System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster (Switch)

Long before Bioshock hit consoles, the landmark FPS horror game was System Shock 2. Tied to PC’s until now, it was a title that pushed boundaries and tried to merge multiple genres to create a unique, ambitious and unforgettable experience. Its mix of traditional FPS tropes, character-building elements and creepy atmosphere have gone on to influence many first-person games and push the boundaries of what we can expect.

The story is set upon the stricken starship the ‘Von Braun’. It is here, after some early training, that you awaken to find you have little memory and all hell is breaking lose. You are tasked with trying to get the ship back under control from a seemingly rogue AI with the help of Dr Janice Polito who guides you via radio.

The game may be set out as an FPS, but it is really more of an exploration and adventure game. The ship is a maze of fizzing wires, broken machinery and genetic horrors and it’s often best to explore slowly and carefully. Often, events will happen which helps build the environment through visual storytelling and the soundtrack also does an excellent job of getting you in the right mood.

 The environment is an interesting place to venture through but can be a little samey in terms of how it looks, so the included map is very welcome. Although, even in this remake there are no onscreen checkpoints or guidance beacons. This is very much the original game, just looking somewhat sharper. The same can be said about the controls. Originally designed for a mouse and keyboard set up, the controls are difficult to get used to. As System Shock 2 is far more than a basic FPS it requires a host of menus and pop-up options in order to play. During our time with the game this never became a natural process and quickly swapping between objects and weapons often ended in death with us trapped behind a menu we couldn’t get clear of to fight back.

The reason for this though is the game has depth. The mechanics that make the game unique are the way you can build and customise your character. Throughout the game you can pick up cyber modules that allow you to upgrade various skills such as hacking or combat as well as general strength and endurance. These are few and far between though, so you need to really think about the type of character you want to build. We struggled early on in the game as we hadn’t activated the hacking skill which meant security cameras became a major issue to pass. There’s a host of objects and weapons to pick up as well which then need to be fitted into a resident evil style inventory system box.

Combat really isn’t the games strong point though, with enemies just kind of running at you and then waiting to be hit in return. The constant spawning of enemies when you set off security alarms is also annoying as you’ll be attacked every few seconds by the same generic enemies – rather than it just alerting enemies in the area. They always know where you are as well so you can’t go and hide somewhere to wait out an alarm. You do have options for fighting though, there are no shortage of things to hit and shoot enemies with and the plasmids option gives you a host of other inventive things to play around with such as setting them on fire or using telekinesis to move objects.

Another thing to note is that the game is hard and relentless. The difficulty kicks in pretty much straight away, so getting used to the controls and menu system will have you dying multiple times early on. You can save whenever you want though (which we are pretty sure you couldn’t in the original), and there are also regeneration stations set up where you will respawn upon death. Just be warned if you respawn during a security alert enemies will rush straight to you again.

Overall, it is easy to see why System Shock 2 is held in such high regard in terms of its place in video game history. There is an awful lot here that sets it apart and you can see the influence it has had very clearly. But there ae a few sticking points. The controls are a pain and that may well put some people off as when coupled with the difficulty it can cause frustration and block progress. For fans of the genre, and especially those who love Bioshock this is pretty much essential though. If you spend the time needed to get it to click there is little else out there like it, even now.

Overall 8/10

The Thing: Remastered Review (Switch)

Of all the remasters of old games we were expecting, The Thing would have been one of our least predicted. Upon release on the PS2 and Xbox it garnered a warm reception from both press and gamers alike with it capturing the tone ands tyle of the John Carpenter’s movie well though so it’s not an unpleasant revisit.

The basic premise is that the game acts as a sequel to the 1982 movie with teams sent in to investigate what has happened at a remote outpost in the Arctic. You lead a team of four people, each of which has different talents such as medic or engineer and move through the facility carrying out various missions. The big gimmick for the time is that you don’t just have to worry about health but also the temperature of the environment and the sanity of your team.

Whenever you are caught outside a temperature gauge will drop. If it reaches zero, then you start to take damage from the extreme cold. On top of this when your teammates encounter weird phenomena they start to react in different ways. Sometimes they will begin to freak out and you’ll need to calm them down. The further in you get the more suspicious they will become when they see strange things and might start accusing other teammates of being infected. It adds a layer of tension to what is already a tight survival horror experience and it’s something different from most other games in the genre.

The Thing was never the best-looking game to begin with so it’s fair to say you are going to have to either forgive or get used to the look of it now. The textures have been cleaned up a bit but the game is pretty barren in terms of colour palette and much of the time you are in a snowstorm, the dark or a fairly generic looking polar base. It doesn’t really matter though as it matches the look of its source material and adds to the creepiness of the whole thing.

While fun and trying new things, the game always had a fair few flaws. The controls are somewhat awkward at best and when this is combined with the tight spaces it can make combat more frustrating than it needs to be. This is of course a trope of survival horror, but it doesn’t quite work as intended. Also, your squad AI is generally rubbish. A lot of the time you’ll just end up leaving them somewhere and trying to move forward on your own. It’s a nice idea which adds the suspicion element but if they were just a touch less annoying it would be much welcomed. The first time one of them mutates into a horrific monster you’ll still likely jump though.

There are other quality of life issues we would have loved to have seen added as well. A map or radar of some kind would have been most welcome. Even in mission one we had issues working out where we needed to go near the end to plant C4 charges. This isn’t helped buy the dim lighting and we must have spent over an hour looking for one of the bomb plant points as it was barely visible. The game also descends into to a bit of a meat grinder blastathon by the end as well, changing too much from the creeping dread of the early levels.

Overall, The Thing is an interesting game that works well enough to still be fun for survival horror fans. It does get a bit repetitive but remains one of the most original takes on the genre. It does the 1982 movie a good service as well so fans of that will find much to enjoy here. We would like to see a few more quality of life adjustments in future releases though. There’s nothing wrong with map after all.

Overall 7/10

 

From Ants To Zombies Review

 

As much as we love the Bitmap Visual Compendium and Box Art books, it’s always nice when one of their more investigative releases appear. In the past we have had a host of great volumes such as The Games That Weren’t, A Gremlin in the Works and A Secret History of Mac Gaming, which aimed to make us all instant experts on overlooked areas of video game history. From Antz to Zombies falls more into this latter category as it aims to take us through the origins and thematic of everything horror, while unearthing a fair few overlooked gems along the way.

As we’ve come to expect the cover art for the book looks absolutely gorgeous. Adorned with various ghosts and beasties, it perfectly captures the feel of early creature features. The pages inside are no different with chibi pixelated monsters used to decorate pages and a good mix of screen shots and text. The consistent and thoughtful colour palette used is also well judged to fit the mood while keeping text easily visible.

Contents wise, the book is exhaustive. There are of course too many horror games for everything to be covered but you are getting over six hundred and sixty pages of curated coverage here. This covers pretty much every system from the Atari 2600 to modern day consoles (Or Atari to ZX Spectrum if you want to keep with the alphabet theme).

With such a wide area to cover the author has taken a creative approach to cataloguing all these games. Instead of by year or system, titles are categorised by their monsters. As a result, you get sections such as ‘Terror of the Abyss’ and ‘Dark Forests’ to go with the more conventional ‘Survival Horror’ tag. It’s an entertaining and effective way of linking games together while also retaining the fun B movie style the book nails perfectly.  

The writing itself is of an exceptionally high standard. The Book opens with an incredibly in depth look at the notion of horror as a genre generally, tracing it back to its origins in film and literature and then goes on to relate that in terms of how it applies to video games. It’s quite a theoretical approach but one we found fascinating, and we couldn’t help but think how useful this book would be for anyone studying game design or even horror as a genre generally.

When moving to the games themselves, the same standard of writing is present, but it changes tack to focus on what within the games acts to trigger the feelings of dread within us and how the mechanics of the games work to further help put this across. As a result, it’s an incredibly interesting read which will likely draw you in even if you have just come to flick through and look at the screen shots or use it as reference material for game hunting.

Overall, Antz to Zombies is a real highlight of the excellent Bitmap books catalogue. We always like it when someone brings a new idea and a new approach to the books and this one feels like something fresh and fun. It’s definitely up there with the constantly sought after Point and Click and JRPG Books and is pretty much essential for anyone interested in video games.

Click here for store link.

*Picture from the Bitmap Books Website