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    System Shock

    Game » consists of 5 releases. Released 1994

    Set in a bleak cyberpunk universe, System Shock is a first-person action-adventure game from Looking Glass Studios that challenges players to overcome the hazards of an immense, multi-level space station under the control of an artificial intelligence with aspirations of godhood.

    Original System Shock is now available on GOG.com.

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    audiosnow

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    Poll Original System Shock is now available on GOG.com. (31 votes)

    I'm going to go and buy it right now! 71%
    System Shock is one of the best games ever made! 68%

    System Shock, the killer app for MS-DOS in 1994 (yes, even nudging out Doom 2), is now available on GOG.com, with both the classic and enhanced versions.

    Regularly priced at $9.99, it's currently 20% off, or if you own System Shock 2 on GOG, 40% off.

    It comes with a scan of the manual, level maps, the hint book, the strategy guide, a quick-start guide for the enhanced version, a video of the TV ad, five pieces of digital art, and the soundtrack in MIDI, MP3, and FLAC formats.

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    fisk0

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    #1  Edited By fisk0  Moderator

    I already owned two copies of it, I'll happily buy a third.

    Is the MP3/FLAC soundtracks just recordings of the MIDI music or is it the Mac CD-ROM soundtrack, which were entirely different renditions of the songs?

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    audiosnow

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    @fisk0: They're just different formats. And as I was typing this I checked out the Mac version OST. Those are really terrific!

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    BeachThunder

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    Yep, I'm really looking forward to playing it...sometime in the future...

    Pity it was released on the same day as SOMA...

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    ArbitraryWater

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    I bought it, even though I couldn't actually get through System Shock 2 (I should give that another try one of these days). I figure $6 is well worth my curiosity to see how it differs from the more widely known sequel.

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    BeachThunder

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    @arbitrarywater: What was the issue you had with SS2. The game can play very differently depending on which paths you take.

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    deactivated-5b031d0e868a5

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    Fine, I'll buy it for 40% off - just what I need another game on the backlog.

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    Justin258

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    #7  Edited By Justin258

    @beachthunder said:

    @arbitrarywater: What was the issue you had with SS2. The game can play very differently depending on which paths you take.

    I don't know about him, but the game in general just felt very archaic. And by that I don't mean that its concepts were necessarily bad, just that they I never felt like they worked all that well in light of all the attempts we've seen to combine RPG's and shooters. It's more RPG than shooter, I understand that, but it never felt like it was very good at either of those things. The whole stat allocation and character building parts were really bland to me and the shooting was... well, it wasn't bad, but it sure as hell wasn't anything to write home about. Sometimes it felt like I was dumping points into things just to affect a percentage and not so I could satisfyingly progress in a certain way. Maybe I didn't play enough of the game? The last thing I remember is a room full of crates and boxes, there were some turrets or something, I had gotten past the monkeys - or I was I still fighting monkeys? This was a while ago.

    The atmosphere could be pretty fantastic and the setting was pretty interesting, though, so maybe those things will bring me back one of these days. Who knows? In two years, I might start making posts about how much I love the game.

    EDIT: This doesn't mean that I won't give System Shock 1 a shot, by the way, but not right now.

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    ArbitraryWater

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    @arbitrarywater: What was the issue you had with SS2. The game can play very differently depending on which paths you take.

    I remember getting past the first few areas and then running into a locked door that needed a key or a code that wasn't in any of the audio logs and getting distracted by something else. But more specifically, as @believer258 has mentioned, that game is a RPG masquerading as a shooter and not the other way around, which gives it this very curious archaic feeling similar to the original Deus Ex. It doesn't help that it's never quite obvious what skills and stats are worthwhile and which aren't, or that the game seems difficult in general.

    As I said though, I'll give it another try at some point. It's on that secondary backlog in the back of my mind of "Games that I'd like to play to completion someday"

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    fisk0

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    #9  Edited By fisk0  Moderator

    @arbitrarywater said:
    @beachthunder said:

    @arbitrarywater: What was the issue you had with SS2. The game can play very differently depending on which paths you take.

    I remember getting past the first few areas and then running into a locked door that needed a key or a code that wasn't in any of the audio logs and getting distracted by something else. But more specifically, as @believer258 has mentioned, that game is a RPG masquerading as a shooter and not the other way around, which gives it this very curious archaic feeling similar to the original Deus Ex. It doesn't help that it's never quite obvious what skills and stats are worthwhile and which aren't, or that the game seems difficult in general.

    As I said though, I'll give it another try at some point. It's on that secondary backlog in the back of my mind of "Games that I'd like to play to completion someday"

    The original System Shock is much less of an RPG in terms of stats and stuff like that. You get cybernetic implants and drugs improving some of your abilities over the course of the game, but in general it's more of a first person adventure game than an RPG - hacking and exploration is more puzzle solving than having the right stats for the job, and you can use any weapon you encounter given you have the ammo for it, though ammo is really limited throughout the entire game.

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    GERALTITUDE

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    Polls tied 73% to 73% !

    Must be on GiantBomb.Com. It's a website. About polls.

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    cornbredx

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    #11  Edited By cornbredx

    Ya, I bought it the day it came out (yesterday, right? So much has happened this week, for me, I forget now).

    I mainly want to see what enhancements they have made. It is a good game... Or I should say it was. The engine, and the way it plays does not hold up.

    I haven't played this version yet, but I played system shock again when the source code was released some time back. It's rough.

    It's always had a great atmosphere, though. IMO the writing is better than SS2 as well. I don't think SS2 is that good, though. Bioshock did what they wanted to do with that much better, in my unimportant opinion.

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