Man playing System Shock 2 really gets you more hyped

[Big_Daddy]

Just decided to play System Shock 2 again after a year, Its got me more hyped than ever for Bioshock, If you haven't got the Full game, Play the demo, It has a tutorial level and the beginning level of the game, I cant imagine how good Bioshock is going to be:cool:

Link to demo (http://www.gamerevolution.com/download/pc/system_shock_2)

[jackinthebox]

i know it is disturbing, but: i have never played SS2. i'm going to check the demo i guess...

maybe this thread should be moved to -->off-topic...

edit: couldn't get the install file working (win2000)... i found solutions here (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69958), but they didn't fix the problem.

[Hatesink]

I like SS2 a lot, but the body of the many I really just don't like. I don't like those chaotic maze-like environments. It just feels like filler, designed purely to extend the length of the game.

[Necros]

I'd like to play with it again too but I couldn't get it to work either some weeks ago... But i don't mind, I'll play with Deus Ex again (I like it more than SS2 :)). :D

[witch]

i know it is disturbing, but: i have never played SS2. i'm going to check the demo i guess...

maybe this thread should be moved to -->off-topic...

edit: couldn't get the install file working (win2000)... i found solutions here (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69958), but they didn't fix the problem.

I just played it last fall, was totally worth it. Just finished Deus ex a couple weeks back as well.

[Raveness]

First off, this is a good game, regardless of it's faults. The plot is nearly ingenious, the level design is superb, the sound is frighteningly awesome and the challenges are meaningful. The graphics leave a lot to be desired as far as character models go and a lot of the textures. I'm not sure if it was purely the engine or the designer. Luckily someone made an updated mod featuring hd models, and ZylonBane and his crew managed a numerous amount of hd objects. The atmosphere is creepy and oddly authentic, with the occasional pre-recorded message playing over the ship's comm system telling of a poetry reading some time later that day, or a failure to some key system that sounds important, followed by a rumble & shake. Taunts from your main antagonists (The Many, SHODAN) add oodles to a shuddersome experience. Awesome, engrossing, terrifyingly eloquent, (insert further terminology of greatness here)

I’m going to give it a retry soon. Is there any way to crank up the resolution past the in-game max setting of 1024*768 by editing some config file or elsewhere?

[vrap]

Check out the cam.cfg file, change the game_screen_size line to the resolution you want. But the interface and fonts don't scale well if I remember correctly, do a bit of messing around.

[king_clueless]

I only got to play SS2 last year I thought it was the best game I played last year. I'm a big fan of Deus Ex so not surprising I enjoyed it really.

Fantastic audio in the game and from what I've heard Bioshock will be playing the same spooky tricks.

how abou the first time you heard the midwives chatting away to the pods? Totally awesome :)

[D'Sparil]

Tried to play the demo of Shock 2 there and it freezes about 30 seconds to a min into it... and I have well over the system specs Im pretty sure. I can play CS:source on lowerish settings fine. SO elusive I also couldn't find it at gamestop the last time I went...

[Persistence]

I think I am familiar with your problem :D :

"Game Freezes / Running SS2 on a Dual-Processor System or Got a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading?

When activated, Intel's Hyperthreading makes it appear that you have two CPUs. The Pentium 4 D and Athlon 64 X2 processors have 2 cores on one chip - they are dual processors.
Make sure that SS2 is set to only use 1 processor with High, or Realtime priority. Dark Engine games don't like dual processor systems unless they are configured in this way. Salvage has written a great FAQ on how to do it easily. You can find his FAQ here: http://www16.brinkster.com/salvage/thief/darkengine.htm"

Hope this helps.

[Laser Eyes]

Check out the cam.cfg file, change the game_screen_size line to the resolution you want. But the interface and fonts don't scale well if I remember correctly, do a bit of messing around.
Does that include widescreen resolutions like 1680x1050?

[D'Sparil]

I think I am familiar with your problem :D :

"Game Freezes / Running SS2 on a Dual-Processor System or Got a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading?

When activated, Intel's Hyperthreading makes it appear that you have two CPUs. The Pentium 4 D and Athlon 64 X2 processors have 2 cores on one chip - they are dual processors.
Make sure that SS2 is set to only use 1 processor with High, or Realtime priority. Dark Engine games don't like dual processor systems unless they are configured in this way. Salvage has written a great FAQ on how to do it easily. You can find his FAQ here: http://www16.brinkster.com/salvage/thief/darkengine.htm"

Hope this helps.


Ya I have a p4, and I turned one of the cpu's off in task manager and it let me play the training stage and then promptly crashed as I went to play the first level... oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be right now.

[SPDeath]

Indeed SS2 is a most awesome game, i decided to play the game again last week with secmod (http://chris.brabete.com/hur/secmod101.txt), which is a cool mod for SS2 and allows you to awesome stuff like use the crystal shurikens and apparently has new weapons (i havent found em yet), you can also upgrade armour with chemicals and combine objects like cigerettes.

Unfortunately its extreemly hard to find.

Also an XP fix (http://www.brave.net.nz/shock2_xp_2000_fix.zip) if anyone wants it, requires CD and multiplayer patch to play, and i dont think it works on the demo.

[splicer]

I like SS2 a lot, but the body of the many I really just don't like. I don't like those chaotic maze-like environments. It just feels like filler, designed purely to extend the length of the game.

I know what you mean,I'm on my first play thru of SS2,anb while its fab to have that freedom of exploration,some bits feel a bit forced and tacked on,however,its a minor gripe and its one of the finest games ive played.At the risk of taking another hammering for stating the bleeding obvious,I still have issues regarding Bioshocks overall originality,it does seem to be borrowing heavily from its predecessor,the cyborg assassins for example
launch an almost identical homing projectile as to that of my name sake;) and there are numerous other examples-I better shut up now,before "The Many" pounce!:eek:

[Raveness]

Yeah the Body of the Many levels were certainly the worst portions of SS2, but I guess something always has to be the worst part of a game. It's not terrible by any stretch, and I think it trumps the stupidly complex canal street in Deus Ex.

@ splicer: Even if they launch a similar projectile, the splicers do not come off as a copycat of the SS2 cyborg assassins. The latter were simply a tough and fast enemy that needed to be shot, the former look to be diversely based on plasmids they use plus the vocation they chose in Rapture. Some splicers may not even attack the player unless initially provoked.

[SPDeath]

Yeah the Body of the Many levels were certainly the worst portions of SS2

Your telling me, especially that last bit, "hmmm it seems as though there are 3 psi reavers, two rumblers and some midwives, and oh joy i only have three HE bullets left, *sigh* here comes a world of pain".

The only bit I liked about the body of the many level was the PDA's, especially when he got dragged off and eaten, i was like "gutted" :D

[splicer]

Yeah the Body of the Many levels were certainly the worst portions of SS2, but I guess something always has to be the worst part of a game. It's not terrible by any stretch, and I think it trumps the stupidly complex canal street in Deus Ex.

@ splicer: Even if they launch a similar projectile, the splicers do not come off as a copycat of the SS2 cyborg assassins. The latter were simply a tough and fast enemy that needed to be shot, the former look to be diversely based on plasmids they use plus the vocation they chose in Rapture. Some splicers may not even attack the player unless initially provoked.

This is a good example of how some of my comments are entirely misunderstood.I wasnt suggesting that the enemies are copycats,indeed,I love the whole live and let live eco evolving AI system.I think its fair to say that since both games were developed by the same team,there will be moments in Bioshock that nod affectionatley in homage to SS2-speed boost,a subtle reference here and there,its all good,now chill!:) :) :)

[Raveness]

Fair enough, I was probably being more literal in my interpretation of the similarities :p If you were to directly pair the enemies from both games, I'd agree that the splicers resemble the cyborg assassins the most, or possibly the Many, though with more variety. BD's could be the large patrol mechs, and the LS's could be the droids????

The only bit I liked about the body of the many level was the PDA's, especially when he got dragged off and eaten, i was like "gutted" :D

Prefontaine's logs were a delight to listen to. You don't get that level of intellectually edifying fictional narrative much these days.

"SHODAN shouldn't be allowed to play God. She's far too good at it"

[splicer]

Fair enough, I was probably being more literal in my interpretation of the similarities :p If you were to directly pair the enemies from both games, I'd agree that the splicers resemble the cyborg assassins the most, or possibly the Many, though with more variety. BD's could be the large patrol mechs, and the LS's could be the droids????

I'd go along with that!-As long as they dont include those pesky spiders from sys shock 2-damm,blast,and stamp on those bastards!:eek:

[v.dog]

No Spiders. Period. *shudders*

Also, no attacks from the local fauna, unless they have a good reason. Stalker and HL got it right, Daikantana and SiN did not. Rats are nibbling on my toes? WT-?!

[Pinky_Powers]

Well, it seems I am unable to play System Shock 2 like some others here. Using the patches and the Fixes and disallowing the game use of both my cores, I was able to get through all the training stuff and the first three years of service, but right after that third year, the game crashes no matter what I do.

[SPDeath]

I don't see what everyone's problem with the spiders is, there luvly, come on spidey give me a hug

[nmrahde]

'cuz usually while four arms of the spider are giving you a hug two others are usually stealing your wallet.

[SPDeath]

'cuz usually while four arms of the spider are giving you a hug two others are usually stealing your wallet.

Damn, I wondered whre my wallet was. Im gonna have to have to have a serious talk with her about that.

"Why did you steal my wallet?"
"hiss"
"That's no excuse"
"hiss"
"WHAT you spent it on WHAT?"
"hiss"
"no dont show me-"
"hiss"
"That's just wrong" :eek:

[Adam Nuhfer]

I play System Shock 2 on a dedicated P4-Win Me machine whose soul purpose is System Shock 2. Don't have any problems other than the cut scenes playing.

Since I got the game when it first came out, I've played the game through at least 15 times. I'm addicted to it by choice. It's a masterpiece from my point of view. Best overall [so far] I've played in my gaming career.

If BioShock is even half the game System Shock 2 was/is, were good to go........

[Raveness]

I have a small case of arachnophobia, meaning I can look at them from a small distance, but if they start to move, I bolt out of the room. That said, I like my fears being exploited in a game. Let's face it, it takes a lot to actually frighten our desensitized generation, so by all means use something that is innately panic-inducing.


@ PinkyPowers: Essentially all I had to do with my Dual Core WinXP machine to get SS2 to work was to create a user.cfg file and place the line "safe_texture_manager" within it". That sounds like a simple graphical workaround.

Problem solved, no errors and it ran flawlessly at 1600*1200, though reading text and logs required looking quite closely. SS2 is NOT unstable on XP, it just wasn't designed for it and may require some minor workarounds.

[Silent Film]

Have I any hope of running SS2 on Vista x64? ;):(

[v.dog]

SS2 in XP/SP2?
http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~vdog/art_by_others/works-on-my-machine-starburst.png
As for the spiders, they were a cheap enemy. They're small and they come in low which makes them hard to hit (and thus really annoying), they make up for their low hitpoints by attacking en masse (even more annoying), they don't hurt you but poison you meaning you've got to stop shooting to apply hypos (*nervous eye twitch*), and after all that you get no ammo from their corpses (Aarrrggghh!)

[nmrahde]

That said, I like my fears being exploited in a game. Let's face it, it takes a lot to actually frighten our desensitized generation, so by all means use something that is innately panic-inducing.

Same thing here. Although it's a lot harder to play off acrophobia in a video game...

[SPDeath]

Hmmm the only fear I can remember suffering from is some claustrophobia in massive crowds of people, where I used to start hyper-ventilating and feel sick. Not really a fear that gets exploited in game, as in most games you blow away any crowds that you see :D

[Raveness]

Hmmm the only fear I can remember suffering from is some claustrophobia in massive crowds of people, where I used to start hyper-ventilating and feel sick. Not really a fear that gets exploited in game, as in most games you blow away any crowds that you see :D

HAHA totally true :D "Damn this crowd is making me anxious, and yet I'm heavily armed. I have this feeling I should put two and two together." Agoraphobia I beleive that is. It's rooted in a sense that you lose direction among crowds of people, feeling a lose of centricity and cohesion which affects your concious equilibrium.

I think everyone has a case of acrophobia, as we humans are not meant to be so high above the ground, which is our natural setting. It varies from person - person of course ;)

[SPDeath]

Then again it usually happened when being dragged into shops. So maybe it's just a phobia of clothes shoping :D