Sometimes, when I look at modern games, I actually sort of feel like we're taking backwards steps even for all the fancy graphics and gameplay mechanisms we now have.
These feelings usually come to me after booting up an ancient copy of System Shock 2 (from 1999 - almost 12 years ago!).
No matter what "modern" game I've been playing, Shock 2 always feels like a breath of fresh air. I've finished it at least 10 times and yet every playthrough it still feels like it could have been a new release.
The graphics are a little outdated now (though they have been given a large overhaul by the game's community, which remains very much alive to this day) but the game as a whole is fantastic.
The game was pretty much the first to use "audio logs" to tell a story, a concept many games have recreated - but never with the same competency. The story itself is really great and the progression through audio is at times genuinely horrifying.
Eric Brosius. the sound engineer who worked on the game, is a very, very skilled musician. The Shock 2 soundtrack is a mix of "conventionally" creepy tunes in certain levels, but also uneasy cyberpunk techno beats in others.
If you'd asked me to feel scared by a techno track, I would have laughed before Shock 2. Then you play it, and the frenzied, frantic nature of some of the tunes mingled with the feeling that something ex-human is always lurking round the corner, poised to rip you to pieces, creates a really powerful atmosphere.
Yes, atmosphere. Something else Shock 2 nailed better than any game I've played since.
Take the "Hybrid", the first (and most common) enemy you encounter in the game. Hybrids are humans recently infected by the alien parasites who have overwhelmed the spaceship on which the game is set.
They are typically musclebound crewmembers stripped to the waist aside from a bloodstained vest or jacket. Most of their hair is missing, they have an unnatural yellow tinge to their eyes, somewhat contorted facial features and a large worm burrowed into one side of their head and looped round into their chest.
Gross and disturbing? Yes. Their dialogue is their most horrifying feature however.
You'll be wandering along a dark, corpse-strewn corridor and then suddenly a faint moaning whisper will drift to your ears.
"We are...we are, we are...we are..."
Then you notice the figure standing aimlessly inside an office, twitching slightly and clutching a lead pipe. He reaches for his head and sways.
"What happened to...me?" He turns and sees you and his voice morphs into a pained bellow as his body moves without his will.
"They seeeeeeeeeeeeee you! Run! RUUUUUUUNNN!" And you do.
"I'm...sorry..." The Hybrid moans pitifully as he chases you, pipe raised. "Kill...me!" And then you shoot him, and with a gasping cry he crumples mercifully to the ground.
What game since has managed to make me feel revulsion, horror and yet sadness for an enemy? Even Bioshock (the "spiritual successor" to the Shock franchise) and it's Splicers don't come close.
I could continue on about how the character development paths are very open ended, how the combat is simple enough to be intuitive and yet far superior to Bioshock's clunky Plasmid obsession, how the game rewards exploration and has intelligent puzzles, how the mini-games for hacking and repairing are not frustrating...I could, but that would make this post far too long.
The gameplay feels right, the story is engaging, the atmosphere is very very creepy and the whole package together is really neat.
I will close simply by saying that if you're a gamer sick and tired of shallow and cloned modern games, you truly cannot go wrong with Shock 2.
Google it, look up any compatability fixes (mail me or comment if you need some help), love it!
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