System Shock 2 is returning!

[CeeKay]

YES YES YES!!!  TOMORROW!!!!!  HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH! finally, creepy monkeys, vengeance will be mine!

[edit] looks like it is coming to GOG first, then Steam later.

[MonkeyFinger]

FYI, your first very excited link is a little messed up. 

[Soulchilde]

Why yes I will buy it!! One of the scariest games I ever played

[Gratch]

Having never played SS2, I'm interested to give it a look and see if it actually holds up to the gaming-deity status it has developed over the years.  I adored the Thief games and know this is from the same studio, so chances are high.

[CeeKay]

FYI, your first very excited link is a little messed up. 

fixed.  sorry, I was typing with one hand 

[Greg Wak]

I'm very excited about this! I played it years ago and it was one of the few games I never finished. This was before walkthroughs were all over the web(or at least I didn't know of them) and I got stuck in a spot low on health and something kept respawning  enemies. Don't even remember exactly where it was. I just kept dying over and over and just had to move on. I'm more than up for trying this again.

[Soulchilde]

This was one of the first games I brought once I got my voodoo 2 card in 99.   I wonder how well the graphics will hold up

[Canuck]

I think they still look pretty decent although there is a graphics mod out there that makes the models more hi res

[Greg Wak]

I saw some screens that looked okay to me. This game is so atmospheric I can cut it some slack. I will download the higher rez mod though.

[Jancelot]

This news gives me special, special feelings. FPS RPGs are hands down my favorite games. And this one is a pillar of the genre. Glad to hear it's holding up over the years. I'll be snagging it tomorrow and diving right in.

[MonkeyFinger]

I'm very excited about this! I played it years ago and it was one of the few games I never finished. This was before walkthroughs were all over the web(or at least I didn't know of them) and I got stuck in a spot low on health and something kept respawning  enemies. Don't even remember exactly where it was. I just kept dying over and over and just had to move on. I'm more than up for trying this again.

Probably in "The Many"?  I was bound and determined to finish this back in the day but had to cheat to survive the last little bit. Turned on God Mode, from what I recall. Please don't tell the monkeys. 

[kronovan]

Awesome that someone is finally retailing it again. I still have my CD-ROM in storage, so I doubt I'll buy it from GOG. I think some will be challenged to get past the graphics even with the the hi-rez patch. The sound and pacing IMO was what really made it stand out. I'm wondering if the GOG version will have the co-op patch and a way to host it by IP connect? It's been a long time since I played it that way, but IIRC it only supported dial-up connections or LAN connections over IPX.  

[Soulchilde]

She's up GoG

[Canuck]

I got it and got all the mods installed to make it look nice and purty. Sounds like I did it just in time too because all of the SS2 fansites are crashing under all the hits.  People have been waiting for this game forever.

[Gratch]

I won't be able to pick this up until the weekend.  What are the recommended mods?

[Teggy]

There is a texture mod, a widescreen mod and a sounds mod which is probably all you'd want if you want the original experience.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140088 (Widescreen/bug fixes)
EDIT: already included in GOG version

Apparently one of the mod sites is hosed right now because of all the interest, but these are the names so you can search for these mods later:
SS2 SHTUP (Shock Texture Update Project)
SS2 Schatten SHMUP (Shock Music Update)

There's also a popular mod called "Rebirth" which makes a lot more significant graphics and other changes.

Never played this before but I am very excited to try it. However, with my backlog I can't imagine picking it up now.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

Apparently, it goes up to 1900x1080 right out of the gate, so there has already been some modding involved.

[Teggy]

Apparently, it goes up to 1900x1080 right out of the gate, so there has already been some modding involved.

Yes, I was just going to post that - it supposedly is patched with the NewDark mod v2.4, which has widescreen support and a bunch of other fixes, so you don't need any widescreen mod.

[heloder]

Bought. I hope they get the original as well, which is surprisingly really playable with the mouselook mod.

[JCC]

Bought. I hope they get the original as well, which is surprisingly really playable with the mouselook mod.

Someone made a mouselook mod?! Sweet. Never been able to get past the controls in this one. I'll have to give it another try some day.

Glad some people will finally get to play SS2 for the first time. It was pretty awesome, though I too had to go god mode to get past the Many level... shudder...

[Greg Wak]

Oh god am I dying a lot in this! So weak early on. But I'm having a blast as well! Mr. specter is of course more than entitled to do whatever makes him happy and whatever makes him money, but it makes me sad that he went from the likes of this and Deus Ex, to Mickey Mouse, but that's just me.

[JCC]

Oh god am I dying a lot in this! So weak early on. But I'm having a blast as well! Mr. specter is of course more than entitled to do whatever makes him happy and whatever makes him money, but it makes me sad that he went from the likes of this and Deus Ex, to Mickey Mouse, but that's just me.

I am in the minority, but I thought deus ex, while good, was a pretty big fall from system shock 2.

[CeeKay]

haven't tried any mods yet (beyond the ones that GOG included) but it doesn't look as horrible as I expected.  I don't remember the monsters being so mobile-  the second infected I ran into kept on dodging backwards whenever I swung my wrench.  got killed by a monkey- I don't remember them showing up so soon, and I remember hearing them more before I actually encountered one when I played way back when.

[kronovan]

Sweet, I noticed the co-op patch is in the GOG version. Since that was an official patch from Looking Glass Studios, I wonder if it's even available now? I'm thinking I'm probably going to pull the trigger on the GOG version for that alone.

[Soulchilde]

Booted this up last night and started my career as a hacker as I played a psi-ops the first time around and I forgot about the controls.  Getting used to the Q,W,E,X for movement has been my biggest challenge. I'll check to see if I can adjust this in options when I get home this evening

 Also, SS2 doesn't like my logic keyboard as the number keys don't seem to register.

Just arrived at the first nanite station and called it a night

[Bullwinkle]

Booted this up last night and started my career as a hacker as I played a psi-ops the first time around and I forgot about the controls.  Getting used to the Q,W,E,X for movement has been my biggest challenge. I'll check to see if I can adjust this in options when I get home this evening

 Also, SS2 doesn't like my logic keyboard as the number keys don't seem to register.

Just arrived at the first nanite station and called it a night

You can change them.  I swapped for traditional WASD with the Q&E being lean buttons.

[CeeKay]

Also, SS2 doesn't like my logic keyboard as the number keys don't seem to register.

check to make sure they are bound correctly.  for some reason none of the weapons were bound to the number keys when I started playing.

[Gratch]

Put in a couple hours last night and came to the conclusion that SS2 is definitely not my thing.  At least I can say I gave it a shot and move on to the rest of my ridiculous backlog.

[Eel Snave]

You shut your whore mouth.

[heloder]

I'm up to Deck 5, Recreation. After I finish it up I think I may install the original and play through it again. Or maybe Deus Ex or Bioshock.

[naednek]

You shut your whore mouth.

FYI Gratch doesn't like 83.5% of the games he plays

[Gratch]

You shut your whore mouth.

FYI Gratch doesn't like 83.5% of the games he plays

Sadly, there's some truth to that...especially lately.

I have a really hard time playing games with old-school graphics to begin with, so I knew that unless the gameplay really blew me away, I probably wouldn't stick with SS2 for long.  I got manhandled by the very first enemy I came across, then realized that there was no autosave and had to play through all the intro stuff again.  I found the constant loop of techno music annoying as hell, encountered two CTD's in the first hour, and finally gave up when I came up against a constant wave of enemies that prevented me from leaving a room.  I'm assuming the latter was some sort of bug since those zombie dudes were continually respawing 2 at a time right outside the small room I was trapped in.  I spent close to 15 minutes just trying to exit the room with no luck.

Maybe I'll try it again sometime, but it certainly didn't make a good first impression.

[Crawley]

You shut your whore mouth.

FYI Gratch doesn't like 83.5% of the games he plays

Sadly, there's some truth to that...especially lately.

I have a really hard time playing games with old-school graphics to begin with, so I knew that unless the gameplay really blew me away, I probably wouldn't stick with SS2 for long.  I got manhandled by the very first enemy I came across, then realized that there was no autosave and had to play through all the intro stuff again.  I found the constant loop of techno music annoying as hell, encountered two CTD's in the first hour, and finally gave up when I came up against a constant wave of enemies that prevented me from leaving a room.  I'm assuming the latter was some sort of bug since those zombie dudes were continually respawing 2 at a time right outside the small room I was trapped in.  I spent close to 15 minutes just trying to exit the room with no luck.

Maybe I'll try it again sometime, but it certainly didn't make a good first impression.

I turned the music off in the game as I can't stand it either.

No auto-save but hitting the Insert key (default) will quicksave and Delete (default) will quick load last save. Basically I do a normal save at the start of each level and one for accomplished a difficult task on that level. But basically it comes down to tons of quick saves and loads.

Constant respawning enemies occur when the alarms are going off. You don't want to trigger the alarms (via cameras). They should shut off automatically after a bit. But the better option is not to trigger them by getting under the camera without being detected and hacking it or just smashing it to bits.

The first part of the game is really difficult as you have to rely on hand-to-hand combat so much. You'll still have to do it later in the game as ammo can get scarce but usually by then you can take some hits unlike now.

Not sure what class you are playing but I'd stay away from the PsiOps class for a first go around.

[Lordnine]

Not sure what class you are playing but I'd stay away from the PsiOps class for a first go around.

This.  I would choose a navy/tech guy if you want to experience everything the game has to offer.  Hack doors, rewire security systems, etc.  PsiOps is fun as well but pretty hard until you get used to the game mechanics.  The heavy weapons guy just seems a bit dull in comparison to the others.

[jztemple2]

Don't know if this will help anyone, but True PC Gaming posted a System Shock 2 Modification Guide.

[Greg Wak]

No wonder I got stuck so near the end. That body of the Many level was just brutal. Had to turn the difficulty down to easy to get the final brain thing down. But at least I finished. Always bugged the crap out of me that I never had. The early creepy levels were some of the finest moments in gaming,imho.

[MonkeyFinger]

No wonder I got stuck so near the end. That body of the Many level was just brutal. Had to turn the difficulty down to easy to get the final brain thing down. But at least I finished. Always bugged the crap out of me that I never had. The early creepy levels were some of the finest moments in gaming,imho.

Welcome to the club. Me, I had to go God Mode.