| System Shock | |
|---|---|
Box Art |
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| Developer(s) | Looking Glass Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Origin Systems |
| Designer(s) | Doug Church |
| Composer(s) | Greg LoPiccolo |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Macintosh |
| Release date(s) | September 22, 1994 (floppy disks) December 23, 1994 (CD-ROM) |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: M |
| Media/distribution | CD-ROM, Floppy disks |
System Shock is a first-person action-adventure video game developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. Released in 1994, the game is set aboard the fictional Citadel Station in a cyberpunk vision of 2072. Assuming the role of a nameless hacker, the player attempts to hinder the plans of a malevolent artificial intelligence.
Unlike other first-person games of the time, System Shock features true 3D environments, and allows the player to look up and down, duck, jump, and lean to the side. Critics praised System Shock and hailed it as a major innovation in its genre. It was later placed on multiple hall of fame lists. The game was a moderate commercial success, with sales exceeding 170,000 copies. A sequel, System Shock 2, was released by Looking Glass Studios and off-shoot developer Irrational Games in 1999; the 2000 game Deus Ex and the 2007 game BioShock are spiritual successors to the two games.
Contents |
System Shock is presented from a first-person perspective in a 3D environment.[1] Its interface has been compared to that of Ultima Underworld;[2] it features a freely movable mouse cursor for aiming weapons, interacting with objects, and manipulating the heads-up display (HUD).[3] View and posture controls on the HUD allow the player to lean left or right, look up or down, crouch, and crawl; practical uses for these actions include taking cover, retrieving items beneath the player character, and navigating small passages. The HUD also features three "multi-function displays", which each present one of five selectable information windows, such as a weapon readout, an automap, or an inventory.[3]
The game takes place inside a large, multi-floor space station, in which players explore, combat enemies and solve puzzles.[1][4] The player advances the plot by acquiring log discs and e-mails; the game contains no non-player characters with which to converse.[3][5][6] Specific computer terminals allow the player to temporarily enter Cyberspace; inside, the player moves weightlessly through a wire frame 3D environment, while collecting data and fighting security programs. Actions in Cyberspace sometimes cause events in the game's physical world; for example, certain locked doors may only be opened in Cyberspace.[3]
The player collects items and weapons throughout the game, such as first-aid kits, lead pipes, dart pistols, and dermal patches. Dermal patches provide the character with beneficial effects—such as regeneration or increased melee attack power—but can cause detrimental side-effects, such as fatigue and distorted color perception.[3][5] Attachable "hardware" may also be found, including targeting systems, energy shields and head-mounted lanterns. Increasingly advanced versions of this hardware may be obtained as the game progresses. When activated, most hardware drains from a main energy reserve, which necessitates economization.[3]
System Shock features sixteen weapons, of which the player can carry a maximum of seven at one time. Projectile weapons often have selectable ammunition types with varying effects; for example, the dart pistol may fire either explosive needles or tranquilizers.[3][5] Energy weapons forgo ammunition, and instead draw from the player's energy reserve. These weapons feature adjustable shot power, which proportionally affects energy consumption. Energy weapons overheat if fired too often—rendering them unusable for a short time. Several types of explosives may also be found, ranging from percussion grenades to land mines and adjustable time bombs.[3]
Weapons and munitions deal specific kinds of damage, and certain enemies are immune, or more vulnerable, to particular types. For example, electromagnetic pulse weapons heavily damage robots, but do not affect mutants. Conversely, gas grenades are effective against mutants, but do not damage robots. When an enemy is attacked, the damage is calculated by armor absorption, vulnerabilities, critical hits, and a degree of randomness.[5] The effectiveness of an attack is represented in-game by messages such as "Normal damage", which are displayed near attacked enemies when certain hardware is active.[3][5]
In the game's prologue, the protagonist—a nameless hacker—is caught while attempting to access files concerning Citadel Station, a space station owned by the fictional TriOptimum Corporation. The hacker is taken to Citadel Station and brought before Edward Diego, a TriOptimum executive. Diego offers to drop all charges against the hacker in exchange for a confidential hacking of SHODAN, the artificial intelligence that controls the station. To entice cooperation, Diego promises the hacker a valuable military grade neural implant.[7]
After hacking SHODAN, removing the AI's ethical constraints, and handing control over to Diego, the protagonist undergoes surgery to implant the promised neural interface.[8] Following the operation, the hacker is put into a six-month healing coma. The game begins as the protagonist awakens from his coma, and finds that SHODAN has commandeered the station. All robots aboard have been reprogrammed for hostility, and the crew have been either mutated, transformed into cyborgs, or killed.
Rebecca Lansing, a TriOptimum counter-terrorism consultant, contacts the player and claims that Citadel Station's mining laser is being powered up for a strike against Earth. SHODAN's plan is to destroy all major cities on the planet, in a bid to become a kind of god.[9] Rebecca says that a certain crew member knows how to deactivate the laser, and promises to destroy the records of the hacker's incriminating exchange with Diego if the strike is stopped.[10] With information gleaned from log discs, the hacker destroys the laser by firing it into Citadel Station's own shields. Foiled by the hacker's work, SHODAN prepares to seed Earth with a mutagenic virus—the same one responsible for turning the station's crew into mutants.[11] The hacker again defeats the AI, this time by jettisoning the chambers used to cultivate the virus.
Next, SHODAN begins an attempt to download itself into Earth's computer networks.[12] Following Rebecca's advice, the hacker prevents the download's completion by destroying the four antennas that SHODAN is using to send data.[13] Soon after, Rebecca contacts the hacker, and says that she has convinced TriOptimum to authorize the station's destruction; she provides him with details on how to do this.[14] After obtaining the necessary codes, the hacker initiates the station's self-destruct sequence and flees to the escape pod bay.
The hacker discovers that the pods are guarded by Diego, who has been transformed into a powerful cyborg by SHODAN. The hacker dispatches him, and attempts to disembark. However, SHODAN prevents the pod from launching; it seeks to keep the player aboard the station, while the bridge—which contains SHODAN—is jettisoned to a safe distance.[15] Rebecca tells the hacker that he can still escape if he reaches the bridge; SHODAN then intercepts and jams the transmission.[16] The hacker makes it to the bridge as it is released from the main station, which soon detonates. He is then contacted by a technician who managed to circumvent SHODAN's jamming signal. The technician informs him that SHODAN can only be defeated in cyberspace, due to the powerful shields that protect its mainframe computers.[17] Using a terminal near the mainframe, the hacker enters cyberspace and destroys SHODAN. After his rescue, the hacker is offered a job at TriOptimum, but he declines in favor of continuing his life as a hacker.
System Shock was first conceived during the final stages of Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds' development, between December 1992 and January 1993.[1] Doug Church spent this period at the Texas headquarters of publisher Origin Systems, and discussions about Looking Glass Technologies' next project occurred between him and producer Warren Spector, with input from Austin Grossman and Paul Neurath in Massachusetts. According to Church, the team believed that they "had done too many dungeon games", and decided to create another "immersive simulation game" without a fantasy setting. A modern day setting was briefly considered, but Church explained that the idea was rejected because "it [would] just beg so many questions: why can't I pick up the phone, why can't I get on the train, and so on". Church returned to Looking Glass in Massachusetts, and he, Neurath and Grossman created several possible science fiction settings for the game.[18] According to Spector, the game was initially titled "Alien Commander", and was a spin-off of the Wing Commander series; however, the idea was soon changed entirely. He believed that "part of the fun" was that he and Church "weren't tied to the Ultima universe or the Commander universe, so we could basically do whatever we liked".[19]
The four collaborated to write numerous "minutes of gameplay", which described how the game would feel; Church gave the example, "You know, 'You hear the sound of a security camera swiveling, and then the beep of it acquiring you as a target, so you duck behind the crate and then you hear the door open so you throw a grenade and run out of the way'". The documents would "hint" at the gameplay systems involved, and at the non-linear possibilities in each situation.[18] Despite Neurath's involvement in the initial design, he said that the project "was always Doug Church's vision at heart".[20] Church and Grossman refined several of the team's documents, and defined the game's design and direction. Church later said that "pretty much everything [in the game] derived [from] two little three-paragraph 'minute of gameplay' documents".[18][21] Shortly before production began, Tribe bassist Greg LoPiccolo was hired contractually to work on the game's music; he had visited a friend at the company, and was asked by the game's programmers—many of whom were fans of the band—if he would take the role.[22][23] The game entered production in February 1993. The team's first task was to develop a new game engine, which could both display a "true 3D environment" and allow for advanced gameplay.[19]
Church considered the game to be largely "an outgrowth of Ultima Underworld", with more focus on action. However, he said that the game "isn't about continuous combat so much as continuous tension, where we try to keep [players] wired and wondering what's around the corner".[1] The game is meant to give players the feeling of "being there",[1][5] inside what Church called a "rich, exciting, active environment you can work with".[1] Seeking to make System Shock a more "integrated whole" than Ultima Underworld, the designers streamlined the role-playing and simulation elements of the latter game, and removed aspects that took players out of the experience. They attempted to "plunge [players] into the fiction and never provide an opportunity for breaking that fiction", and stated that "System Shock, if nothing else, should feel continuous".[5] This design approach resulted in the removal of conversations with non-player characters; the plot was instead conveyed by log discs and e-mail messages. System Shock 2 Project Manager Johnathan Chey later called the technology of 1994 "simply inadequate to support believable and enjoyable interactions with [non-player characters]".[6] While Cyberspace was originally conceived as a realistic hacking simulation—which could even be used to reimplement SHODAN's ethical constraints—it was simplified after Origin Systems deemed it too complicated.[24]
Spector's role as a producer gave him the job of explaining the game to the publisher's management, which he called his "biggest challenge". He explained that they "didn't always get what the team was trying to do", and said, "You don't want to know how many times the game came this close to being killed (or how late in the project)".[25] Spector organized a licensing deal between Electronic Arts and Looking Glass that gave the former the trademark to the game, but the latter the copyright. His goal was to ensure that neither party could continue the franchise without the other's involvement.[26] According to Church, Looking Glass' internal management largely ignored System Shock, in favor of the concurrently-developed Flight Unlimited—the game "that had to be the hit, because it was the self-published title".[18]
LoPiccolo recorded all of the game's sound effects and spoken dialogue, using friends' voices regularly for the latter.[22][23] SHODAN was voice acted by fellow Tribe member Terri Brosius.[24] He developed the game's audio over 16 months, working on a contractual basis until Tribe disbanded in May 1994; Ned Lerner gave him a full-time job as audio director the next day.[22][23] The game's score—called "dark", "electronic" and "cyberpunk" by the Boston Herald—was composed on a Macintosh computer and inexpensive synthesizer. It dynamically changes according to the player's actions; he noted that, when using this method, it is necessary to write music that "still flows with the overall theme and doesn't jump around".[23] The original September 1994 floppy disk release of System Shock had no support for spoken dialogue. The enhanced CD-ROM was released in December 1994, which featured full speech for logs and e-mails, multiple display resolutions, and more detailed graphics. The CD-ROM version is often considered to be superior to the floppy version.[4] Doug Church later said, "We tried to keep them from shipping the floppy version and instead just ship the CD version, but Origin would have none of it".[21] System Shock producer Warren Spector later expressed regret concerning the floppy version, stating, "I wish I could go back and make the decision not to ship the floppy version months before the full-speech CD version. The additional audio added so much it might as well have been a different game. The CD version seemed so much more, well, modern. And the perception of Shock was cemented in the press and in people's minds by the floppy version (the silent movie version!). I really think that cost us sales..."[27]
The team wrote System Shock's engine from scratch in Watcom C/C++ compiler, using 32-bit code; it is capable of displaying texture maps, sloped architecture and fully 3D environments.[1][4][18] It also supports true local lighting, which allows objects within the environment to emit light. The game's star field system was written by programmer James Fleming.[21] The designers utilized loopholes in the engine's renderer to create more diverse, striking environments; despite having coded the renderer, Church said that "at first glance even I couldn't see how they did them". However, this contributed to the performance issues already being caused by the engine's advanced nature; during development, the team struggled to optimize the game. The team originally hoped to include polygonal 3D character models, but they could not be implemented on schedule.[1]
Seamus Blackley designed the game's physics system,[24] which is a modified version of the one he wrote for Flight Unlimited.[1] At the time, Church described it as "far more sophisticated than what you would normally use for an indoor game".[1] The system governs, among other things, weapon recoil and the arc of thrown objects; the latter behave differently based on their weight and velocity.[24] The game's most complex physics model is that of the player character.[1] Church explained that the character's head "tilts forward when you start to run, and jerks back a bit when you stop", and that, after an impact against a surface or object, its "head is knocked in the direction opposite the hit, with proportion to [the] mass and velocity of the objects involved".[1] On coding physics for Looking Glass Technologies games, Blackley later said, "If games don't obey physics, we somehow feel that something isn't right", and that "the biggest compliment to me is when a gamer doesn't notice the physics, but only notices that things feel the way they should".[24]
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Computer Gaming World | [2] |
| Next Generation Magazine | [28] |
| PC Gamer US | 96%[29] |
| Boston Herald | [30] |
System Shock sold over 170,000 copies.[32] Maximum PC believed that the game did not reach "blockbuster" status, but was successful enough to "keep Looking Glass afloat".[33] GameSpy's Bill Hiles said, "Though it sold well, it never reached the frenzied popularity of [Doom]".[34]
Computer Gaming World praised the game's scale, physics system, and true 3D environments; the magazine extolled the presentation of Cyberspace as "nothing short of phenomenal". However, the reviewer believed that the game had "little sense of urgency" and "confusing level layouts".[2] Computer Shopper wrote that, while the game's controls were difficult to master compared to "simple run-and-shoot game[s] like Doom", they were "worth the time and effort". The reviewer noted that the game "grows on you, and it will keep you intrigued for weeks".[35]
The Boston Herald compared System Shock superficially to Doom, but called the game "much more elaborate". The reviewer noted its high system requirements and complex controls; of the latter, he said, "There's no way you can play System Shock without first studying the manual for at least 20 minutes". The paper believed that the game would "set a new standard for computer games with its combination of action and puzzle-solving".[30] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that the game "is like a well-prepared hamburger—familiar stuff, but good to the last byte". The reviewer noted the game's "somewhat clumsy control", but said, "That, however, is all I can find to complain about. Graphics and sound are outstanding, and the game is well-paced and riveting".[36]
PC Gamer US wrote, "System Shock smokes. It is the most fully immersive game world I have ever experienced". The reviewer praised the game's story and control system, and believed that "no matter what kind of game you're looking for, you'll find something in System Shock to delight you". He finished his review by stating that the game "unquestionably raises computer gaming to a new level".[29] Next Generation Magazine summarized the game as "a great blend of strategy and action backed up with all the extras".[28]
In a Gamasutra feature, Patrick Redding of Ubisoft attested that "the fact that so many of System Shock's features are now virtually de rigueur in modern sci-fi shooters is a testament to the influence exerted by this one game."[37] GameSpy argued that the game "is the progenitor of today's story-based action games, a group with titles as diverse as 'Metal Gear Solid', 'Resident Evil', and even 'Half-Life'."[4] Eurogamer called the System Shock series "the benchmark for intelligent first-person gaming", and noted that it "kick-start[ed] the revolution which ... has influenced the design of countless other games."[38] The game has been cited as a key popularizer of emergent gameplay.[37][39][40]
Certain game developers have acknowledged System Shock's influence on their products. With Deus Ex, developer Warren Spector revealed a desire to "build on the foundation laid by the Looking Glass guys in games like ... System Shock."[41] Developer Ken Levine has commented that the "spirit of System Shock is player-powered gameplay: the spirit of letting the player drive the game, not the game designer", and at Irrational Games "... that's always the game we ideally want to make."[42]
Various sources have ranked SHODAN as one of the most effective antagonists and female characters in the history of video gaming.[43][44][45][46][47][48]
In the years following its release, System Shock has been inducted into many "hall of fame" lists, including those by PC Gamer, GameSpy, and Computer Gaming World.[4][49][50] A sequel to System Shock, entitled System Shock 2, was released in 1999 to further acclaim and award.[51] The two games were the inspiration behind the 2007 game BioShock.[52][53]
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