Some friends of mine recently picked up this game, and wanted a quick and easy way to install mods. So I have put together a collection of mods that improve the graphics and audio of System Shock 2. This package is intended to stay as close to the original look as possible, so you won’t find any mods in the pack that vary too far from how the game originally looked. This pack is intended to be used with the Steam or Good Old Games version of System Shock 2.

You can grab the mod pack, as well as a listing of which mods are in it, from here. If you use it, let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions on how to improve it.

The only way to play the shock is to play original yo.

Some of that actually looks really nice.

However, I think the original monster and human designs look much creepier for some reason.

Maybe it's just me though.

Maybe it was the pointy faces. There is something really off-putting about them.

@the_laughing_man: I did play it with the up-ressed textures. They're pretty neat.

Do you truly recommend NOT installing the graphical mods? I'm getting the game ready to play it for the first time at some point over the summer so I'm just installing everything and getting it working and wondering if I should play vanilla graphics or if the graphical mods add/take away from the experience.

@nightriff: I've played it to completion about two dozen times, without exaggeration.

SHTUP, Rebirth, Tacticool, and Vurt's sets of Goo, Water, and Flora were installed for the last five or so, with Vurt's Space and Eldron Psy Amp added in the last two.

I would go with the all of the above, and I'll probably be trying out Four Hundred and Fixed Objects in my next run.

SHMUP is quite intriguing; the composer released the music as full songs, and someone cut them up and adapted them to fit the, well... adaptive music engine. I'd probably play with the originals, but considering how much love I have for those tracks contrasted with how much hate they received when Patrick played SS2, you should just go with your gut. I do have that mod floating on a hard drive, because I think I may give it a shot as well.

I'm not a big fan of Rocketman's weapons, nor the updated cutscenes (though the originals do look super haggard), and the few remaining in the list are kind of inconsequential (I never noticed that the cigarette butts are backward, and unless you're playing multiplayer you never see a player model).

EDIT: Oh, and don't play multiplayer, at least not for your first run. And don't give up. The game is really hard, weapons will constantly break if you don't edit a config file--the rate of degradation has story roots but they didn't get a chance to pass that info to the player--, and the interface will push you away for a few hours. Past that, it's the only game I find genuinely frightening past one playthrough, and nobody has made a genre blend that works so well, certainly not one of FPS and RPG.

@mlarrabee: Are they pretty easy to install without fucking up? Following a "guide" but since I really just got my first gaming computer a few weeks ago and modding Skyrim has been a real bitch as my first experience with mods.

@nightriff: Eh, sort of. It's a good bit of unzipping and copying to MOD folder. Unless of course you use the tools that everyone claims can't be used with the GOG version, and that I used seamlessly with that version!

SS2Tool: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4141.0

I used to use SS2 ModManager, but it's now incompatible: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=527.0

So now I'd probably use SS2 Blue Mod Manager, which I've never used, but it appears to be well-recommended: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4790.0

Here's a thread topic that links to most of the individual mods that were in the original pack, and nearly all that I suggested.

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4447.0

I hope it helps, and if I can be of any more help, please let me know!

EDIT AGAIN: SSTool 5.1 should be updated with the latest version of NewDark, the patch for the Dark Engine that enables it to run easily on modern hardware, and is really the only reason the game made it to modern digital distributers; this version, I believe, is 2.41.

@mlarrabee: Thanks so much duder, absolutely appreciate the help and guidance. Since I have your attention but this is purely opinion based, I'm currently playing through all the BioShock games and DLC and decided to also play SS2 at the end of my journey, would you recommend tracking down a copy of the first game and giving that a go?

@nightriff: Before the mouselook mod came out, I found System Shock nearly impenetrable. The controls were on par with Elder Scrolls: Arena, meaning nowadays they're just awful. The CD version is also a must, at least for me because I will always take voice acting over text. Currently, the best way to play is with this little number. It's endorsed by both the Through the Looking Glass and SystemShock.org founders, at least until whoever (I can't remember) owns the rights to System Shock will release it properly.

EDIT: Getting into it will take tons of patience. Imagine a CRPG made in 2006 and then put it out with Doom-era technology and design theory. I wish I could play classic Fallout, but trying to come to it after so many advancements is difficult. System Shock is like that, but more so, which is frustrating since beneath the inscrutability I see a game that I would adore.

I played through SS1 for the first time 2 years ago using the portable version that @mlarrabee linked above. I enjoyed it a lot, actually, and was hugely impressed by how ahead of its time it was. I think it helped that I went into the game with no significant expectations while being acutely aware of the era in which it released. SS1 came out in early 1994, a mere 3 months after the release of DOOM, the seminal FPS. DOOM II wasn't out yet. Franchises like BioShock, Deus Ex, and Thief had not yet been imagined, but they would all trace inspiration back to System Shock. When considered contemporaneously with DOOM, SS1 is an amazing achievement.

When I played SS2 for the first time a year after finishing SS1, I couldn't help but be slightly underwhelmed considering the game's much greater acclaim. I liked the story, setting, and characters more in SS1 (sorry, Ken Levine). I felt Citadel Station was better realized as a location than those in SS2, and SS1 had a more palpable atmosphere, one of oppressive desperation and futility, versus SS2's general wretched horrorscape. I also didn't find SS2 to be any scarier than SS1. Lastly, SS1's final level and ending were much better than SS2's.

That all said, I recommend both games!

L--l---l--l--ll--o--o--oo-ok at you h---h--a----c---kkk--er---

8 months late for joke.

Regrets nothing.

@mlarrabee: @savage: Thanks for the thoughts and it sounds like I should at least give SS1 a shot to see if it clicks with me or not.