Looks like it’s going to be one of those days…crossing my fingers that this kind of day doesn’t drag into “this kind of week”, but that is neither here nor there at the moment. Having woken up late, I lamentably possess a miniscule amount of moments with which to share thoughts, so it will have to be something of a more basic write up for the day. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have recently shifted from my focus on Gex, to a different kind of punk-rock aesthetic, though I suppose System Shock really is more cyberpunk-rock in a way, in all of its bleak glory.

Since I don’t have much time to share too indulgently on my first couple of hours with the remastered version of System Shock, I figured I would at least give you a quick and dirty, in sharing what helps make the game tick. To pear down my thoughts on the matter for the sake of being expeditious, one of my points of interest involved my absent rain theorem, which helps frame what isn’t there that helps you enjoy what is there in terms of analyzing video games. I further expanded upon this by noticing games that shared in “The lack“, as it were, and in Gex’s case, it shared in “the lack” that other tough as nails platformers do within the realm of lacking player forgiveness, in guiding them through more treacherous platforming sections

Bringing us to System Shock, which is a totally different kind of game, one that originally launched on the PC, and one that is also framed from a first person perspective. It also happens to have guns and shooting elements, which would technically make it a fps, but if you made the same mistake as young me did in having these notions translate into your head “it’s like Doom”, you would likely walk away just as disappointed as I was when you realize in reality, the games core design elements share little with id’s chaotic little demonic murder mayhem offerings.

In fact, I would go as far to say that System Shock almost predicates itself on what Doom lacks, maybe as far as seeing what “wasn’t there” to help inform the developers in what direction they should travel, and in having a hand in informing it’s own sense of identity, as System Shock implements a number of taken for granted elements that Doom simply does without. The biggest and most obvious element of “The lack” System Shock uses to prop itself up vs Doom is story, which now adays is not totally uncommon for even the most bog-standard of meat head oriented, surface level slaughter-fests within the realm of first person shooters to be able to pull off, though back in 94′, story was a totally optional need in making the whole package palatable for the mass markets. There was a reason something like Half Life was lauded in similar respects for being the “thinking man’s shooter” when it launched, and System Shock was pulling out all the stops in similar ways a solid 4 years prior, with the games introspective flirtation with both narration and atmosphere a grandiose testament to players intellects the realm over.

So taking System Shock “by its own premise”, and accepting that a core value it does possess is seemingly in contradistinction to “the lack” that Doom predicates within the functionality of its own design machinations, and we start to get a great idea of just what kind of expectation one should have when approaching System Shock, in all of it’s unnervingly, foreboding, cryptically haunting dimensionality it has to offer.

And with that, I have now run out of minutes to spare. Till next time.

-Pashford