It's four years before the actual events of the game take place. This video ends, and now it's time for the real stuff to kick in. This part plays out like one of those propaganda commercials from Robocop or Starship Troopers, and helps set the mood of the omnipresent TriOptimum Corporation's involvement in everything. Humanity's first interstellar starship, the Von Braun (along with the UNN Rickenbacker hitched on for the ride) is making it's maiden voyage to the planet Tau Ceti V. Fortunately, there happened to be a Main Character(tm) onboard, who quickly took care of things.įast forward 42 years. The insane AI SHODAN took over Citadel Station and tried to destroy humanity.
You start the game with an intro sequence explaining what happened in system Shock 1. (Note: It's at this time I'd like to point out that I'm unfortunately unable to provide screencaps of the FMV segments, as installing Fraps to take screenshots apparently killed the game's ability to play videos.) In this first part I'll be going over the initial start of the game, where we can choose our career path, which will give us our initial set of skills. I'll be playing through on Normal difficulty, with weapon degradation turned off, so there'll be plenty of room for us to mess around with less-than-optimal setup choices. I'll be your tour guide through the Von Braun, Humanity's first interstallar starship, and the many horrors that subsequently turn up. The game's showing it's age, both graphically and in the fact that it takes some doing to get it running under modern OS's, but all in all, a great game that everyone should experience. It's these things, along with an incredibly creepy, desolate atmosphere, that helps set SS2 apart from other shooters of the time, and indeed, of all time. A blend of RPG and FPS, SS2 is a game of exploration and tense combat situations, with a plot told to you in tiny, bite-sized bits as you try to piece together what's happened after the fact. System Shock 2 is a little game made by the dudes at Irrational/Looking Glass Studios. After playing through and beating it once more I thought, "Why not share the joy that is the game Bioshock is the spiritual successor to?"
Bioshock's popularity (and the fact that it's, well, good) prompted me to dig out the old SS2 disc and install this puppy. The other Let's Play threads as well as the general success of Bioshock has inspired me to make this thread.