Now things have gotten more interesting with the development of the faster-than-light ship Von Braun by TriOptimum who the UNN reluctantly allow to go forward to build. After the Citadel incident in the first game, national governments tried to curb the power of megacorporate empires like TriOptimum and instead have only gotten away with an uneasy truce. The world of System Shock 2 has gotten a bit darker since the last game. You got to pick which missions you wanted to undertake which added certain bonuses to your character depending on what your focus was for that year, until you finally get the call to board the Rickenbacker.

Three different “classes” representing your traditional “fighter, thief, wizard” configuration seen in RPGs were presented: The Marine class focused on weapons training and fighting, the Navy career focused on tech skills such as being able to fix broken devices, and then there was what I picked…the OSA, which was the PSI Corp of the game.Īfter you picked a career and tried it out in training, the game simulated three years of duty. You start off as a prospective recruit for the United National Nominate and this is where you make the decision on how you want to play teh game. It’s forty years after the events of System Shock, so it’s the year 2114. A number of additions to the original formula, elements of which would also emerge again in Irrational’s Bioshock nearly more than a decade later, made SS2 a different but familiar experience.

I found myself loving the sequel as much as the first game. Ken Levine, who wrote up the design and dialogue behind what would become SS2, went on to incorporate elements of the first into what was there turning what had at first been an assassination mission against a mad captain aboard a starship into a technological horror show. SS2 didn’t start out as a sequel to the first game, but it turned out that way after EA suggested that the title be called System Shock. It was the Fall of 1999, and System Shock 2 invited us back into SHODAN’s grasp all over again. And after EA agreed to publish the title, the project that would emerge became the sequel that many believed not only matched the original System Shock for its immersive power but pushed well past it in several other ways. Five years would pass until Looking Glass Studios would tap Irrational Games on the shoulder with a proposal to work on something together.

System shock 2 navy marine osa