates the original textures of the game with newer high-res versions. The ability to utilize these complex, high resolution assets is a testament to the versatility of the Dark Engine, which SS2 and the original Thief were built on. The community is also responsible for high number of fixes and tweaks, which help to run SS2 on newer operating systems and video cards. The main "base of operations" for the community is Looking Glass Studios' forum, even though the company itself ceased to exist on the 24th of may, 2000.

Re-Release through Digital Distribution

On February 13th 2013, it was announced that the System Shock rights and trademark (notoriously caught in a complicated legal triangle for many years) had finally been secured by Stephen Kick of Night Dive Studios who approached GOG with an aim to releasing the title on the popular digital distribution service, with a later Steam release likely, thus marking the first time in many years that the game can be bought legitimately without the need for second-hand copies or legally dubious downloads. As is customary for titles released through GOG, the game has received bug-fixing polishes and has been adapted to run natively on modern versions of Windows with little set-up required on the customer's behalf.

As of May 11th, 2013, System Shock 2 is now available on Steam with better compatibility to make it work on the latest operating systems while still allowing user-made modifications to be applied. It also contains additional material such as the game's soundtrack, maps of the Von Braun, and the original pitch document for the game.

Soundtrack

The music score for System Shock 2 was composed by Josh Randall and Ramin Djawadi.

Track #	Song Title	Running Time
01	Irrational Games Logo	00.12
02	Med Sci 1	03.28
03	Med Sci 2	03.51
04	Engineering	03.30
05	Ops 1	03.49
06	Hydro 1	03.03
07	Hydro 2	02.12
08	Ops 2	04.03
09	Ops 3	02.25
10	Command 1	02.52
11	Command 2	03.22
12	Command 3	02.40
13	Rec	03.25
14	Credits	02.58
15	Intro Cutscene	02.41
16	Cutscene 2	02.32
17	End Cutscene	02.53

Useful links

• Through the Looking Glass
• SShock2.com - Community website, which is closest thing to an official website for System Shock 2.
• SMA (SystemShock.org) - Community forum, large file archive with tons of patches and mods.

PC System Requirements

Minimum Requirements

• Processor: 200Mhz Pentium
• Video Card: 4 MB D3D hardware accelerator
• Memory: 32 MB RAM
• Hard Drive Space: 250 MB

• Operating System: Windows 98 / 2000 / ME / XP

Recommended Requirements

• Processor: 266Mhz P2
• Video Card: 8 MB D3D hardware accelerator
• Memory: 64 MB RAM
• Hard Drive Space: 250 MB
• Operating System: Windows 98 / 2000 / ME / XP