System Shock 2: what am I supposed to be doing?

Came back after a short break - I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. My character's motivation is... amnesia? Finding out where the crew went? And where am I, in some lounge with character upgrade machines? I check my various info popups, look in the CD reader, find 'notes', and there's my task list. Oh yeah, I see, I'm fedexing. Go here, get this, take it there, so you can get to somewhere else, etc. I'm starving for scraps of story here.

OK, that's kind of cool - a recovered alien artifact that may have been part of an artificial intelligence, that has a fragment of voice message that sounds a lot like Shodan. Now we're getting somewhere.

I might as well take another point in Strength (from 2 to 3). I'm doing as much fighting as possible with the wrench, and strength also increases inventory (so I can grab everything not nailed down). I might as well take a point in Endurance (from 1 to 2) as well, since I'm going the fighting route. I still don't have a single point in Psi; going down that route would probably take a new playthrough. And I still don't have a single point in Hack, Repair, or Modify. I have no idea what and when to do with this Maintenance skill I chose in the initial setup.

Well, that's cool, now I can one-hit the zombie melee grunts.

Trying to throw grenades - can't - looks like I will need a grenade launcher.

I'm low on ammo, and my equipment is near broken. Should I spend all my current upgrade points on Repair skill? And then my last two maintenance tools on fixing my handgun? Even with double upgrade, it still only upgrades it 2 measly points. It would really suck to move on to the next level, and find a handgun that wasn't broken just lying on the floor. I'll hold the points for now.

I do this in every game I can - I hoard my resources until I'm sure I need them. Often times I wind up scraping past a problem, I could have easily spent the coin on. After the first playthrough or so, I'll know where I can let the resources go, but first time through I'm very stingy.

Wow, my magic voice handler - the one that sounds like Captain Janeway - is annoying. How can she even watch my every step if Xerxes has control of the security system? Later on down the line, Deus Ex gets this right with the infolink, meaningfully integrating it into the story and the gameplay.

Ran out of save slots. Can I use the old trick of moving my files away (using the operating system, not the game), and renaming the last save as the new first? Yes.

I forgot to mention another innovation: you can wind up a swing and hold it, basically performing half of a melee attack, so if you happen suddenly on an enemy you can quickly smack 'em. Its quite a brilliant little idea, and I've never seen it any other game.

I can't go any further - my guns are all broken or out of ammo. I need to rewind, and purchase another skill point so I can use the shotgun, which I have ammo for. I reload start of level, backtrack a little, purchase weapon Standard 2 -> 3. I still can't afford Repair, I'll have to move a little further into the next level, get some cyber modules, then come back again. This is the kind of crap you have to deal with on first playthrough.

Find more modules, come back and buy Repair 0 -> 1.

It's getting a bit strange to keep finding these voice message containers littering the place; a lot of times they're just lying around like they were discarded. At least the voicework is listenable, and so the story bucket fills, drop by drop.

System Shock 2: getting to know you

I'm getting into it, but the interface remains cumbersome.

Now its crashing on me every couple of minutes, something it didn't do at all until now. Research reveals this seems to be a common problem. I try setting CPU affinity from 0 to 1, seems to be working, for now. It seems like a big part of solving this game is resolving Windows difficulties.

You have to be careful where you drop stuff - some stuff can clip right through the walls. And it seems some of the stuff I drop just disappears forever when I come back that way. Speaking of coming back to disappointment - why are there new enemies in cleared areas? Resources are very limited, I would imagine on both sides. {Deus Ex spoiler ahead...} Also, it seems Xerxes and Shodan are not in league - perhaps they will join up, like the AIs in Deus Ex (will) do.

Anyway, for now I'll stick to the wrench as much as possible, conserve ammo. Melee combat is really awkward, but I'm getting the hang of taking them out with minimal damage.

The kitchen sink just keeps on growing. Its bad enough there is an upgrade kiosk, where I can upgrade my stats and skills, now there's another upgrade kiosk for "O/S Upgrades". Considering the importance and expense of this deep space mission, why isn't every crew member fully upgraded, or if its so expensive, at least reasonably upgraded in their specialties. I'm supposed to be a veteran soldier, and I can't even operate a can opener. I know the answer is its a game, and this is how we let you build up your character, but it throws dirt on the story, which is of course why we're here in the first place. In the year that follows, Deus Ex will integrate this much more smoothly in to the game (with magic nano canisters, no less).

Anyway, for my first upgrade I'll take pack rat. Since this is my first time through, and I don't know what to carry, I might as well grab more stuff until I can figure out what's important per my character build. I have 8 cyber modules, I could take another point in strength, or endurance. I'll hold on to it for now. I already upgraded strength so I could wear armor, no telling what I'll need next.

Important safety tip: don't walk near 'pile of disgusting worms', or it will cost you an anti-toxin hypo.

Finally found a working shotgun, but I need a Standard skill of 3, so I buy it. As an experiment, I try buying a maintenance tool, to see if I can upgrade the shotgun. I need a repair skill of 2.

System Shock 2: begin

Technical problems out of the way, now I can begin.

I'm describing it as I go, so of course its all spoilers.

New game, normal difficulty. I notice in the intro video Shodan's many little background voices - something that would be expanded upon in Portal. So there's the stepping off the subway part, I mentioned that, and the parallel (purposeful or not) to Half-Life. Up the grav shaft to street level I notice you can cancel out one voice message with another if you move ahead to quickly; they don't overlap, so I need to be careful not to walk out of range of one message before hitting another.

The street level first impression is cool - I'm in a real live world with streets and stores and advertisements. But it turns out to be simulated culture, like Disneyland. I'm sure it was more impressive 12 years ago. It makes me wonder who was first to transition game environments from the abstract halls of Doom, to something vaguely resembling actual human environments? I think maybe it was Duke Nukem, with fighting on city streets. I wonder if anyone wrote this history of gaming, I'd love to read it. On to the training section.

I actually really appreciate these introductory segments in a game. Its expository as heck, and causes much stilted and awkward dialogue ("move your mouse" - what's that supposed to mean in this supposed real world?). But at least you can hit the ground running when you start the game. You have some idea of what you can and can't do, and what world you are in. So far I know we have FTL travel, artificial gravity, cyberspace link. And I know that grabbable objects have four glowing brackets around them.

OK, that's odd - I can't left-click on items in my inventory, and I know I should be able to because the game explicitly says so. OK, that didn't take long, just had to edit a line in the user binds.

Back to establishing what kind of world this is. Nanotechnology exists, but I can pick up messages that that are held on some kind of shiny disc. I think this is where retro-futurism comes from, mixing present and speculative metaphors, and then outliving them to the point where they're not mistakes anymore, they are now nostalgia.

Oh crap - voice messages can overlap. I've got a PDA message playing and then I walked to the next training station - audio trainwreck. Is there a way to quickly shut this thing off? OK, it can be bound, and is currently bound to the delete key. Now I can't play the test message. I wonder if that's on purpose, or another bug. Next training station.

Holy cow. Mantling. This is like discovering a 747 in stone age strata. For a long time in First Person Shooters you couldn't jump at all, then you could only jump a stock distance, and later there were various conditions for variable jumping, but in all these years never mantling. Of course you can't jump your own hight from a standing start, but plenty of people could reach up to something and pull themselves up, kick a leg over, and get up on top of something. This feels really fresh (well, I think it was in the original System Shock, but still), and its in a long gone game. Wow. I can see why its not common today, though, because it makes good map design even more challenging.

OK, now I'm having trouble using items while in inventory mode - it keeps discharging my firearm. I think these keyboard binds are not yet fixed; I'll try the mod tool.

Poking around in mods on systemshock.org, I should try the updated texture mod, but I want to keep things original for my first playthrough. OK, installed Mod Manager, went to Tools -> Fix Use-Mode... let's see if it does. Yes, great. OK, off to Technical Training.

Nanites and cybermodules (as well as FTL and gravitics)... what year is this supposed to be? 2048? Nanites and cyberanything will the be food pills and atomics of the The World of Tomorrow.

Oh boy, now I have to choose a career, Psi, Navy, or Marine. Guess I'll start with the simplest, and go marine. Nice little cutscene. Now I have to choose a posting? Ah, a way to convey bonuses to your stats, with a little backstory built in (it reminds me of Traveler's character creation). Nice. I'll take +2 to Agility; that's usually best for fighting. This is a more elaborate and interesting way to develop your starting character, than just hitting + and - buttons on a list.

Oh, and its the early 2100s, not 2048. That's more like it. Year 2. Next up I'll take +1 energy weapons +1 cyber. Why is there so much military out in the solar system? Who are we fighting? More shuttle cut scenes. Oh nice, a robot walker right out of Deus Ex (yeah, I know this came first). And a dancing robot. I didn't need to see that. Next up, modify, maintenance, or repair. First time through a game you never know what's going to be important, where the designers give the greatest reward. I guess maintenance. And another shuttle movie.

OK, game starts and the first thing thats emphasized is the importance of psionics. Oh well, maybe on some other playthrough (assuming).

Here's another mixed metaphor: in the distant future, computers will go back to being the size of PDP washing machines.

I've been given a small upgrade, but I don't know what to buy yet. I'll hold it. Reading over the list of psionic powers, there's so many that they may as well have introduced magic. There's even a magic wand (a psi amp) for you to hold to help you do magic. Its kind of crazy that it appears to be so common in this world, and it should somewhat challenge why this world looks the way it does.

On a lift button is the name of the corporation that made it. I love that kind of attention to detail. I wonder if the lift can damage you if you stand under it. Yep, it can, a lot. What kind of brave new world doesn't install some safeties in its simple little lift system? I haven't saved recently, so I have to backtrack all the way from training. I guess auto-save hasn't been invented yet. I'll stick with the same career choices, though.

I thought the game had started, but I'm still getting these exposition consoles to read (What is psionics, how your map works, etc.). This really should have been covered in the front end training.

Whoah, was that a ghost or a hologram? Freaky. I need an access card, I backtrack. I keep missing important items, even if they're on the floor or on top of a crate. They just seem to blend into the background. Aw, my first combat. And there's music! I love the sound these guys make, talking to themselves in the background. I found a log to listen to, but this music is so loud I might not hear it. OK, I can turn the music down, good.

Another exposition ghost, this time informing me about the state of the vending machine! Are these supposed to be my memories, which I learned were compromised during the intro scene to this level, where my memory restoration was interrupted?

OK, quick save and quick load are coming in really handy.

Hanging corpse - creepier than anything I can remember from Doom days.

The quantum entanglement booth, i.e. the ressurection booth is the craziest tech in the story so far, far crazier than even psionics. I know, its just a way to keep the game moving, but still. Why can't I start putting dead crew in there, and build a team? And why would the booth need samples from me or anyone - wouldn't that be standard procedure, to have your sample on file?

There's so much in this game that feels like a rough draft for what would become Deus Ex.

Voicework is, like System Shock, good for this time period, but average for a great game (much like Deus Ex). The primary story teller sounds like she was directed to sound like Captain Janeway. Also the little picture avatars for the various messages look like they are wearing Starfleet uniforms.

I don't know which is creepier, the hanged man or this monkey.

I found some object that looks like a heart. I can supposedly research it, but I don't have a skill point in it yet, so I'll just hold on to it.

What the... I was standing near a locked door, listening to the zombies on the other side, and one blips through the door and clobbers me! Hopefully that was just some weird clipping bug. Forget about this resurrection booth nonsense, I'm just reloading.

My first encounter with a security turret. It takes all of my energy weapon ammo to knock it down; trying armor-piercing rounds with the pistol. Now that's more like it - just 3 rounds to knock it down. With some trial and error, I can just peek out from behind some crates so as to take no damage myself.

Got some more cyber modules. Time to backtrack to the upgrade station and learn at least research. OK, that's kind of a cool yet implausibe way to introduce more information into the game. I'll drop the rest of my upgrade points into standard weapon.

A surgical unit, handy. OK, at least now the ghosts have been explained - a side effect of psionic equipment.

Irradiated monkies that shoot psionic blasts at you. Yep, another thing ported forward to Deus Ex.

Wow, my standard weapons skill, 2, is so low I can't operate a shotgun, yet I can operate a handgun at skill 1. What?

There's something annoying here - I meet two zombie grunts with shotguns, I kill both, and they yield up jammed weapons with no ammo, even though they could shoot at me until I killed them. I ran through it a few times and it came up the same each way. Final insult is that the encounter costs me the rest of my ammo, but I get nothing for it.

System Shock 2: technical problems

Still no video. More research. Following the advice in "SS2 Videos / Cutscenes Guide" [ http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=520.0 ]. Ran the command, got an error message, trying the game. Nope. BTW, two things to mention. I removed the CD from the drive, runs fine without it. Also, on clicking the shortcut to the game, there is a long pause, long enough to wonder if its going to start, but you can see some disk activity, and it starts.

OK, more research, try again running cmd with admin permission. Success. Start game. Nope. Keep going down the above page, next up is to check ffdshow, that I installed from the K-Lite package. Looks like I have a slightly older version; might as well update. I'll uninstall and reinstall, using the 32bit. OK, start game. Nope.

OK, moving on, I found a list of when to play which cutscene in the game. It might come to that. I found another technical thing to try, disabling Indeo video. No. I try switching res to 640x480. No. Another thread: [ http://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=4007.0 ]. There, at the end, the answer - run the game as administrator. So obvious, in retrospect. The video is playing when it should, but at 1920 it looks awfully pixelated, compared to just playing the file in VLC at its native res. Oh well. I've got enough smoothed out now to start playing for real.

This is a world of difference from Sysem Shock the original. The dividing line between 90's era FPS and 2000's era FPS is somewhere around here. I think history clearly awards it to Half-Life, but it could have been SS2 and Deus Ex. I'm recognizing lots of little things in common, like the square outline around items you can pick up, and the error message voice when you pick up a phone.

Something that's not working is all this empty space that doesn't seem like a real place humans actually live. But its early in this age of FPS, and even years later this is hardly a problem that's been solved. We need the game equivalent of Star Wars; something that shows everyone what a lived in world looks like. Maybe that will be the next generation of games.

Even if I 'only' get a game that's kind of like Deus Ex, this is going to be great. There are still some negatives, like the crazy kitchen sink UI from System Shock. It looks like they've cleaned it up a lot, and its not covering half the screen, but there's still user controls squirreled away all over little popup windows all around the screen. I can see how this evolved into Deus Ex's even more streamlined, but still cluttered, interface. I don't know where it really went from there; nowhere. Deus Ex 2 was overly simplified for the console market, and Deus Ex 3 came out years later, again simplified.

The physics is a problem in SS; everything feels like walking on the moon.

System Shock 2: setup

Years in the procrastination, here we go.

First step is to image the disc. I don't think I've mentioned yet why.

Using PowerISO, try to create ISO, get crc errors. I'll try making a DAA. Nope, CRC error again.

OK, let's try Daemon Tools. Immediately hit an unrecoverable block. Copy protection, or bad disc?

I can just try and install straight from the CD, see what happens.

g:\setup.exe

This product doesn't not support Windows 2000? continue? Yes.

Wants to install to C:\Sshock2, don't argue with 16-bit installers.

select Full install.

While I sit here staring at the install percentage number increasing, I'm thinking there must be any number of places I can download this game, legit or not. I didn't see it on Steam, which would have been great, and probably helped with compatibility issues. There's a probably a ways to go before I can actually start playing.

select Program Folders, .\Games\System Shock 2, ok.

Register? I don't think so.

Setup is complete.

OK, I'm still in Windows, at the desktop, and there's a window open; version number is 2.3. Let's see if we're current. The readme says it has multiplayer, which I think was the bulk of the last patch. This also means I must have the re-issue edition of the game box. A brief glance at Wikipedia (avoiding spoilers) shows that to be the last version. Let's hit Play.

Disc is verified... and... System Shock 2 has stopped working.

Up pops the Program Compatibility Assistant, offering to Reinstall using recommended settings. OK, I'll humor this.

Back to the same window (but much faster this time), hit play again... and same error after disc verification.

I find the SS2 Technical FAQ [ http://www.systemshock.org/index.php/topic,106.0.html ]. These people seem hardcore about SS2; I trust them. I need the SS2Tool; I install it. I see something called "ZylonBane's Newbie Guide to System Shock 2", supposedly spoiler free. OK, that seems handy.

I use the start menu shortcut, and I'm in! I can move around the setup options just fine, I start a new game on Normal difficulty, and just like that I'm in a 3D environment, and I can move around using the mouse and keyboard. Shouldn't there be an intro movie of some kind? Even System Shock had one, and there's a folder of them in the SS2's install.

Anyway, I'm in a tram, and there's a disembodied voice speaking to me - just like the start of Half-Life (1998). OK... I'm surprised to see that Half-Life came out a year before System Shock 2 (1999). Back to the game. Moving around the starting area, this doesn't seem like Half-Life, but more like Deus Ex (2000).

The keyboard mapping is off for me. I don't need A and D to turn left and right, that's what the mouse is for. I restore strafe left and strafe right to their rightful places. I also don't want S to be crouch, and now C is freed up to be crouch. I like how crouch is a toggle, and you don't have to keep it held down.

Its nice to see NPCs, even as robotic as they are. One screen shot method, Control+F9, produces unreadable PCX files. Just hit the Print Screen button, and you get decent BMPs.

I'm still annoyed at the failure of the cut scenes to work. I should resolve that before going much further. While searching, I find there is support for EAX audio (my sound hardware is Creative SB X-Fi), and that I can have it by adding a DLL. Not sure if I want it, game sounds fine. Oh, it enables better sound effects, ambience, etc. I want that. With Windows 7 I can't just use the DLLs, I need something called Creative ALchemy. Checking their site, System Shock is not on the game list. Maybe I'll try researching that later.

Back to the videos. Looks like maybe the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack [ http://codecguide.com ] can help. Comes with some crapware, uncheck. Where's my codecs? Retry with just Basic install (to get ffdshow). More crapware to dodge. At least now its installing Ultimate Codecs. Next time just find a ffdshow installer. Who knows what's on my system now. I should probably re-install Windows.

Let's see if any of this was worth it. Restarting SS2.

in-between games

I'm in the doldrums between games, a place that is increasingly familiar. I've got some great games in the queue, but I'm still some stuck to the notion that I must hold some great review of all gaming before continuing. Something to do with all the significant games of days past, that I've played or missed, and I have to put them in some order, and say something about each one. This blog was supposed to be about making sure I didn't miss anything great, not get stuck thinking about it.

So let's go to the attic...

My marching orders, arranged bottom to top, somewhat chronologically.

But first, there is a bit of unpleasantness to take care of. I walked away from Diablo 2, about 75% of the way towards my stated goal of completing the game on Hell difficulty. It was getting pointless and painful near the end, and I had to stop. And having stopped, I really don't want to go back to the stressful step-by-step grinding towards the summit. I've got everything I'm going to get out of that game. But before I can move on, there's a dog that needs putting down. More about that later below...

I'm searching the net, looking for some help deciding what to keep or toss, and why. I'm a hoarder with some restraint, and an attic, but it's still too much. I want to be more free of material things, and to value the intangible rewards more than the material they came in (Only knowledge will I save, Take only pictures, etc.). I can't imagine throwing away my Wasteland box, or most of my Infocom stuff, or my early Apple II games, and some of the C64 and Atari stuff that has survived.

I used to have a ton of Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision equipment and carts, and I lost them. I tried to replace some of it in the 90s, but it didn't work. I'm still somewhat torn about it - and I'm even more annoyed that it bothers me so. I don't want to do that to myself again, yet maybe I'm better off without things I can't use anymore.

I look into sale price as a factor - maybe if my stuff is appreciating in value I can justify keeping it as in investment. A little searching quickly reveals that sealed and mint is where the value is, and I'm just not that level of collector. I use what I buy (well, eventually).

There's something cold and impersonal about having a library of games online, like in Steam, or in disc images on a hard drive, but that's the present, and the foreseeable future. A digital hoard is acceptable, considering its small physical intrusion into this world.

I will save some, maybe even a designated box into which all must fit. But for now, I can let this one game go. It has no connection to childhood, and maybe that's where the dividing line will fall.

I'll start a disc album to keep the discs. The paper will go in a Ziploc. I'll photograph the boxes up close to get the CD keys. Disc cases, and the paper boxes go in the trash.

I can do this.